ChatGPT was almost abandoned by OpenAI: Peter Thiel advises Optimus Prime to go all in

Perception Beat AI News Flash: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently revealed that although ChatGPT's initial launch in 2023 saw rapid growth, many within the company felt that this growth was "unstable," even resembling "low-value growth." No one was clear on what users were actually using it for, and there were doubts about the sustainability of this growth. At the time, Altman also listed another 5 or 6 directions to discuss with Peter Thiel.

Thiel advised him not to pivot. He likened ChatGPT to Google's search box from the early days, which had only a blank input field where you could ask anything. Thiel said that Silicon Valley had been chasing Google's business model for 20 years, and now something like this had finally emerged. Even though it didn't align with the prevailing product logic in Silicon Valley at the time, it was already experiencing rapid growth, so switching to something else at this point would be a "clear mistake."

After listening to Thiel, Altman decided to double down on ChatGPT. Looking back now, he describes this as Thiel's kind of "simple but incredibly important genius judgment."