【學歷=廢紙?】高中輟學仔靠AI自學 逆襲OpenAI

I can barely take universities seriously [music] that don't teach activity as a part of their curriculum. Gabriel

Peterson, a high school dropout from Sweden who now works as an AI research scientist at OpenAI, the creators of Chad Cha. I always thought I was too

Chad Cha. I always thought I was too dumb. I met a programmer once and I was

dumb. I met a programmer once and I was so starruck. I was sleeping on couch

so starruck. I was sleeping on couch pillows that I found in like the common room. Companies just want to make money.

room. Companies just want to make money.

You show them how to make money that you can code and they'll hire you. I

currently work at Sora where we're building uh what advice would you give to someone who doesn't know what they want to do. The way I think people learn

the fastest is welcome to extraordinary the origin stories behind extraordinary people. I'm Cel Wen the founder of

people. I'm Cel Wen the founder of victorian.com and I'm here with Gabriel Peterson a high school dropout from Sweden who works as an AI research scientist at OpenAI the creators behind

chat GBT. To be a research scientist,

chat GBT. To be a research scientist, typically you need a PhD. But Gabriel

has been able to teach himself mathematics and machine learning using ChachiBT and now works at the world's top AI company. Gabriel was born in the middle of nowhere in Sweden and now is

in San Francisco, California after getting his 01 extraordinary ability visa. Gabriel, welcome to Extraordinary.

visa. Gabriel, welcome to Extraordinary.

Thank you so much. Very happy to be here. So Gabriel, your story is super

here. So Gabriel, your story is super fascinating to me. I have a tweet over here. It says, "Five years ago, I

here. It says, "Five years ago, I dropped out of high school in Sweden to join a startup with close to zero experience as an engineer. Today, I'm

joining OpenAI as a research scientist to build AGI with Sora." How did you get here from that?

>> Yeah, it's a long story. I've always

been thinking about AI ever since I started reading books like Super Intelligence and Life 3.0 back.

>> Oh, Max Tag Mark.

>> Yeah, Max.

>> Oh, dude, I love that.

>> And both of them happened to be Swedish people as well. And I guess I was, okay, there's there's something here. But I

always thought I was too dumb. I think I was looking into a bit to AI like I didn't really know programming and I was like probably there's like a bunch of really smart people out there that I can never compete with and yeah I just ended up working as an engineer for a couple

years.

>> So you dropped out of high school. How

did that happen? How did you have the conviction to leave high school when everyone around you from your home country, your hometown was there?

>> I didn't really make the decision. It

just more like happened. I think yeah my my cousin called me one day and said hello. just talk to this person. Uh he's

hello. just talk to this person. Uh he's

really really smart. He has this product idea to make like product recommendation system with AI and we should start selling this today. He's currently in Singapore like doing research and yeah

we're going to start selling like we're starting like yeah come to Stockholm as fast as possible. And I was like dude I have this big party tonight. I I'll come tomorrow. [laughter] He's like no. So I

tomorrow. [laughter] He's like no. So I

just went like to took the next bus to Stockholm and I just never returned.

>> So you you dropped out of high school.

Uh you went to this startup. What

happened?

>> We had this idea which was building a product recommendation system for e-commerce stores. And at first like

e-commerce stores. And at first like none of us knew anything about startup at all. We were completely like okay

at all. We were completely like okay what do we do? How do we sell? So the

first way I started selling was like calling people up like I started with sending cold emails didn't work very well. I started calling people up kind

well. I started calling people up kind of you know people were sometimes interested but you know I was this random 18-year-old. I had no idea what I

random 18-year-old. I had no idea what I was doing. I was nontechnical. The way

was doing. I was nontechnical. The way

we used to do selling, I used to knock on company doors and I'd bring this like a is it A3 like the big papers?

>> Yeah.

>> And I'd have already since before like scrape their entire uh website trained new product recommendation systems which is like you have a product and then you have the recommendations under like what products do you show to increase sales.

So I print their their old product recommendations to the left and our new product recommendations to the right and I made like a hundred of these. Wow. I

don't know. I have them in like a big folder and then I went looking at the the doors. Hey, can I talk to the

the doors. Hey, can I talk to the e-commerce manager, CEO? And then just show them like, hey, this is your old product recommendations. This is your

product recommendations. This is your new product recommendations. And then

they were always like impressed. They

were like, oh [ __ ] did you do all of this? How did you do this? This is very

this? How did you do this? This is very cool. But then, you know, immediately

cool. But then, you know, immediately they're like, okay, but how do I go from here? Like there's so many unknowns. Do

here? Like there's so many unknowns. Do

not worry. I always brought a script I could paste into their console on their website which flipped their product recommendation with our product recommendations. And I was like, yeah,

recommendations. And I was like, yeah, we are ready today. we can just go live.

That's crazy. And then they're always like, "Okay, but how do we know that we'll make money?" And I'm like, "Do not worry. I have an AB test set up already

worry. I have an AB test set up already uh in this script. It will track um like the revenue from people using your product recommendations and our per recommendations." So I could just like

recommendations." So I could just like first meeting just close them everything ready from the start. We did all the implementations to it which you know would backfire hugely later because we

didn't you know we're just thinking let's just scale or let's not think about like being easy to scale up. Let's

just like just make sure we get customers right >> with like a bunch of other 17 18 year olds who dropped out of high school.

>> Yeah. Yeah. So it was over he was a researcher. He was 16 or 17 at that

researcher. He was 16 or 17 at that point and then my cousin was like >> And you guys were all in person in like Stockholm Sweden.

>> Yeah. So, I was living in my cousin's dorm room, but we were >> in college.

>> Yes. So, we were No, we don't have dorm rooms. It's It's more like it's kind of dorm rooms, but in like normal apartments in Sweden.

>> Okay, got it.

>> And they're super tiny.

>> Yep.

>> And you know, you can only live there if you go to the university. But, you know, we had to submit things like, "Oh, yeah.

We He's still doing university, right?"

And I I was sleeping on couch pillows that I found in like the common room.

[laughter] for one year. Nice. It was a disgusting room. But it worked well. And we're

room. But it worked well. And we're

sitting in this like co-working space.

>> What made you keep going? Like most

people kind of quit, but you and they would probably go back to school, but you just you never went back. Like why

did you keep going? Why did you keep like living in a shared dorm room on these like community couches? I think

I've always had a very distorted view of reality. Like I was 100% sure that this

reality. Like I was 100% sure that this would make me a billionaire. 100% was

like no doubt in the world and I was like super serious and like acting just like I believed like okay this is going to be the next big thing like nothing else mattered. I was like I'm just going

else mattered. I was like I'm just going to you know I was working like all night all nighter after all nighter you know I was traveling around Stockholm trying to do sales.

>> Yeah.

>> We're doing like all these like crazy ass things to try to get customers.

>> So you originally dropped out without knowing how to code. How did you go about learning that? Mostly because I was forced to when we had to do the graations with [laughter] >> Yeah. Like how did you how did you

>> Yeah. Like how did you how did you learn? I guess you had some friends

learn? I guess you had some friends around you who knew how to code better.

>> Yeah. Back then. So the the first way I learned how to code was my cousin when I was very young like at this point I was like 13 or something but he showed me Java and I made this super simple like

Pokemon clone like turnbased. You could

like take damage. Such a bad application. And then it's some time

application. And then it's some time went by and then I made like a Udemy Python course. I learned super simple

Python course. I learned super simple Python. I made this like really ass game

Python. I made this like really ass game where like you had little pods coming and you were like a duck trying to avoid it. Um it's really dumb. And I also did

it. Um it's really dumb. And I also did I tried to get into machine learning. I

did all these like you know the classic like machine learning course by Andrew G. Yeah. I just thought like yeah I'm

G. Yeah. I just thought like yeah I'm probably too dumb for this. I just can't do this stuff. Yeah. when I really started getting into coding was at the pic where we you know where to build things and we have to make product recommendation systems scraping integrations uh set up EB testing and

all these things.

>> Yeah. But how do you learn that if you don't go to school?

>> The good thing with just working is that you always have a real problem which makes everything so simple. Like

everyone always says like if you don't go to school how can you learn? And like

well it's so much more easy like then you have a real problem and you know you can map out okay I want to integrate my product recommendation system to this e-commerce store to do that I need to

figure out how to select the the elements on the web page I need to insert them correctly I need to learn how to do all these things and then you can take it step by step you go to Stack Overflow and you know you can ask your

friends if you're stuck and yeah I think that's like a simpler way to learning and especially when you have all this pressure on you right if you have a real job you have pressure And that's everything. Like I I could never learn

everything. Like I I could never learn anything without pressure. There's just

no way. Like if someone were like, "Oh yeah, learn this thing, but you have infinite time and you'll also not make money from it." If you were to give advice to another high school dropout,

>> um what would it be so that they would learn more?

>> I think I was extremely lucky. I mean, I was living in this town called Vagid in the middle of nowhere in Sweden. I knew

no engineers. I met a programmer once in in in early high school and I was so starruck. I was like, "Do you code? Do

starruck. I was like, "Do you code? Do

you like make web pages? That's awesome.

