‘A 25-year-old in Mumbai…': ChatGPT mastermind Sam Altman bets big on India, poised to be OpenAI's top market
Altman believes a 25-year-old in Mumbai today can do more than any 25-year-old could ever do before. He compared it with his own experience. He felt the same at 25 during the computer revolution. But, now, the tools available are far more powerful.
'A 25-year-old in Mumbai can probably do more than any previous 25-year-old in history could. It's really amazing what you can do with a tool like this,' Sam Altman said on the YouTube podcast People by WTF.
'A 25-year-old then could do things that no 25-year-old in history before would have been able to, and now that's happening in a huge way,' he added.
Sam Altman mentions in the podcast that India is now OpenAI's second-largest market and may soon become the biggest. The company has taken feedback from Indian users on what they want.
'We've been able to put that into this model and upgrades to ChatGPT. So we're committed to continuing to work on that,' he said.
With AI and modern technology, one person can do work that earlier needed decades of experience or whole teams, according to Sam. Even while building a company, the possibilities are enormous.
'The ability for one person to use these tools and have great ideas and implement them with what would have taken decades of experience or teams of people is really quite remarkable,' Sam Altman said while referring to AI tools like ChatGPT 5.
The AI leader is especially hopeful about science. He believes artificial intelligence will speed up discoveries and change programming completely by enabling new kinds of software at an extraordinary scale.
For startups, a small team can now achieve far more than before. According to him, the world today feels like an 'open canvas' where the only limit is the quality and creativity of ideas.
'If you have an idea for a new business, the ability for a very tiny team to do a huge amount of work is great. But, it feels like this is just now a very open canvas,' he said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
12 minutes ago
- Indian Express
CEOs want their companies to adopt AI. But do they get it themselves?
In March, Andy Katz-Mayfield, co-founder of the razor brand Harry's, started inviting junior employees to monthly meetings usually reserved for his most senior leaders. The purpose was for lower-level workers to show off how they were using generative artificial intelligence to improve the supply chain, finance and marketing. But Katz-Mayfield had another purpose, too: getting the top executives comfortable with using AI themselves. 'Building familiarity with these tools opens people's eyes,' said Katz-Mayfield, who is also a CEO of Harry's parent company, Mammoth Brands. 'Through demos and stuff, people are like: 'Oh, that's cool. I didn't think about that, but I now realize why this is important for my team.'' Executives refer to the promise of AI with grandiose comparisons: the dawn of the internet, the Industrial Revolution, Carl Friedrich Gauss' discovery of number theory. But while boards and top executives may mandate using AI to make their businesses more efficient and competitive, many of those leaders haven't fully integrated it into their own workdays. As with most technological advances, younger people have taken to AI more quickly than their elders. And the work that people do earlier in their careers — inserting data into spreadsheets, creating decks, coming up with designs — also lends itself to playing around with the technology. Top executives, on the other hand, are often several steps removed from the mechanics. Once they're in the C-suite, days are filled with meetings. Less doing, more approving. So to nudge high-level managers, CEOs who have fully embraced AI are trying new tactics. Some have told senior leaders to use Gemini, Google's AI assistant, before defaulting to Google search. Some are carving out time at corporate retreats to play around with generative AI tools like Creatify. At Mayer Brown, a law firm in Chicago, chair Jon Van Gorp has shared with the partners how he uses a generative AI tool built for legal professionals to help draft contracts and distill the most salient points from his own writing. At a fashion startup called Daydream, Friday lunches are devoted to employees' sharing how they're using generative AI tools; the chief technology officer has shared her Gemini prompts from the week. Mammoth's chief technology officer, Sandeep Chouksey, 41, is well aware of AI and has been playing around with ChatGPT since it came out nearly three years ago. But he found that watching the engineers on his team helped him understand the technology better. He figured his peers needed to get their eyes on it, too, and suggested inviting employees who were working closely with AI to the leadership meetings. The work of senior executives 'doesn't lend itself to actually experimenting with the technology,' Chouksey said. 