Salim Ismail
Founder of OpenExO and author on exponential organizations, co-host of Moonshots
Salim Ismail (Founder of OpenExO and author on exponential organizations, co-host of Moonshots) hosts Moonshots with Peter Diamandis. Topics they speak about most include Artificial general intelligence, Project Meridian, Decision models.
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
Artificial general intelligence
Ismail says roughly fifty major global institutions must be rebuilt for a positive AI future, and that his P(FAB) is close to 100% if that happens.
“There's about 50 major institutions by which we run the world. They pretty much all need this”
Moonshots with Peter Diamandis: Ask the Mates Anything Round #2 | MOONSHOTS AMA #293 (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 1:05:40
Ismail says narrowly focused PhD and master's candidates are effectively obsolete given current model capabilities.
“it means every PhD candidate and everybody studying a master's degree and a PhD in the world on a particular very narrow topic is essentially toast, cooked”
Moonshots with Peter Diamandis: Should we slow down AI progress? | MOONSHOTS #288 (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 1:07:01
Project Meridian
Ismail argues the Pentagon's main challenge is absorbing exponential technologies through slow procurement processes.
“Like you can't find exponential technology with linear procurement”
Moonshots with Peter Diamandis: Recursive's $670M Bet on Self-Improving AI, Sonnet 5.5 Hits 70%, Elon Co-Leads Pentagon Push | EP #299 (Oct 3, 2026) · Listen from 2:04:18
Decision models
Ismail argues most organizational decisions are fast system-one choices, so using full LLMs for them is wasteful and decision models are a big deal.
“trying to use an LLM for this is like trying to bring the Supreme Court together to decide which checkout line of the supermarket you should go to”
Moonshots with Peter Diamandis: Recursive's $670M Bet on Self-Improving AI, Sonnet 5.5 Hits 70%, Elon Co-Leads Pentagon Push | EP #299 (Oct 3, 2026) · Listen from 1:58:42
Higher education reform
Ismail argues universities cannot transform themselves because of their strong institutional immune system and that new universities must be created instead.
“So we'll have to create new universities that do that and then let that become the new gravity center over time”
Moonshots with Peter Diamandis: Ask the Mates Anything Round #2 | MOONSHOTS AMA #293 (Sep 22, 2026) · Listen from 38:23
AI alignment
Ismail criticizes AI labs for raising billions explicitly to build AGI and then expressing alarm about its consequences.
“You are building something to aim for this, and then you're raising your hand going, oh, my God, freaking out that it's coming. I mean, I call bullshit on this”
Moonshots with Peter Diamandis: Should we slow down AI progress? | MOONSHOTS #288 (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 53:57
AI existential risk
Ismail says his personal probability of AI-caused doom is about 0.1% and that even 10% odds would be acceptable.
“My personal PDoom is about 0.1%, in my opinion”
Moonshots with Peter Diamandis: Should we slow down AI progress? | MOONSHOTS #288 (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 34:18
Training data quality in machine learning
Ismail recounts a company whose spun-out data subsidiary was valued at roughly four times the parent company's value.
“the company's worth about $10 billion, about $8 billion, and the data subsidiary got valued at $32 billion”
Moonshots with Peter Diamandis: Should we slow down AI progress? | MOONSHOTS #288 (Sep 11, 2026) · Listen from 15:49
Podcasts hosted
- Moonshots with Peter Diamandis · 3 episodes in TMT
Appearances
Recursive's $670M Bet on Self-Improving AI, Sonnet 5.5 Hits 70%, Elon Co-Leads Pentagon Push | EP #299Moonshots with Peter Diamandis · Oct 3, 2026 · 2 h 27 min
Peter Diamandis and his co-hosts interview Richard Socher about Recursive's self-improving AI, ASI timelines, AI doomerism, new frontier models, and the Pentagon's Project Meridian.
Ask the Mates Anything Round #2 | MOONSHOTS AMA #293Moonshots with Peter Diamandis · Sep 22, 2026 · 1 h 27 min
Diamandis, Blundin, Wissner-Gross and Ismail answer audience questions on AI safety, universities, robotics, longevity, Europe and abundance.
Should we slow down AI progress? | MOONSHOTS #288Moonshots with Peter Diamandis · Sep 11, 2026 · 2 h 44 min
The Moonshots panel and Emad Mostaque debate AI safety resignations, P(doom), the Navier-Stokes solution, data as moat, GPU economics and AI-designed longevity drugs.
Often appears with
- Peter Diamandis · 3 shared episodes
- Alexander Wissner-Gross · 3 shared episodes
- Dave Blundin · 3 shared episodes
- Richard Socher · 1 shared episode
- Emad Mostaque · 1 shared episode