And when you don't have this like culture, like why is SF such a capital of of startups? Well, because everyone's only talking about startups and it's like so clear how to do one. But if

you're like in the middle of nowhere and you don't you're not like surrounded by people. This is like all they talk

people. This is like all they talk about. You'll think all these things are

about. You'll think all these things are impossible. Uh like doing all these

impossible. Uh like doing all these things for me, I was like, damn, this seems so far away. And I was very lucky to to have the picked. The pit was the first thing where I was like, oh, this

is a real thing. I mean, I had no options. And I probably it would be very

options. And I probably it would be very hard to have options because I didn't know what I was looking for. They just

came up and it happened to be an extremely good learning for me. For

other people who want to do the same thing like getting into the market as fast as possible, solving real problems, having accountability. I mean now with

having accountability. I mean now with the help of Shach, you don't even need to know. You you don't even need to have

to know. You you don't even need to have much knowledge about the thing you're doing. If you can just prove to the

doing. If you can just prove to the person that yeah, I'm good at asking ship what I need to know. Like I'm super creative. I'm super high agency. you

creative. I'm super high agency. you

know, you you show all these things to the person hiring and then the last thing is, oh, but you don't know the actual thing and you be, yeah, yeah, I talk to ship with you all the time.

Like, I'm really good at like extracting information like you have all knowledge in the world there. Knowledge is not a problem anymore.

>> Yeah.

>> In the same way that >> you don't have to like go to an institution and then read up on something as like a prerequisite course for some potential solution or some potential application. you can now just

potential application. you can now just go into real world, find problems like, oh, how do I like optimize this or how do I teach people faster or whatever

problem you want to solve um and then you can query AI like Chad GPT to figure out how you can solve it and how you can learn the different pieces of knowledge

to solve it. The way I think people learn the fastest is by what you would call like a like um top down approach, right? You'll probably learn faster if

right? You'll probably learn faster if you start with a problem and then you can read about everything required to to to start solving the problem and then you find more problems and you read about those and then you go down to like

the the core of the problem right so you start with actual task and you go down but that's extremely rare way to learn like in school everyone has this mindset right of like okay we need to start with the foundations we need to start like if

you want to work with machine learning like you can forget about doing any machine learning for the first like four years right it's like math and then and Then you have like matrix classifications. You have linear

classifications. You have linear algorithm. You have all these things

algorithm. You have all these things that build up. And then you have the simpler ML that's like super outdated.

You have like you know linear regression. All these things that are

regression. All these things that are still used partly but it's like it will take you very long time until you get to like production grade ML. Why is this?

Well, it's extremely hard to scale the top down approach because that requires like a teacher always being there for you. It requires you being able to know

you. It requires you being able to know exactly what piece of thing you need to learn at any point of time. Well, if you do bottom up, you know, okay, first you always learn this and then you always learn this.

>> And it's it's much easier to scale, but it's extremely inefficient. And now with SHA GBT, all of this changes like this will change. People say education will

will change. People say education will change all the time, but I can barely take universities seriously that don't teach SHABT as a part of their curriculum. It's like actually insane

curriculum. It's like actually insane that this is not like a a course that's taught from like 2 years old. like

suddenly foundational knowledge universities don't have like um a monopoly on on on foundational knowledge anymore. You can just get any

anymore. You can just get any foundational knowledge from from from shbt and people haven't really internalized how top down problem solving works. They will always tell you

solving works. They will always tell you things you know like oh but you'll never actually understand the problem you'll never actually blah blah blah and this is not true you start with a problem you recursively go down like if I want to

learn machine learning I ask chashes okay what project should I do write the project for me I have bugs I start fixing the bugs and then things work and from there um I start with a specific

part of the machine learning problem like okay uh what happens here can you explain to me with intuition why this module here makes the model learn and it will explain to you and then it said, "Oh, it uses matrix multiplication and linear algebra, you know, okay, how do

they work? What's the math intuition

they work? What's the math intuition behind this?" Like, show me like make up

behind this?" Like, show me like make up a couple graphs to really make me get an intuition for this part of ML. And then

suddenly you have all the foundational knowledge like it doesn't need to go bottom up anymore. And this shift will will Yeah, I think this shift will like fundamentally change how education is taught.

>> What are schools not teaching you about AI?

>> First of all, the perception of AI is completely wrong in schools. Shachi came

naturally students were like oh nice something can do all the work for me and that's all they thought about which makes sense that that's the first thing I would apply to as well and the first thing the the teachers think about is oh

no everyone will just use AI to do works we need to ban AI AI is bad and that becomes like a reinforcing circle of like students perception of AI is like okay I can use this a cheat and teachers

perception is like okay teachers just use this as a cheat like it's really hard to build up an intuition of how to learn from AI. It doesn't come very naturally. Now it's like I'm extremely

naturally. Now it's like I'm extremely happy when I talk to like my friends back in Sweden. They go to university and they're like, "Oh, I realized I can use shipt to like give me quizzes." Like

I give it all the previous questions and I ask it like, "Okay, tell me tell me some fundamental things that all of these different questions share so I can really learn what they try to teach me."

Or like you generate 10 U questions, right? And you know, people are starting

right? And you know, people are starting to learn how to use AI. the teacher are still very very anti-AII which makes no sense. Like if the teacher just switched

sense. Like if the teacher just switched the narrative to okay, here's how you learn efficiently. Like if a student

learn efficiently. Like if a student want to cheat at tests, I mean they'll find find ways to do that either way.

And if you're never taught that, you know, you can actually use this to to learn things. I mean, adults used to

learn things. I mean, adults used to cheat like >> Yeah. Yeah. There's just no concept of

>> Yeah. Yeah. There's just no concept of that.

>> Yeah.

>> So, how do you use AI to learn? How did

you use AI to self- teach yourself math and machine learning to now work at OpenAI?

>> I did a very similar thing to what I was describing before. So, I currently work

describing before. So, I currently work at Sora where we're building uh these video models at OpenAI. And I wanted to learn things like, you know, the basics of of of image models. So, I asked JP,

hey, what are the the most fundamental concepts of of like video and and image models in AI? And they started talking about, okay, we we had these things called autoenccoders. We have these

called autoenccoders. We have these things called diffusion models. And I

was like, "Yeah, that that sounds interesting. I've heard about this

interesting. I've heard about this everywhere. That's very cool." Now, you

everywhere. That's very cool." Now, you know, write all the code for diffusion model. And it writes all the code and I

model. And it writes all the code and I have no idea what's going on, right?

Okay, here's a bunch of code. Holy [ __ ] And then then you try to get it working.

You debug it together. You tell it what's wrong. And then you start to

what's wrong. And then you start to build up an intuition of like, okay, this happens here, this happens here, this happens here. And then you continue to just understand in detail what every single line of code does, right? So

you're like, okay, what does this part do? What does this part do? So for

do? What does this part do? So for

example for uh for the fusion model for example uh you can take a part like part for example called uh a restn net for example and there is restnet blocks and

they uh do a bunch of transformation and and and and then they also have a residual uh which is basically like you you let data pass through in a certain way which makes the model learn more

more easy right and at the start I have no idea how this is done right and you start asking ch follow-ups follow-ups and it will tell you something like what I just told you, but you still have a huge question mark, like what is this?

What does this mean? Like, what do you mean it learns more efficiently? And

what what do you do then? Well, you

follow up and you'll be like, well, h how does it learn more efficiently because it's doing this? You like, oh yeah, the the gradients can flow in these X YC different ways. And in the

scenario that you wouldn't do this thing, they would be stopped at XYZ things, right? And you just continue to

things, right? And you just continue to ask the model constantly until you really understand. And when you

really understand. And when you understand, you can just tell the model, okay, this is my understanding of this.

Is this completely correct? And then you you'll also start learning about all these like small tricks you can do, right? Like explain this concept like

right? Like explain this concept like I'm 12 years old. That one is really good. It will, you know, it will start

good. It will, you know, it will start like super easily like imagine you're in a bookstore and you can imagine the embeddings being the different books in the store and then you can imagine, you

know, all this and it will connect everything that has to do with AI to like real world concepts which makes it really easy to to reason about for for someone like like me. So it sounds like

any sort of topic you can learn now and all you need is chat GBT and you start with just asking like hey what are like the preliminary things I need to uh you know understand about this and then you

might pull on one of those threads right for like when you're investigating video models you're like okay image generation models are like diffusion models like stable diffusion and you're like okay how the how the freick does a diffusion

model work and then you would have it um explain it to you maybe generate code samples tools but every aspect of that you would then inquire further like I don't understand this part what what is

this why is this adopted to this model architecture oh why is this done this way okay how does that math work and um I I mean I read like your posts on on on

x.com which are very popular um and it it looks like you're just able to use AI in a way where you continuously query until you have full understanding and then when you do have full understanding

you almost like re-explain similar to how Fineman the best way to learn is to to explain things but now you can do it with AI right and so when you're learning about diffusion models after

going through a deep dive on some like very technical topic where you might not even know what gradients are right and then you it'll explain you calculus or some linear algebra and you pick that up

um but then you would explain back to the model and then it will then clarify or like see different aspects that you don't understand and you keep repeating that until you have a very strong grasp.