'I knew that the other leaders needed to see what I was seeing — all the bottom-up work that was happening.' Chuck Whitten is witnessing how company executives are gradually wrapping their heads around the AI phenomenon. He is the global head of digital practices at Bain & Co., a management consulting firm where his job is to advise CEOs about technology. They understand the importance of integrating AI into their companies, he said, but don't yet have a feel for the technology itself. He was in their shoes not too long ago. In 2021, he left Bain after 22 years to become co-chief operating officer at Dell Technologies. He was in that job when ChatGPT rolled out. He describes it as a 'lightning bolt' moment. Part of the reason he returned to Bain was realizing that senior leaders needed assistance entering the 'golden age of artificial intelligence,' he said. 'I think the majority that I see are just experimenting with the basics, sort of trying Copilot or ChatGPT for the occasional email, draft or quick fact check,' Whitten said. 'This is not a tool you can delegate down the hall to the chief information officer. They need to be hands-on in both where the technology is going and how they can apply it today.' According to a survey of 456 CEOs by Gartner, a research and advisory firm, released in May, 77% of the executives thought AI is transformative for business, but fewer than half thought their technology officers were up to the task of navigating the current digital landscape. Every CEO is trying to 'figure out whether they're set up for the future or not and how the world looks on the other side of this technology transformation,' said Tom Pickett, CEO of Headspace, a wellness app. 'They're facing this constant change, which just leads to stress and everyday anxiety.' Pickett, 56, has dealt with his own anxiety by using AI chatbots as much as possible. He joined the company last August and said chatbots had helped him get up to speed in his role. He uses ChatGPT or Gemini to do research and receive advice about business moves, such as potential partnerships with other companies. He said it helped him 'learn 10 times as much or test 10 times as many ideas in a very lightweight way.' In the past, he said, 'I would have had to ask the resident expert or somebody who worked with that company to really give me a debrief,' Pickett said. 'And instead, in five minutes, I'm like, 'Oh, OK, I get this.'' (He said he had also consulted people in his company, but now 'the conversations are more productive.') Sarah Franklin, CEO of Lattice, a human resources software platform, said it can be difficult to get executives to use new tools, and in internal meetings she regularly asks, 'Did you test that message with ChatGPT?' Franklin, who previously was chief marketing officer at Salesforce, has been using generative AI tools since they came on the market. But the technology is moving quickly, and everyone is trying to figure it out on the go. 'Nobody has 10 years of agentic AI experience right now. They at best have six months. So nobody is fully prepared,' Franklin, 49, said. 'What we have right now in the world is a lot of optimism combined with a lot of FOMO.' Fear of missing out can be the mother of innovation, it seems. In January, Greg Schwartz, CEO of StockX, was scrolling the social platform X when he saw several users posting projects that they had made with various AI coding apps. He downloaded the apps. He hadn't written a line of code in years. But using the apps got his mind racing. During a corporate retreat in March, he decided to push 10 senior leaders to play around with these tools, too. He gave everyone in the room, including the heads of supply chain, marketing and customer service, 30 minutes to build a website with the tool Replit and make a marketing video with the app Creatify. 'I'm just a tinkerer by trait,' Schwartz, 44, said. 'I thought that was going to be more engaging and more impactful than me standing in front of the room.' There was a 'little bit of shock' when he presented the exercise, he said. But he tried to remind people it was a fun activity. They weren't being graded. Their discomfort is normal, said Ethan Mollick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and author of the newsletter One Useful Thing and the book 'Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI.' 'AI is weird and off-putting,' Mollick said. 'There's a lot of psychological resistance to using the systems even for people who know they should be doing it.' Many organizations, he added, have a 'real failure of imagination and vision' when it comes to the power of these systems. 'The main issue is that leaders have to take a leading role,' Mollick said. 'They all say AI is the future, use AI to do stuff. And then they don't make any decisions or choices.' About half of companies do not have road maps for integrating AI, according to a Bain survey. Whitten at Bain said that about only 20% of companies were scaling their AI bets and that most didn't have benchmarks for how workers should use AI. At Mammoth Brands, Katz-Mayfield said that he and his team had discussed providing incentives to employees who use AI but that they hadn't needed to. The energy around experimenting is working for the company. In the last meeting it had five demos on the docket but didn't get to all of them because senior leaders were 'asking so many questions and wanting to see different things.' 'If the leadership team is excited and engaged in that stuff,' Katz-Mayfield said, 'that's probably more than half the battle.'
