Bret Taylor, the chairman of OpenAI, believes that if you have the chance to attach yourself to success, you shouldn’t let ego get in the way.
“I think this is the quote I always heard, was Eric Schmidt to Sheryl Sandberg: ‘If someone offers you a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat,’ you know? I like that philosophy of life,” Taylor said on an episode of “Grit.”
At the time, Sandberg, who would famously later become Facebook’s chief operations officer, was deciding whether or not to join a different tech company: Google.
Google was a tiny fraction of the size in 2001, with fewer than 300 people. Eric Schmidt had recently been brought on by cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to be CEO. Sandberg talked about her conversation with Schmidt during a speech to Harvard students.
“So I sat down with Eric Schmidt, who had just become the CEO, and I showed him the spreadsheet and I said, this job meets none of my criteria,” Sandberg recalled. “He put his hand on my spreadsheet and he looked at me and said, ‘Don’t be an idiot. Get on a rocket ship. When companies are growing quickly and they are having a lot of impact, careers take care of themselves. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.'”
Sandberg did end up taking the job, and joined as the general manager of Google’s business unit, which had four people at the time.
“I do think, especially in Silicon Valley, there’s just unique moments, and you just have to be self-aware and aware of the market,” OpenAI’s Taylor said.
Beyond being ready to jump at opportunity wherever it comes knocking at your door, remaining broadly flexible is also important, he added.
“Most of the unhappiest people I know are rigidly following a plan and not observant of their own happiness or observant of the opportunities around them,” Taylor said. “I actually think that a big part of life is recognizing when there’s a unique opportunity that you didn’t plan for, and asking yourself the question, ‘Should I change my plans?’ Whether that’s in your personal life or your professional life.”
Taylor’s own career spans Big Tech and startups alike — from leading the team that helped create Google Maps and acting as co-CEO of Salesforce, to founding his own AI company, Sierra.
“The idea of sitting on the sidelines, and drinking a mai tai on a beach, doesn’t give me joy at all,” he said. “I want to build.”
Just as Taylor was leaving Salesforce, ChatGPT was released. After a conversation over lunch with his cofounder, Clay Bavor, Taylor said the decision to start Sierra was set. But even if he wasn’t heading this particular company, he added, he would still be working in an adjacent sphere.
“I would be building open source software if not running a company right now, because I just want to work in the technology and help shape it,” Taylor said. “Because it’s the most exciting technology of my memory, and I want to play a part in shaping how we all use it.”
That’s another key piece of Taylor’s personal philosophy: being as involved as possible in shaping the trajectory of the world.
“There’s this Alan Kay quote: ‘The best way to predict the future is to invent it.’ And that is like, my operating principle,” he said. “I want to impact the future, and I want to help invent it.”
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