I see it a bit as like recursive [snorts] gap filling. If I would like summarize it in one word, it's like you need like the skill that's required here

is knowing what gaps you have in your knowledge. Like say you have an AI model

knowledge. Like say you have an AI model or like whatever else you want to learn and understanding when you don't really understand a part. It's actually pretty hard to do. Like it's something you need to train up and practice on yourself

like wait a second, do I really understand this part? And then so that's one thing that you need. The second

signal is when you start asking questions, you need to have a real strong signal for when it clicks. When

you're like, "Ah, there it clicked."

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Just understand like fundamentally why this thing is as it is. How would

someone else learn how to learn with AI?

>> This is a very good question. I mean,

first of all, just change like the misconception of AI being used to do the work for you to instead, you know, use the AI to explicitly help you learn.

Like you you don't you don't just use it to get work done. You actually learn from it. I mean the moment you just

from it. I mean the moment you just switch that mindset which seems still fairly uncommon but is becoming more and more common all the time. you have most of the things to to get there, right?

And and then to become really good.

First of all, like I said, like know when you have gaps in your knowledge, understand what it feels like when you fundamentally grasp something. And you

know, you you you'll constantly come up with all these hacks like uh you you'll notice will respond in a fairly standard way and your way of learning is probably not

exactly what it responds like because it wants to, you know, make sure everyone has a good experience. Y

>> but you probably want it to respond in another way. I very often tell it for

another way. I very often tell it for example, be extremely direct and concrete. Always show me all the

concrete. Always show me all the intermediate states and the shapes of the code you produce. Make sure to to make sure I have like a really intuitive understanding of why it happens. And if

you're unsure, make sure you show me options and like what others have tried and why this works and why something else didn't work. And you start becoming good at like asking these questions that

give you the aha moment. Like as fast as possible, you want to get to the aha moment. Like the first time you

moment. Like the first time you understood linear algebra or the first time you understood what back propagation works, you probably had a very clear like, oh wow, it finally clicked. And to chase these clicks and

clicked. And to chase these clicks and to make them appear like as frequent as possible, right? That's like kind of

possible, right? That's like kind of your utility function.

>> That's crazy. It's like in modern day in order to stay competitive and to be like top performing when you look at someone like honestly they can they will be the

top of the field pretty quickly like how you've done it just by the rate of being able to query for information.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's probably like the most important skill now would you say?

>> Yeah. and and and you know building up this like this is another very important like build up the moment you have a question in your head make sure to get it into shachip this one is very hard

this took me I remember my my cousin the same cousin I started a company with he was like um dude shach is out this is

like pre pre like the what's it called I didn't think of this back in the day when it was just like a playground it was like super early GP3 like before ship And he was like, "Why are you not using this yet?" Like, "You're writing code

this yet?" Like, "You're writing code all the time." Like, "Yeah, I'm going to try it out." And you know, he kept on pushing me every month. And it took me like a year until I really started connecting like, "Oh, I have this problem and I need to ask Shashib." And

it's so common like you meet people all the time. You're in a discussion and

the time. You're in a discussion and people have all these questions or you co-working with someone, they have all these questions, you know, and you're like, you should ask Shash. Just like

every time you have any kind of question, anytime you need to guess about something, just constantly ask Shach like it's it's always there. It's

very low effort like make sure you have a very simple way to just ask about anything you ever wonder and you'll just you know have all knowledge in the world.

>> Yeah. But the important part is like almost getting hooked on like how fast you can get to that aha moment of realizing or internalizing something and the skill of being able to prompt chat

GBD not in a generic way but in a way where it'll give you very concrete um or uh you know different analogies or how whatever form factor that works best with your learning style

>> for you to then understand and internalize that >> which is really hard or I mean I think I'm pretty dumb so it's like [laughter] It's like sometimes you want to ask HFD this stuff and it explains it and I'm like I I don't understand

>> I don't understand it. It's just too hard and and you try again. and you try again and you're like okay and then you really grab you're like ah you're like okay [laughter] prompting things skills time right and

and you're like okay what if this these features in the world didn't exist and what if that never existed would they still have invented this thing and explain it to me like I'm 12 and you have you know generate graphs showing

the distributions that I need to know to really understand this like you know there's so many creative ways you can use to to really extract the information you need from shachibility and I think a lot of the things I've learned But

especially like with previous models like Shach is becoming so much better all the time. But like like a year ago when the models weren't as strong, some of the things I learned is like I probably couldn't learn them if I didn't like really know how to extract the

information. Like I I could ask the

information. Like I I could ask the question a thousand times and we could rephrase it a thousand times. I just

didn't wouldn't understand. This this is why they should teach SHBT in in like from elementary school. This is like you know a new language. This is like you know you still need all the other things in life like creativity you know agency

and like all these other things but like knowledge is like a completely new era like you can't compare this with anything else very concrete example of this cuz people doesn't don't seem to realize how like AI like how abruptly

this will change the world like currently I'm doing a job which traditionally everyone would agree you need like a PhD for right there's a bunch of people who have done it without a PhD but like if you told someone like

5 years ago like oh yeah at one of the top AI labs someone will be hired who hasn't you know really done the thing for a while and the only thing he had was that he was like they done like all these very cool things on other areas but they didn't know anything about this thing

>> people like no that that that's not possible right uh but we are now in a scenario where I can do the job traditionally only you know downward people have done it for like multiple

years just by using chach that's insane like the amount how fast the world will develop with chach like you can just do research in anything you want if you want to start doing bio research you want to start doing like hardware you

can just go and do things. Um it's just incredible.

>> Yeah, >> this this will be like a double digit increase in world GDP like just coming from large language mods >> and anyone can do it as long as it >> they know how to use chatebt.

>> Yeah, it's 20 bucks per month and you know the thinking models are like really really good when it comes to like coding and like understanding things.

>> How do you use chatbt to learn as you build out like one of the world's best video models?

>> It's very simple. Like a lot of people ask me this and they're always confused like okay what you actually do right like what do you do and you know they imagine I don't know what they imagine but you know something very very

special right and it's it's fairly simple you know you look at the video and you're like ah this part of the video doesn't look very good so you go and you change the architecture in the

model a bit or you change the data or something and you know you you train the model you look at the results you stare at videos for a file and you're like, "Oh, this video is for better. That's

great. This this goes into to master."

And then you just do that on a loop, right? You're like, "Okay, what's the

right? You're like, "Okay, what's the next thing that I want to fix or the next thing I want to try?" And that's where like AI is really good, right? Cuz

it's like, "Oh, I have this specific problem. Hello, AI." You know, here's my

problem. Hello, AI." You know, here's my entire codebase. Uh, tell me 10 ideas of

entire codebase. Uh, tell me 10 ideas of what I can do to improve this, right?

It'll tell you a bunch of ideas. It'll

refer to papers you can read. It'll do

all these like really great things. And

it will give you like a bunch of ideas like it's really good to brainstorm with and you know you can bring all these ideas to your colleagues and like talk to them who are just like extremely good and yeah it's like fairly straightforward.

>> Wow. How does it find like other research papers to uh to suggest you to explore?

>> He just knows about them. He knows.

>> Yeah. Like 4.0 just like I think even earlier models you just print out the links and you press the link you know you >> and it would just work >> cuz the model just memorized the link >> knows the links >> uh to to like the big papers like hold

on to smaller papers but you can also use you know the search function >> uh you can just turn on the search while you're speaking to it and like yeah find some papers talking about this right uh and then you know obviously I don't read

the papers word for word I you know >> I have my my instructions like okay I want to you know give me a list of things this paper did differently because often times a paper they take

some technique that I already know about and they introduce some new things to it and I just ask it okay compared to the other thing tell me a list and be extremely concrete of exactly what they

did that compares to the previous thing and that's a really good summarization and often times you know you're like ah this paper probably wouldn't make it it's not worth trying out and you can just go to the next one or you're like

ah this paper is really good like I only read the paper in depth if I actually decide to implement it and then I probably will read it when if I have bugs like I'll probably just like throw in all my code and be like hey implement

this into my code [laughter] and I just copy paste it in.

>> Oh wow.

>> And you know I I obviously make sure to like really read through the code. I

think it's extremely important that you can't just throw in code.

>> No, [laughter] I'm I'm I'm not the vibe coder. I'm I'm

very opinionated when it comes to code.

No, it sounds like you have like the a very different approach where like if you actually want to build like you know really concrete things like you need to understand everything right because especially if you're pushing like a forefront of any field

>> yeah I mean I want to understand all the foundations I think the the first reaction people have is like oh you just want to take shortcuts you don't really want to understand things you just think you can slop out a bunch of AI slope right and I think this is the correct

route like I I want to take shortcuts that's for sure but I want to take shortcuts to understand all the foundations >> and that's very important ing like it seems like either you're on the camp like okay AI slope do all the work for

me I never want to work or you're in the camp you need to go to college they have a monopoly and all the foundational knowledge you need to have this taught by a professor and I'm probably somewhere in between right I mean you need all these things and you know AI is

great like you should use it for everything >> you should use it to understand everything yeah >> and train its like human AI symbiosis in terms of like just enhancing your brain

and enhancing your ability so you're in Stockholm You left your first startup and how did you find your way to San Francisco? What

did you do?

