Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

561–570 of 798 posts

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

#561

Post by icelancer »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #541
icelancer wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've fired people and later recommended them for jobs where they'd be a better fit. Not uncommon at all.

My immediate thought. Relatively few have been in management here, perhaps.

It's largely engineers who don't really understand the value of a C-level person, as evidenced time and time again in the comments.

The concept you could fire someone for business reasons and later be their very good friend and recommend them for another job - sometimes an even better one than you employed them in - doesn't fit the single-input single-output mind of a lot of engineers.

It's alright. We all have roles to play.

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

#562

Post by catlover76 »

koolba wrote: post #552
nabla9 wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

> PG removed Sam Altman silently without harming his future. When police departments do that to overly aggressive cops, it’s generally considered a bad thing.

There are different sets of concerns governing police accountability, transparency, etc., from those governing various different types of corporations, and rightly so.

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

#563

Post by woooooo »

WendyTheWillow wrote: post #526
bmitc wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.

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

That doesn't necessarily follow. Lots of people have difficult jobs. Line cooks have to make priority decisions under high pressure, and it's impactful.

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

#564

Post by jstarfish »

adastra22 wrote: post #528
adrr wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's actually pretty typical for coups/mutinies.

Your position is challenged by military brass, so you imprison/execute them. Anyone charismatic enough to take you on is going to have been popular with the soldiers, so now a heavily-armed mob with tanks and artillery is pissed at you. Now you have two problems, with only two solutions-- eat some shit and hope to make peace, or die.

Putin played it safe in flipping the script-- negotiate surrender, appear to resolve the dispute peacefully, then stage an "accident" of the rabblerouser once tensions are lower. Cooler heads always prevail.

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

#565

Post by bigiain »

personjerry wrote: post #474
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…

Doesn't this show a vested interest from pg and jessica in OpenAI? So it's hard for them to say anything negative.

Jessica went out of her way to use the slightly awkward phrase 'founding donor', so she's at least trying to imply she isn't just trying to protect an investment. I'm going to take the generous interpretation of that and assume she means what she says there, and isn't just playing politics and share price PR.

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

#566

Post by unethical_ban »

koolba wrote: post #552
nabla9 wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

> PG removed Sam Altman silently without harming his future. When police departments do that to overly aggressive cops, it’s generally considered a bad thing.

This is laughably naive or frustratingly bad faith to think abusive cops are similar to incompatible business partners.

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

#567

Post by selimthegrim »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #555
selimthegrim wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too, wasn't aware of this or I might have cited it in the thread as well.

It's interesting because you can't argue with the success he achieved, and given how high the stakes were, you can sort of understand the temptation to micromanage. But (having read the essay now) you also can't learn much from Rickover's methodology, or apply it anywhere else. If for no other reason than the fact that few/no similar problems exist anywhere else. We also can't run the experiment multiple times to det…

I think he realized it painted him in a bad light which is why he blamed it on the reporter to me but I really just should have responded with the Edward Teller quote from the 1983 AUR article: 'I liked Rickover better as a captain than as an admiral."

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

#568

Post by brap »

drtgh wrote: post #472
Geee wrote: post #426

It seems that there are a lot of people who are loyal to Sam because they are scared of crossing him. If this is really the pattern here, then this is probably not the timeline we want to be on.

I'm following the whole story to see if there's a sociopath involved.

Probably most of them.

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

#569

Post by selimthegrim »

jstarfish wrote: post #564
adastra22 wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's actually pretty typical for coups/mutinies. Your position is challenged by military brass, so you imprison/execute them. Anyone charismatic enough to take you on is going to have been popular with the soldiers, so now a heavily-armed mob with tanks and artillery is pissed at you. Now you have two problems, with only two solutions-- eat some shit and hope to make peace, or die. Putin played it safe in flipping th…

Or you could do the King Hassan II strategy which is basically bury them in underground pits with not even enough room to stand up in for 24 hours a day until the first Bush comes knocking and needs a favor and tells you to clean up your PR.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tazmamart

I guess a L63 DS salary at MS must be the salt mines to these guys.

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

#570

Post by mihaic »

unethical_ban wrote: post #566
koolba wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PG removed Sam Altman silently without harming his future. When police departments do that to overly aggressive cops, it’s generally considered a bad thing.

This is laughably naive or frustratingly bad faith to think abusive cops are similar to incompatible business partners.

Not to me, when those "business partners" are in charge of some agencies like YC that do influence the society we live in.
Post reply on HN