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Researchers and Founders

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Researchers and Founders

#61

Post by indymike »

Tarrosion wrote: post #17

A small point only tangential to the main point of this post, but something I've noticed about Sam's writing before: Is anyone else offput by the phrase "best people"? I get (or at least hope) it's a shorthand for "best at their respective job of researcher/founder," but it really seems to reduce people's innate worth and goodness to this single dimension in a somewhat unnerving way.

People are emotionally affected by exclusion. The phrase "the best people are ___" is exclusionary if you don't match the fill in the blank. I don't think Altman is trying to offend anyone. He's trying to contrast the behavior of top researchers/founders with everyone else...

Re: Researchers and Founders

#62

Post by Isamu »

bonoboTP wrote: post #34

This post would not survive blind review, though. The author's brand makes it look very insightful but if you look closely it's really cliche. Yeah, no shit, successful people work hard on important problems, they have small-scale laser focus and also large-scale vision. Seems like the wisdom tree has been plucked, these startup wisdom blogs are getting emptier and emptier (see also Paul Graham...).

But a surprisingly common alternative view is: it’s all about BORN TALENT, no amount of work will help you if you are not anointed.

Personally I find the born talent view to be lazy and not a little bit creepy.

Re: Researchers and Founders

#63

Post by GuiA »

satvikpendem wrote: post #55
bonoboTP wrote: post #34

This post would not survive blind review, though. The author's brand makes it look very insightful but if you look closely it's really cliche. Yeah, no shit, successful people work hard on important problems, they have small-scale laser focus and also large-scale vision. Seems like the wisdom tree has been plucked, these startup wisdom blogs are getting emptier and emptier (see also Paul Graham...).

This is an interesting point. Why does it feel like these blogs are getting shallower? For PG, more of his older blog posts were more interesting than his newer ones, with more concreteness in advice and experiences. The latest ones seem more observational of trends instead, which can be more vague in nature.

Because they're getting further and further away from their maker/hacker roots, and are now fully in the investor/politician/executive role. Two very different kinds of thinking and seeing the world, and the former typically have a strong dislike for the thinking/operating style of the latter.

Re: Researchers and Founders

#64

Post by [deleted] »

bonoboTP wrote: post #34

This post would not survive blind review, though. The author's brand makes it look very insightful but if you look closely it's really cliche. Yeah, no shit, successful people work hard on important problems, they have small-scale laser focus and also large-scale vision. Seems like the wisdom tree has been plucked, these startup wisdom blogs are getting emptier and emptier (see also Paul Graham...).

[deleted]

Re: Researchers and Founders

#65

Post by some_furry »

This article seems a little half-baked to me, like it's missing the great insight that ties these seemingly random observations together and then a conclusion.

Instead, it just kinda stops abruptly.

Re: Researchers and Founders

#66

Post by some_furry »

bonoboTP wrote: post #34

This post would not survive blind review, though. The author's brand makes it look very insightful but if you look closely it's really cliche. Yeah, no shit, successful people work hard on important problems, they have small-scale laser focus and also large-scale vision. Seems like the wisdom tree has been plucked, these startup wisdom blogs are getting emptier and emptier (see also Paul Graham...).

If it weren't Sam Altman who published this article, it probably never would have made the HN front page. (None of my blog posts have done so, and I can say with confidence that my worst blog posts are still more fleshed out than this post.)

Sam, if you're reading this and want to challenge my hypothesis, all you need to do is make a pen name and register a domain name to go with it, then publish your next post of the same caliber under that persona and see how well it sinks/swims on HN.

Re: Researchers and Founders

#67

Post by alexashka »

bonoboTP wrote: post #34

This post would not survive blind review, though. The author's brand makes it look very insightful but if you look closely it's really cliche. Yeah, no shit, successful people work hard on important problems, they have small-scale laser focus and also large-scale vision. Seems like the wisdom tree has been plucked, these startup wisdom blogs are getting emptier and emptier (see also Paul Graham...).

To me, it feels like Gary Vee's cancerous idea of 'there is never enough content, post everywhere, all the time' has infiltrated culture - people have realized that they can stay popular and receive the many perks that come with it, from simply posting 'content' that barely has any actual content in it :)

I couldn't comprehend why anybody would watch daily videos from a guy/gal who does nothing but films him/herself filming shit (Casey Neistat being the first I believe), but I think I've figured it out.