>> Yeah, I always knew wanted to continue to work in startups and always had my sights on San Francisco cuz you know all the best people I knew had moved here.

All the you know all the best companies people were talking about were here and I noticed that like probably I should just like super optimize for learning as fast as possible. This was sadly pre-

chat. Like just imagine where I would

chat. Like just imagine where I would have been now if I had chat when starting to learn things.

>> A billionaire.

>> Yeah. And and like back then the best thing you could do was to work with the very best people. So that's what I tried to do. And so so how do you work with

to do. And so so how do you work with the best people? Well, you talk to as many companies as possible. You make

sure you know you you interview the person interviewing you, right? Like

what have you done? Like do you do do you guys do pull requests? Do you make sure to really review my PR so I actually know what mistakes I do? Um,

and I managed to join a couple companies with like really really talented engineers. Um, I also made sure to to be

engineers. Um, I also made sure to to be like I generally worked as a contractor.

Like the biggest mistakes people do is that they stay with the same company for way too long early in their careers.

That's like by far the biggest mistake I see in people's careers. So it sounds like a year after dropping out of high school, you know, after your first company, you just kept finding the best teams or the best engineers or the best

people that you thought, you know, you could work with and you work with them for a bit. You learn what it could and then you kept finding new opportunities or like better teams and you >> Yeah, I used to only take contractor

roles to make sure that like that I could be very mobile in the places I work with. You try to find the best

work with. You try to find the best places to work with with the best people. You try to work as closely with

people. You try to work as closely with them as possible. Make sure you're opinionated about what you're working with so you don't only get to do like the tasks no one else wants to do because then you're not learning. Make

sure you really show appreciation for the people reviewing your code cuz that's the best source of >> getting feedback.

>> Getting feedback in general and you know hunt feedback. I mean tell people, hey,

hunt feedback. I mean tell people, hey, I really like your review. Can you just review every single feedback of mine?

People be like shocked like oh wow I'd never heard someone liking feedback before. This is Yeah, of course I

before. This is Yeah, of course I >> It's rare cuz people usually shy away cuz they already did their schooling and now they're working. But

>> yeah, >> as a young person with like no really accolades, you're like the middle of your you're nobody um with no degree.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. You the way for you to learn is like join the best teams and then be very nimble but also just relentlessly seek feedback it seems. >> Yeah. And you know call them up. Call

>> Yeah. And you know call them up. Call

them up and be like hey that was a great review. Now let's go through all the

review. Now let's go through all the comments together on a call, right? You

learn so much and you just like ask follow-up questions like what's the intuition? Like there's like becoming a

intuition? Like there's like becoming a really good engineer is extremely hard.

It's like such a wide area. There like

so many like first principles things and intuitions you need to understand and they're pretty easy while you know them.

But they can be very hard to learn and to have someone just straight up tell them to you and you being good at like picking them up. It's like such a such a >> in the same way that whereas long before

you know you only can do that from maybe like an existing engineer or maybe a teacher but now you also have AI who can do that >> now you can do this on demand at any

company you can start it could be like 4 a.m. and you've been up coding or making

a.m. and you've been up coding or making something or like writing a paper or researching something and you can still ask AI for feedback >> and explain you why was this why is this a better decision.

>> I do this all the time. I I think like when you found something in life that works really well, you should exploit it like to the maximum. Like ask 100 questions per day, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Uh like I always have tabs open with Hatch. I write code, throw it in there

Hatch. I write code, throw it in there and I'm like, is this good? Is this

good? This is good. Are there any bugs?

What can I do better? You know, why not?

I mean it probably tell you, oh yeah, it looks fine right now. But some things like, oh yeah, there is a bug or oh yeah, you can do it in this way instead.

That's simpler, right? You just

constantly learn.

>> Yeah. And if you're doing it like literally a hundred times a day, that's like a 100 well thoughtout questions or follow-up questions and >> you're just able to outpace 99.9% of

people in the world.

>> Yeah.

>> As a high school dropout.

>> Yeah. And it should be added like I think there's still so much valuable advice to be be had from humans. there's

like still, you know, uh when when it comes like opinions and and things like if you imagine about how how how how models are trained, they train on all data on the internet and there's a bunch of different opinions and you know sometimes you might have weird opinions,

right? I mean there's still a lot of

right? I mean there's still a lot of value in working with like the really best people.

>> Yep.

>> But you can get like 95% of that now which is the so work with the best people, get feedback from them, but also constantly query AI wherever you go to build very deep understandings of any problem you want to solve and any

concept you want to learn. Yeah, you

were learning from these senior engineers. You're contracting at

engineers. You're contracting at different companies like different YC companies or like different all these different opportunities. Um, how did you

different opportunities. Um, how did you end up coming to America if you didn't go to school, if you didn't have a high school diploma?

>> Yeah, it started out with joining a company called Dataland. We're doing

kind of like a air table but way more performant and like developer first and and uh yeah a scalable air table you could say and that was a very important

decision. I I was working there with

decision. I I was working there with with an engineer is like extremely talented and he just love teach people >> and he'd love having perfect code which

is perfect for me because you know I write code and he'd just do like a hundred comments per PR.

>> Wow. And you had to call him any time be like, "Hey, what do you think like this?" And he would be really good at

this?" And he would be really good at like explaining the first principles reasons for why some code was written in a certain way. And at some point, you know, I was working remotely from Sweden and they were in in New York and I was like, "Yeah, I really want to go to the

US." And I think this is where I first

US." And I think this is where I first wanted to go to the US. This ended up not happening because the company pivoted and uh to something like something else. I decided to leave. But

something else. I decided to leave. But

that was like my first like I started a process there something called a J1 visa which is more like a you could say like an internship visa cuz we were all pretty sure like yeah I can't get an O1

visa there's like no way and it's you know you either need to win the Nobel Prize or you need like all these random things I was like yeah there's no way like how could I do this and then I ended up spending a lot of time trying to figure out what I wanted to do next

and this is where the like when when I went to San Francisco and I was here on ESTA visa for a couple months just talking to people trying to figure out like Okay, what what do people do here?

Like what's cool companies? And there I ended up joining Mid Journey. After

joining Mid Journey, I was like, "Yeah, okay, now I maybe can do 01." And and turns out the O1 visa, there's like so many creative ways you can get an O1 visa. Very many creative ways. For

visa. Very many creative ways. For

example, one thing we used for my OM1 visa was my Stack Overflow posts. I

remember my cousin telling me, "Oh, you're wasting your time answering a bunch of Stack Overflow questions." And

I was like, you don't know, maybe it's helpful at some point. And turns out Stack Overflow posts can be counted as Yeah, here we have it. event. Here's my

post about it on.

>> So, you can use Stack Overflow posts to get the academic publishing criteria for your 01, >> which is legitimate. Like I I have like millions and millions of of of views. A

lot of like peers will review your your posts. They're very strict. They will

posts. They're very strict. They will

downvote and remove anything that's not true. And if you get up votes, you

true. And if you get up votes, you you're helping a bunch of people, which was the criteria, like have you helped people?

>> I think like with GitHub or like Stack Overflow is definitely a very um creative way to argue for your O1. And

so how did you MidJourney is one of the biggest and best it's the best AI image generation company. How

did you end up working there? Yeah, it

was kind of interesting. I mean it's extremely hard to deterministically go somewhere in your career and kind of what you want to do. It's you know very cliche what everyone's saying right but it's like you want to have like a bunch of small chances everywhere right? You

just want to go wide. You know you want to post things that you've done. You

want to make sure you have really good demos. You want to reach out as many

demos. You want to reach out as many people as possible like go to events and like ask people for intros and make sure they do the intro at the event. You

know, really forcing, okay, oh, you want to intro me? Well, yeah, let's do it right now. You know, [laughter]

right now. You know, [laughter] >> buy source action so that it actually happens.

>> You make sure the results is a very high agency move.

>> Um, >> and also be very clear with how you can give them value and make sure they understand that you're not a nobody, right? I I was a nobody but the moment

right? I I was a nobody but the moment you show anything at all like oh I made this like something I made for example is this thing called fast grid it's like a really performant web table and you

just show you know anytime you talk to someone that that you think is relevant that can help you you know make sure you you show them that you're relevant right oh I built this really cool thing you should see it and they're always like oh

wow this is really cool and now suddenly you know they have a bunch of friends that start startups for example and now they want to interview you to them because they have seen that you know things like everyone wants to help if you first can make sure you know that

that that you can show them because they can gain a bunch of like you know social value from you know >> doing an intro in oh you hired someone I introduced you right and they're a good

hire if you are a nobody if you are from the middle of nowhere like how you know you are from the middle of nowhere in Sweden if you're a nobody how would you go about showing your value to someone

important >> the number one thing I recommend to people is making a demo that is super super simple. It's actually really hard

super simple. It's actually really hard to make a good demo for a lot of reason.

Everyone thinks it's hard because they need to make a demo that is hard and they don't have the skills. This is very not true. You can make very simple like

not true. You can make very simple like you don't need that much code knowledge to make a really cool s cool demo. The

hard part of making a demo is making sure that people understand why you can code within 3 seconds. You know you have like 100 like applicants for something.

