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Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

#211

Post by asoneth »

fvdessen wrote: post #9

I've had the 'chance' to work with some deeply manipulative persons in the past, the kind who goes to your desk and say 'Hey, I noticed you started to speak to X again, and your performance seems to suffer as a result", where X is a friendly colleague that opposed some plan of that person. It is incredibly difficult to keep those people in check as all that behaviour is off the record and impossible to prove. When pe…

I have had similar experiences.

The best career decision I ever made was to prioritize working with Good People and one of my few regrets was putting up with smart jerks for so long.

Re: Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

#212

Post by Aunche »

sertbdfgbnfgsd wrote: post #12

Yeah, the craziest thing for me to come out of this was how everyone in HN just assumed he was "innocent". Poor poor sam altman, he's a victim. He comes across as a sleazebag to me.

It doesn't help that the board publicly accused of being a liar without any evidence. If they simply left it at "Sam's vision no longer aligns with the charter of the nonprofit", I'd bet they would be viewed much more sympathetically.

Re: Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

#213

Post by twic »

fevangelou wrote: post #96

It's oh so weird the article does not mention any of these though... - https://twitter.com/phuckfilosophy/status/163570439893983232... (SA's sister - also have a look at her recent posts) - Also: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QDczBduZorG4dxZiW/sam-altman... (utterly distressing) - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1727096607752282485 (check the comment with snapshots of the letter - "strangely" that Gist was dele…

Sounds like Roko's Basilisk knows where he lives.

Re: Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

#215

Post by subtra3t »

objektif wrote: post #144
subtra3t wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you will get downvoted soon (and I for mentioning this) but this is the simplest and most logical explanation on this thread by far.

It is a bit of a cultish environment no doubt. But there are a lot of very very nice people here too.

I would not say nice. Smart, and sometimes cordial, is how I would describe people here.

Re: Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

#216

Post by fatherzine »

al_borland wrote: post #44
fvdessen wrote: post #9

I've had the 'chance' to work with some deeply manipulative persons in the past, the kind who goes to your desk and say 'Hey, I noticed you started to speak to X again, and your performance seems to suffer as a result", where X is a friendly colleague that opposed some plan of that person. It is incredibly difficult to keep those people in check as all that behaviour is off the record and impossible to prove. When pe…

I find it hard to believe this was the kind of environment he was cultivating at OpenAI if 95% of the staff were ready to follow him out the door. I've worked for the type of people you mention and no one followed them when they leave. 95% threatening to leave in this case is hard to ignore.

"95% of the staff" -- this is Kim Jong Un approval rate territory. caution advised.

Re: Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

#217

Post by dishwashing »

mousetree wrote: post #24

> One of those people whose career Altman helped propel was Ilya Sutskever, chief scientist and board member at OpenAI — the person who ultimately fired him. Ilya was plenty successful before OpenAI and would've been just fine without Altman helping to "propel" his career.

This statement about Ilya seems just ridiculous to me. Ilya was one of the people who created all these ML/Deep Learning hype with the "ImageNet moment". I don't care much about all this VC stuff, but before 2023, Ilya seemed to me much more famous than Sam.

Re: Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

#218

Post by dougmwne »

I think everyone is missing the point. Sam Altman seems to be a reasonably effective leader (and certainly flawed and a bit sociopathic), but ultimately unimportant and replaceable. This was not about Sam, this was about the strategic direction of a critical Microsoft partner. Microsoft felt Sam would take orders and therefore supported him. If Sam ever asserts himself, he will be gone, just like the board was replaced.

Re: Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

#219

Post by Philpax »

tristor wrote: post #207
abadpoli wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> defending them because they’re women There’s absolutely nothing in my comment that even implies I’m defending them and their actions, and also absolutely nothing in my comment that implies any of my statement is based on their gender. I seem to have struck a nerve with you, though. I think the commenter doth protest too much.

I suggest you reread your comment then. You claimed the only reason people questioned their qualifications was sexism.

They never said the word "only" or implied it.

Re: Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor

#220

Post by wahnfrieden »

93po wrote: post #109
mandmandam wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worldcoin alone is so, so damning of his character. Cartoon villain shit. It's hard to square that whole thing with the way people talk about him here. But every once in a while it hits; this is the guy who wanted to collect everyone's bloody retina pattern, all for a crypto so obviously bad in nearly every fundamental aspect.

their long term project doesn't save or store retina patterns in any way. they store of a hash of it that is mathematically impossible to reverse. it's clear you wildly misunderstand how this works, i would encourage you to go learn more. i'd also welcome you to explain how the crypto side of it is bad in comparison to other uses of blockchains

Why are you lying to protect sama’s reputation?

Worldcoin stores the biometric data for opt-in users. They say it themselves. It’s stored “encrypted” which means the original data is retrievable, and kept in Worldcoin’s custody. All Worldcoin claims is that it has safeguards against retrieving the data it does collect and store, like say Equifax or 23andme claim about your PII.

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