229: The 22nd AI's "small act of kindness"

San Francisco, 10:00 AM.

A small meeting room, with a long table taking up most of the space.

There were a few potted plants by the window; one had yellowing leaves with scorched, curled edges.

The curtains were half-drawn, allowing sunlight to leak through the gap and cast a long, bright streak across the dark tabletop.

Li Xin arrived right on time—not early, not late.

Eight or nine people were already seated, scattered on both sides of the long table.

He nodded slightly to a stranger nearby and walked straight to an empty seat in the middle of the table.

On the table sat a bottle of pure water and a bound meeting document with a simple, clean black cover.

The man diagonally opposite turned his face, his tone polite and enthusiastic: "Mr. Li, where did you fly in from?"

Li Xin unscrewed the cap and took a small sip: "Shenzhen."

"That's quite far. It's much cooler here than back home, isn't it?"

"It is indeed much cooler," Li Xin replied calmly. "It's stuffy and hot in Shenzhen right now, enough to make it hard to breathe."

After the brief exchange, both men lowered their heads to scroll through their phones, without further conversation.

Li Xin flipped through his social media feed, saw someone showing off a kitten, and gave it a like; his fingertips slid across the screen, calm and indifferent.

At the end of the long table, Sam Altman was looking down at his documents, whispering something to the assistant beside him.

He was wearing a navy shirt today, with the top two buttons undone, looking slightly more relaxed than usual.

However, his brows were furrowed with a hint of gloom, and he looked far from relaxed.

At 10:00 AM sharp, the meeting began on time.

Altman stood up without taking the microphone.

In the quiet meeting room, his voice landed clearly.

He spoke at a measured pace about the company's current predicament, rambling for five or six minutes, but the core was just one thing: why OpenAI had to shift from a purely non-profit model to a brand-new operational structure.

His speech was steady, though there were almost no pauses between sentences; it was evident that he was very anxious.

"We are already standing at a crossroads."

He scanned the room, his tone steady yet helpless.

"Maintaining the status quo, we cannot afford the R&D funds for the next generation of AI models.

Full commercialization, however, violates our original intentions from the beginning."

After finishing, he slowly sat down and handed the floor to the legal counsel beside him.

The lawyer stood up, opened the thick document, and clearly dismantled the legal framework of the new "capped-profit" model.

From equity structure and profit distribution to authority control and ownership arrangements, the details were covered comprehensively.

The terminology was professional and precise, the pace unhurried, with not a single wasted word.

Li Xin listened quietly for a moment, then glanced down at his phone.

An appliance promotion ad popped up on the screen; he scanned it, closed it decisively, and placed the phone face down on the table.

The moment the lawyer finished speaking, voices of opposition immediately arose.

At the other end of the long table, a middle-aged investor with graying hair and silver-rimmed glasses spoke up with a heavy British accent, his tone filled with clear disapproval.

"I acknowledge that the company needs to manage its capital, but turning a purely non-profit organization into an entity with profit-seeking attributes is overturning our initial promise.

How are we supposed to answer to the first batch of investors who trusted and supported us?"

Altman did not immediately refute.

He listened quietly to the other party's questioning, leaned forward slightly, placed his hands lightly on the table, and looked calm.

"We are not abandoning our promise; we are just leaving ourselves a way to survive."

"If we don't make this adjustment, we won't even have the capital for R&D iteration.

By then, we won't even have the qualifications to talk about original intentions or betrayals."

The investor with the British accent shook his head in silence and said no more.

Immediately after, a young investor took over, speaking quickly and hitting the core.

"How do we mitigate risks? With the introduction of the capped-profit structure, after external capital enters, how will control be divided?

Who exactly holds the final decision-making power?"

The lawyer stood up again to interpret the details of control distribution.

Fearing that everyone might not understand, he even flipped to the appendix of the document and read out the specific clauses word for word, talking for seven or eight minutes.

Everyone in the room listened intently, except for Li Xin, who leaned back against his chair, his gaze falling on the blank whiteboard behind the lawyer.