If you apply with one link and they press the link and you know you have one shot, right? Like making sure you build

shot, right? Like making sure you build a really cool demo where people understand what they're looking at, which is really hard, and where people understand that you're a really good engineer, which is really hard, but then you're there. I mean, that's all they

you're there. I mean, that's all they want to see. I mean, companies just want to make money. You show them how to make money, that you can code, and they'll hire you. And then you might say, "Oh,

hire you. And then you might say, "Oh, but they only hire people with degrees."

Well, yeah, because literally no one has ever showed them that they can do their work. They're like, "Oh, I had these

work. They're like, "Oh, I had these internships." And the interviewer would

internships." And the interviewer would be like, "Okay, what did you do there?"

Oh, I streamlined pipelines and made things 30% more efficient. And usually

like, uh, okay, well, that tells me literally nothing. Okay, what what else?

literally nothing. Okay, what what else?

What have you done? Oh, I went to Harvard. I have the best grades. Well, I

Harvard. I have the best grades. Well, I

still don't know if you can do the job, right? Oh, but I have all this

right? Oh, but I have all this extracurricular. I was debate champion.

extracurricular. I was debate champion.

[laughter] You start going on about all these things that your parents will tell you, people around you will tell you. Nothing

matters. The only reason it matters is because no one can show that they can do anything. So then they start listening

anything. So then they start listening to this like proxy things. No one

generally m you know cares. Now there

are people who actually cares right who are these people. The co will never care. They will never care. They just

care. They will never care. They just

want to make money right which is great.

You just hey I can make money. Oh great

here's a task you know everything's perfect. When the further away from the

perfect. When the further away from the co you comes the harder it becomes because people start losing incentives to do the best thing for the company.

And instead what comes up instead? Well

they don't want to [ __ ] up. They just

don't want to lose. So how do they hire someone that if they are a bad hireer they will not get any conventional accolades like they went to the top >> exactly oh they went to school they were

bad right so then the recruiter doesn't make a mistake right so that's the you know the thing to to avoid like avoid people who have no incentives in the company so generally avoid recruiters at a company like they're not even

technical they can't even know if you're good or bad they will only go on all these like proxy signals and that's why people say I need a degree cuz you know that's everything they say. People don't

know that you can just talk to people.

You just go to an event with tech people and like every single startup I know wants to hire people who have high agency and can learn things.

>> Yeah.

>> Literally, if you're really good at using Shachbt, you saw one of these people at a random event, you went up and talked to them and you give them some advice and you're like, "Yeah, I'd

like to can we try working together for a week for free. This would be super fun. like I have these random ideas I

fun. like I have these random ideas I just came up with that I can work with with you that are, you know, no commitment from your side, no time from your side, just like get a free data point if I'm good or not.

>> Yeah.

>> And 100% of them would say yes. They're

like, "Oh, great. I don't need to do anything and I can see if you're good."

>> Like if you're generally a person who knows things and like not even knows things, if if you're just a smart person who can use Chachi, you can get a job tomorrow. And here's where people are

tomorrow. And here's where people are like, "But it's a risk, right? I want to get into college. I won't do all these things. There is no risk. And you can

things. There is no risk. And you can even do it the risk-f free way. Just

apply to college. You can go to college.

Apply to college. And while you're in college, apply to jobs, right? And

there's never a risk. You just put some extra times into applying to other jobs.

The moment you have a job, no one will ever see your degree. Like the moment you have one real job, like why would you care about a degree? Like suddenly

you have done things, right? Like where

does a degree come in? Like things you do way much harder than if you did linear algebra in school, right? And

this is obviously for like people who really want to go all in at their career. This is, you know, obviously not

career. This is, you know, obviously not the right thing for people who I mean I often recommend my my friends like yeah go to college. It's an awesome time, right? You'll have so much fun. You meet

right? You'll have so much fun. You meet

a bunch of friends. You'll even like learn things. I mean it's it's it's not

learn things. I mean it's it's it's not useless the things you learn. They just

they just teach them to you in very inefficient ways.

>> Um and you you will meet very cool people. You can meet way cooler people

people. You can meet way cooler people if you went to San Francisco or just go know network with people or or work at at companies. You'll meet so many more

at companies. You'll meet so many more interesting people but you can still meet interesting people at college. Like

you will get all the things just less efficiently. So it's all like a question

efficiently. So it's all like a question about like what do you want to do in life? I think it's very easy to convince

life? I think it's very easy to convince yourself that college is right if you're like hyper ambitious. Like for hyper ambitious people I'm always like yeah you drop out as fast as possible. you

can still do the safe route by going there and making sure you can continue if you don't get a job. But if you're, you know, really ambitious and you really care about your career, I mean, that's, you know, the obviously the best thing to do.

>> I would have dropped out of high school if, uh, if I couldn't get someone to do it for me.

>> Yeah. So, [laughter] uh, no, that's that's really awesome.

>> University in a lot of ways is in a super controversial way, but like I see it a bit like an adult daycare. you have

a bunch of people who needs to take a decision about what they want to do further along in life and you don't want to make a decision and then an option comes up especially in Sweden where you don't even pay for college they're like oh yeah here you can get free money and

push making decisions further into the future and we also have all these courses where you don't even need to decide like if you want to be a lawyer you got to do this niche thing but if you don't want to be a lawyer we have this like uh you know civil engineering

or or or industrial economy and all these like courses where you don't even need to decide what you do you just continue doing random things for five more years and you just push your decision. People love pushing decisions,

decision. People love pushing decisions, right? Yeah.

right? Yeah.

>> Like I don't want to show what I permanently do for life because that's what it feels like you're doing. It's

not true, but it will feel like you're choosing what you permanently do for life. If someone do something for 5

life. If someone do something for 5 years and they earn a certain amount of money, even if they took a job in a completely separate thing, like say they went from being a lawyer to marketing or something, even if they make more money

and are more happy and everything, people will be like, "Did you just do that? Did you just waste 5 years of your

that? Did you just waste 5 years of your life?" And you know, it's a really weird

life?" And you know, it's a really weird question to me like they just upgraded their life satisfaction and salary. And

I mean, maybe they even downgraded their salary, but they're just much more happy. I mean, it's all about being

happy. I mean, it's all about being happy in that.

>> What advice would you give to someone who doesn't know what they want to do and they're like 18, maybe they're in college or maybe they're in high school or maybe they just graduated college.

What would you tell them?

>> This is a classic persona, right? I've

met so many people in this position.

I've been in this position, you know? I

think it started for me in like late elementary school where I was like, "Okay, I really want to make money or I want to do business or, you know, I really want to succeed in life. I'm not

really sure what that means cuz I haven't seen anything at all and like I don't even know what a startup is, but I want to succeed in life." And then you start searching online. How do I make money, right? And you have you see like

money, right? And you have you see like service pages and you sit and do service and you're like, "Holy [ __ ] I'm making money online." And you do all these

money online." And you do all these like, you know, you have no idea where to start and no one tells you where to start. ever just like go to college, you

start. ever just like go to college, you know, wait 8 years and then you can start doing things or wait 10 years or whatever. And it's really tough to know

whatever. And it's really tough to know what you want to do. You know, some people are very lucky. They play

Minecraft and you know, they start doing Minecraft servers and you know, they realize, "Holy [ __ ] I can make money from this." You know, from out of

from this." You know, from out of nowhere, you're running a business and you just start thinking, right? And then

you're fine for life. Like now you know how it's done. You know, you do something, you start making money and and and you'll start really thinking about things from the right perspective.

I think my suggestion would be you kind of got to do a leap of faith and becoming a software engineer especially now with chatbt and you know doing demos and things that might be a good leap you know start making games the good thing with software engineering is that you

can show all your work super easily just send people links you make a game you have a good story about yourself and how why high agent and how you can learn fast and maybe just like screenshot an example of how you can learn fast from

chat I mean hiring managers will love this like oh this guy gets it right and then you just send that to like 500 people right and one of will be like, "Yeah, I should give you a shot. You

know, you're you're an undiscovered talent. You'll make like 10 bucks an

talent. You'll make like 10 bucks an hour now when you're early, but it's worth, you know, it's it's worth our time to try out and this person will learn a lot. They'll work with real people like as fast as possible. Get

yourself into real context with real problems, where you make real money, where people have like real economic incentives, and from there you just continue to roll. Uh then you're fine.

But it's really hard to get there. that

first jump of like >> that first jump >> from like something comfortable like school or high school >> uh to like okay I'm like working somewhere or working on something

>> there all these like classical paths like you have programming which is one very classic path where you can do this marketing is another one cuz it's very easy as well if you want to become a marketer how would you sell yourself when I was 16 the first thing I would

have done is to email a bunch of people hey I can do marketing they'll all ignore me right why would they respond to random you know elementary or or high schooler, if you go into their website and you you you know, you crop their

stuff and you do like you do free work for them and then you post that to them and they'll be like, "Oh, wow. This guy

just made work."

>> I mean, it's it's it's such a low bar for what's considered work. It's a

really low bar. Like, everyone needs a bunch of problems solved. You can just solve one of those problems. I mean, you're hired, right?

