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Greg

blog.samaltman.com

71–80 of 103 posts

Re: Greg

#72
post #64
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is reductionist and offensive. (1) On a practical level, although I don't know Greg's personal financial situation, he was the CTO of Stripe for five years. He's rich enough not to work. He works exactly because he's enthusiastic. (2) Secondly, to say that Greg merely handles logistics for OpenAI is to willfully ignore the post as written, and the reality on the ground. Also, I'm not sure Sam is a billionaire, a…

I don't think it's offensive to point out that recruiting an enthusiastic, engaged, and talented cofounder is different for Elon Musk and Sam Altman than it is for the fledgling startup founder that is the standard reader of YC blog posts. It would have been fine if he was just telling a story about his own life, but when he said "make sure you also have someone like Greg" it became fair to point out that he seems a…

I misinterpreted your first post as being a lot more snarky than this second comment suggests, sorry about that.

Re: Greg

#73
post #68

Greg is humble, resourceful, and smart. That combination alone is enough to move mountains. However, what Sam's piece is missing is the "Why?". Why would someone who can do anything do YOUR thing and take any crud task it takes to finish the job, especially after they've made their fortune? Greg should give his own "Why?" about OpenAI. From what I know if 100 years from now someone looks back at this fork in the road…

I've heard OpenAI isn't actually open source. Is it?

Re: Greg

#74
post #73
post #68

Greg is humble, resourceful, and smart. That combination alone is enough to move mountains. However, what Sam's piece is missing is the "Why?". Why would someone who can do anything do YOUR thing and take any crud task it takes to finish the job, especially after they've made their fortune? Greg should give his own "Why?" about OpenAI. From what I know if 100 years from now someone looks back at this fork in the road…

I've heard OpenAI isn't actually open source. Is it?

https://github.com/openai

Re: Greg

#75
post #73
post #68

Greg is humble, resourceful, and smart. That combination alone is enough to move mountains. However, what Sam's piece is missing is the "Why?". Why would someone who can do anything do YOUR thing and take any crud task it takes to finish the job, especially after they've made their fortune? Greg should give his own "Why?" about OpenAI. From what I know if 100 years from now someone looks back at this fork in the road…

I've heard OpenAI isn't actually open source. Is it?

They do have open source projects, but their mission is not to necessarily be an open source company. They want to equalize the footing in AI for everyone, and this might require some degree of secrecy so that commercial AI companies do not get an edge. At least, that is my perception, feel free to correct me.

Re: Greg

#76
post #68

Greg is humble, resourceful, and smart. That combination alone is enough to move mountains. However, what Sam's piece is missing is the "Why?". Why would someone who can do anything do YOUR thing and take any crud task it takes to finish the job, especially after they've made their fortune? Greg should give his own "Why?" about OpenAI. From what I know if 100 years from now someone looks back at this fork in the road…

“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.”

-- Jeffrey Hammerbacher

I'm guilty as charged (at least it's about entertaining & useful ads) - but in my post-exit career I'd also be humbled to work on something with this magnitude and relevancy.

In the middle of the tech bubble it's easy to forget how the rest of the world will deal with this bubble with increasing automation, inequality and climate change. It's great to see some people actually tackling the really important topics even if they could get a 6-7 digit paycheck at top Tech companies.

Re: Greg

#78
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard OpenAI isn't actually open source. Is it?

They do have open source projects, but their mission is not to necessarily be an open source company. They want to equalize the footing in AI for everyone, and this might require some degree of secrecy so that commercial AI companies do not get an edge. At least, that is my perception, feel free to correct me.

> They want to equalize the footing in AI for everyone

Equal opportunity to pay, or actually democratizing it so that anybody who wants to use it can reap the benefits?

I'm willing to bet it's not the latter, given the reliance of AI on large training corpuses and machine time.

Re: Greg

#79
post #52
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Greg is the guy you need. Not necessarily the guy you want to be. (I am Greg, and am reasonably happy to be me.) I think this reply is true. But even that aside, the startup philosophy that guides me is variance maximization. So yes, when starting something new and pouring your heart into it, you have a chance of having nothing concrete to show for yourself in a few years. But if you succeed, the magnitude will be…

> "trying to cover the entire problem surface area" Could you elaborate on that?

I'm guessing Greg means handling a problem / process end to end. Not saying "I'll just do the initial phone screens when recruiting candidates" but just doing the whole thing without passing the buck to someone else.

Re: Greg

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do have open source projects, but their mission is not to necessarily be an open source company. They want to equalize the footing in AI for everyone, and this might require some degree of secrecy so that commercial AI companies do not get an edge. At least, that is my perception, feel free to correct me.

> They want to equalize the footing in AI for everyone Equal opportunity to pay , or actually democratizing it so that anybody who wants to use it can reap the benefits? I'm willing to bet it's not the latter, given the reliance of AI on large training corpuses and machine time.

I think its more about making the same research available to everyone, or other things that are relatively free to distribute (like code, even though, as hinted, it does not mean that everything will be open-sourced as its written).

Although, you do make a good point. If only the most powerful companies can afford meaningful machine time, how democratized can AI be?

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