The whiteboard was completely clean, with nothing written on it.

He stared into space for a few seconds, then looked down at his phone again.

A food delivery coupon notification popped up; he scanned it lightly, didn't click, didn't claim it, and placed his phone face down again.

This debate lasted for over an hour.

Some agreed with the transformation to break the deadlock, some stuck to their original intentions and opposed commercialization, and others proposed compromise solutions.

The atmosphere wasn't exactly hostile, but it was exceptionally grueling.

Many topics went around in circles, returning to the starting point, with the same disagreements being dragged out and discussed repeatedly with different phrasing.

Altman's expression remained unchanged throughout, handling it calmly.

But Li Xin could tell he was much more anxious than at the start.

The frequency of his drinking water had clearly increased.

The water glass by his hand was picked up for a sip every few minutes, and the water level in the cup was visibly dropping rapidly.

There was a short break midway.

Some people got up to get coffee, some stood by the window to make calls, and others gathered in twos and threes to exchange views in low voices.

Li Xin didn't move, sitting securely in his original seat, and scrolled through his phone again.

Chen Hu sent a message: The car is parked downstairs, ready at any time.

He replied with a simple "Good," locked his screen, placed the phone face down on the table again, and waited quietly for the meeting to resume.

The meeting continued, with the topic shifting to implementation.

How to bridge the transition period, whether the core team could remain stable, whether there were alternative plans if the transformation failed... countless questions followed one after another, layer upon layer of questioning.

Altman and the lawyer took turns answering, their tones gradually revealing a hint of imperceptible urgency.

Soon, it reached the final voting stage.

The atmosphere in the meeting room dropped instantly.

The voting document was passed slowly along the long table from one end to the other.

Everyone held their pens, hesitating to write.

Some stared at the signature column in long hesitation, some flipped back to the previous pages to re-check every controversial clause.

The whole room was so quiet that only the faint sound of paper turning could be heard.

When the document reached Li Xin's hands, the surroundings inexplicably fell silent for a moment.

He looked down at the paper, scanned the dense clauses, and his gaze fell on the final signature page, without moving his pen immediately.

The investor next to him glanced at him quietly, then quickly withdrew his gaze, not making a sound, observing from below.

After a while, Li Xin raised his eyes and looked at Altman at the other end of the long table; his voice was not loud, but it could be heard clearly in the quiet meeting room.

"Are you sure you can pull off this model?"

Altman raised his eyes to meet his gaze, his tone steady: "I am."

The two stared at each other for a few seconds without speaking.

Li Xin withdrew his gaze, looked back at the paper, his tone steady and without fluctuation: "Alright then, I trust you."

He picked up his pen, slowly circled the "Agree" column, and signed his name decisively.

The tip of the pen brushed across the paper with a few rustling sounds.

After signing, he pushed the document gently to the person beside him and tossed out a sentence: "I think it'll work."

The three words were light, like casual gossip, sounding weightless.

The investor next to him, who was still hesitating, stared at the signature on the paper, paused, and then picked up his pen to sign as well.

The document continued to pass down, and the speed suddenly increased a lot.

Many people who were originally hesitant and watching only glanced at the signature column and then signed decisively.

Three minutes—three minutes of dead silence.

The paper passed silently, the soft sounds of pen tips hitting paper came one after another, and then slowly returned to calm.

The final voting document was returned to Altman's hands.

He looked down, quickly scanned the full page of signatures, closed the document, and placed it gently on the corner of the table.

His back, which had been tense throughout the entire meeting, finally relaxed slightly, and he let out a long breath.

His entire aura softened instantly.

"Thank you, everyone."

His voice was much lower than before, carrying the fatigue and relief of having a heavy burden lifted.

The meeting ended, and everyone left one after another.

At the door, some were whispering, some were carrying briefcases and hurrying to the elevator, and others were stopping in the hallway to reply to messages.

