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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

#531

Post by yumraj »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #376

From Paul Graham's Twitter, three days ago: "No one in the world is better than Sam at dealing with this kind of situation." Jessica Livingston retweet: "The reason I was a founding donor to OpenAI in 2015 was not because I was interested in AI, but because I believed in Sam. So I hope the board can get its act together and bring Sam and Greg back." Also from a sibling comment: https://twitter.com/search?q=from:paulg…

It’s not too complicated. Their interests are/were different.

In the case of YC, removing him was better for PG and YC.

In this case, having Sam on top of OpenAI gets them better returns on their investment.

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

#532

Post by ncann »

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…

What's that about with Eric Schmidt, Elon and Ilya?

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

#533

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

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

Clicksaver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk

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

#534

Post by adastra22 »

lhnz wrote: post #291
tom_ wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, man. As an English person, to me these tweets sound a lot like he is publicly calling Altman a cunt.

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

Graham is English. The English have a wonderful talent for making backhanded “complements.” E.g. “you’re a truly unique individual” or “I always feel more intelligent after speaking with you.”

The American convention is to look for the positive and assume that was intended. The English convention is to look for the negative and assume that was the real meaning.

E.g. “Sam is going better than you. Do better.” Could mean “Even that incompetent dipshit Sam is going to do better than you can, that’s how much of a hole you’re in.”

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

#535

Post by eric-hu »

sangnoir wrote: post #295
eric-hu wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vladimir Putin had 77% of the vote in Russia’s 2017. If Putin can’t fake a 95% approval rating, surely the OpenAI numbers must be real.

This is reminding me of the Ewok defense.

Looks like I need to work on my sarcasm phrasing.

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

#536

Post by selimthegrim »

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…

This is what I cited (from the 1983 issue of Air University Review) which makes many similar points but concentrates more on his impact on the organization at the Navy level (https://web.archive.org/web/20130310192210/http://www.airpow...). I also pointed out to him that Rickover didn't think civilian nuclear power should be a thing towards the end of his life as well as some points about the Shoreham plant and the backup turbines.

e: "In time, he became increasingly conservative if not reactionary, putting space between himself and any responsibility for failure or accident. When the USS Thresher was lost in April 1963, he immediately phoned the Bureau of Ships to dissociate himself from any likelihood of failure of the nuclear plant in the incident. The bureau chief thought this action "thoroughly dishonest."

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

#537

Post by iaseiadit »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #372

Kind of interesting that Jessica Livingston (Paul Graham's spouse) tweeted this a couple of days ago: > The reason I was a founding donor to OpenAI in 2015 was not because I was interested in AI, but because I believed in Sam. So I hope the board can get its act together and bring Sam and Greg back. https://twitter.com/jesslivingston/status/172628436492378127...

YC is invested in OpenAI. Wonder if they want a win-at-all-costs type person (if we go along with this premise) running a company they’re invested in, yet not want him running their company.

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

#539

Post by mcpackieh »

sam0x17 wrote: post #451
mattstir wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do retinal scans protect against Sybil attacks exactly?

I don't believe that they do, in fact, it is probably trivial to make a fake WorldCoin identity, but people who support WorldCoin largely support it on the assumption that this is not possible.

I think the people who support Worldcoin do so either on the basis of it being another shitcoin they can make money speculating with, or because they're in Sam's personality cult.

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

#540

Post by tmpz22 »

Geee wrote: post #392
joering2 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Founder CEOs are a different breed. There's a plenty of successful founder CEOs who don't fit the typical hired CEO pattern. Zuckerberg, Sweeney, etc.

Is Elon a founder CEO of Twitter, Tesla, or SpaceX?
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