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Sam Altman's Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Concepts

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Re: Sam Altman's Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Concepts

#11

Post by mbgerring »

I’m old enough to remember that Sam Altman’s claim to fame before OpenAI, before running YC, was running a failed also-ran location-based whatever Web 2.0 scam startup thing that accomplished nothing and that no one remembers. His entire “career” is based on persuading people with money to give him more of it.

The incentive structures are such that everyone sucks up to people in a position to give you a lot of money, so all these people with no real skills, talent or track record get regarded as “geniuses”, but like, even when you understand why this happens, it doesn’t make it any less rage-inducing.

What would have to change in this society for people who actually do shit to have a higher profile than people who just have a lot of money?

Re: Sam Altman's Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Concepts

#12

Post by ergocoder »

People like to gatekeep coding as if it was some sort of mythical skills that only extremely smart people could do.

Tons of people can code. Coding is not some sort of mythical skill. Millions of people can code.

For some reason, this narrative is almost always applying on people who are politically incompatible with the left like Elon and Sam.

Re: Sam Altman's Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Concepts

#13

Post by cal_dent »

glerk wrote: post #10

> I think there's a small but real chance he's eventually remembered as a Bernie Madoff What's with all the hit pieces on Sam Altman lately? He's a CEO, his job is to grow the business, not to code. That part is handled by the engineers that he hired. How many CEOs out there are also great programmers? Sure, I would prefer Sam Altman to have more technical depth given the business he is leading, but lack of technical…

exactly. frankly its just a bunch of pissy holier than thou engineer thing. He seems to be pretty good at raising capital and selling dreams which his predominantly what Openai seemingly wants to be right now.

New Yorker article less so because its just a standard ceo profile piece that digs out pretty pertinent things for a ceo role

Re: Sam Altman's Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Concepts

#14

Post by boshalfoshal »

ergocoder wrote: post #12

People like to gatekeep coding as if it was some sort of mythical skills that only extremely smart people could do. Tons of people can code. Coding is not some sort of mythical skill. Millions of people can code. For some reason, this narrative is almost always applying on people who are politically incompatible with the left like Elon and Sam.

Apart from your last paragraph which is a little contentious, I agree with what you say.

I dont understand why people here require that every tech ceo to be some professional programmer or engineer. I don't think you _need_ to be that deep in it as the CEO. There are plenty of leaders at OpenAI that already fit the bill.

Sam is good at getting funding, seeing the bigger picture, and rallying towards a cause. That is the job of a CEO. It doesn't matter (imo) that he doesn't know how many parameters the next release will have. All that matters is he knows the impact of the new release and knows who to defer to for actual technical decisions.

Re: Sam Altman's Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Concepts

#15

Post by tkel »

mbgerring wrote: post #11

I’m old enough to remember that Sam Altman’s claim to fame before OpenAI, before running YC, was running a failed also-ran location-based whatever Web 2.0 scam startup thing that accomplished nothing and that no one remembers. His entire “career” is based on persuading people with money to give him more of it. The incentive structures are such that everyone sucks up to people in a position to give you a lot of money,…

Reminds me of Elon Musk. Grifting off of techno-futuro-optimism. Hyperloop, Boring tunnel, going to mars, self-driving cars, etc. Perhaps it's common to CEOs, lying/manipulating to people to create hype in order to convince them to give you money.

Re: Sam Altman's Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Concepts

#16

Post by zulux »

hgoel wrote: post #8
d2dfsd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im going to get into trouble for saying this but many of these CEOs seem to be a mix of vertically challenged, challenged in terms of looks/social aura/charasima and so on. Perhaps these are necessary characteristics to have drive.. the problem is they end up taking out that energy on the rest of society. E.g. Zuck with "dumb fucks" and we've already seen Musk unmasked. You never saw this kind of stuff with Steve Job…

I feel like this is largely just what Musk/Zuck/Jeff's generation of rich fucks is like. Kind of like how the ones before them (Gates, Jobs etc) were more hated for being dirty/ruthless businessmen, but weren't known for being so openly and pathetically insecure. On the other hand, I'm probably just finding a generational distinction where there is none. Edit: And anyway, SBF, Altman etc are not the same generation a…

Gates is weapons-grade awkward and just plain weird. 56K internet was slow to notice. But the poor schmuck had to hire Russians to boink him, and he got a VD from it per the Epsein files.

Re: Sam Altman's Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Concepts

#19

Post by giancarlostoro »

tkel wrote: post #15
mbgerring wrote: post #11

I’m old enough to remember that Sam Altman’s claim to fame before OpenAI, before running YC, was running a failed also-ran location-based whatever Web 2.0 scam startup thing that accomplished nothing and that no one remembers. His entire “career” is based on persuading people with money to give him more of it. The incentive structures are such that everyone sucks up to people in a position to give you a lot of money,…

Reminds me of Elon Musk. Grifting off of techno-futuro-optimism. Hyperloop, Boring tunnel, going to mars, self-driving cars, etc. Perhaps it's common to CEOs, lying/manipulating to people to create hype in order to convince them to give you money.

Sure, but Elon Musk had known engineering roles at various companies, and built a space company nobody, not even himself thought would succeed, into the most viable and affordable way to get things into space.

Idk if I had to be stranded on an island with either Elon or Sam, I think I'd rather be stuck with Elon.

Re: Sam Altman's Coworkers Say He Can Barely Code and Misunderstands Basic Concepts

#20

Post by wpm »

mbgerring wrote: post #11

I’m old enough to remember that Sam Altman’s claim to fame before OpenAI, before running YC, was running a failed also-ran location-based whatever Web 2.0 scam startup thing that accomplished nothing and that no one remembers. His entire “career” is based on persuading people with money to give him more of it. The incentive structures are such that everyone sucks up to people in a position to give you a lot of money,…

We need to start talking about people like this truthfully: they are sick. Fucked up. Broken. They do not deserve fame or fortune, they deserve a padded cell, close observation by psychologists and neurologists and try and figure out how we can stop it happening.

Horribly manipulative Smaug-likes who only care for themselves, why must the rest of us be beholden to them? To be victims to the havoc they wreak? Why do we put up with it?

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