# The Breakthroughs Needed for AGI Have Already Been Made: OpenAI Former Research Head Bob McGrew

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/training-data/the-breakthroughs-needed-for-agi-have-already-been-made-openai-former-research-head-bob-mcgrew
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/training-data/the-breakthroughs-needed-for-agi-have-already-been-made-openai-former-research-head-bob-mcgrew.md
Podcast: [Training Data](https://stenobird.com/podcast/training-data)
Published: 2025-06-17T09:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/CPUAI1197287200.mp3?updated=1750138681
Audio file: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/CPUAI1197287200.mp3?updated=1750138681
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/training-data/episodes/the-breakthroughs-needed-for-agi-have-already-been-made-openai-former-research-head-bob-mcgrew
Duration seconds: 2931

## Resource

As OpenAI's former Head of Research, Bob McGrew witnessed the company's evolution from GPT-3’s breakthrough to today's reasoning models. He argues that there are three legs of the stool for AGI—Transformers, scaled pre-training, and reasoning—and that the fundamentals that will shape the next decade-plus are already in place. He thinks 2025 will be defined by reasoning while pre-training hits diminishing returns. Bob discusses why the agent economy will price services at compute costs due to near-infinite supply, fundamentally disrupting industries like law and medicine, and how his children use ChatGPT to spark curiosity and agency. From robotics breakthroughs to managing brilliant researchers, Bob offers a unique perspective on AI’s trajectory and where startups can still find defensible opportunities. Hosted by: Stephanie Zhan and Sonya Huang, Sequoia Capital Mentioned in this episode: Solving Rubik’s Cube with a robot hand: OpenAI’s original robotics research Computer Use and Operator: Anthropic and OpenAI reasoning breakthroughs that originated with OpenAi researchers Skild and Physical Intelligence: Robotics-oriented companies Bob sees as well-positioned now Distyl: AI company founded by ex-Palintir alums to create enterprise workflows driven by proprietary data Member of the technical staff: Title at OpenAI designed to break down barriers between AI researchers and engineers Howie.ai: Scheduling app that Bob uses

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