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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

#351

Post by Jochim »

8note wrote: post #289
Jochim wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe such behaviour is harmful and that we shouldn't be rewarding those that engage in it.

The bad behaviour is predicating the purchase on seeing the office. Having an office doesn't make a company real, nor any more or less likely to execute on the project

Both can be bad. Even more so when you don't know which party established the idea as bad in the first place.

A purchaser who insists they only see white employees in the office is bad. Anyone that forces their non-white employees out of sight to secure that purchase is just as bad, if not worse.

To play along is to accept the notion, to contribute to it's perceived validity, and to harm anyone who happens to be honest. The result is that people we'd be better off without are pushed upwards in society.

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

#352

Post by rsanek »

beer2beerPrtcl wrote: post #272
belligeront wrote: post #128

I don’t have a strong opinion on the events of the past several days. But a lot of the behavior I’ve seen on twitter from Open AI employees, some led by Sam, feels very cult like: posting in all lower case, the heart emojis, rumors of employees calling each other in the middle of the night to pressure people to sign letters supporting Sam. There isn’t necessarily anything wrong of this behavior. It is good to like yo…

I think I'm out of the loop on tweet protocol...What's the significance of all lowercase?

People are reading way too much into this, some people just prefer the look of all-lowercase. It's not like this is some super-unique choice to Sam / OAI, it's all over the internet.

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

#353

Post by erikig »

jpeter wrote: post #336
lhnz wrote: post #42

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…

Rokos Basilisk

Is this why there was a power struggle for OpenAI’s direction?

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

#355

Post by rsanek »

keepamovin wrote: post #11

Now that he’s back with MSOAI I think we’ve got AGI disaster in 7 years. Thin possibility of good path for humanity. I wish he’d stuck to his guns and gone his own way, no MS, and no OAI. No disrespect to MS, they good, but this path is bad.

It sounds like he did stick to his guns though right? He still gets to do whatever he wants with the people he picked.

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

#356

Post by bmitc »

ignoramous wrote: post #278
bmitc wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> working for someone as formidable as sama His name is Sam Altman. And why is he so formidable?

> And why is he so formidable? Commenting on an article that portrayed him as such? > His name is Sam Altman. Unsure what your point is; sama is his hn username.

I don't know the usernames of people discussed in articles and prefer not referring to people colloquially.

And I had assumed that you meant formidable in a positive sense. To me, he seems like a manipulative grifter. We even see that in his response to being fired. Instead of discussing facts, he was trying personal power plays, manipulating the media and employees, and trying to simultaneously start a new company, get a new job at Microsoft, and weasel back in as CEO of OpenAI. That seems to track as someone only concerned with himself.

Through all of this, it has remained confusing and disturbing just why he is considered so important to any of this. He seems completely replaceable. I haven't ever read or heard anything from him that didn't seem to come from some startup 101 playbook, almost like a cosplayer.

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

#357

Post by jstarfish »

adrr wrote: post #344
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.

Why did he sign the letter and post: >I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.

When you take a shot at someone influential and miss, falling on your own sword is a kinder fate than what will happen when they turn your direction.

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

#358

Post by basisword »

armchairhacker wrote: post #354

Why was Sam fired from Y Combinator? Why was he fired from OpenAI? Not saying he's good or trustworthy, but it's unfair to speak badly about him without evidence or even examples of wrongdoing.

Isn't being fired implicit evidence of wrongdoing? Especially when it's not an isolated incident.

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

#359

Post by _1 »

joering2 wrote: post #343
tracerbulletx wrote: post #266

CEOs are professional communicators who have reached the highest level of the craft, they use their communications to achieve an end, expressing their inner selves is not the point. You might know a great kind person who is a car salesman, when they are at work a good one comes off as genuine and friendly, the things they're saying include many truths, but their words and actions are primarily designed to sell cars.…

> CEOs are professional communicators who have reached the highest level of the craft Elon Musk has entered the chat...

That's the exception for someone born wealthy, buys an existing company, and installs themselves as CEO.

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

#360

Post by CSMastermind »

ethbr1 wrote: post #46
xrd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is incredibly well put and not something I've seen articulated so clearly before.
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