>> Yeah.

>> You already did part of the job. You

already proved to them, >> hey, like you can do it. And it makes the decision so much easier for them to just all right here's like here's like a contracting per hour role. Yeah, let's

just start there. What do you think are the most important things for people to work on? I mean, I'm extremely ADI

work on? I mean, I'm extremely ADI appeal, right? I'm like, okay, the only

appeal, right? I'm like, okay, the only reason I can do the job that I'm doing right now, which I love. I have so much fun. I'm working with like really

fun. I'm working with like really talented people. That's because AI and

talented people. That's because AI and like way many more people are going to be able to do what I'm doing right now.

That means like way faster innovation all aspects of life. like when it comes to curing the diseases or uh making it like you know random experiments or like how do we you know if someone is really

interested in in space they cannot go learn everything and start making small rockets and maybe they can you know join some cool rocket company and you know there's like unlimited possibilities the

smarter the AI gets and the like doubledigit increase to world GDP we'll see from this I'm extremely excited for that >> I have some uh Twitter posts here um >> very controversial takes

>> yeah we we'll go through some hot takes of you and you can kind of go more in depth. All right. Learning ML with my

depth. All right. Learning ML with my professor 01 preview bounce what to make code it debug it so it works explain parts the intuition why it works the

main intuition why explain to me like M12 go into all details learning this the other way around would be so hard right yeah so I think my thinking here was like cuz I I wanted to become

extremely good at ML and yeah this is kind of the the the path that I explained before of how you can learn very fast so you start at a problem you can ask for which problem you should solve. It should just give you great

solve. It should just give you great problems to start with and you know you code it with HBT try to understand the code how it works when you understand the code you can go into depth like for each specific module how do you learn

that just recursively go down all the way down and yeah I was just having a very strong feeling I was like wow if I had to learn this from like the math up that'd be so hard and take so much time

yeah like if you thought that oh I needed all these prerexs before like you know CS 406 six, I need to take like CS

365W or something, right? Um, like it's it's much harder to I feel like that just instills like the wrong type of belief where like this is unbounded. I

should just master this coursework, which is a prerex for that. Whereas I

like the way that you call 01 preview your professor. And I like that you just

your professor. And I like that you just you say, "Fuck it. I can learn anything and I can just recursively go from top to bottom versus oh I can't touch that

knowledge because like I'm just in underground and I haven't done like the prerequisites for it. Yeah. And I think this is a huge shift in how we think

about knowledge and I think on X I'm often like very skeptical to academia not because academia itself is something bad or because that's not something you should do. I think a lot of people, you

should do. I think a lot of people, you know, they think it's super fun to go to academia. A lot of good things comes out

academia. A lot of good things comes out of academia, like all these papers and so on. But there are some very dangerous

so on. But there are some very dangerous takes people have in academia. One of

those things being you can only learn foundational knowledge from, you know, the classical ways of starting from the bottom up. And people are so ready to

bottom up. And people are so ready to defend this that they're, you know, ready to go to to to war for it, right?

They're like, "Oh, you're wrong. You

will never be able to understand these things." And then I'm like, why do

things." And then I'm like, why do people get so upset? I mean, it seems like, you know, when someone spends a lot of time doing something and then being told that, oh, there's more efficient ways to do this. I mean, their their ego gets hurt, right?

>> Yeah. They spend 10 years doing something 10 years doing something >> and this high school dropout comes out of nowhere and just learns it takes >> and it's tough. It's really tough. And

when I write this kind of things, it it will hurt people's feelings. And to be honest, that's kind of the point with it because these people gatekeep others from getting into whatever they want to do.

>> Yeah. Yeah, like if someone's 17 years old, they want to learn ML and they ask all these other people who have learned this from before and they'll all be like, "Yeah, you need to spend a lot of hours, you need to, you know, do all these classes. You need these professors

these classes. You need these professors at these universities and blah blah blah blah blah blah." And, you know, it's just not true. This is not what you need to do. Uh, or you can do it. It's fine.

to do. Uh, or you can do it. It's fine.

Even think that sounds fun. Go for it.

Uh, I mean, it's probably fun fun thing to do, but I mean, there are simpler ways. And if you crush the ego that is

ways. And if you crush the ego that is like behind all these ideas, you know, more people can do what I've done so far. Universities don't have monopoly on

far. Universities don't have monopoly on foundational knowledge anymore. Here's

how I learned the main intuitions behind diffusion models as a high school dropout with catchy BT. I go through like some ways like that I described earlier of like how you can learn. It

also describes very well what I think about like foundational foundational knowledge. Yeah, I like I really like

knowledge. Yeah, I like I really like how it's like they don't have the monopoly on foundational knowledge anymore. And pretty much what matters is

anymore. And pretty much what matters is you have agency over your own curiosity and learning and you can pretty much learn anything.

>> And the university wants to have a monopoly on your learning. If you're a professor that your entire life have been spent, you know, talking to people about, you know, why going to university is so important and suddenly you don't need it anymore, they'll do everything

in their power to to, you know, keep it be that way. Like what happens if all the smartest people start learning themselves? Well, then the smartest

themselves? Well, then the smartest people won't go to university and this lessens, you know, the status that you can have at a university, which is very bad.

>> Their egos are challenged. Like I I spent 10 years of education. I'm like

$400,000 in depth. I've successfully

combed my dissertation for my PhD. And

you're telling me that Gabriel Peterson over here says, "I'm currently doing a job traditionally only done by PhDs with zero ML or math experience with the help

of chat GBT IDK. What other proof that chat GBT is at PhD level that we need?

>> Yeah, it was a pretty good pose. Like to

be clear, I mean the people who who are professors who have done PhDs, they've done an incredible job, right? I mean

they've done super cool things for the world. They've you know done done

world. They've you know done done research about like very important things. And I don't think at all of

things. And I don't think at all of these people like it might sound like I'm I'm talking down on these people and that's not true at all. The only thing I'm talking down about is these concepts that come with the old types of

thinking.

>> It takes 3 days to learn diffusion models top down, 6 years before you can learn it bottom up. That's like the perfect analogy there.

>> Exactly. Like if you want to learn diffusion models after university, it's like at least 6 years of, you know, >> schooling before you even encounter it.

You're like, okay, I need to do calc 1, calc 2, linear algebra. Um, and then you introduction to machine learning. And

this is the problem like how do you even know that you like doing diffusion models 6 years ago? I mean this is the problem with with with with universities if you can try out different jobs faster and you don't need to commit to

something like I know so many people that are like oh AI sounds cool so I'm going to take this course and they have no idea what an AI is until they're like 3 years in which is insane. Like should

it really take three years until you know what you chose to to do the rest of your life and spending like >> oh [ __ ] maybe I wanted to learn something else but you could have just learned it far faster if you yourself

had felt more agency. It's like

literally just like can you do you think you can learn diffusion models in 3 days and even if you want to go to university because I mean going to university seems to be a great experience like what do I know but it seems to be super fun and

even if you want to do that you can still go to learn all these things before you know go straight to the end and see how it is and see what it means and just know like oh this actually sounds interesting I'm ready to learn

this right and that's great then you've made a a very well positioned you know you've made a very good decision you know that you'll have a lot of funing college, you know that you learn something that's fun. I mean, then

you've done a a great decision.

>> I love it when people are able to learn something far faster in time frames that other people just cannot believe.

They're so used to like, oh [ __ ] I've like spent so much time trying to pick it up and like, you know, you're like a living example of just being able to do this. And you can do this constantly if

this. And you can do this constantly if you just believe you can learn something really fast and you're willing to just like keep asking questions like how you know you laid it out like holy cow like

you learn anything >> and you can be working at the top AI lab in the world like you are. It's crazy

how simple it is. It's like in the end it's just like companies wants to have people who can do cool things. Show them

that you can do cool things. That's like

like remove all advice you've ever received about finding a job and just start from that very simple trick because that's all there is to it. And

then people will try to add, you know, things on top of this. Yeah, just start from there.

>> That leads me to one of your tweets. Uh,

companies just want to make money. So,

all you need to do is show them how you can help them make money. Drop

everything you ever have been told about getting a job and start from that simple statement. I think people are severely

statement. I think people are severely misaligned sometimes when giving advice.

If you've done 5 years of college and you're happy with it and you're like, "Oh, yeah. I I learned good things." And

"Oh, yeah. I I learned good things." And

now someone comes and and and asks you, "Hello, uh, I want to have a very good career. what should I do? And this other

career. what should I do? And this other person that has chosen, you know, the path that basically everyone else choses who want to do like, for example, software engineering and they'll also be like, yeah, I genuinely think you should

do, you know, spend this 5 years doing this thing in university. And I mean, they they they share no incentives with you. They are well intended. They want

you. They are well intended. They want

the best for you, but their take is completely meaningless. It doesn't mean

completely meaningless. It doesn't mean anything. This person has no life

anything. This person has no life experience. This person has done one

experience. This person has done one thing, haven't compared it to anything else. And even if they tried, they

else. And even if they tried, they probably mentally can't do it because they're locked into, you know, oh, I I did this 5-year thing and and and did I just waste that time? No, that can't be true. This must be the right thing,

true. This must be the right thing, right? I mean, your opinions near always

right? I mean, your opinions near always comes after incentives. So, I generally recommend people to discard most advice.

