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Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny (2016)

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Re: Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny (2016)

#32
post #28

> After a Dutch lab modified the H5N1 bird-flu virus, five years ago, making it super contagious, the chance of a lethal synthetic virus being released in the next twenty years became, well, nonzero. He must have felt pretty vindicated about his prepper's stance when COVID happened five years after this statement.

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny (2016)

#33
post #3

I read this article perhaps two or three years ago and it's one of the reasons I always had a slightly negative view of Sam Altman because he comes off as just slightly insufferable (that whole Bronze Age sword sequence, for example). I don't necessarily think that was absolutely without merit: one tires of CEOs and SV types who think too much of themselves and don't attribute enough of their success to simply being…

If the employees truly came together to collectively bargain why wouldn’t they unionize at the same time to protect against similar abuses by the board in the future?

This collective action seems like it was effective enough and achieved its stated goals. Why introduce yet another permanent layer of bureaucracy and politics at your company if you can achieve your goals without it?

Re: Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny (2016)

#34
post #3

I read this article perhaps two or three years ago and it's one of the reasons I always had a slightly negative view of Sam Altman because he comes off as just slightly insufferable (that whole Bronze Age sword sequence, for example). I don't necessarily think that was absolutely without merit: one tires of CEOs and SV types who think too much of themselves and don't attribute enough of their success to simply being…

[dead]

Re: Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny (2016)

#35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the employees truly came together to collectively bargain why wouldn’t they unionize at the same time to protect against similar abuses by the board in the future?

This collective action seems like it was effective enough and achieved its stated goals. Why introduce yet another permanent layer of bureaucracy and politics at your company if you can achieve your goals without it?

Well structured unions have a board seat; this would likely have avoided this issue in the first place.

This action, by both the board and the employees, is the result of poor communication. It has caused non-trivial damage to the organisation, internally and externally. It is highly desirable for everyone involved for this level of disruption not to happen again.

Re: Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny (2016)

#36

From the article: > Two YC partners sat Altman down last year “and told him, ‘Slow down, chill out!’ ” another partner, Jonathan Levy, told me. “Sam said, ‘Yes, you’re right!’—and went off and did something else on the side that we didn’t know about for a while.” Seems consistent with the original "leadership transition" announcement: > Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which…

One of the leading theories right now is he was talking with leaders in UAE about an AI hardware/chip project without board’s knowledge.

I hope some of the previous board members make a statement because it’s been almost a week and still nothing really adds up.

Re: Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny (2016)

#37
post #22

Scurvy!

I spent longer than I would like trying to figure out your clever joke here. But it turns out that you actually meant the disease, scurvy... that Sam Altman contracted a little over a decade ago, according to the article.

I had to doublecheck if this is more than just vitamin C deficiency. But, anyway, it is not a result of hard work, but of a poor diet [0]. Stress actually makes your thyroid hypo, not hyper [1].

[0]: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24318-scurvy

[1]: https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/thyroid-disorders/ho...

Re: Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny (2016)

#38

The line about Asperger’s is hysterical. I can’t wait for this insanity to die down and go back to normal. During these frenzied moments we almost need a forked HN homepage where the trend of the month is cordoned off to prevent contagion.

> During these frenzied moments we almost need a forked HN homepage where the trend of the month is cordoned off to prevent contagion.

I wish dang would just disable registration for a week or two when this kind of thing is happening. It attracts low-value commenters who only want to talk about drama, pick fights in the comments, and ban evade. We even have one such commenter in this thread. I'm sure people who actually want to discuss technology would wait until registration is reopened.

Re: Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny (2016)

#39

From the article: > Two YC partners sat Altman down last year “and told him, ‘Slow down, chill out!’ ” another partner, Jonathan Levy, told me. “Sam said, ‘Yes, you’re right!’—and went off and did something else on the side that we didn’t know about for a while.” Seems consistent with the original "leadership transition" announcement: > Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which…

One of the leading theories right now is he was talking with leaders in UAE about an AI hardware/chip project without board’s knowledge. I hope some of the previous board members make a statement because it’s been almost a week and still nothing really adds up.

They've been very careful not to and they were obviously right. They were very clearly mobbed by those who benefit from for-profit side which has more power and will determine what has to happen and how to make sure he can run a profit driven company that violates US law except on paper.

The funny part is that this means there is no commercial board looking out for interests like those of stock holders, so the stock holders have basically put themselves in the position the board was in AFA no recourse if the CEO is selecting another interest over theirs as well.

They want to know what the board knows but don't want the stock price to reflect it.

Re: Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny (2016)

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a colleague that people assumed was on the autism spectrum, this somehow came up years later over drinks to which he responded "maybe I should ask my doctor, I always assumed I was just an asshole"

If a lot of people think you are autistic, chances are you are autistic. It's a spectrum. We've all got a lil bit of that going on. Some more than others, particularly in our ecosystem.

> It's a spectrum. We've all got a lil bit of that going on.

I apologize for the specificity of the nit I'm about to pick, but the "spectrum" part of Autism Spectrum Disorder does not mean that every person is on it! ASD has very specific diagnostic criteria (https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html) according to which an individual is either diagnosed with ASD or not.

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