Altman walked quickly to Li Xin's side and spoke solemnly: "Mr. Li, thank you."

"No need," Li Xin said, draping his coat over his forearm, his expression calm. "I believed in you from the beginning."

Altman nodded slightly, said nothing more, turned back to the conference table, took the voting document, and whispered to his assistant about follow-up work.

Li Xin walked toward the door.

When passing an investor who was packing up materials, that person didn't even lift his head and asked his colleague next to him: "What's the background of that young man who signed first just now?"

"He's the representative from Xinyuan Capital."

"What did he say just now that stabilized the situation?"

The colleague paused in his packing and replied softly: "Just four words."

"Which four words?"

"'I think it'll work.'"

The man was stunned upon hearing this, then sighed softly: "A few simple words, directly sealing the outcome of the whole situation."

Li Xin did not hear this conversation.

The air conditioning in the hallway was set very high, and the chill hit his face, much colder than in the meeting room.

His steps were light as he walked straight to the elevator.

Downstairs, Chen Hu had long been parked and waiting; the car engine was running, the air conditioning inside was at a constant temperature, and the warmth was just right.

Sitting in the back seat, Li Xin picked up his phone and saw a message from Altman, a simple two words: "Many thanks."

He casually replied with a handshake emoji and put the phone down indifferently.

The car slowly drove out of the parking lot; the afternoon sun slanted into the car window, falling on the center console armrest, warm and cozy.

Li Xin leaned against the seat, closed his eyes for a nap, with no waves in his heart.

He only felt that this long meeting had finally ended; signing a name, taking a stance, that was all.

To him, it was nothing more than a small effort.

Because he knew that a year later, OpenAI's valuation would skyrocket, far exceeding everyone's expectations from back then.

In an industry group, someone forwarded an in-depth review article, specifically analyzing that crucial transformation meeting.

The article emphasized: The success of that difficult transformation depended on the core vote of an anonymous early investor.

The long-winded analysis boiled down to one sentence: Without this vote to anchor it, OpenAI's structural reform would likely have been completely stranded.

At that time, Li Xin was sitting and eating takeout.

He swiped the screen a few times, didn't click to read it in detail, exited the page directly, lowered his head to continue eating, and didn't take it to heart at all.

Months later, Altman mentioned the transformation dilemma of that year at an internal company meeting.

"There was a friend who firmly supported us from the beginning.

It was precisely because of him that we took the most critical step correctly."

This statement slowly leaked out of the venture capital circle, and countless people were curious and dug deep, finally only unearthing one name—Li Xin.

No photos, no detailed background, no public interviews; in search engines, his information was so thin it was almost blank, mysterious and low-key.

Later, at an industry gathering, a practitioner deeply involved in AI investment couldn't help but ask him to his face: "It's rumored in the circle that OpenAI's life-or-death transformation back then was decided by your key vote?"

Li Xin was peeling an orange in his hands, looked up upon hearing this, his tone flat and casual: "I just signed my name."

"Then why is it rumored to be so magical?"

"I don't know."

He finished peeling the orange, broke off a slice and put it in his mouth, and smiled faintly: "Perhaps they just think I have nice handwriting."

The other person was stunned for a moment, not knowing how to reply.

Li Xin wiped his hands, put down the orange, and took the opportunity to end the topic.

To him, that day was just a long meeting, signing, leaving, that was all.

But Altman always kept it in his heart.

In a subsequent exclusive interview, the host asked about the company's most critical turning point.

Altman paused in silence for a moment, then spoke slowly, his tone solemn and moved: "That afternoon, someone said to me, 'I think it'll work.' Just that one sentence saved the whole company."

After the interview report was published, Li Xin did not specifically go to watch it.

Two days later, a friend took a screenshot and forwarded it to him; he stared at the text for a few seconds, then locked his screen, put down his phone, and continued eating his lunch.

Outside the window, the sky was clear and the air was crisp, and the sunlight of San Francisco fell on the windowsill, gentle and warm, with years of peace.