That's how I dropped out of high school cuz I discarded advice. I just never trusted people to I've always been like, yeah, people want the best for me or they really think they want the best for me and they think they're helping, but you know, most people will give you advice that doesn't help. Like as in my

example like if you ask someone who's done a college and has never really thought about their career and they'll just tell you the same thing and they'll have very good intentions but you know it's actually like a reverse data point like it doesn't mean anything.

>> How did you deal with counter advice?

How did you deal with maybe were your parents supportive when you dropped out?

>> This is very interesting. This is

something I've realized later in life and I think a lot of people will be like oh wow you know there's two types of parents or it's more like a grayscale.

Uh my parents never were never really like, "Oh, you should get good grades in school." They were just like, "Oh, as

school." They were just like, "Oh, as long as you have an okay grade, like uh from a scale A to F, you get an E, right? If I get E or more, they'll be

right? If I get E or more, they'll be happy." And that's like all opinions

happy." And that's like all opinions they ever had on my career. They never

had another opinion. And I was angry. I

was like, why do they not care? Like why

can't they like force me? Like why can't they push me harder to do things? Like I

have really bad discipline, but I want to do all these cool things. Why can't

they push me harder? And turns out there's like this gray scale of parents.

And my parents were at the very end of one of the sides. And that end is like how much ego you have attached to to your children, right? Like how you know parents on the other side, they have really strong egos attached to their

children. And these are often parents

children. And these are often parents that like maybe they didn't succeed with the things they wanted to succeed with as children. And now they're trying to

as children. And now they're trying to live out their dreams like through their children. Like you're gonna be a doctor.

children. Like you're gonna be a doctor.

You're going to be a lawyer. Like this

was my dream. This should be your dream.

like I love you as long as you do these things because that's what I would have done, right? And you know they genuinely

done, right? And you know they genuinely mean the best for you. Like they

convince themselves that like yeah I really want this for you because I really care. But often it's you know

really care. But often it's you know very egoinduced like oh I want my kid to do this so I can you know tell all my neighbors or or friends about what my

kid can do. So you have this like two very um and and everyone is like somewhere in the middle of the scale. It

seems like in Sweden it seems much more common to be very far down on the scale.

Very few parents in Sweden will care about your degrees.

>> Yeah, because it's free. That's one

part.

>> Yeah, because it's because it's free.

That's one part. And also I think people don't have their like parents doesn't have uh as much ego attached on average.

Then there's, you know, always people who who really have this as well. But

yeah, I think it really differs from different cultures. And you know now

different cultures. And you know now when I know how this works you know I'm I'm very happy over like the the childhood I had where I could you know experiment and do whatever I wanted to and you know I just got support for

whatever I did. Obviously they were a bit surprised what you high school I mean my dad was like pretty like oh no no no this is bad you know.

>> Um but they got over it very fast and now you know it's nothing weird.

>> I'm glad that's that's pretty good. I

think like most people might not have that experience. How do you decide where

that experience. How do you decide where to take advice from?

>> There's very few people I take advice from. Very very few. I mean, I can count

from. Very very few. I mean, I can count them on one hand probably. My cousin and I happen to be very similar people in how we think. And he also happens to be many years older than than me. So, you

know, he went through college. I mean,

he's the big reason where he was like, "Yeah, I went through college. You and

me think super similarly. We want the exact same things and you'll just waste your time." Like, that was a big part of

your time." Like, that was a big part of the trust where I was like, "Okay, you know, we think super similar about things." and he kind of like shortcuted

things." and he kind of like shortcuted a lot of things that he had to go through and spend years doing that wasn't worth it for him and I could kind of just like follow his footsteps immediately. And yeah, he he's one of

immediately. And yeah, he he's one of the people I I take a lot of advice from and that I based a lot of my opinions on early. But especially if you aren't

early. But especially if you aren't established yet, you don't really have a track record. You're young. You're

track record. You're young. You're

unproven.

>> Yeah. And like how do you how do you go about like finding advice or mentorship or where to trust or where to learn from and like what what did you do like h how do you go about that? How do you go

about figuring yourself out?

>> I think it's so easy to get stuck as like a very ambitious 16-year-old and like like first of all like watching motivational speeches on YouTube, right?

all these people like, "Oh, I made millions and I did la and it's, you know, just all slop and you know, you know, you you get this feeling after you watched it like, oh, I just saw

something. I saw a secret and now I have

something. I saw a secret and now I have this like, you know, I feel good. I feel

motivated, right? You feel motivated, right?" And you think you're you're

right?" And you think you're you're like, "Yes, now I'm going to be motivated forever." And then you wake up

motivated forever." And then you wake up the next day and it's all gone, right?

And um yeah, these videos are, you know, they're they're traps for for motivated people to, you know, fall into and feel motivated while you're doing nothing, right? And it's the same with like, you

right? And it's the same with like, you know, people have this mega focus on like good habits and, you know, uh reading and you know, all these things that people say are like extremely good

for you. I mean, they are really good

for you. I mean, they are really good for you. I mean, reading is great.

for you. I mean, reading is great.

Working out is great. Having good habits is great. None of these matter if you

is great. None of these matter if you don't do it while you're doing something that matters, right? And what matters?

Well, you don't know yet because you're young and you've also, you know, you have no data points on what matters, but you should start trying. And literally

the number one way is to do real work, solve real problems. There is millions of startups out there who would happily have someone work for free for you. You

just need to reach out to them. Go to

LinkedIn, find stealth founders. I mean,

send a message to all of them. Be like,

"Hey, I want to try working with you.

Let's try working this weekend or something. And I'm ready to do whatever.

something. And I'm ready to do whatever.

I know I can do good things and you know I can just start working with really simple things for you. I mean just get your first real experience as fast as possible. That's all it's about. Like

possible. That's all it's about. Like

everything I ever did in my life that was not towards getting real experiences. For example, you know, when

experiences. For example, you know, when I spent a bunch of time in elementary school and high school reading books, getting good habits, waking up early and you know, taking a run and I felt so productive. None of it mattered at all

productive. None of it mattered at all whatsoever. like it means zero if you're

whatsoever. like it means zero if you're not actually you know doing something that matters at the same time.

>> Yeah.

>> Which is nearly always work. Maybe it's

something else for you. I mean you you need to explore this for yourself but for me and for very many others who think alike it's you know get your first job as fast as possible which is very tough requires a lot of work but that's

where your eyes should be at. 70% of

people are in permanent slight suffering because they are allergic to making any mentally tough decisions when there is also an option to do nothing.

>> Yeah, this is a very good post. This

summarizes I think why you know if people read this post, understood it and acted on it, I think like the the happiness level in the world would rise by like 20% or something. Wow. like the

the the the work satisfaction you'd have cuz I've realized that it's so easy for people to make bad decisions when it's emotionally tough and people don't know when it's emotionally tough because your

brain doesn't really like let you know this, right? So, for example, if you're

this, right? So, for example, if you're at a job and you don't really like it, what's your options? Well, your option is to reach out to a bunch of other jobs, compare them, and then you know, you need you need to prepare for interviews. Super tough. You need to do

interviews. Super tough. You need to do the interview. It's very emotionally

the interview. It's very emotionally suffering and you might get rejected.

That's very sad. And then you need to negotiate offers, which is a horrible experience. And then you need to tell

experience. And then you need to tell your current employer, "Hello, I'm leaving. I'm going to leave."

leaving. I'm going to leave."

>> Which is so mentally tough. So before

your brain even like thinks about this step, it will just be like, "Oh yeah, I'm probably doing the best thing I'm doing right now. I'm probably learning the most I can do right now." Like even if you're super ambitious and you want to learn fast, you will cons like

convince yourself that you're learning the most you possibly can. wherever you

are, even if it's your first job. Even

if it's your first job and it's a completely random job, out of all millions of jobs, you'll convince yourself you're learning the most even if you've been there for like 3 years.

>> But what matters is uh what seeing the truth, being like honest with yourself.

>> Yeah. What matters is, you know, say what you want in life is a good salary.

That's like the simplest thing you can want in life, right? A lot of people just want the good salary and work with good colleagues and you maybe they want to work remotely. I don't know what they want to do, but they want some combination of this, right? That's

that's fairly standard. So one very very clear example is I had a friend in Sweden uh he was making a normal Swedish salary which is extremely low C to SF standards from his standards were pretty

good right he was living life I mean in Sweden he had like a you know probably like 50% higher than a normal salary and I told him many times I was like dude

why do you not apply to San Francisco I mean you'll just like 10x your salary and work with better people and work on things that people use and like all these things and you know he had all these reasons you know came up in his brain for why he shouldn't do this and

you know he constantly pushed it forward and he couldn't really even if he trusted me as a person you know your brain doesn't allow you to think about this as an opportunity because it's like so emotionally tough and one day I just introduced him to a company I was like yeah [ __ ] it I just put these two

together and make sure he starts interviews and when you start interviews that's way more simple cuz they will like try to pull you into the company right so they will do >> there's momentum >> yeah there's momentum and they'll do all the annoying things for you and then

from out of nowhere give you an offer right and you never had to think about it and now when you have an offer you just need sign it and you the emotionally like the right thing would obviously be to to apply to, you know, a couple other companies and see will

these people give me a better offer? Are

these people better to work with? Are

these more fun people that believe in this company more and I want to stay at it longer? But the the easy thing to do

it longer? But the the easy thing to do here, right, is just to accept it, right? Anyway, yeah, this friend just

right? Anyway, yeah, this friend just ended up 10xing his salary just like that. And you know, he pushed this for

that. And you know, he pushed this for like I told him maybe for a year or so.

