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

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Jun 18, 2025

Joe Hudson, a coach for OpenAI executives, discusses the emotional rollercoaster of creating AGI. He reveals how the anxiety of potentially being replaced by AI prompts profound self-reflection. Hudson highlights the parallels between personal growth and the transformative journey of AI development, emphasizing compassion and resilience. He also delves into emotional intelligence's role in decision-making, the significance of self-trust, and the balance between responsibility and love in navigating life's complexities. Hudson's insights encourage embracing uncertainty as a catalyst for transformation.

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00:00 / 00:00

Feeling Inside AGI's Birthroom

Joe Hudson compares the experience inside OpenAI to a hospital during childbirth.
He describes rapid growth, intense change, and the feeling of bringing something new into the world.

00:00 / 00:00

All Humanity in AI Labs

People inside and outside AI labs share the full spectrum of emotions about AI development.
The key question is how we want to be during AGI's creation, not just what happens after.

00:00 / 00:00

Grief Fuels Transformation and Freedom

Grief experienced due to AI replacing coaching roles is a necessary part of transformation.
Identity collapses can create freedom when one moves beyond professional 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: 00:21:11
How we think, feel, and react; the three layers of human awareness: 00:27:25
Staying grounded while coaching the people shaping our future: 00:35:34
Why Joe doesn’t take things personally—even when the stakes are high: 00:42:44

Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

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