Time of India
26 minutes ago
- Time of India
Trump-Putin talk, GST reform and FII action among 9 factors to impact stock markets this week
Indian benchmark indices finally ended their six-week losing spree to end 1% higher every week. A host of important domestic and global events scheduled for the week are likely to impact stock markets when they resume trading on Monday. On Thursday, Nifty closed 11.95 points or 0.05% higher to end the day at 24,631.30. The markets were closed on Friday on account of Independence Day. Commenting on the current trends Nilesh Jain, Head – Technical and Derivatives Research Analyst (Equity Research) at Centrum Broking said that markets staged a strong rebound as the Nifty index ended its six-week losing streak and formed a bullish candle on the weekly chart. The index reclaimed its 100-DMA at 24,560, which will now serve as an immediate support, he said. "Over the past month, the Nifty has struggled to cross its short-term 21-DMA at 24,770. A decisive move above this level is crucial to unlock further upside towards 25,000. The RSI has turned higher to 44, indicating improving momentum, while the MACD remains below the zero line. Although sentiment has improved, a clear confirmation of a trend reversal is still awaited." Factors that are likely to impact movement when markets reopen this week: 1. Trump-Putin talk The understanding reached between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine issue on Friday is expected to lift market sentiment when trading resumes on Monday. Although the two leaders stopped short of striking a deal to end the war, Putin said they had arrived at an 'understanding.' Their nearly three-hour meeting in Alaska did not produce a ceasefire, but Trump described it as a 'very good meeting,' while cautioning that 'there's no deal until there is a deal. Read more – Explained: How Nifty, Sensex may react to Trump-Putin talks and Modi's GST tax reform on Monday? 2. GST reform Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day announcement of major Goods and Services Tax (GST) reforms this Diwali could boost investor sentiment, opine experts. Speaking from the Red Fort on Independence Day, Modi on Friday announced rate cuts to be rolled out by Diwali in the GST 2.0. The PM said GST rates will be lowered on everyday-use goods as part of reforms to the eight-year-old tax regime. 3. US markets The action on Wall Street will give cues to the global markets including India. Wall Street's two major indices finished with declines while the Dow managed to remain afloat in the green. A mixed US economic data led to the souring in sentiments. While the US retail sales climbed 0.5% in July from June, the Federal Reserve's index for industrial production edged down The Dow 30 ended the session at 44,946.10, gaining 34.86 points or 0.08% while S&P 500 settled at 6,449.80, down by 18.74 points or 0.29%. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 21,623, falling by 87.69 points 0.40%. 4. Corporate Action Just about 100 companies have corporate actions lined-up this week with record dates for dividends, rights issue, stock split and bonus shares for more than 100 companies over the five-day trading week. The companies which will have record dates for the purpose of dividend are JK Paper, Jammu & Kashmir Bank, Natco Pharma, Power Grid Corporation of India, Senco Gold, Coal India, Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL), Federal Bank, Godfrey Phillips India and Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC). Algoquant Fintech's record date will be for the purpose of stock split, Josts Engineering Company for rights issue and Bemco Hydraulics for bonus issue. 5. IPO watch It will be an IPO heavy week as 5 mainboard issues and one SME issue will hit the Indian primary markets. In the mainboard category, Patel Retail, Vikram Solar, Gem Aromatics, Shreeji Shipping Global and Mangal Electrical Industries will launch their public issues. In the SME segment, Studio LSD will launch its IPO and the stock will get listed on the NSE Emerge platform. Also Read: Vikram Solar, 5 other IPOs to open next week. Here's what GMPs suggest 6. FII / DII Action Market actions will rely on how foreign institutional investors (FIIs) behave. