If Paul Graham fired Sam Altman from YCombinator it's interesting that he appears to have such a favourable opinion of him [0]. However, personally, what I've taken away from this is that he is a much better strategic/tactical operator than many other high-flying executives and very capable of winning the respect and trust of a lot of smart people. I wouldn't expect OpenAI to be run by anybody that wasn't revered in…
I dunno, man. As an English person, to me these tweets sound a lot like he is publicly calling Altman a cunt.
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.
How so? A universal and tamper-proof ID system sounds like a good idea. In my country we have a pretty rock solid digital ID but the problem is that it's national, so the utility is limited. I want to build global apps where I know every user is real and limited to one account but currently that's impossible. I don't know enough about Worldcoin to know if that's it though.
To keep things polite - I couldn't give a nanofraction of a fuck what kind of app you want to build, I am not giving my biometric data on such a stupid whim to anybody, not to US for-profit, when US laws selectively considers remaining 95% of humans on Earth subpar.
>how everyone in HN just assumed he was "innocent". Did they? You should try scrolling through the original thread and ctrl-Fing [edit: removed the single word that was getting me downvoted to oblivion, my point is that people were quick to jump to very serious/troubling conclusions to explain his firing and explicitly weren't jumping to innocent] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38309611
This was so buried that completely escaped me. But it's full of nuggets https://twitter.com/phuckfilosophy/status/163570439893983232... > I’m not four years old with a 13 year old “brother” climbing into my bed non-consensually anymore. > (You’re welcome for helping you figure out your sexuality.) > I’ve finally accepted that you’ve always been and always will be more scared of me than I’ve been of you. I don't know…
She is just posting into midair, but at a time when Sam was in the news and it was implied she was talking to him.
If you’re referring to discussing their qualifications to be on the board, I don’t think that is in any way driven by sexism. There were numerous comment threads discussing the qualifications of all the board members and these two stood out as being specifically unqualified, and D’Angelo stood out for having clear conflicts of interest. Given how the board handled this whole situation like an amateur hour shit show,…
> 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.
You introduced sex into a discussion where their sex is completely irrelevant.
I would not be surprised if this is the beginning of the end for the company.
Nah. Microsoft still exist and is thriving. Altman is the new Bill Gates except he is better at retaining ~~cul~~ employees. Many at HN love him for those qualities.
Can you clarify the meaning of 4 tildes surrounded by the letters 'cul', for those of us who are new around here? Thank you
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.
Your comment and sentiment is wildly inappropriate. You don't even bother to raise an accusation, just smear a person's character. We should all expect better from this forum.
Ok, my accusation is that this guy wants to scan people eyeballs, and monetize that.
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…
It's difficult to conceptualize someone who is ruthless, self-interested, and skilled enough to overcome all problems... except your control over them. Eventually they look at you and decide you're the problem to be overcome. Might not happen for a while, but inevitably will.
Nicely worded, but with regard to the OpenAI conflict I wonder if you intended this to be about Sam Altman or the topic of (G)AI safety or both?
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…
Fyi the gist was a copy of that letter originally posted to board.net. It was created by a user here on HN when the board.net link first came out and its servers subsequently crashed from the HN hug of death.
Based on the article and the loyalty shown by openai employees, he appears to be the "difficult to manage" type, rather than the "difficult to work for" type. That's not necessarily a bad thing in employees. I was once told that it is easier to round off the corners of a cube than to develop corners on a sphere.
IME one almost always implies the other.
But not as a truism. It's possible to manipulate well enough that people above and below you both believe you are working in their interest, but it's quite hard. Great for job security if you can pull it off.
I always give a short candid response to those questions. Sometimes it brings follow up questions. My wife says I should just always say good or great.
I think your wife is right lol
She usually is, but it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.