# Cheap prototypes make broad exploration more practical

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/cheap-prototypes-make-broad-exploration-more-practical/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Jack Dorsey](https://realalpha.app/people/jack-dorsey/) · CEO, Block · Co-founded Twitter and Square, and leads Block, which is reorganizing around an AI intelligence layer.
- Host: [Sonya Huang](https://realalpha.app/people/sonya-huang/) · Partner, Sequoia Capital · Works with OpenAI and Anthropic; co-wrote Sequoia's essay on generative AI.
- Host: [Pat Grady](https://realalpha.app/people/pat-grady/) · Co-steward, Sequoia Capital · Joined Sequoia in 2007; backed Snowflake, Zoom, ServiceNow and OpenAI.
- Show: Training Data
- Episode: [Jack Dorsey: Every Company Can Now Be a Mini-AGI](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/), Apr 2, 2026
- Moment: 44:59 to 48:20 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/cheap-prototypes-make-broad-exploration-more-practical/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=2699

## Quote

> “i do encourage **more exploration** but i think focus on getting the details right when we do choose that path”
> — [Jack Dorsey](https://realalpha.app/people/jack-dorsey/) at [47:19](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=2839) · Training Data

## Takeaways

1. Bring prototypes to meetings instead of relying on slide decks.
2. Explore more options when prototypes are cheap to build.
3. Focus on details after choosing a direction.

## About this segment

Jack Dorsey says meetings shifted from slide decks to live prototypes, letting teams examine more paths in parallel. He encourages exploration first, then attention to detail once a path is chosen.

From “Jack Dorsey: Every Company Can Now Be a Mini-AGI”, Apr 2, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[45:02](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=2702) So there's one anecdote that came up, Jack, last week, which is how different meetings are today. They're obviously, maybe you can talk about how frequent meetings are taking place now. And what's the color? What are the nature of the meetings today versus what they were a year ago? Well, I mean, just two months ago, every meeting that we would have, I mean, you have this, Brian, like you see a presentation or a Google Doc and we go through it.

[45:30](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=2730) now um everyone is bringing a prototype that they built which is pretty amazing and like it's either simulated data or real data but it's a cut on their work in a way that's far more um has far more depth and realism than we could ever get from a slide deck and because they can actually modify it in real time like we can have a conversation around like what they're actually building in real time um so like the the breadth that we get to explore is suddenly incredible and that allows us to like really again it goes back to judgment like which threat are we pulling on this now because we can see like everything in the horizontal where do we want to go like deep and like what what is the right path and and the cost of like being wrong on that path and going back up the tree and going down another path is getting closer and closer to zero because the

[46:25](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=2785) tools can explore the past so quickly and then also we can go down them much much faster i i completely agree with you like a lot of times in husk bus history what work was when we were doing a lot of different stuff and we were distracted it's like let's just get focused and then we made progress i see the startups these days doing more things in parallel and just being more productive and getting more done and i used to preach focus i don't preach it as much as i do but do you ever either of you have a reaction to that yeah it's uh i think it's i think it's having a wider perspective to start and then like because in the past uh if we were to explore different paths like it would be a uh you know three it'd be a very costly exercise especially within hardware for instance take you a long time to build that prototype but today we can do it in an hour

[47:19](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=2839) yeah and then um so i i do encourage more exploration but i think focus on getting the details right when we do choose that path and like it's the 80, 20% thing, which is like, you know, these tools will build about 80% of what, where we need to go. And then that last 20% is going to be a function of like how good our creativity, how good our taste is, how good our judgment is. Yeah. And, and just constantly pushing these, these models to, to doing something that weren't, they weren't, we didn't think they were capable of.

[47:51](https://realalpha.app/v/YTVSwOY19Qs/?t=2871) And that's where I think the magic still happens and where I think the, the focus still comes to bear. Because at the end of the day, you have to right now you have to pick something to put out there because we do have a roadmap but when you remove that limiting factor as i said and you focus on building the four things instead like you know the capabilities interface proactive intelligence in the world model then you know it just changes everything so i don't even know if the question matters anymore yeah a lot of ceos