a16z Podcast
AI models feel smarter than their real-world impact. They ace benchmarks, yet still struggle with reliability, strange bugs, and shallow generalization. Why is there such a gap between what they can do on paper and in practice
In this episode from The Dwarkesh Podcast, Dwarkesh talks with Ilya Sutskever, cofounder of SSI and former OpenAI chief scientist, about what is actually blocking progress toward AGI. They explore why RL and pretraining scale so differently, why models outperform on evals but underperform in real use, and why human style generalization remains far ahead.
Ilya also discusses value functions, emotions as a built-in reward system, the limits of pretraining, continual learning, superintelligence, and what an AI driven economy could look like.
Resources:
Transcript: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ilya-sutsk…
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast…
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7naO…
Stay Updated:
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends!
Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16z
Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z
Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX
Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711
Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg
Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures](http://a16z.com/disclosures.
Stay Updated:
Find a16z on X
Find a16z on LinkedIn
Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify
Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts
Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg
Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Are ISAs the Solution to Student Debt?
A bold proposal: You go to college for free, then pay back the school after graduation—but only if you get a job in your field of study and make a high enough salary to afford…
Shonda Rhimes on How to Create Stories (and Products) People Want
Hollywood and Silicon Valley seem so different, but are more alike than we think. What challenges do tech startup founders and other creative founders — like showrunners and executive producers — similarly face? Both have…
The Journey from 0 to 1, from Mosaic to Netscape
As part of a new series where we will share select a16z partner appearances on other podcasts with our audience here, this episode is cross-posted from the new show Starting Greatness — featuring interviews with…
Direct Listings, Myths and Facts
We’ve covered a lot of the strategic financing milestones for startups seeking to build a sustainable and enduring business — from mindsets for startup fundraising to when and how to build a finance functionwith a…
The Stories and Code of Culture Change
There are some common tropes that can kill your company culture — whether it’s that corporate values can be weaponized; “fake it til you make it”; the “reality distortion fields” of visionaries vs. liars; and…
Of Container Ships, Supply Chains, and Retail
This podcast rerun — first recorded over two and a half years ago, now being rerun as one of our evergreen classics on the tails of the world’s largest designated shopping days (Black Friday, Singles…
Nursing Today, From the Bedside and Beyond
“Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon”, diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld once observed — and that may be more true today than ever before. For…
How We Podcast
“Hi everyone, welcome to the a16z Podcast…” … and welcome to our 500th episode, where, for the first time, we reveal behind-the-scenes details and the backstory of how we built this show, and the broader…
Brand Building Ideas… and People
Many technical founders, academics, and other experts often believe that great products — or great ideas! — sell themselves, without any extra effort or marketing. But in reality, they often need PR (public relations). The…
Come for the Games, Stay for the Party
The games industry is in the midst of a tectonic shift. Powered by platform convergence, games-as-a-service, and user-generated content, modern video games—what we call next-generation games—are unlike anything we’ve seen before. In the past decade,…
