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Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

newyorker.com

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Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#121

Post by jonnathanson »

Artoemius wrote: post #53
superplussed wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of them is obviously Musk. I could guess on the other, but it would only be based on the "wildness" of the other billionaire's imagination.

Musk strikes me as an imaginative but a very rational person who deeply thinks about stuff, so this is confusing to me. His argument that our world is most likely a simulation does seem logical given our current knowledge. However, breaking out of the simulation is completely another matter, more in line with Hollywood thinking than with anything that scientists can be engaged to do, at least currently.

It's completely wacky, but if you've got a few mil to drop on wacky ideas, it starts to seem a bit less wacky in the grand scheme of things. It's basically a wager: "There's a small, but perhaps nonzero chance I'm living in a simulation. I've got the throwaway cash to fund an escape attempt. This investment has a massive chance of being completely wasted, even if this is a simulation. But if there is even a tiny chance of figuring something out, I might as well take it."

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#122

Post by intended »

Wth, the no asshole rule is the only way to keep out posers and assholes.

The expansion plans don't work because if you build a community which includes a few assholes they eventually overpower the system and being an asshole becomes the norm.

The last 3 paras of that article are worrisome.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#123

Post by burkaman »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #107
camillomiller wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Golden quote: "Launching a startup in 2016 is akin to assembling an alt-rock band in 1996 or protesting the Vietnam War in 1971—an act of youthful rebellion gone conformist."

That's ridiculous. Everything powerful that startups "try to disrupt" (GM, government, Wall Street, etc) now has their own incubators. Only to one's immediate family might the work-life balance and low chance of success raise eybrows.

Yeah, that's what "gone conformist" means.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#124

Post by lkozma »

grandalf wrote: post #90
te_chris wrote: post #89

This is a strange profile of the sort of hero and status/wealth worship that only seems to have currency in the USA. The more I read the article the less I came away thinking of Altman as a genius and more of a babysitter and teacher. I'm not really looking to attack Altman's character or competence, he seems to have both in spades, but the whole thing was just...creepy. And cultish.

Totally agree. I had to stop reading as the cult worship stuff started to get thicker and thicker.

Are you sure that you are in disagreement with the article's author? I think both you and te_chris may have missed some of the irony in the article.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#125

Post by flylib »

untilHellbanned wrote: post #88

Reid Hoffman makes clear like I suspected that SV power players are skeptical about Sam Altman. YC is becoming Jack of all trades master of none. Jury is still out on YC under Sam's leadership. By 2020 I think we'll start to see the wheels fall off.

the facts on the ground don't support your theory, Reid is one of the people helping fund OpenAI (Sam is one of the founders)

more that he is pissed that the YC Continuity fund is starting to compete with him on deals at Greylock which the article alluded to that it's a threat to other VC's

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#126

Post by OpenDrapery »

kristianc wrote: post #77
n72 wrote: post #54

"The missing circuit in my brain, the circuit that would make me care what people think about me, is a real gift." I think that circuit exists and is functioning quite well. It seems to me there's a lot of glory embedded in YC's plans.

"The missing circuit in my brain, the circuit that would make me care what people think about me, is a real gift." ... opined Altman in his New Yorker PR piece.

Attention everyone! Attention! I just wanted to make sure that you all know that I don't care what you think of me. As you were.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#127

Post by NhanH »

feelix wrote: post #87
Denzel wrote: post #58

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…

I find it odd that you'd criticize Sam Altman in this way then go on to call Steve Jobs a "true visionary". I see Jobs as being more a managerial type that managed to get a few things very right. He wasn't able to dive deep into technical things and grok them as you said. I have read comments on hacker news from people that worked directly under him, talking about how he forbid using object orientation in programming…

Is there anyway you can find those comments of people working directly under Jobs? I've be curious to read them.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#128

Post by kefka »

n72 wrote: post #85
dang wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although we banned this account for abuse elsewhere in the thread, I'm unkilling this comment because it's so patently untrue. It doesn't resemble the Hacker News I look at, and I look at HN a lot. 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.…

"It doesn't resemble the Hacker News I look at, and I look at HN a lot." Given your position, do you think that you can look at HN objectively?

It would not be wise to argue with someone who can hellban you. Even if it is purely logical and factual in nature.

Lobste.rs is also a good HN-alt. A bit more groupthink on common topics, and less groupthink on VC stuff.

Re: Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny

#129

Post by snarf »

n72 wrote: post #108
untilHellbanned wrote: post #88

Reid Hoffman makes clear like I suspected that SV power players are skeptical about Sam Altman. YC is becoming Jack of all trades master of none. Jury is still out on YC under Sam's leadership. By 2020 I think we'll start to see the wheels fall off.

It does seem there's a lot of flailing around. As someone mentioned, this http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/ went from 6 under Graham to 21 under Altman. Altman mentions laser like focus at time when referring to how startups should function. The same doesn't go for YC? It's really easy to get fame and plaudits by associating yourself with a cornucopia of big ideas, it's a lot harder to actually follow through.

While I respect that they claim not to be about accumulating wealth (and it does feel as if this is genuinely true compared to more traditional VCs), this looks a bit like the Google X of VC. I suspect that they have generated enough returns from their seed investments that they no longer have outside LPs for a lot of the stuff they do, allowing them to freely pursue off the wall ideas (the exception here is probably their continuity fund). I'm not sure how sustainable this is in the long term. They would have to keep churning out Airbnbs, which is not guaranteed.
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