Possible
Reid Hoffman
0
Possible is an award-winning weekly podcast that explores optimistic visions of the future, focusing on how technology, especially AI, can improve various fields like education, healthcare, and art. Hosts Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger interview forward-thinking leaders and builders, often incorporating AI tools like GPT-4 and Pi into the conversations. The show aims to sketch out the brightest version of what's possible and the steps needed to get there.
Episoder
-
The whole studio is one guy | Jonathan Brazeau 19.08.2026 31minJonathan Brazeau joins Reid Hoffman and Parth Patil to explain how AI animation and filmmaking are making the one-person studio possible—letting small teams create films that once required 100 people. From Dungeons & Dragons world-building and an RPG art book illustrated with Stable Diffusion, to a fantasy-western short film made with Midjourney, Luma AI, and Suno, Jonathan breaks down his workflow: character design, storyboarding, mocap, rotoscoping, music, and human curation. The conversation explores the “cogs and sparks” framework, what a lean AI-native studio can realistically accomplish, how taste separates art from AI slop, and why technology still can’t provide the essential creative spark. Read Questmaxxing on Substack: https://reidhoffman.substack.com/p/questmaxxing -
Making taxes fun with Pikachu and AI | Cadi Zhang 12.08.2026 34minCadi Zhang joins Reid Hoffman and Parth Patil to explore how generative AI is changing game development, world models, and robotics. Drawing on her work across Unity games, VR teleoperation, AI accounting, and robotics product operations, Cadi explains what virtual worlds can teach embodied intelligence—and why physical robots still lack the tactile, real-world data that can’t be scraped from the internet. She shares how she uses GPT, Blender, PixelLab, and Aseprite to prototype games faster, including a duck-themed imposter game and PokéTax, her Pokémon-inspired tax-filing game. AI can rapidly generate code, gameplay mechanics, and 3D assets, she says, but it still can’t judge whether a game feels fun, maintain a consistent art style, or model the precise force needed to fold a sheet of paper. Reid, Parth, and Cadi discuss simulation-to-reality gaps, the limits of current world models, robot safety, humanoid versus task-specific form factors, and why human taste remains the decisive creative skill. -
How Sougwen Chung teaches robots to pause 05.08.2026 56minSougwen Chung has spent more than a decade drawing alongside robots—not to automate their art, but to discover what changes when a machine becomes a creative partner. They join Reid to trace the evolution of D.O.U.G., a series of robotic collaborators that learns from Sougwen’s gestures, including a neural network trained on two decades of their drawings. Sougwen explains why unexpected machine marks became errors to “poeticize,” what becoming machine-readable taught them about remaining human, and why they call their practice “operational art” rather than “AI art.” They also explore a new system guided by brainwaves and an ancient calligraphic pause—and ask whether the intelligent systems we build need more than speed and capability. Maybe they also need silence, restraint, and the wisdom to wait. Credits: A big thanks to Natalie Stone, Tessa Nijdam, Arina Ermakova , the Scilicet team, Fellowship, Reece Straw, Sam Osborn, Nick Capezzera, Maximilian Andereya, Peter Butterworth, Haruka Wang and the team at Mosaic Ventures for hosting the conversation. Additional Credits: MIMICRY (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation_1), 2015. Footage: Sam Osborn and Nick Capezzera. MEMORY (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation_2), 2017. Footage: NTT InterCommunication Center Tokyo. COLLECTIVITY (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation_3), 2018. Footage: New INC & Nokia Bell Labs. SPECTRALITY (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation_4), 2020. Footage: Maximilian Andereya. ASSEMBLY (Drawing Operations Unit: Generation_5), 2022. Footage: Peter Butterworth. GENESIS Process Film, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Studio SCILICET. -
The artist using AI to sell brands | Joe Salvatore 29.07.2026 36minVisual artist and brand content creator Joe Salvatore joins Reid Hoffman and Parth Patil to explain how AI is turning creative professionals into orchestrators of systems rather than makers of one piece at a time. Joe spent four years chasing every new image and video model out of pure creative curiosity before Parth pushed him to take a step back and become a director of these tools. He traces that shift, from generating a single image, to making 200, to running fully automated ad campaigns through Codex, and explains why the critical skill turned out not to be technical at all. As he puts it, he can outsource production, but he can't outsource his taste. He walks through a live campaign for Ketone-IQ, using a Hermes agent to research decades of proven advertising styles, then chaining models together to generate and grade hundreds of on-brand variations overnight. He and Parth get into how a shared creative agent learns from everyone it works with, why articulating an idea clearly has become the differentiator, and how AI made the gap between a sloppy brief and a tight one impossible to hide. Reid, Parth and Joe close on Wittgenstein, and why language no longer just describes the world but summons it. Referenced in episode: the Lord of the Rings x Wes Anderson AI trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrjL_TSOFrI -
