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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

#511

Post by CamperBob2 »

mandevil wrote: post #500
CamperBob2 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Rickover as a role model? If he'd been able to do for the civilian nuclear power sector what he did for the Navy, a lot of things would be a lot better now.

Rickover effectively seized control of the entire USN submarine arm and ran it as a personal fief for three decades. I don't think that could possibly work with civilian power in the US, because it's NOT a military organization and can't be changed by top-down mandate. A 1978 USNI Proceedings essay on NR and leadership[1], which won a bunch of prizes, had this great description of Rickover's micromanagement: "Each nu…

Thanks, interesting perspective there that I'm not very familiar with. Will have to check out the USNI essay.

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

#512

Post by bambax »

tomnipotent wrote: post #377
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.…

"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" is a great book that touches on this subject. I read it in the middle of purchasing a new car in 2010, and had signed paperwork and a purchase agreement to buy car at $X. Next day I'm told "My manager won't let me sell for anything less than $X+Y", after I'd gone through all the trouble of filling out all that paperwork. Fortunetly I'd just finished a chapter in the book outl…

I don't know if this counts as selling, though.

Selling is making you want to buy the car, agreeing on a price and filling in the paperwork.

Trying to extract more money from you after you have agreed on a price is... extorsion? Fraud? But not just "selling".

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

#513

Post by bmitc »

threeseed wrote: post #467
bmitc wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CEOs are professional communicators who have reached the highest level of the craft That's kind of silly, isn't it? Altman is a college dropout who has barely ever worked and somehow fell upward into CEO positions very quickly. His level of communication in talks and interviews is terrible, so I am genuinely confused where all this mystique comes from. He sounds like a college student being asked and talking about…

Altman founded Loopt. Not sure how you can say he fell into the CEO position there. Also at the time he was at YC it was a significantly smaller and less prestigious incubator.

> Loopt, Inc. was an American company ... which provided a service for smartphone users to share their location selectively with other people.

Yea, impressive stuff. I'm sure that gave him a lot of experience that led to being one of the few "professional communicators who have reached the highest level of the craft".

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

#514

Post by ChuckMcM »

jzb wrote: post #484
ChuckMcM wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes think that at this level of the game everyone hates everyone else and its all politics. You don't "come out" for or against anyone publicly, you leave all of that under cover. It makes knowing who your friends and enemies are more difficult and it restricts your ability to maneuver. Another quote from my grandfather was "Mutual respect does not require that you like someone."

I'm sure there's some genuine friendships, but it's always interesting to see what people say publicly vs. privately. Also fair to say that there are people I've worked with that I did not, at the time, appreciate but grew to appreciate later on. Years ago I was at an event talking to a colleague who was absolutely bashing someone (with good reason) and then another colleague walked up. Same person came up and my fir…

> I've worked with that I did not, at the time, appreciate but grew to appreciate later on.

Exactly right. People are complicated and liking or disliking them is adjacent to whether or not they are 'good' at their job.

I've known people who sucked at their job, but doing the same job in a different environment were stars. That experience led me to disassociate what people do as part of their job from the person themselves. And I can respect someone for doing a good job, even when I find their personal attitude or motivations distasteful.

Complicated.

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

#515

Post by ChuckMcM »

nabla9 wrote: post #509
ChuckMcM wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes think that at this level of the game everyone hates everyone else and its all politics. You don't "come out" for or against anyone publicly, you leave all of that under cover. It makes knowing who your friends and enemies are more difficult and it restricts your ability to maneuver. Another quote from my grandfather was "Mutual respect does not require that you like someone."

"like" or "hate" are words for people and petty personal conflicts. It's counterproductive to take business conflicts personally. PG removed Sam Altman silently without harming his future. There is no reason to be enemies after the issue is solved. There may be deals to be made again.

> It's counterproductive to take business conflicts personally.

100% agree with this, but it is productive to understand what was behind a business conflict. Personal like or dislike can change which alternative of a choice of equal alternatives, someone might make. As Tony Soprano would say, "It's just business."

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

#516

Post by bambax »

> “Ninety plus percent of the employees of OpenAI are saying they would be willing to move to Microsoft because they feel Sam’s been mistreated by a rogue board of directors,” said Ron Conway (...) “I’ve never seen this kind of loyalty anywhere.”

95% is the kind of score one sees when there's an "election" in a dictatorship. Unanimity is often suspect.

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

#517

Post by gardenhedge »

mrkramer wrote: post #402

Why would Sam Altman be held as someone irreplaceable....the dude seems like a smart guy but c'mon he is not Jobs or Gates. I remember first time hearing him when he interviewed Zuck about Facebook and entrepreneurship (when he worked for Y Combinator). Now we talk about him as the next Gates or Jobs. I think this was one big marketing stunt from OpenAI, now the whole software and business community talks about them.…

I don't think it's marketing stunt. I just think there is a lot of incompetent people involved.

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

#518

Post by famouswaffles »

bmitc wrote: post #367
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 That's kind of silly, isn't it? Altman is a college dropout who has barely ever worked and somehow fell upward into CEO positions very quickly. His level of communication in talks and interviews is terrible, so I am genuinely confused where all this mystique comes from. He sounds like a college student being asked and talking about…

all the companies altman has CEO'd are companies he co-founded. Not sure how you "fall upwards" into that.

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

#519

Post by reissbaker »

The double-dipping charge doesn't seem particularly real — even pg still to this day personally invests in YC companies while they're in YC, even before Demo Day (e.g. Phind). I very much doubt he fired Sam for doing it too. It reads to me like Sam was focusing more on OpenAI (the "absenteeism" that the article mentions was primarily due "to his intense focus on OpenAI") and pg told him he couldn't do both.

Somehow trying to tie that to the OpenAI board — which couldn't even come up with a concrete reason for firing him to their attempted CEO replacements, who both then switched sides to supporting Sam — seems like a stretch.

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

#520

Post by rurp »

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…

Wow, that's some incredibly damning stuff, especially from his own sister. I'm a bit surprised to have never heard about any of this before, but I guess the kind of influence Sam has can be pretty effective.
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