Airbnb CEO gave me hours of advice on growing OpenAI [Video]

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says he leaned heavily on advice from his friend Brian Chesky — CEO and co-founder of Airbnb — after ChatGPT became a global phenomenon.

“A lot of people” offered to help Altman once ChatGPT launched and quickly surged in popularity in late 2022, but ultimately didn’t pitch in, he said in a joint interview with Chesky at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Wednesday.

Chesky, however, became a close confidant of Altman’s as the Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence company navigated its rapid ascendancy.

“Everything just went crazy for me,” Altman said. “Brian was the person who would just sit down with me, for like three hours every other week, and give me a list and say, ‘Here’s the five things you got to do now. Here’s where you’re behind, here’s what you’re screwing up, here’s what you got to proactively do, here’s what you got to think about.'”

Chesky was “almost always right,” Altman added. “I …