Ronan Farrow on Sam Altman's strained relationship with the truth | Decoder

Our guest today is Ronan Farrow, one of the biggest stars of investigative reporting working today. He broke the Harvey Weinstein story, among many, many others. Just last week, Ronan and co-author Andrew Marantz published an incredible deep-dive feature in The New Yorker about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, his trustworthiness, and the rise of OpenAI itself.

So Ronan came on the show to discuss the piece, his reporting process, and why he thinks this story and the revelations it contains really matter. #samaltman #openai #ai #tech

You can check out the full transcript here: https://bit.ly/4sEI26v
Read The New Yorker feature here: https://bit.ly/4sCKoCU

0:00 Intro
0:59 Episode overview
2:52 Interview begins — Ronan on the New Yorker OpenAI story
3:19 Reactions to the piece & why it matters
3:54 Sam Altman & Silicon Valley hype culture
4:54 Gaps in public knowledge about Sam's firing
5:29 The WilmerHale investigation kept out of writing
11:21 How the piece was received; Ronan's editorial approach
11:40 Did Sam Altman change over 18 months of reporting?
14:35 The "thesis" of the story: Sam unconstrained by truth
29:21 Ronan on the sex crime allegations — what he found
31:22 The culture of silence and fear around Sam
36:11 Government & regulatory failure on AI
37:16 Why oversight institutions are hollowed out
47:18 Will OpenAI make it to IPO?
54:05 Listener Q&A: How is AI different from other "world-changing" justifications?
56:20 Outro

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