OpenAI Executives Look For These 3 Key Traits in New Hires: 'It's Actually My Advice to Students' These traits matter more than a Ph.D or formal schooling in AI, say the executives.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Dan Bova
Key Takeaways
- OpenAI leaders seek three key traits in new hires: curiosity, agency, and adaptability.
- OpenAI’s head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, said on an episode of the OpenAI podcast last week that curiosity was “the number one thing” he prioritizes in new hires.
- In the same episode, OpenAI’s chief research officer, Mark Chen, said that agency and adaptability were more important than having a Ph.D in AI.
What kinds of skills do OpenAI leaders look for in new hires?
OpenAI's head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, and chief research officer, Mark Chen, tackled this question on an episode of the OpenAI podcast released last week. It turns out that the two OpenAI executives don't seek out an Ivy League educational background or AI breakthroughs in new hires. Instead, they search for more intrinsic traits: curiosity, agency, and adaptability.
"Hiring is hard, especially if you want to have a small team that is very, very good and humble, and able to move fast," Turley admitted on the podcast. "I think curiosity has been the number one thing that I've looked for, and it's actually my advice to students when they ask me, 'What do I do in this world where everything's changing?'"
There's still so much that AI researchers have yet to learn about the technology that approaching its development requires "a certain amount of humility," Turley said.
He explained that building AI is less about knowing the right answers and more about knowing how to ask the right questions with an innate curiosity.
Turley looks for new hires who are "deeply curious" about the world and what OpenAI does.
Related: Goldman Sachs CIO Says Coders Should Take Philosophy Classes — Here's Why
Chen agreed with Turley and added that he looks for agency in new hires, or the ability to find problems and fix them with little oversight. He also searches for adaptability, or a willingness to adjust to a fast-changing environment.
"You need to be able to quickly figure out what's important and pivot to what you need to do," Chen stated.
Chen noted that agency and adaptability were more important than having a Ph.D in AI. He said that he himself joined OpenAI in 2018 as a resident without much formal AI training.
"I think this is a field that people can pick up fairly quickly," Chen said.
There are other skills that other executives have pinpointed as essential in the age of AI. Alexandr Wang, the MIT dropout who co-founded data training startup Scale AI and now leads Meta's AI efforts, noted in an interview with WaitWhat media CEO Jeff Berman last year that prompt engineering was an important skill to have. He recommended studying fields like math and physics that emphasized long-term thought.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs' chief information officer, Marco Argenti, wrote in a post last year in the Harvard Business Review that he recommended studying philosophy in addition to engineering.
OpenAI was worth $300 billion as of March, following a record-breaking $40 billion fundraising round, the biggest tech funding round on record from a private company.
