Live data from Hacker News

"King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

washingtonpost.com

61–70 of 188 posts

Re: "King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

#61
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfortunate that everyone else was so comically bad at literally any kind of communication. I'm starting to feel like the general advice lawyers give of say nothing is a terrible advice, when you have such a public facing company. It's like what you need in that situation is a communication coach first and a lawyer second. But as an engineer that also never learned this kind of narrative control, I too am strugg…

This sounds like snark but it’s not intended to be: do you really need sources to learn narrative control? Perceiving how narratives work seems to be a skill that almost all humans are very good at naturally. I acknowledge that shaping narratives is a different skill set (especially the parts that require putting yourself in a position to shape narratives effectively), but in my opinion if you’re already asking the q…

Have you ever heard someone described as tone deaf?

The narrative that works in your head is not necessarily a narrative that works publicly.

Re: "King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

#62
post #3

It's nice to occasionally read a piece that reminds you what good journalism is. On and off record sources, people as complex individuals with multiple truths, anchoring to key chronological events, and only moderate clickbaiting and defensible hyperbole. Nothing particularly new, but a solid brief. Kudos to the Post and Dwoskin, Fisher, and Tiku.

Amusing, the comment just above yours claims how the article is a lovely puff piece

Re: "King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

#63

Asking because I have no idea - What companies were the big wins from Sam's YC time?

Flexport, Brex, Ginkgo, Rappi, Deel, Scale.ai, Rippling, Faire, OpenSea, Razorpay Checkr, Gitlab, Meesho, Monzo, Flock, Retool, IronClad, FlutterWave, Xendit Groww, Jeeves, Solugen, ShipBob, Front, Mux, TruePill, Jasper.ai ...

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?batch=S19&batch=W19&ba...

Re: "King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

#64
post #35

This kind of gives away the reason for his firing. He was pursuing his vision of AI incluing a chipset specific to LLM processing that would break nvidias hold of the market. Apparently the BoD didnt like it. They should have just been more forthcoming about it. Some CEOs would get fired for moonlighting. Others (Elon Musk, etc) build massive companies and make their existing companies more resilient and lasting. The…

the board was about to vaporize employee equity overnight - the secondary was days away and would have been life changing for many employees and significant for all of them. SA is probably a great a leader but the financial incentives for the employees to support him and ensure the secondary went through were huuuuuuge

Yep, the boards failure occurred when they allowed the profit motive to take control of the organization. The crisis was merely a manifestation of the inevitable.

Re: "King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

#65
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Altman's sister's 'memories' of abuse were developed in adulthood [1]. Recovered memories are deeply suspect, and a number of serious miscarriages of justice have happened because of them. Most infamously the 'satanic panic' trials of the eighties and early nineties. Elizabeth Loftus has done lots of good work on the dubious nature of eyewitness testimony, and recovered memories in particular [3]. Essentially, they'r…

Ah yes, the woman who provided paid testimony on behalf of Ghislaine Maxwell, Harvey Weinstein, OJ Simpson, Robert Durst, among others.

Who better to invoke to smear another insufficiently diabolical human?

https://lawandcrime.com/live-trials/ghislaine-maxwell/false-...

edit: If you want to get a clearer (or fuzzier) picture of this career expert witness, this piece in the New Yorker is fascinating:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/04/05/how-elizabeth-...

Re: "King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

#66
post #51

Wow, what a lovely puff piece. Known as a 'rehabilitator' in PR circles. The conversation: Sama: "I'm getting a bit of knock-back over my management style from various sources." PR Co: "No worries, we'll run a Premium PR package to restore your reputation. A couple of nice pieces in the WashPo and other places and you're good to go." Sama: "Great. Invoice me."

PG even wrote about how to recognize these.

Re: "King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

#67
post #51

Wow, what a lovely puff piece. Known as a 'rehabilitator' in PR circles. The conversation: Sama: "I'm getting a bit of knock-back over my management style from various sources." PR Co: "No worries, we'll run a Premium PR package to restore your reputation. A couple of nice pieces in the WashPo and other places and you're good to go." Sama: "Great. Invoice me."

[deleted]

Re: "King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

#68
post #51

Wow, what a lovely puff piece. Known as a 'rehabilitator' in PR circles. The conversation: Sama: "I'm getting a bit of knock-back over my management style from various sources." PR Co: "No worries, we'll run a Premium PR package to restore your reputation. A couple of nice pieces in the WashPo and other places and you're good to go." Sama: "Great. Invoice me."

PG even wrote about how to recognize these.

By misidentifying one so perhaps worth taking the supposed prevalence and easy identification of these with a grain of salt.

Re: "King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

#69
post #3

It's nice to occasionally read a piece that reminds you what good journalism is. On and off record sources, people as complex individuals with multiple truths, anchoring to key chronological events, and only moderate clickbaiting and defensible hyperbole. Nothing particularly new, but a solid brief. Kudos to the Post and Dwoskin, Fisher, and Tiku.

Amusing, the comment just above yours claims how the article is a lovely puff piece

[deleted]

Re: "King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

#70
There's nothing in here you haven't already heard:

* He's close with Peter Thiel

* He's an ace networker (but, completing the stereotype, is also an introvert)

* He left YC, not entirely voluntarily, because he was too committed to OpenAI to do the YC job

* Echoing YC, the OpenAI board tried to oust him over concerns that he was being manipulative and pursuing outside interests (a chip firm) that conflicted with the mission

The article doesn't seem to have much to say past that. If you go to an Altman house party, you'll apparently get a blanket if you want one. But, like, you'll also get one of those on a Delta flight, so.

It feels like people are a bit obsessive about this guy.

Post reply on HN