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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

#521

Post by lhnz »

tom_ wrote: post #305
lhnz wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? It seems like a glowing appraisal. He seems to think that Sam is devestatingly effective at what he does.

If I didn't know Graham was English, perhaps I would take them at face value - and, indeed, perhaps I should anyway. (And my characterisation was an extreme one!) But: they do just all sound rather coldly backhanded, if you ask me.

Well, I'm also English and I didn't read them that way. However, I do think that Paul is telling people that competing with Sam in certain domains would be extraordinarily difficult.

The other thing is that if you take a look at Paul Graham's blog posts, he used to regularly thank Sam at the bottom of these -- this isn't something you do if you don't like or respect someone. However, on the other hand, perhaps they fell out at some point? I can't personally make out that signal from the little data there is.

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

#522

Post by lkbm »

> Graham did not respond to a request for comment.

Not said: "...but has consistently spoken in support of Sam Altman."

This article is incredibly disingenuous. Almost to the level that I'd cancel my Washington Post subscription over if I hadn't already for similarly bad journalism.

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

#523

Post by ethbr1 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #244
ethbr1 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 worst option, except for all the other ones.

What's the better alternative?

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

#524

Post by famouswaffles »

bmitc wrote: post #513
threeseed wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

That was not the point of that coment.

You act like he just mysteriously found himself in executive positions when every company he's headed for a significant duration was one he founded. If you didn't even know that then you obviously know very little about him and couldn't even be bothered to do any research at all. This is a simple wikipedia search. So why are you so bothered about someone you know nothing about ?

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

#525

Post by RamblingCTO »

huytersd wrote: post #383
demadog wrote: post #274

I predict his character arch will be similar to Adam Neumann and Travis Kalanick - first the media gushes over him and praises him as a genius. Then the media starts to question him. Then they start to fully dig in and dig up a ton of dirt. With no mainstream outlet pushing forth the allegations his sister is claiming on social, I imagine right now they are looking under every rock on that end. I respect his hustle b…

[flagged]

He's literally saying they are allegations and claims, so he's done everything correct:

> With no mainstream outlet pushing forth the allegations his sister is claiming on social, I imagine right now they are looking under every rock on that end.

Stop being a fanboy and get some arguments.

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

#526

Post by WendyTheWillow »

bmitc wrote: post #508
runeofdoom wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you start thinking that CEOs aren't special and unique, then you might start thinking they don't need to be paid 350 times what the average employee does.

Yes.

Then you must not think the job is difficult or impactful, as well.

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

#527

Post by tomnipotent »

bambax wrote: post #512
tomnipotent wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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".

It's negotiation, which is absolutely selling. The dealership was counting on me accepting the price hike because the car I wanted was rare and in-demand, and I had already made some commitment to the process by filling out initial paperwork. I knew a manager still needed to approve the terms, but the sales rep made it sound like it was certain.

Turns out this is an incredibly common car sales tactic, enough so that it was explicitly called out in the aforementioned book.

Rather than harumph about how unfair it is, I decided it was better to just learn how to play the game. Unwilling participant or not, fair or not, it's better to come prepared than feel like you're getting taken advantage of.

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

#528

Post by adastra22 »

adrr wrote: post #498
jstarfish wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This subthread isn't about the article; we're on a tangent about OpenAI. He was fired [at] and didn't die. Now he's back, and looking for revenge.

Board hired him back. They could have said no and stuck to their guns. No shareholders to give them the boot.

Then they’d be falling on their own swords. Literally the whole company was ready to walk away. Never in history has that ever happened, as far as I know.

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

#529

Post by siva7 »

screye wrote: post #337
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.

HAHA, I know. Ilya, a nobody who wrote the most seminal paper of the last 10 years. The guy that Eric Schmidt and Elon broke their friendship over was just a random nobody. Come on. It is no secret that when OpenAI formed, every single researcher joined so they could work with Ilya (and Zaremba who worked with him, but was less famous). Greg is brilliant but ML people didn't care for him and Sam 'one of those VC guys…

and your source for this story is?

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

#530

Post by mcpackieh »

lynx23 wrote: post #7

It is hard to see through the unfolding drama. Since I am lacking data (and we all do), I can only fall back to my intuition. When I was listening to Sam being interviewed by Lex, I had to turn the podcast off because I felt I am listening to a deeply flawed and manipulative character. He left a creepy feeling of "Never ever trust this guy".

Yeah, Lex gives me those vibes too.
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