Choose smart people over salary | Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT)

Key Concepts:

• Career decisions based on learning from smart people.
• Intuition about people over logical company analysis.
• Following talented individuals to specific companies.
• Organic career progression through showing up and doing what's needed.

Career Decisions Based on People, Not Companies:

The speaker emphasizes that all career choices, starting from their first job after college, were driven by identifying and working with intelligent individuals they admired and wanted to learn from. They explicitly state, "Every single career decisions I ever made, including my first one out of college, was just figuring out who are the smartest people I know that I want to like hang out with and learn from and can I work with them?" This approach prioritizes personal growth and mentorship over strategic company selection.

Intuition Over Logical Analysis:

The speaker admits a lack of expertise in traditional company analysis or predicting market trends. They state, "I don't know how to pick companies. I don't know how to really logically think through, you know, what space is going to take off or something like that." Instead, they rely on their intuition and judgment of people's abilities and potential.

Examples of Following Talent:

• Dropbox: The speaker followed the head teaching assistant from a class they were also teaching. This implies the teaching assistant possessed qualities the speaker admired and wanted to emulate.
• Instacart: The speaker followed "some of the smartest product people I knew." This suggests a deliberate pursuit of expertise in product development by aligning with individuals recognized for their skills in that area.
• OpenAI: The speaker's entry point was through Joanne, who recruited them after the speaker inquired about getting off the DALL-E waitlist. The initial interaction was a message to Joanne, and Joanne responded with an interview invitation. The speaker's initial role was operational, involving tasks like "fix the blinds" and "sending out NDAs."

Organic Career Progression at OpenAI:

The speaker's experience at OpenAI illustrates an organic career progression. Initially, they were involved in operational tasks. However, questioning the purpose of sending NDAs led them to user interaction, which aligned with their existing skills. They state, "I started asking, wait, why am I sending out NDAs? It's oh, so we could talk to users. And I was like, talking to users, that sounds like the thing I know how to do." This transition into product work was not planned but emerged from actively engaging with the tasks at hand and identifying opportunities to apply their strengths. The speaker concludes that their product work at OpenAI was "organic by just showing up and doing what had to be done."

Conclusion:

The speaker's career trajectory highlights a non-traditional approach to career planning. Instead of focusing on specific companies or industries, they prioritized learning from and working alongside talented individuals. This strategy, combined with a willingness to take on diverse tasks and identify opportunities, led to organic career growth and unexpected opportunities. The key takeaway is that focusing on people and being adaptable can be a successful path, even without a clear, pre-defined career plan.