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Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?
71–80 of 192 posts
Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?
#72This is really dumb, and I'm not even a fan of sama, I think he's a snake.
Sam Altman was CEO and President. The fact he was not Chairman is not material. There's a thousand different explanations how that misstatement could have occurred. Maybe someone wrote that up, and sama didn't review every single line, and other people just assumed it was right. But it's not material. Being being the CEO and President of YC is much, much more important and more material than Chairman of the board, which is largely a figurehead position.
No one is going to care and this is extreme nitpicking. They should fix the misstatement, but to claim some sort of conspiracy around this is stupid.
Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually we moderate less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is the story. This is the #1 rule of HN moderation and has been since pg first explained it to me on the morning he started showing me how to moderate HN. If anyone wants to read about this, there are ten years' worth of past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... . It looks like a mod downweighted this story but…
Hey Dang, I appreciate the transparency and general policy in such situations. As well as undowning the story Do you think there will ever be in band signaling of when (or perhaps even why) a post was artificially depressed by moderation? Particularly aimed at cases where people are already using tools like https://news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=40710417 on posts like this where more people have already seen the…
Yeah, as much as the transparency is very much appreciated here, "yes, a mod totally did try to subtly bury this story exactly as you predicted and despite our official mod policies" sounds pretty bad, even if you undid it. Some visible "[Moderator Downvoting]" warning would help earn trust that mods are not in fact doing this to YC-related stories.
Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?
#74Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?
#75I only skimmed through the beginning but I am not sure what the news is. Looks like they mostly/only? pulled it from some filings that I am sure was being put together by third party agents.
The claim was repeated on the website of the SPAC itself until the story ran. And the SPAC is run by… Sam Altman.
> And the SPAC is run by… Sam Altman.
Yes, but this comes with the assumption that Sam writes and reviews the website copy, PR statements and S1 form submissions, which any organization of significant size, the CEO does not.
I could believe Elon does though.
Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just the sort of personality type that we need leading the most potentially dangerous new technology in the past 50 years.
While I get the sentiment, things have a way of working out. Maybe he is actually the best person to do it...no one knows who the best person for an undefined situation will be.
> things have a way of working out
Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's far from clear. Dozens of finance executives wiped a decade worth of economic growth off the United States the year before I graduated high school. My generation will never recover. They left their jobs with more money that I'll make in an entire lifetime. None went to prison.
If someone in your generation (graduating high school 2009) obtained in demand credentials or skills, then they should have reaped enormous returns from 2013 to 2024. The only people who really “lost” in 2008 were those who were overleveraged from going into debt for houses or education, and then had to default due to income loss in 2008 to 2011 or so. Or those who panic sold all their equities.
How is a new college grad supposed to reap "enormous returns" without significant savings?
Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, Elizabeth Holmes was bulletproof until the cracks started to show through. Same with Lance Armstrong, and many others.
Was Holmes ever bulletproof? Anyone with scientific experience was calling BS on her from the beginning due to the reality of current technology and physics. I remember only knowing her because there were posts on this website calling her out very early on.
Yes Lizzie was absolutely untouchable and invincible until the façade came crashing down.
Humans Want To Believe.
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41x244sdEXL._AC_UF894,10...
Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
The claim was repeated on the website of the SPAC itself until the story ran. And the SPAC is run by… Sam Altman.
> And the SPAC is run by… Sam Altman. Yes, but this comes with the assumption that Sam writes and reviews the website copy, PR statements and S1 form submissions, which any organization of significant size, the CEO does not. I could believe Elon does though.
Why do I get the feeling that if it said something bad they would have fixed it before somebody wrote an article about it...
And if they can't be trusted to get their own team biographies right, what can they get right?
If a run-of-the mill employee were lying about their experience, they'd be fired. But it's okay for the CEO because he's just so busy? What a double standard.
Did they use their own product to write the bio, and it "hallucinated" that he was chairman?
Re: Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually we moderate less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is the story. This is the #1 rule of HN moderation and has been since pg first explained it to me on the morning he started showing me how to moderate HN. If anyone wants to read about this, there are ten years' worth of past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... . It looks like a mod downweighted this story but…
Hey Dang, I appreciate the transparency and general policy in such situations. As well as undowning the story Do you think there will ever be in band signaling of when (or perhaps even why) a post was artificially depressed by moderation? Particularly aimed at cases where people are already using tools like https://news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=40710417 on posts like this where more people have already seen the…
I understand the theory—surely publishing more data would reassure everyone and help settle things—but this is based on an assumption which in my experience is false: that these dynamics are rational. I don't think that's how they work at all, so I don't have faith that earnestly publishing a moderation log would improve things. On the contrary, I find it easier to imagine it making things worse. Why? Because there would still be all the same suspicions and resentments, and now they'd have more material to work with.
I'm tired and doubtful that I've expressed this very well, but I've posted quite a bit about this over the years, so if the present comment doesn't help, perhaps https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39234189 will, or one of the other comments linked back from there.