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At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

joinedanthropic.com

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Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#51

Post by nickysielicki »

lenerdenator wrote: post #48
nickysielicki wrote: post #45

The question I have is why are these companies hiring these people and what does it say about their hiring practices and the amount of capital they’re poorly spending? It’s exceedingly unlikely that any of the people who were working on YC startups previously have any real professional experience with any of the following: slurm, collectives, NUMA systems, RDMA, compilers, systems programming, general HPC performance…

Silicon Valley is not about having specialists or knowledge. It's about having connections and charisma. Is this causing massive problems for us as a society? Of course, but no one seems to want to do anything about it, so here we are.

I mean, what are you suggesting “someone” should do about it? The companies can spend their money however they want, and if they want to hire a bunch of product people from YC startups nobody can stop them.

I’m just surprised they need this many of them. What do they do all day? And who is left to manage their hundreds of thousands of servers?

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#53

Post by lacksconfidence »

consumer451 wrote: post #47
amazingamazing wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it interesting? They want to be rich.

Well yeah, but being a CTO at a major org isn't exactly a low-paying gig. The interesting thing to me is that the belief that Anthropic is going achieve something like AGI appears to have really spread through SV. If not AGI, at least greatly disturb their old cushy SaaS jobs. Also, I still do believe some people just want to work on "cool" stuff. edit: not just CTOs and CPOs, I mean John freakin Jumper, who got the…

I really don't think it's AGI. From living in the valley, it looks a whole lot more like giant piles of cash and "prestige".

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#54

Post by bdashdash »

consumer451 wrote: post #47
amazingamazing wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it interesting? They want to be rich.

Well yeah, but being a CTO at a major org isn't exactly a low-paying gig. The interesting thing to me is that the belief that Anthropic is going achieve something like AGI appears to have really spread through SV. If not AGI, at least greatly disturb their old cushy SaaS jobs. Also, I still do believe some people just want to work on "cool" stuff. edit: not just CTOs and CPOs, I mean John freakin Jumper, who got the…

The biggest AI bubble seems to be forming within the minds of the people working in SV itself, judging by the talk about the inevitability of AGI, the strong language around fomo (permanent underclass and all that) and the close proximity of the whole ecosystem there.

So wether it's belief in AGI or a desire for building cool stuff, as an outsider looking in, it seems to be informed by the same echo chamber of thought.

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#55

Post by lacksconfidence »

alpha_squared wrote: post #39
shimman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're surprised that people are trying to capture a bag that could possibly lead to multigenerational wealth in the tune of tens to 100s of millions?

I'm not surprised, but what is surprising is we're now in a period in which the mask is slipping and no one seems to care enough to try to put it back on. For all the hubris and arrogance of the tech scene, and especially the Bay Area's, founders at least pretended to pursue a greater calling than money by leaving cushy gigs to pursue a new venture they were passionate about. Sure, that only lasted a handful of years…

It seems like different people? The early tech scene was defined by people who got into tech because they loved it, jobs were paying under six figures. Then it became a gold rush, and the tech scene became defined by the newcomers who were after cash first, tech second. It's not that the old timers gave up on their ideals (well, some did), they were simply supplanted by larger numbers of people following the money.

In my opinion there is no "slipping mask", merely a changing of the guard that always happens when massive piles of generational wealth are at stake.

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#56

Post by lokimedes »

nickysielicki wrote: post #45

The question I have is why are these companies hiring these people and what does it say about their hiring practices and the amount of capital they’re poorly spending? It’s exceedingly unlikely that any of the people who were working on YC startups previously have any real professional experience with any of the following: slurm, collectives, NUMA systems, RDMA, compilers, systems programming, general HPC performance…

I actually have experience with that stuff, “old school” deep learning and ML as well. Is that something worth joining the fray with I wonder? Or is it as you point out really only the richly connected “locals” that are recruited?

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#57

Post by cliglot »

consumer451 wrote: post #47
amazingamazing wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it interesting? They want to be rich.

Well yeah, but being a CTO at a major org isn't exactly a low-paying gig. The interesting thing to me is that the belief that Anthropic is going achieve something like AGI appears to have really spread through SV. If not AGI, at least greatly disturb their old cushy SaaS jobs. Also, I still do believe some people just want to work on "cool" stuff. edit: not just CTOs and CPOs, I mean John freakin Jumper, who got the…

> Also, I still do believe some people just want to work on "cool" stuff.

One thing I’ve noticed more and more is all the “cool” jobs require you to already be an established domain expert.

Another things I’ve noticed, and this is probably mostly just my opinions evolving, but all the “cool” stuff that catches my interest these days is not in software. Software is boring.

Re: At least 105 past YC founders have worked at OpenAI and Anthropic

#58

Post by classified »

nickysielicki wrote: post #51
lenerdenator wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon Valley is not about having specialists or knowledge. It's about having connections and charisma. Is this causing massive problems for us as a society? Of course, but no one seems to want to do anything about it, so here we are.

I mean, what are you suggesting “someone” should do about it? The companies can spend their money however they want, and if they want to hire a bunch of product people from YC startups nobody can stop them. I’m just surprised they need this many of them. What do they do all day? And who is left to manage their hundreds of thousands of servers?

> What do they do all day?

Breeding product ideas? ChatGPT, but for dogs?

> And who is left to manage their hundreds of thousands of servers?

They learned from Elon how to get by with a skeleton crew?

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