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

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

#241

Post by smegsicle »

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…

that can't be true- why would sam altman and the rest of their family deny annie altman's inheritance? it's not like they need the money themselves

either this annie character is making stuff up, or the whole rest of her family are some kind of comic book villains

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

#242

Post by lessbergstein »

loveparade wrote: post #112
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.

I subscribe to the HN RSS feed, which shows flagged items since they're published on the feed before they're flagged. The craziest thing that stands out to me is how so many negative stories on Sam Altman end up being flagged, even though they are just as legit as the positive ones. I'm almost 100% certain that HN is highly manipulated for this story. For no other topic have I seen so many flagged stories, and all of…

This website is YCombinator. Sam was with YCombinator

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

#243

Post by pdonis »

xrd wrote: post #20
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hadn't seen the tweet from Geoffrey Irving before: https://twitter.com/geoffreyirving/status/172675427022402397... > 1. He was always nice to me. > 2. He lied to me on various occasions > 3. He was deceptive, manipulative, and worse to others, including my close friends (again, only nice to me, for reasons)

It's a very strongly worded statement. Given how connected Altman is, it's very interesting that Irving would publicly state this. It's either very courageous and in service to changing silicon valley, or also very manipulative and in service of benefiting his company. It feels like it could be both. I'm left feeling like there are no angels here. (That's actually funny given how investors love to call themselves ang…

> I'm left feeling like there are no angels here.

That's my feeling after watching all this play out over the last few days. I don't trust any of these people to be good stewards of anything that is supposed to benefit humanity.

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

#244

Post by marcosdumay »

ethbr1 wrote: post #222
mikrl wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When people complain it's a 'you said, he said' situation where the manipulator inevitably wins There’s no such thing as a free lunch. These types must have weaknesses of their own. I’m growing the cynicism necessary to tolerate them, but I’d like to know more robust strategies to manage them and keep them in check. I find it hard to truly hate people, but with this type I can muster some pretty flowery invective on…

Unfortunately, it's a time disparity issue. Someone who politics for more time (with some aptitude) will generally beat out someone who doesn't. One of the marks in favor of being cutthroat about pre-registering KPIs and expected outcomes, and then evaluating solely based on them. In the end, I think it comes down to organizational culture. The companies I've seen with healthier executive ranks all had a very strong…

> One of the marks in favor of being cutthroat about pre-registering KPIs and expected outcomes, and then evaluating solely based on them.

That's the only thing off in your comment. Those KPIs are always set by politics, always have surprisingly subjective measurements, and always have unpredictable consequences that are cleared out by politics.

An environment with all formal strictly set objective metrics is one of the easiest ones to manipulate.

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

#245

Post by mattstir »

sam0x17 wrote: post #187
AlexandrB wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the internet "need" this? Anonymity and pseudonymity are features, not bugs of the internet. Eliminating them will supercharge surveillance and government/corporate control.

The short answer is a lot of potentially useful decentralized protocols completely buckle under the weight of Sybil attacks, so if Sybil attacks were impossible, there is a whole lot more that could be built

So how do retinal scans protect against Sybil attacks exactly?

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

#246

Post by stillwithit »

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.

Cult of personality and connection to the 1% of 1% given our tech fueled economy skews worker motives.

If you had such a chance to sit around while everyone else grew your potatoes, you would.

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

#247

Post by pdonis »

kubrickslair wrote: post #204
Solvency wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strangely paradoxical. Sam has zero charisma. Zero looks. No technical ability. He's not a storyteller. He's not a hype man. He comes off as a mildly surly sloth when he talks. His actual pre-OpenAI achievements from a product perspective are a joke. But he was nevertheless "there" for YC and "there" in OpenAI, and a bunch of money was raised, and he's successfully managed to get all spotlights on him at all tim…

I have only interacted briefly with Sam but I found him to be one of the smartest YC folks. But I will let a Paul Graham essay speak [1]: Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?" What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the el…

Graham doesn't say Altman is smart. He says he's driven. They're not the same thing.

Quite frankly, every time I read one of Altman's essays I am seriously underwhelmed as far as smartness goes.

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

#248

Post by moralestapia »

loveparade wrote: post #112
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.

I subscribe to the HN RSS feed, which shows flagged items since they're published on the feed before they're flagged. The craziest thing that stands out to me is how so many negative stories on Sam Altman end up being flagged, even though they are just as legit as the positive ones. I'm almost 100% certain that HN is highly manipulated for this story. For no other topic have I seen so many flagged stories, and all of…

I've noticed this as well, although empirically.

I don't sympathize with @sama, more so, my personal opinion of him is that he definitely shows off a lot of psychopathic traits, but that said ...

... I'm also ok with keeping those topics outside the scope of this community, which is mainly tech-related and that's what I enjoy about it. Personal affairs belong elsewhere, IMO.

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

#249

Post by nouveaux »

lessbergstein wrote: post #242
loveparade wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I subscribe to the HN RSS feed, which shows flagged items since they're published on the feed before they're flagged. The craziest thing that stands out to me is how so many negative stories on Sam Altman end up being flagged, even though they are just as legit as the positive ones. I'm almost 100% certain that HN is highly manipulated for this story. For no other topic have I seen so many flagged stories, and all of…

This website is YCombinator. Sam was with YCombinator

Did you read the article? Sam was fired by YCombinator.
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