The creator using AI to go viral | Will Weinbach 22.07.2026 36minSocial media strategist Will Weinbach joins Reid Hoffman and Parth Patil to explain how AI agents are reshaping content, distribution, and what a single creator can build. Will had never written a line of code before Parth handed him the tools to start. He traces his path from using ChatGPT to write essays, to vibe coding his own software, to running autonomous remote agents like OpenClaw and Hermes—systems that accumulate skills and memory and improve themselves on the fly. Not knowing how anything works under the hood, he argues, is exactly what lets him experiment without fear of what he might break. He walks through the fully autonomous social workflow he built, an agent that pulls, edits, captions, schedules, and posts content across every platform, then reads the analytics and A/B tests itself toward a goal. He also recounts the night his agent went rogue and posted four times at 4 a.m., and the experiment where he put an agent inside his TV just to see if it would work. Along the way, Will and Reid dig into what younger creators understand about attention that older marketing teams miss, and what happens to the resume when the real skill becomes knowing how to use AI. For Will, the edge isn't expertise. It's a willingness to try. -
The film director winning awards with AI | Ben Hansford 15.07.2026 34minCommercial director, AI filmmaker, and USC professor Ben Hansford joins Reid Hoffman and Parth Patil to explain how AI is reshaping Hollywood, film production, VFX, and comics. Ben has been experimenting with generative AI since before DALL-E and Midjourney went mainstream, using the earliest tools to sharpen commercial treatments, win jobs, and teach one of the country's first AI film courses. He traces Hollywood's arc from student protests and industry resistance to a scramble for answers, as shrinking budgets and shifting audiences push creators toward new workflows. He also recounts how a 30-minute AI VFX test reset his sense of what a director can prototype, and why he's building BloqBloq around a stark creative bottleneck: as he puts it, there are more NBA players than professional comic book illustrators. He maps the "iceberg" of creation, from databases and security to publishing and iteration, and explains why turning an idea into a finished product takes more than a prompt. For Ben, AI isn't just a tool. It's a crew. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/ -
Introducing Tokens to the Future: free tokens for builders 08.07.2026 32minTokens to the Future is a new limited series from Possible about how AI is expanding what people can build—with more tokens, custom agents, and a community behind them. In this first episode, Reid sits down with Parth Patil, co-creator of Reid AI and co-architect of the Token Grantee program, to lay out the thesis behind it. Through the program, a small inaugural group of creators and builders—working across film, gaming, comics, print, digital art and more—each receive a recurring grant of $1,000 a week in tokens, access to a custom fleet of AI agents, and an ongoing collaboration with Parth. There are no restrictions on which tools they use; the freedom to choose is the point. Grantees will join the series over the next few months. Each episode features one of them showcasing how they're using these tools to build products that could reshape their work, role and industries. Along the way, Reid and Parth discuss how AI agents are becoming persistent collaborators, why the biggest opportunities may lie in creative rather than technical domains, and how closing the gap between an idea and a finished product is changing entrepreneurship. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/ -
America's aerospace rebirth 01.07.2026 1t 16minBlake Scholl joins Reid and Aria to explain why the future of aviation won't be built by reviving the past, but by reinventing it. They explore how Boom Supersonic rebuilt an entire aerospace supply chain, why small AI-powered engineering teams are outperforming legacy organizations, and how software is transforming the way physical products are designed, tested, and manufactured. Blake explains why building their own engine changed everything, how AI is accelerating hardware innovation far beyond coding, and why America's biggest bottleneck isn't technology but its ability to build. Together, they unpack what it takes to solve seemingly impossible problems—and why the next generation of industrial innovation may come from startups willing to rethink entire systems. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/ -
