Softmax

Softmax is the AI company Emmett Shear discusses in Founder Mode: Emmett Shear, Founder, Softmax & Twitch. Shear says he started the company after his brief OpenAI CEO experience pushed him toward the question of how to make AI robustly aligned with humanity.

In the source, Softmax’s core research question is whether agents can recognize collective belonging. Shear frames alignment as the ability to understand oneself, understand other agents, and recognize when one is part of a shared “we.” Softmax is therefore building simulations, benchmarks, and reinforcement-learning environments to observe whether agents can act as a group rather than only follow isolated instructions.

The episode also makes Softmax an organization-design case. Shear says the company began with him and Adam Goldstein, spent roughly a year with an unclear version of the current ideas, and became clearer after David Blumen proposed an architecture that matched the direction Shear thought the company needed. Softmax’s method emphasizes Learning Environment Centered AI Training: the environment, peer experience, and feedback setting matter as much as model architecture.

Connections

• Emmett Shear, Adam Goldstein, and David Blumen - founder and co-founder context from the source.
• OpenAI and OpenAI Board Crisis - catalyst context for Shear’s attention to AI.
• AI Collective Alignment, AI Alignment Governance, Agent RL, and Learning Environment Centered AI Training - alignment and training concepts tied to the company.
• Founder Mode, Founder Context Propagation, and AI Organization Design - operating concepts Shear links to his Softmax work.