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Sam Altman for President

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Sam Altman for President

#101

Post by mathattack »

sama wrote: post #2

I’m very excited about this. YC is the smartest group of people I’ve ever worked with, and I believe that startups are going to be the major driver for innovation and economic growth going forward. I was thinking this morning about what it was like to start a startup in early 2005 and how much it’s changed now. PG has done a remarkable amount to improve the startup ecosystem for founders—in fact, it’s hard to think o…

Every startup has a moment where the founder has to ask, "Do I become a professional administrator, or do I hand the professional management to someone else so that we can scale while I keep spending my time on what I want to."

It's good to see that YC has done this prior to a crisis, rather than in reaction to one. It doesn't seem like there's a better use of PG's time than office hours and writing. If this allows him to do more of both, everyone benefits.

Re: Sam Altman for President

#102

Post by adamzerner »

pg wrote: post #97
adamzerner wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is that the main motivation - so you have attention to spare for essays? Any other plans? EDIT: I know how you say that writing => other ideas. So I guess the question is whether 1) You have something else in mind currently 2) You're writing with the intent to come up with other ideas 3) You're writing, and if another idea happens to come up that you like, you'll pursue it, or 4) You want to write and not pursue o…

It's not the only motivation. It really will be better for YC to have someone running it who is actually interested in running an organization. I have a whole bunch of ideas for essays I'd like to write, but I almost never pick a topic. The way I decide which one to write is that one starts to write itself in my head.

Cool, I look forward to reading them!

Just a thought (I know you've got a huge "to-do list" in your head), I'd like to hear your opinions on effective altruism, and what you think the best ways to change the world are.

Re: Sam Altman for President

#103

Post by notatoad »

noname123 wrote: post #40
sama wrote: post #2

I’m very excited about this. YC is the smartest group of people I’ve ever worked with, and I believe that startups are going to be the major driver for innovation and economic growth going forward. I was thinking this morning about what it was like to start a startup in early 2005 and how much it’s changed now. PG has done a remarkable amount to improve the startup ecosystem for founders—in fact, it’s hard to think o…

> (Also, maybe someday soon we’ll make Hacker News work well on mobile :) ) Sam, there are already mobile apps for this. But the constantly expiring links due to limitations to Arc should be fixed.

The mobile apps all kind of suck though. i keep installing new ones, and always end up back in the browser, exercising my pinch-to-zoom muscles.

Re: Sam Altman for President

#104

Post by caublestone »

sama wrote: post #2

I’m very excited about this. YC is the smartest group of people I’ve ever worked with, and I believe that startups are going to be the major driver for innovation and economic growth going forward. I was thinking this morning about what it was like to start a startup in early 2005 and how much it’s changed now. PG has done a remarkable amount to improve the startup ecosystem for founders—in fact, it’s hard to think o…

Congrats Sama!

Re: Sam Altman for President

#105

Post by RoboTeddy »

sama wrote: post #2

I’m very excited about this. YC is the smartest group of people I’ve ever worked with, and I believe that startups are going to be the major driver for innovation and economic growth going forward. I was thinking this morning about what it was like to start a startup in early 2005 and how much it’s changed now. PG has done a remarkable amount to improve the startup ecosystem for founders—in fact, it’s hard to think o…

Congratulations!

Re: Sam Altman for President

#107

Post by selmnoo »

jl wrote: post #4
sama wrote: post #2

I’m very excited about this. YC is the smartest group of people I’ve ever worked with, and I believe that startups are going to be the major driver for innovation and economic growth going forward. I was thinking this morning about what it was like to start a startup in early 2005 and how much it’s changed now. PG has done a remarkable amount to improve the startup ecosystem for founders—in fact, it’s hard to think o…

Sam, you already know this, but I just want to say publicly how happy we are to have you leading YC.

So, what about you jl? You'll still have your hands on deck?

Not to be so intrusive, but I recall pg talking about the son -- was that a factor in pg making this decision? To dedicate more time to parenting or something like that?

Re: Sam Altman for President

#108

Post by jasonwilk »

sama wrote: post #2

I’m very excited about this. YC is the smartest group of people I’ve ever worked with, and I believe that startups are going to be the major driver for innovation and economic growth going forward. I was thinking this morning about what it was like to start a startup in early 2005 and how much it’s changed now. PG has done a remarkable amount to improve the startup ecosystem for founders—in fact, it’s hard to think o…

Congrats Sam!

Re: Sam Altman for President

#109

Post by slewis »

pg wrote: post #96
slewis wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you still review all the preview/demo day pitches? For those who haven't witnessed this: pg stands there for an entire day (maybe longer now), watching every pitch, slicing and dicing like a samurai. It's super rapid-fire, and with one or two pieces of advice each presentation doubles in effectiveness.

Probably not. But though it's an impressive feat of standing, the stuff that comes up then is so basic (slow down, look at the audience, etc) that any YC partner could make those sorts of comments. I'll still talk about pitches individually with startups at office hours.

Ha, what I remember most is you modifying presentations based on the psychology of the audience (investors).

For example, for Pebble you said, "put this joke in there: 'I bet you guys really want to check your phones right now but you can't because it would be rude... if you had one of these babies on your wrist you'd be able to see those precious emails'".

OK maybe not the most world-changing example but there were 100 more of those.

I'm sure Sam will be excellent at this too.

Re: Sam Altman for President

#110

Post by shrikant »

teawithcarl wrote: post #80
kgermino wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OT: USPOTUS threw me for a loop there. :) I'm not sure how I even noticed as I was just skimming the thread but I hit that line and lost all train of thought. Must be one of those things... POTUS is "President Of The United States" so USPOTUS is redundant, but no more so than "ATM Machine" which my brain parses no problem. Sometimes its interesting to think about why we notice what we do :).

POTYC.

President of The Your Country..?
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