What I Saw at OpenAI’s Developer Day

I like to watch what people do when they think no one's looking.

That's the incredible thing about going to events like OpenAI's Dev Day: you get to see the things that the cameras don't pick up, and hear the things that don't get said on stage. 

It was all crowds, concrete, fast wifi, and LED lights. A magic show for AI nerds like me. 

I waded through the crowd doing my patented FCO: Furtive Conference Ogle. I would see someone maybe-famous—Roon, say, or Karpathy, or Kevin Roose—and quickly glance down at their badge and back up at their face before they could give me a look like, "Hey, my eyes are up here, buddy!" 

I usually sit near the back at events, but at Dev Day I made sure to get a seat at the front. I wanted to see the magic up close.

Sam Altman walked on stage and greeted the crowd. I could see the taut, contained, nervous energy in his face and body as he performed. I could feel the hours of practice in his delivery. After a short opening monologue, Sam introduced a video of creative professionals, developers, and regular people talking about how they use ChatGPT. The lights dimmed, he stepped off to the side, and the video started. Everyone was watching the video, but I was watching Sam.

He was standing alone in the shadows on the corner of the stage. He was wearing dark jeans and Adidas x LEGO collab sneakers in primary colors. His hands were folded in front of him, and he stared intently at the floor. Sam is intense and always “on.” But on the side of the stage, listening to the video being played, he was unpracticed and unstudied. I felt like I had caught a magician’s left hand as he maneuvered a hidden coin, while the audience watched his right hand waving.

Seeing a magician's secret temporarily breaks their spell. But it also creates a new kind of magic: you see the magician as a human being. Eating, breathing, putting their pants on one leg at a time, and making magic all the same.