Nick Turley
Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI
Nick Turley is Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI, having helped conceive the product and scale it from zero to over 700 million weekly active users and billions in revenue, making it arguably the most successful consumer software product in history.
Dimension Profile
Key Themes
Episode Summary
Nick Turley shares the inside story of building ChatGPT from a hackathon codebase that was almost called 'Chat with GPT-3.5' into a product with 700 million weekly users. He reveals his 'maximally accelerated' philosophy of always asking 'why can't we do this now,' why AI products must ship before polishing, and how product development changes when your product is used by 10% of the world population.
Leadership Principles
- → With AI, you won't know what to polish until after you ship — so ship first
- → Always ask 'Why can't we do this now?' to maximize acceleration
- → Set the pace and the resting heartbeat of the organization
Notable Quotes
"This is a pattern with AI — you won't know what to polish until after you ship. My dream is that we ship daily."
— On why speed of shipping matters more than perfection in AI products
"I just really want to jump to the punchline: 'Why can't we do this now?' I always felt like part of my role here is to just set the pace and the resting heartbeat."
— On the 'maximally accelerated' principle that Kevin Weil credits to him
Want to know how you compare?
Take the Assessment