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AI & I · 3 min · Sep 30, 2026
OpenAI is betting on a wave of small-team companies
Sam Altman
Sam Altman contrasts a winner-take-all model-company outlook with his bet on many one-person and small-team companies.
In this episode
Full analysis- 8:46Dot protects Altman’s mornings and helps him build8 min
- 26:34AI changes how much a small startup team can build3 min
- 29:51Fast AI makes iteration feel fundamentally differentPro pick 3 min
- 16:50Live documents can keep a business dashboard current3 min
- 3:29OpenAI is betting on a wave of small-team companies3 min
- 22:11Subscription portability removes friction for trying AI apps2 min
“There are people that believe or hope that there's only going to be one company in the world.”
Sam Altmanat 5:15 · AI & I
Takeaways
- Altman expects more one-person and small-team companies.
- OpenAI wants its platform to enable outside builders.
- He says millions already use it to build products and companies.
About this segment
Sam Altman contrasts a winner-take-all model-company outlook with his bet on many one-person and small-team companies. He says OpenAI's platform aims to help outside builders turn ideas into products.
Sam Altman is CEO of OpenAI.
Co-founded OpenAI and has led it since 2019, overseeing ChatGPT's launch; formerly president of Y Combinator.
Dan Shipper, Host · Co-founder & CEO, Every
Sold his first startup, Firefly, to Pegasystems; writes Every's Chain of Thought.
From “How Sam Altman Actually Uses Dots to Run OpenAI and His Life”, Sep 30, 2026. Watch the full episode
Answers “What will AI look like in the next few years?” See all 169 answers
Thanks. We'll look at and fix what's off.
Transcript
From the transcript AI & I publishes with the episode.
- 3:42
What are the new kind of bottlenecks and best practices for doing that? Because I can see for myself, and I assume you guys are seeing this too, like, now that you can build everything, you're like, what should we build and how do we make it all coherent? How do you think about that? Moving to... this world of sort of persistent intelligence, active intelligence, whatever people wanna call it, this idea that you're gonna have these agents that are running in the background 24 seven, connected to your systems, doing stuff proactively for you.
- 4:14
This is clearly a direction that feels important to explore. I think we're gonna see amazing stuff happen there. Another thing we really wanted to do is there's just, there are now so many ideas that are capable of being built and what we are missing is the creative spirit to figure them out and build them. So we wanted to really open up our ecosystem, let people build apps in ChatGPT in the same way that we get to do them, let people bring their subscription wherever they'd like, have the marketplace, and really try to let people get connected to all the stuff that people will now be able to build.
- 4:45
Yeah, I mean, just looking at all the platform features that you launched and the way that you talk about platforms, it reminds me a lot of the way that Bill Gates used to talk about Windows as a platform, where you create more value than you capture. What have you learned, you know, you said this in your keynote and I've observed it as well, there's, at DevDay, there's always an app store. You've been taking swings at app stores for a while.
- 5:06
What have you learned about building a platform and what do you think makes this one different? I mean, we clearly have not yet figured out the App Store equivalent, but we have figured out how to build a platform that a lot of people are building incredible value on top of. I think there are really kind of two schools of thought among people building AI model companies. There are people that believe or hope that there's only going to be one company in the world.
- 5:34
And then there are people like us that believe we are going to see a renaissance in the number of companies and just an absolute... lowering of the bar to people, one-person companies, small team companies, creating incredible new products and services. And we want to go as hard as we can with the platform to enable people to do that. And although I think we haven't figured out the App Store yet, that's totally fair.
- 5:58
I think we have figured out how to help millions of people build and create significant new products and companies.