Ep 51: Former Chief Research Officer of OpenAI Bob McGrew - What Comes Next for AI?

In our new world of AI, few minds shine as brightly as Bob McGrew's. Until November Bob was the Chief Research Officer at OpenAI, and before that led Palantir’s engineering and product management for the first decade of its existence. He’s seen it all and we were fortunate to get his insights and vision for the future in one of my favorite episodes of Unsupervised Learning to date:

 

[0:00] Intro
[0:44] Debating AI Model Capabilities
[0:57] Inside vs Outside Perspectives on AI Progress
[1:39] Challenges in AI Pre-Training
[3:02] Reinforcement Learning and Future Models
[3:48] AI Progress in 2025
[5:58] New Form Factors for AI Models
[8:56] Reliability and Enterprise Integration
[18:14] Multimodal AI and Video Models
[24:05] The Future of Robotics
[32:46] The Complexity of Automating Jobs with AI
[34:08] AI in Startups: Tackling Boring Problems
[35:33] AI's Impact on Productivity and Consultants
[36:43] Traits of Top AI Researchers
[40:52] The Evolution of OpenAI's Mission
[46:57] The Challenges of Scaling AI
[49:16] The Future of AI and Human Agency
[54:47] AI in Social Sciences and Academia
[1:01:15] Reflections and Future Plans
[1:02:57] Quickfire

 

With your co-hosts:  

@jacobeffron  

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health  

@patrickachase  

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn  

@ericabrescia  

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)  

@jordan_segall  

- Partner at Redpoint

Jacob is an AI investor at Redpoint Ventures. He's led Redpoint's investments in companies like Abridge, Physical Intelligence & Legora. Follow Jacob on Twitter (@jacobeffron).

On Unsupervised Learning we probe the sharpest minds in AI in search for the truth about what's real today, what will be real in the future and what it all means for businesses and the world. If you're a builder, researcher or investor navigating the AI world, this podcast will help you deconstruct and understand the most important breakthroughs and see a clearer picture of reality. Subscribe to this show to stay up to date on our latest episodes.