a16z Podcast Amjad Masad & Adam D’Angelo: How Far Are We From AGI?
397 snips
Nov 7, 2025 
Adam D’Angelo, founder of Quora and CEO of Poe, believes we're just five years away from automating remote work, while Amjad Masad, founder and CEO of Replit, is skeptical about current LLMs matching human intelligence. They dive into the potential job market disruptions, highlighting a 'missing middle' where entry-level jobs vanish but human expertise remains crucial. The conversation touches on the rise of coding agents, the implications of AI on everyday life, and the fading focus on consciousness research amid rapid technological advancements.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Defining AGI As Remote Worker Level
- Adam D'Angelo expects models to reach typical remote-worker capability within a few years and calls that a useful AGI anchor point.
- He argues progress in reasoning, code gen, and context is rapid and doesn't require a new architecture.
Current Models Are Brute Force, Not Understanding
- Amjad Masad calls current LLM progress a brute-force regime requiring massive human engineering and data.
- He argues true scalable intelligence needs new algorithms, not just bigger models and more manual fixes.
Plan For Economic Bottlenecks
- If models can do human jobs cheaply, expect GDP growth beyond current trends, but only if costs fall enough.
- Prepare for bottlenecks like energy and supply chains that may delay economic impact.