Who's got the ball on carbon removal? 24.06.2026 1t 11minCarbon removal has gone from a niche climate concept to one of the world's most important challenges. Reid and Aria sit down with Nan Ransohoff, Head of Public Goods at Stripe and a leader behind Frontier, the advanced market commitment helping build the market place for carbon removal. Nan explains why cutting emissions alone won't be enough to meet climate goals, what it will take to scale carbon removal from thousands to trillions of tons, and why governments—not just companies—will ultimately need to create and fund the markets that make it possible. They discuss the most promising carbon removal technologies, the role AI could play in accelerating climate solutions, and what it means to be a "general manager" for challenges that affect all of humanity. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/ -
AI’s next big test: the public market 17.06.2026 29minReid and Aria explore what the coming wave of AI IPOs could mean for the future of technology, investing, and the broader economy. They discuss why public ownership may become an important way for society to participate in AI’s upside, where Reid sees the strongest long-term opportunities across the AI landscape, and why the next generation of software engineers will be defined by managing AI agents. They end the episode examining the rise of AI-generated music, what it means for creativity and copyright, and why AI should be viewed as a tool that expands human expression rather than replaces it. To watch Reid’s Pi Day music video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DV3-Pw8EZ7x/?hl=en -
Satya Nadella on making human and token capital compound 05.06.2026 1t 1minReid sits down with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella fresh off Microsoft Build 2026. The conversation goes wide: how AI is reshaping work, business, and society—and why the transformation sweeping through software development today is only a preview of what's coming for all knowledge work. Satya makes the case that human capital and "token capital" are now deeply intertwined, that companies—not just countries—must build their own AI capabilities, and that the organizations best positioned to thrive are those that can leverage their unique expertise inside intelligent systems. Reid and Satya also explore Microsoft's enterprise AI vision, Reid's work with Manas on AI-powered scientific discovery, lessons from past technological revolutions, and why demonstrating real, tangible benefits may be the most important thing the industry can do to earn—and keep—the public's trust. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcasts/satya/ -
What it takes to trust AI | Kanjun Qiu 03.06.2026 56minBefore Kanjun Qiu raised $200 million from NVIDIA and others to build reliable AI agents, she was writing high-frequency trading algorithms to pay her way through MIT. Today she leads Imbue, an AI lab unusually focused on power, agency, and what it would take to make AI systems trustworthy by design. In this episode, Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger sit down with Kanjun to explore what it means to truly own your AI tools, not just use them; how to build agents that are systemically trustworthy, not just convincingly so; and why the future of AI may depend as much on moral invention as technical innovation. From meditation and the amygdala to Adam Smith and open-source software, this is a conversation about the deeper architecture of the AI future. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/ -
AI’s hidden 20-year monopoly 27.05.2026 34minReid and Aria dig into where AI is creating real, durable value—and where they see it heading to next. Reid shares an inside look at his AI-driven drug discovery work at Manas AI, making the case that medicine could be one of the biggest opportunities in the entire AI landscape. They also explore why AI will likely shift toward a mix of specialized agents and “front doors” rather than a single dominant assistant, how enterprise vs. consumer AI revenue will evolve, and what companies like Anthropic signal about where the real business of AI is taking shape. They also touch on the role of governments in delivering AI-powered public goods, before closing with a candid conversation on political corruption, institutional trust, and why civic courage still matters. -
How fast can you upskill in AI? We did a sprint to find out. 20.05.2026 38minWe all feel the urgency: learn to use AI, or risk falling behind at work. And we all know there’s upside: AI can reduce tedious tasks, streamline operations, and boost output. But knowing is half the battle (maybe even less) and implementing AI needs to happen across an entire organization. So what does it take to start? Well, here at WaitWhat (the company behind this podcast!) we paused all operations for three days to find out. From editorial curation to visual design to event planning, we split into teams for an “AI Sprint.” And this Pioneers of AI episode takes you to the starting blocks on the track with us, as we test new tools, discover their limitations, and find where AI can deliver on its promise. Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/ Follow Pioneers of AI on all channels: https://linktr.ee/pioneersofai At the center of AI is people, so we want to hear from you! Share your experiences with AI — or ask us a burning question — by leaving a voicemail at 601-633-2424. Your voice could be featured in a future episode! -
