Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny • Hacker News Board

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#41

Post by pesenti » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 8:42 AM UTC

MarkMc wrote: post #39

yrahmed wrote: post #33

I love Sam and just wish they would have used a different metaphor than "Manifest Destiny". Isn't manifest destiny what led to the genocide of native american populations?

That's iteresting. I was not aware of such a connotation - to me the term manifest destiny just meant "a destiny that can be clearly seen and that cannot be changed" [1]. Maybe the article's sub-editor was equally ignorant of 19th century US history. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/manifest%20destiny

No way. That's a deliberate choice of words and the parallel is actually pretty striking. From Wikipedia:

> In the 19th century, manifest destiny was a widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. There are three basic themes to manifest destiny:

The special virtues of the American people and their institutions

The mission of the United States to redeem and remake the west in the image of agrarian America

An irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#42

Post by mruniverse » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 8:42 AM UTC

lincolnq wrote: post #29

pesenti wrote: post #19

This quote from a YC Partner: > It’s all about founders. Facebook had Mark Zuckerberg, and MySpace had a bunch of monkeys. The kind of ubermensch/Ayn Rand rhetoric that makes me cringe.

Do you think it's wrong?

Doesn't seem true. Sounds like nerdy trash talk.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#43

Post by superbag » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 8:45 AM UTC

Sam Altman is an inspiration and a genius. YC is in great hands.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#44

Post by Artoemius » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 8:45 AM UTC

anewhnaccount wrote: post #37

loeber wrote: post #10

This was a pretty good article -- certainly one of the better portraits I've read of SA. However, I usually see better writing in the New Yorker. Take "as a result, the once nerdy Y Combinator is now aggressively geeky." What the hell does that mean? (Nothing.) OTOH, a few memorable quotes: > Growth masks all problems. (Steve Huffman) > Despite having raised a robust $1.6 million after Demo Day, the founders were rid…

Nerds are obsessive about and skilled at one thing. Geeks are good at academics in general.

Here's a post that tries to solve the geek vs nerd argument with Science!: https://slackprop.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/on-geek-versus-ne...

P.S. The mandatory xkcd link: https://xkcd.com/747/

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#45

Post by dang » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 8:48 AM UTC

superbag wrote: post #43

Sam Altman is an inspiration and a genius. YC is in great hands.

Personal attacks aren't allowed here. You poison HN by doing so, and we want this place to be better than that. I'm sure you know that.

Please don't create accounts to break the site guidelines with.

Edit: In case anyone is confused, the parent comment has been edited several times. This has crossed into outright abuse, so we're going to ban the account.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#46

Post by jwdunne » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 8:50 AM UTC

pesenti wrote: post #41

MarkMc wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's iteresting. I was not aware of such a connotation - to me the term manifest destiny just meant "a destiny that can be clearly seen and that cannot be changed" [1]. Maybe the article's sub-editor was equally ignorant of 19th century US history. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/manifest%20destiny

No way. That's a deliberate choice of words and the parallel is actually pretty striking. From Wikipedia: > In the 19th century, manifest destiny was a widely held belief in the United States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. There are three basic themes to manifest destiny: The special virtues of the American people and their institutions The mission of the United States to redeem and r…

Pretty much the template to justify colonialism i.e "The current inhabitants are savages. They would do well with our civilisation and rule of law. We are the exceptional people to do that. If they don't want it... Well we can't have that sort of thing, can we?"

Sometimes it is blatant. See Congo Free State. The nominal justification was to bring civilisation and thus improve lives. Instead the people were enslaved in a state owned and controlled by private enterprise.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#47

Post by patatino » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 8:51 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #17

patatino wrote: post #12

I had to change the font so I was able to read the article.

I agree, and it's very frustrating that most articles are unreadable unless I change their font or colour choices. I should have to have an extension installed that makes text readable. And, unless people speak up the people who create these broken designs will never know that they are choosing to say "fuck you" to a sizeable proportion of their audience. But: it's about the least interesting thing that can be said a…

I can understand dang's comment. It was just my very first impression and it annoyed me but I agree that it doesn't add any value.

How should the extension work? Maybe a simple blacklist of fonts so the fallback font kicks in?

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#48

Post by apsec112 » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 8:53 AM UTC

superbag wrote: post #43

Sam Altman is an inspiration and a genius. YC is in great hands.

I think this would be more convincing if it were less acidic. If you really need to make a negative comparison between Altman and someone else, for example, literally almost anyone would be less distracting than Trump.

I don't have any insider knowledge, but I think YC is structured as a partnership, and I assume the other partners could throw Altman out if he were obviously screwing up.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#49

Post by DavidWanjiru » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 8:54 AM UTC

This is neither here nor there: I'd never read about Sam Altman's sexuality before this article, but when watching him interview Mark Zuckerberg a few weeks ago on the making the future series, it crossed my mind and I wondered if he's gay. Something in the body language. A certain type of light on Sam's face. So reading this, I've loudly exclaimed to myself, "I thought so!"

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#50

Post by n72 » Mon, Oct 03, 2016, 8:57 AM UTC

"Altman, who will personally oversee this initiative, believes [Startup School] is the fastest, easiest way to bring ten thousand new founders a year into the network."

In the YC scenario, once its network hits a certain size it ceases to become a useful network and is just the world.