So if he 10xes his salary, I mean that's a lot of money >> just by coming to America or getting a job with America.

>> That's like a full house in Sweden. He

just got People don't understand how much they lose from this. He literally

lost buying a house in Sweden. If you

just see it in like just currency, right?

>> Yeah.

>> He lost a house just because he didn't take he didn't do this very simple thing which is just applying San Francisco.

It's very simple.

>> What's your advice for people who want to come to San Francisco? Why should

they come to San Francisco? Why should

they come to America? First of all, I mean let's start simple. The talent

density is much higher. It'll work with a very high concentration of talented people and the salary will be much higher. like whatever you like want in

higher. like whatever you like want in life, you know, your life standard will always depend on your salary. So even in the scenario where you're just like, yeah, I just want a high life standard and I'm fine, you know, and you know,

I'm fine moving to get permanent sun, which you know, for some people is a very easy decision, for some people it's a harder decision. But like if those two things, I mean, that's, you know, reasons enough. And then like the more

reasons enough. And then like the more ambitious you become, the more obvious and like the more objectively correct it is to move to San Francisco. You really

don't have any other options. If you

like if you're really to like put your entire life in startups, your best bet is moving to San Francisco. The talent

dance here is extremely high. Capital is

flowing super freely. Everyone is

talking all the time. You know, you can hire extremely good people and it's just another momentum. Like if you've never

another momentum. Like if you've never been to San Francisco, everyone have like told you should go to San Francisco. like the first week they're

Francisco. like the first week they're here, it's like always changes their like worldview, right? They're like,

"Holy [ __ ] I didn't know there were this many people caring about whatever I'm doing in in the entire world." And I just met like more than I ever thought would exist in the same room at the same time, right? Which is like a really

time, right? Which is like a really motivating experience. That's real

motivating experience. That's real motivation for you. That's no like person standing and talking about motivational speeches and they tell you all this like random slope that like doesn't make any sense. That just sounds good. This is like real motivation,

good. This is like real motivation, right? You have people who think like

right? You have people who think like you, they act like you. They work hard like you. They care like you. They don't

like you. They care like you. They don't

work 40hour weeks. It's just an incredible city to to to be in. And and

I mean look at what has come out from Silicon Valley. I mean nearly all

Silicon Valley. I mean nearly all innovation happens here. Like it's you know so much like probably more than all of Europe combined happens in San Francisco. The amount of capital in only

Francisco. The amount of capital in only San Francisco is probably like magnitude higher than in all of Europe together.

Right? I you have Apple, Google, Open AI, Anthropic, you have all these huge companies. They all have their

companies. They all have their headquarters here for a reason.

Everything you care about in life, like life standard wise, like what makes your life good? Well, you you have Google

life good? Well, you you have Google maps, right? For before you had like

maps, right? For before you had like physical maps. Well, turns out uh Ela

physical maps. Well, turns out uh Ela Musk built maps like [laughter] CIP 2, whatever it was called like in San Francisco like 15 years ago. You

have your iPhone, which is an incredible piece of technology built in San Francisco. You have satellite internet.

Francisco. You have satellite internet.

You have people, you know, that go from being paralyzed to, you know, being able to to to walk again. You have like diseases that are cured. Like this is all like nearly all of this is from US and specifically San Francisco. There's

like a million people living here. It's

like same size of Stockholm, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Um >> it's crazy, but there's a network effect and talent density here.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. So, what's your advice if someone wants to come to San Francisco or move here?

>> First of all, be highly skilled. I mean,

be good at something. That's the first thing. And that will come easy, right?

thing. And that will come easy, right?

If you if you're ambitious and you want to do things, you just start working with real companies and you will become good, right? So, uh when you have this,

good, right? So, uh when you have this, the second step is, you know, find a company that's ready to sponsor you. And

this is where you need to be good, right? cuz you know you need to be

right? cuz you know you need to be really good cuz this company will want to only hire like they need to you know go through a visa process which is you know some overhead for them

>> and you know they obviously like rather just take someone from the US if they could right it's it's it's way more it's way less overhead but turns out there's very few extremely good software

engineers in the world and there's a huge need of good software engineers in the US or like everywhere in the world basically needs really good software engineers Um, and you know, we we can never get get enough. Like we could

double the amount of software engineers that are really good in the US, we just still have not enough.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's why you have like a really big chance to to to just move to the US if you're from another country.

>> And you can do it over the internet.

>> You can do it over the internet. The

moment you can prove to company that you provide huge value, people in San Francisco is very happy to sponsor you.

And especially now like the the paths to one become easier and easier.

>> Um, definitely. So that's what I'm doing. I'd had a blast talking with you.

doing. I'd had a blast talking with you.

I mean, your tweets are really funny.

Um, I think your takes are very valuable and for someone who's um thought for himself this whole time ever since like high school and even earlier, like it's

um it's really awesome for you to be able to distill all of that and then share it here. So,

>> yeah, I really appreciate >> always very happy to to share share hot takes and, you know, help others other people who who think like me to get there faster. Right. I could have been

there faster. Right. I could have been here four years faster if someone just told me what I'm trying to tell people.

But then obviously that's from my perspective like I have my own wants and you know if someone happens to feel like oh yeah this applies to me as well right then it can be hugely valuable.

>> Yeah. I I hope this this episode captures some of that. I mean you are basically telling the advice to your younger self.

>> Yeah. And um you know, I'm gonna really try and like distill it into something uh really nice. And that's what I also want to do. I want to just like help

people like you who are from the middle of nowhere around the world uh inspire them with like real anecdotes. Like you

did not go to high school or you did go to high school, but you dropped out of high school and you're still able to land u probably one of the most like sought-after jobs at the best AI company

in the world. Um, and you did it mostly on yourself, mostly through your own ingenuity, mostly using the internet.

And like pretty much anyone from anywhere, as long as they have the internet, they have CHBT, they can >> they can do the same. And you know, I I the goal of kind of this is to I want to

share more anecdotes and like origin stories of like extraordinary people like you and also just help a lot of these people cuz I I mean similar to

you, I also went through the process of like leaving high school to come to San Francisco and I was like, "Oh [ __ ] I wanted to stay here." And I was very stubborn. I I just I had to be here and

stubborn. I I just I had to be here and I I kept like coming in and out on tourist visas. Um, I had the option to

tourist visas. Um, I had the option to go to college. I actually got into like one of the best like, you know, most selective programs in the world. But I

just was like San Francisco is like clearly the place to be where all the innovation are, where all the brilliant people and I just need to figure out like how to get a visa, how to get like an O1 visa and stay. And certainly by

like learning um uh you know learning on my own, learning using AI, like I taught myself how to code with with AI, working on my first engineering job that led me to get my

someone to sponsor me as you said and then actually be able to move here. Um,

and uh, yeah, I I feel like this episode we can make it so that a lot of people um, you know, their lives are completely different in better ways because they

listen to you. So

>> yeah, I hope so. That'd be epic.

>> That would be pretty epic. Like one more thing that I thought about which was a huge blocker for me when I was back in

Sweden and I wanted to do all these things and I think a lot of people who were thinking similarly as I did are

feeling this as well and that's that they think they're not very smart. I

remember I thought I was an idiot growing up or not an idiot. I was like yeah okay I'm I'm I'm really good at math. uh compared to like the people in

math. uh compared to like the people in in in in elementary school. [laughter]

>> Yeah. To compare people in elementary school where I lived. But you know, you saw people, you know, people were building rocket ships and people doing all these humongous things and and I was like, damn. Like, how can I ever do any

like, damn. Like, how can I ever do any of these things? There's just no way.

But I think it's like really easy to underestimate how much you can do. It's

super easy to underestimate. And

like probably people even just listening to this are in the top like 1 percentile. people just want listening

percentile. people just want listening to this like most people wouldn't have agency to like oh I want to do something and then spend an hour listening on something to do that thing you're

already top 1% and top 1% that's like you know they already have like that top you know you know the the top top 500 startups in the world or even fewer like maybe top 200 startups in the world

that's like the top 1% of people right so you know only that should should should make it connected dots like okay if I just continue down this path this is like where I'll end up >> yeah you can come got to San Francisco,

work at a top company or start a top company and >> yeah, so much things to be done.

>> Yeah. Well, this has been great, Gabriel. Thank you so much for your

Gabriel. Thank you so much for your time. I mean,

time. I mean, >> yeah, thanks for inviting me.

>> Holy [ __ ] I think you're one of the best people at learning in the world with AI and more people should know about that.

>> Yeah, I'm trying. And I hope some people get, you know, much better than I do so I can learn from them as well.

[laughter]