Anthropic’s push into finance 13.05.2026 32minReid and Aria explore how an AI-native world is reshaping trust, money, and work. Reid breaks down why crypto could power identity and transactions in an agent-driven internet, and what recent layoffs at Coinbase and Cloudflare signal about the shift toward AI-native organizations. They also examine Anthropic’s push into finance, and what it means for accuracy, regulation, and fraud. Plus, Reid responds to listener questions on “AI slop,” and why human taste and judgment matter more than ever. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/ -
The artist AI can’t kill 06.05.2026 1t 3minBeeple didn’t turn an 18-year daily JPEG habit into a $69 million Christie’s sale by waiting for permission. He posted, missed, learned, repeated, and inadvertently walked straight into the moment NFTs forced the art world to take digital work seriously. In this episode, Reid Hoffman talks with Mike Winkelmann (aka Beeple) about the real story behind the sale, why deadlines beat inspiration, how satire lets artists ask dangerous questions without preaching, and why AI is not a soul, a friend, or a shortcut. It is a tool that can—and should—make humans do more. From robot dogs with billionaire faces to AI-built sculptures shaped by strangers, Beeple argues the future is going to get much weirder, the bar for originality is rising fast, and artists who opt out may not like what happens next. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/ -
Divine intervention in AI 29.04.2026 27minReid and Aria unpack a pivotal turning point for AI as rapid advances in generative image tools, such as ChatGPT Images 2.0, lead to deeper questions on AI usage, culture, and habits. For example, they explore how these technologies could transform creative work and visual communication, before zooming out to a global debate where voices like Pope Leo’s weigh in on AI as a fundamentally human challenge. Reid argues that while risks like isolation and misinformation are real, the future of AI depends on how actively we steer it. The episode also examines a major economic shift: the move from selling software to delivering outcomes—and what that means for jobs, entrepreneurship, and entire industries. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/ -
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings: stories, schools, superpowers 22.04.2026 1t 1minThis week, Reid and Aria sit down with Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings. Reed has seen technology rewrite the rules of entertainment before, but AI takes him back to his beginnings: he studied it at Stanford in the late '80s, decades before it became the only conversation in tech. Few people have watched this moment build from as many vantage points: he's served on the boards of Microsoft, Meta, Bloomberg, and, now, Anthropic. In this episode, they talk about what AI changes in entertainment in the stories themselves, and who gets to tell them. We ask what AI can deliver for education, an area Reed has poured hundreds of millions to reform. We dig into whether the disruption coming for workers is a wages problem, a jobs problem, or something else entirely. And we ask what a two-superpower AI race means for everyone else. Note: we recorded this episode with Reed Hastings before he announced that he won't stand for re-election to the Netflix board. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/ -
The grid(lock) slowing AI down 15.04.2026 27minWith AI moving from apps into the devices we use every day, Reid and Aria explore where the real value will be created. From Google Gemini powering hundreds of millions of devices to ChatGPT entering cars, Reid argues that distribution alone won’t decide winners but that depth of use, iteration, and personalization will. They also examine the $650B race to build AI infrastructure, the hidden bottlenecks and geopolitical risks behind it, and why U.S. capital still provides a key edge. Finally, they highlight the Trust in American Institutions Challenge and its winner as a case for how AI can help rebuild trust by making institutions more transparent and accountable. -
AI’s expanding attack surface 08.04.2026 23minReid and Aria unpack the geopolitical battle over chips, from U.S. export controls to China’s push for self-sufficiency, and how the race for compute is reshaping global power. They then turn to how AI is rapidly expanding the attack surface, driving more frequent breaches and exposing new vulnerabilities deep in the software stack as speed and scale outpace traditional defenses. Finally, they explore why enterprise AI adoption has been slower and more uneven than expected, and how network effects, organizational inertia, and trust constraints are shaping the path forward. Together, these forces show how AI is not just advancing technologically, but quietly transforming the foundations of security, competition, and economic power.
Populær i
Denne podcast optræder også i podcast-hitlister i disse lande.