61–70 of 312 posts
I've been trying to put my finger on what bothers me about Sam Altman ever since he was named President of YC in 2014. Now I know. It's less to do with him; more to do with this narrative of Sam Altman as some visionary, world-saving, future-builder. The story just doesn't fit the character. There's no comparison between him and true visionaries like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, etc. Unlike Sam, these guys can…
Not to mention it allows them to control negative comments/articles through implicit threats/incentives and direct (and hidden) moderation/manipulation. There's an annoying fakeness about YC/HN that gets old after a while. Lots of founders willing to tell YC folks whatever they want to hear and YC folks happily slurping it up like it's authentic. Genuinely gamed. And worse they treat anyone who isn't a sycophant (peo…
It's also factually incorrect, both re idlewords (whose latest piece spent most of the day at #1 on HN) and everyone else who uses this site in the intended spirit.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12625852 and marked it off-topic.
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!"
My gaydar had already told me, but I did not know he was out. I'm guessing it's not easy at all being an openly gay VC within this small community in the Valley. Kudos to Sam, I already had a great respect for him; much more now. I hope he can disrupt minorities and bigotry too.
I continue to be impressed by the quality of The New Yorker's reporting. This is so far above and beyond most media coverage about Altman and YC.
One of Altman’s co-founders at Loopt, Nick Sivo, was also his boyfriend; the two dated for nine years, but after the company sold they broke up. “I thought I was going to marry him—very in love with him,” Altman said
I've been trying to put my finger on what bothers me about Sam Altman ever since he was named President of YC in 2014. Now I know. It's less to do with him; more to do with this narrative of Sam Altman as some visionary, world-saving, future-builder. The story just doesn't fit the character. There's no comparison between him and true visionaries like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, etc. Unlike Sam, these guys can…
The brilliance of YCombinator, IMO, is HackerNews. It's turned YC into a self-perpetuating machine by getting smart people to congregate and talk about news YC itself partially generates. I heard about YC, PG, and sama all through this outlet.
Before HN there was PG's blog.
> At Graham’s table, he [Altman] and others discussed how to stop Donald Trump > If the pandemic does come, Altman’s backup plan is to fly with his friend Peter Thiel Is this true? How does it work? Thiel is a very vocal supporter of Trump and yet he's Altman's friend, a friend so close they would want to spend the rest of their life alone together, in the event of a catastrophe. Altman can certainly have all the fri…
Friends can disagree. Pretty sure it's as simple as that.
A Trump presidency would be an extinction-level event (for example -- and this is just one small example -- he doesn't "believe" in global warming, and would dismantle the EPA).
How far can friendship go?
The only way to explain this is, Altman doesn't think Trump is that big of a threat. Which makes me question his judgement very much.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Friends can disagree. Pretty sure it's as simple as that.
Of course, but we're talking about opposite world views here. I actually read a bit of an insinuation to the fact they're both gay, but maybe I'm overreading into the article.
The brilliance of YCombinator, IMO, is HackerNews. It's turned YC into a self-perpetuating machine by getting smart people to congregate and talk about news YC itself partially generates. I heard about YC, PG, and sama all through this outlet.
> The brilliance of YCombinator, IMO, is HackerNews.... Before HN there was PG's blog.
Before pg's blog, there was /.,
before /. there was Carmack's .plan file ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12575501
I've been trying to put my finger on what bothers me about Sam Altman ever since he was named President of YC in 2014. Now I know. It's less to do with him; more to do with this narrative of Sam Altman as some visionary, world-saving, future-builder. The story just doesn't fit the character. There's no comparison between him and true visionaries like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, etc. Unlike Sam, these guys can…
If you're American and some foreigners tell you that you all look like you're up your own assess all the time, just think of this New Yorker piece as an explanation why.
Excellent prose that crafts the same old boring story about how this very special individual has become richer and more successful than others. All around him an orbit of friendly millionaires and billionaires whose contradictive role is left out of the picture and an army of wannabes whose anxiety-laden lives are always romantically portrayed with a recurring reference to ramen-based meals -- because it's fine to have nutrition deficiencies and work 22 hours a day if you're building the next (much probably) useless tech startup that will hopefully turn you into the next Sam Altman.
This is what it is, people: a narrative. Why always trying to live by someone else's narrative? What really strikes me as incredibly counterintuitive is that every single startup story is different in its own ways, and what set successful startups apart is their willingness to follow individual paths. Yet, the way we tell these stories always gets down to pattern-matching the same old tropes everybody knows and loves.
I fondly appreciate most of the American culture, I'm enamoured with the startup scene naïveté, I think Y-combinator is a wonderful and extremely innovative player in the VC scenario. I mean, I love even this echo chamber that's called hacker news. That's how much I dig this stuff.
But again, I'm European. Doubt and skepticism are built in as standard features. So please, listen to me when I say that's better to limit agiography to the boooks about catholic saints from the Middle Age.