Inside OpenAI: Coaching the People Creating AGI | Joe Hudson, Founder of The Art of Accomplishment

Jun 18, 2025

Joe Hudson, an executive coach for AI leaders at OpenAI and founder of The Art of Accomplishment, explores the profound emotions experienced within AI labs. He discusses the intensity of coaching in such an environment, drawing parallels to the birthing process filled with excitement and fear. Hudson emphasizes the importance of personal identity amid technological change and reframes uncertainty as a chance for freedom and growth. He shares insights on emotional resilience, conscious parenting in the age of AI, and cultivating a mindset that embraces iterative learning.

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00:00 / 00:00

Being In The Room For A New Kind Of Birth

Joe compares being inside OpenAI to being in the delivery room while a birth happens.
He emphasizes rapid growth, high stakes, and the mix of excitement and fear during that process.

00:00 / 00:00

Ask How To Be During Transformation

The critical question is how we want to be while AGI is created, not just what will happen after.
How we sit with societal transformation determines whether we grow or get crushed.

00:00 / 00:00

Grief Unlocks Transformation

Grief and identity collapse are natural responses to transformative technology.
Allowing grief opens the path to positive transformation and new freedom of identity.

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Joe Hudson is a coach who works with the executives building AGI at OpenAI.

From inside OpenAI, he witnesses the full spectrum of human emotion that comes with bringing something new into the world—the exhilaration, the terror, the weight of it all. He feels these emotions, too: He believes AI will eventually replace what he does as a coach.

But instead of fixating on that fear, Hudson is asking a deeper question: Who is he becoming in the meantime? He believes that moments like this—when we can feel the ground quiver—can be powerful catalysts for transformation, but only if we’re willing to face the uncertainty they bring.

In this episode of AI & I, Dan Shipper sits down with Hudson to talk about how he’s answering that question. They get into what happens when the thing you’ve built your life around might disappear, how to find who you are beneath your professional identity, and why Hudson believes intention is the key to growing with AI.

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Timestamps:

Introduction: 00:01:49
What it feels like inside the room where AGI is being built: 00:03:14
The most important question to ask yourself as AGI approaches: 00:08:15
The importance of sitting with uncertainty: 00:17:49
How Joe is preparing his daughters for a post-AGI world: 21:11:04
How we think, feel, and react; the three layers of human awareness: 27:25:01
Staying grounded while coaching the people shaping our future: 35:34:04
Why Joe doesn’t take things personally—even when the stakes are high: 42:44:03

Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

Joe Hudson: @FU_joehudson;
Learn more about the coaching and workshops that Joe runs: Art of Accomplishment