It's like having an internet friend - if they like you, it no longer matters what you do, the same way you aren't having deep conversations with your friends, you're just 'hanging out'.

Sam Altman is doing the daily video version of hanging out, except he does it in blog format because he's an 'intellectual' or maybe just camera shy and the frequency seems to be a week or two apart.

It used to be that people would actually provide some value - a blog would at least aggregate interesting news stories (Daring Fireball) and provide some insight, but people have realized that doing all that work of actually reading, thinking and providing insight, is optional - you just need others to want to consume whatever you're providing and the bar has turned out to be far lower than any intelligent person can readily comprehend.

There's also a great deal of 'ignorance is bliss' when it comes to people like Paul Graham. His posts on Twitter strike me as him sharing what he considers to be insightful or interesting. It's revealing that rather than actually studying people who've come before him and devoted their life to contemplation, he's perfectly content to have 'insights' about his children's latest quip. You can't fault someone for it and I don't think Paul has ever claimed to be an intellectual, so it is perfectly good that he gets to have his simple fun of re-discovering the tried and true, rather than working hard on attempting to discover the novel. It's when he generalizes his personal little joys into theories about the rest of the world without any felt need for diligence (besides editing) or response to feedback, that his simple-mindedness is revealed and catches people who haven't lived a while, off-guard. Sam Altman may fall into this category.

Re: Researchers and Founders

#68

Post by Gibbon1 »

alexashka wrote: post #67
bonoboTP wrote: post #34

This post would not survive blind review, though. The author's brand makes it look very insightful but if you look closely it's really cliche. Yeah, no shit, successful people work hard on important problems, they have small-scale laser focus and also large-scale vision. Seems like the wisdom tree has been plucked, these startup wisdom blogs are getting emptier and emptier (see also Paul Graham...).

To me, it feels like Gary Vee's cancerous idea of 'there is never enough content, post everywhere, all the time' has infiltrated culture - people have realized that they can stay popular and receive the many perks that come with it, from simply posting 'content' that barely has any actual content in it :) I couldn't comprehend why anybody would watch daily videos from a guy/gal who does nothing but films him/herself…

> people have realized that they can stay popular and receive the many perks that come with it, from simply posting 'content' that barely has any actual content in it :)

Mark Twain I think said: That man can pack the smallest ideas into the most words of any man I know.

Personal Hate: Essays that follow the NPR style of layering vast amounts of extraneous sub-anecdotes before getting to the point.

Re: Researchers and Founders

#69

Post by some_furry »

Isamu wrote: post #62
bonoboTP wrote: post #34

This post would not survive blind review, though. The author's brand makes it look very insightful but if you look closely it's really cliche. Yeah, no shit, successful people work hard on important problems, they have small-scale laser focus and also large-scale vision. Seems like the wisdom tree has been plucked, these startup wisdom blogs are getting emptier and emptier (see also Paul Graham...).

But a surprisingly common alternative view is: it’s all about BORN TALENT, no amount of work will help you if you are not anointed. Personally I find the born talent view to be lazy and not a little bit creepy.

I have a relevant anecdote for this!

I was placed into the "gifted" program in the 1st grade of elementary school and told for many years that I was somehow special or "very" intelligent.

I never believed them, of course, because of two observations:

1. The adults who were telling me this did a lot of stupid stuff, which undermined the credibility of their claims.

2. Despite their best efforts to insulate us from the normal students, I knew people my age outside of the gifted program who were as clever -- if not even more so -- than my so-called "gifted" peers.

As an adult, I'm glad I never bought their hype. It's a one-way high-speed trip to narcissism, laziness, entitlement, and creepiness.

Re: Researchers and Founders

#70

Post by pphysch »

eanzenberg wrote: post #52
hellofunk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's common among many founders who became very successful for them to assume they have a special and deeper insight into how the universe works.

VCs, too. Interesting how researchers are a bit more humble or realistic about achievements.

A mathematician once said something like, "if the solution to the problem in front of you is not obvious, then you are not yet ready to work on it".

Which is to say that intellectual pioneers are often necessarily humble about their achievements, yet worked very hard to get there.

One wonders if it might be the opposite for some founders who were in the right place at the right time to hit the VC/acquisition jackpot.

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