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 10,173 crore last week. On Friday, FIIs outflows stood at Rs 1,926.8 while the domestic institutional investors were net buyers at Rs 3,896 crore. In 2025 so far, FIIs have sold shares worth Rs 1,16,617 crore. lso Read: FIIs sell Indian equities worth Rs 20,975 crore in August so far. Can Trump-Putin's Ukraine 'understanding' reverse trends? 7. Technical Factors Santosh Meena, Head of Research at Swastika Investmart said that the extreme oversold conditions and supportive global cues lifted investor sentiment though momentum remained muted due to persistent foreign outflows. Broader markets staged a recovery across sectors, led by pharma and auto stocks, though FMCG lagged, he added. From a technical standpoint, the Nifty has established a strong base at the 24,350 level, forming a bullish engulfing candlestick pattern on the weekly chart, Meena said. "The immediate resistance lies at the 20 and 50-day moving averages (DMAs) clustered around 24,700-24,800. A decisive break above this level could trigger a short-covering rally towards 24,950, 25,080, and 25,225. Immediate support is at the 100-DMA of 24,575, with the crucial support level remaining at 24,350," he added. 8. Rupee Vs Dollar The rupee closed at 87.5500 against the U.S. dollar, softer than Wednesday's close of 87.4400, navigating a choppy session that saw it swing between 87.39 and 87.67. The currency unit touched 87.8850 last week after Trump's tariffs salvo, with the Reserve Bank of India stepping in to prevent the rupee from breaching the all-time low of 87.95 - a level bankers believe the central bank will continue to defend. "In the shorter term, we may see some relief on the ratings upgrade, but the rupee is still not out of the woods as trade uncertainties persist and broad economic indicators are still weak," said Dilip Parmar, currency analyst at HDFC Securities. 9. Crude Oil Crude oil prices cooled on Friday in light of the Trump-Putin meeting. Moreover, quoting analysts Reuters reported that premiums for prompt benchmark oil prices globally are falling compared with those in future months on rising output from the Middle East, Latin America and Europe, just as peak summer demand ends. The US WTI oil contracts ended at $63.14, down by $0.82 or 1.28% while Brent oil futures were hovering near $65.85, higher by $0.71 or 1.06%. (Inputs from agencies)
Economic Times
40 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Trump-Putin talk, GST reform and FII action among 9 factors to impact stock markets this week
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads 3. US markets 4. Corporate Action Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads 5. IPO watch 6. FII / DII Action 7. Technical Factors 8. Rupee Vs Dollar 9. Crude Oil Indian benchmark indices finally ended their six-week losing spree to end 1% higher every week. A host of important domestic and global events scheduled for the week are likely to impact stock markets when they resume trading on Thursday, Nifty closed 11.95 points or 0.05% higher to end the day at 24,631.30. The markets were closed on Friday on account of Independence on the current trends Nilesh Jain, Head – Technical and Derivatives Research Analyst (Equity Research) at Centrum Broking said that markets staged a strong rebound as the Nifty index ended its six-week losing streak and formed a bullish candle on the weekly chart. The index reclaimed its 100-DMA at 24,560, which will now serve as an immediate support, he said."Over the past month, the Nifty has struggled to cross its short-term 21-DMA at 24,770. A decisive move above this level is crucial to unlock further upside towards 25,000. The RSI has turned higher to 44, indicating improving momentum, while the MACD remains below the zero line. Although sentiment has improved, a clear confirmation of a trend reversal is still awaited."Factors that are likely to impact movement when markets reopen this week:The understanding reached between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine issue on Friday is expected to lift market sentiment when trading resumes on Monday. Although the two leaders stopped short of striking a deal to end the war, Putin said they had arrived at an 'understanding.' Their nearly three-hour meeting in Alaska did not produce a ceasefire, but Trump described it as a 'very good meeting,' while cautioning that 'there's no deal until there is a more – Explained: How Nifty, Sensex may react to Trump-Putin talks and Modi's GST tax reform on Monday? Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day announcement of major Goods and Services Tax (GST) reforms this Diwali could boost investor sentiment, opine experts. Speaking from the Red Fort on Independence Day, Modi on Friday announced rate cuts to be rolled out by Diwali in the GST 2.0. The PM said GST rates will be lowered on everyday-use goods as part of reforms to the eight-year-old tax action on Wall Street will give cues to the global markets including India. Wall Street's two major indices finished with declines while the Dow managed to remain afloat in the green. A mixed US economic data led to the souring in sentiments. While the US retail sales climbed 0.5% in July from June, the Federal Reserve's index for industrial production edged downThe Dow 30 ended the session at 44,946.10, gaining 34.86 points or 0.08% while S&P 500 settled at 6,449.80, down by 18.74 points or 0.29%. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 21,623, falling by 87.69 points 0.40%.Just about 100 companies have corporate actions lined-up this week with record dates for dividends, rights issue, stock split and bonus shares for more than 100 companies over the five-day trading companies which will have record dates for the purpose of dividend are JK Paper, Jammu & Kashmir Bank, Natco Pharma, Power Grid Corporation of India, Senco Gold, Coal India, Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL), Federal Bank, Godfrey Phillips India and Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC).Algoquant Fintech's record date will be for the purpose of stock split, Josts Engineering Company for rights issue and Bemco Hydraulics for bonus will be an IPO heavy week as 5 mainboard issues and one SME issue will hit the Indian primary markets. In the mainboard category, Patel Retail, Vikram Solar, Gem Aromatics, Shreeji Shipping Global and Mangal Electrical Industries will launch their public the SME segment, Studio LSD will launch its IPO and the stock will get listed on the NSE Emerge Read: Vikram Solar, 5 other IPOs to open next week. Here's what GMPs suggest Market actions will rely on how foreign institutional investors (FIIs) behave. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 10,173 crore last week. On Friday, FIIs outflows stood at Rs 1,926.8 while the domestic institutional investors were net buyers at Rs 3,896 2025 so far, FIIs have sold shares worth Rs 1,16,617 Read: FIIs sell Indian equities worth Rs 20,975 crore in August so far. Can Trump-Putin's Ukraine 'understanding' reverse trends? Santosh Meena, Head of Research at Swastika Investmart said that the extreme oversold conditions and supportive global cues lifted investor sentiment though momentum remained muted due to persistent foreign outflows. Broader markets staged a recovery across sectors, led by pharma and auto stocks, though FMCG lagged, he a technical standpoint, the Nifty has established a strong base at the 24,350 level, forming a bullish engulfing candlestick pattern on the weekly chart, Meena said. "The immediate resistance lies at the 20 and 50-day moving averages (DMAs) clustered around 24,700-24,800. A decisive break above this level could trigger a short-covering rally towards 24,950, 25,080, and 25,225. Immediate support is at the 100-DMA of 24,575, with the crucial support level remaining at 24,350," he rupee closed at 87.5500 against the U.S. dollar, softer than Wednesday's close of 87.4400, navigating a choppy session that saw it swing between 87.39 and 87.67. The currency unit touched 87.8850 last week after Trump's tariffs salvo, with the Reserve Bank of India stepping in to prevent the rupee from breaching the all-time low of 87.95 - a level bankers believe the central bank will continue to defend."In the shorter term, we may see some relief on the ratings upgrade, but the rupee is still not out of the woods as trade uncertainties persist and broad economic indicators are still weak," said Dilip Parmar, currency analyst at HDFC oil prices cooled on Friday in light of the Trump-Putin meeting. Moreover, quoting analysts Reuters reported that premiums for prompt benchmark oil prices globally are falling compared with those in future months on rising output from the Middle East, Latin America and Europe, just as peak summer demand US WTI oil contracts ended at $63.14, down by $0.82 or 1.28% while Brent oil futures were hovering near $65.85, higher by $0.71 or 1.06%.(Inputs from agencies)(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)
