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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

#571

Post by inglor_cz »

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.

That is an astonishingly bad analogy.

Believing that a person is not a good match for a certain business position is worlds apart from a public servant intentionally abusing his legally sanctioned monopoly on violence.

The first kind of person may be well a good match for another position, in another company; the latter is just a criminal in uniform.

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

#572

Post by socketcluster »

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 comes down to alignment of interests and alignment of values. I think previous comment is right in suggesting that people's interests and values may not be clear at that level. People often hide them to appeal more broadly.

The more you reveal about yourself, the fewer people you will appeal to because very few people share your exact values. People tend to like people who share some obvious common values and they assume that the values that are unspoken are also a match. In reality, it's rarely so.

As people learn more about the world and themselves, they begin to realize that some values that they didn't consider before are very important and they may be shocked to find that certain people they used to like do not share those values which they took for granted.

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

#573

Post by Slava_Propanei »

loeg wrote: post #461
nerbert wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being the best in the world to deal with a situation is a neutral statement. Putin is the best in the world to deal with the situation he’s in right now, if you need a negative angle on this.

> Putin is the best in the world to deal with the situation he’s in right now, if you need a negative angle on this. Probably not true? It seems like Russia could use another Yeltsin (or Gorbachev) more than Putin for its current situation.

[dead]

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

#574

Post by jjtheblunt »

imjonse wrote: post #398
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…

Paul's tweet is an objective statement, it does not say anything about character or values and is not explicitly supportive.

it's implausible, because the hyperbole is over the top: he's wealthy from writing programs, and clearly has not assessed every single person in the world, so he knows better.

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

#575

Post by gardenhedge »

icelancer wrote: post #561
washadjeffmad wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your reg dates are 2012 and 2014. As you know, this is hacker news. not c-level news, not middle management news.. hacker news.

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

#576

Post by huytersd »

RamblingCTO wrote: post #525
huytersd wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

Stop repeating unverified allegations. Anyone can allege anything.

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

#577

Post by hackitup7 »

icelancer wrote: post #455
greatNespresso wrote: post #270

It came as a surprise for me to learn that PG fired Sam. It's the first time that I read this actually, and if that's true, I find it kind of mysterious that it remained a secret for so long. Or maybe I missed the news somehow but I could not find any other mention of that event on Google.

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

Agreed, it's very common to see. In many cases you're talking about people who worked together very closely for years and are verging on as close as family. Also, in higher-level roles you often get fired due to a very specific lack of skills or a very specific weakness that wouldn't be at all applicable for another job.

Ex "this person is an amazing startup CTO but they get problematically overwhelmed when the organization gets to 100 engineers" – you would 1000% recommend that person to a 50-person startup even if they got fired from their job at a 500-person company. They might even be better at it the next time around.

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

#578

Post by dchung333 »

dchung333 wrote: post #428
DoreenMichele wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have hung out on HN for over 14 years and took a personal interest in "How in the heck did a pretty young woman co-found a company with three men, date one of them and not have this turn into a debacle and scandal in the headlines???" It took quite a few years for the details behind the founding of YC to come out: 1. Jessica Livingston did not co-found a company with three random men. 2. She and Paul Graham were da…

Huh the things I heard about Altman a long time before was that he was a couch surfer at YCombinator.

Well I can't edit this and this page has likely been archived so... I'll just write this. Sam was essentially homeless. A failed startup with not much to it. Sure, it was acquired but it gave him essentially just enough to continue trying to pursue his dream. He really didn't make any progress at all. At YCombinator he was essentially stuck for years. There's a lot of fake and editorialized stories about his life and his made up genius. The dude dropped out of college it's not this amazing story. Mentally he had given up everything to try to reach this stage. I don't know the full story but almost everything online I've read is completely different from what I've actually heard.

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

#580

Post by specialist »

adastra22 wrote: post #534
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.

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 me…

Per Guy Kawasaki (The Macintosh Way), the sincerity of Jean-Louis Gassée's feedback was inversely proportional to the level of praise.

That anecdote prompted me to do the same (in corporate battlefields). Works great.

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