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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

#691

Post by shswkna »

gopher_space wrote: post #658
icelancer wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I understand the morality needed to succeed and flatly reject it.

While this is a common attitude in western society, it does not make sense if you zoom out. Acting morally/ethically and being successful are not mutually exclusive. But it is more difficult, and it might require a more careful assessment.

You only exist because every ancestor of yours, up to your single celled ancestor, succeeded in 'life'. To denounce success for its own sake, is, for lack of a better term, stupid.

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

#692

Post by cbsmith »

jmye wrote: post #640
cbsmith wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense. It's not like corporations have responsibilities that can have life & death impacts on people, or that can radically transform the lives of people who don't even work there. Oh wait...

Does YC? Or are you just irrelevantly musing? Or is this where we pretend that leading YC is even vaguely similar to being a rogue cop, in terms of potential impact on people’s lives?

I wasn't trying to suggest they were similar.

It might be hard to imagine this, but it is possible that leading a company deploying billions of dollars might actually have a significantly larger potential impact on people's lives than a rogue cop.

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

#693

Post by nerbert »

epicureanideal wrote: post #488
loeg wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don’t think most Russians would agree that either of the other gentlemen would be preferable. The 80s and 90s were not a time of great happiness, prosperity, calm, and order.

And just like sama may not be the best to run OpenAI of humanity’s interest, Putin isn’t the best to run Russia for humanity’s interest. But both men are incredibly successful at navigating power dynamics to maintain their control over their respective organizations.

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

#694

Post by jesterson »

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…

> because I believed in Sam

Nothing is worse than religious fanatics. While I am not implying she is so, for this kind of enterprise I would personally prefer scientific method of evidential support of Sam being this and that, rather then fanatical speaches how they like him.

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

#696

Post by cbsmith »

catlover76 wrote: post #630
cbsmith wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense. It's not like corporations have responsibilities that can have life & death impacts on people, or that can radically transform the lives of people who don't even work there. Oh wait...

The glibness of this superficial comparison doesn't change the fact that anyone who actually thought seriously about crafting laws to deal with both of those would find themselves dealing with very different scenarios, both from a practical and moral/philosophical perspective. But of course, if one just wants to say snide things on the internet, yeah they're simply the same in every major respect, why bother thinking…

> The glibness of this superficial comparison doesn't change the fact that anyone who actually thought seriously about crafting laws to deal with both of those would find themselves dealing with very different scenarios, both from a practical and moral/philosophical perspective.

Yes. There aren't a lot of rogue cops in a position to put billion dollar holes in the economy. Few of them are in positions to influence medical decisions for millions of patients. While a rogue cop might be able to influence parole board decisions for thousands of criminals, it'd be terribly difficult to impact millions.

Yes, in theory, the police have a unique monopoly on the use of violence in society, which leads to unique challenges and scenarios. However, the potential problems that stem from removing someone from a responsibility without impacting their future have nothing to do with said monopoly, as demonstrated empirically with teachers, religious leaders, doctors, politicians, and yes, business leaders. In specific cases, it might be the right thing to do, but if you think about it, the potential problems from systemic application of this practice can lead to terrible outcomes that are proportional to the amount of responsibility, not the nature of it.

...but why bother thinking that hard about it?

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

#697

Post by VectorLock »

aidenn0 wrote: post #196
patall wrote: post #34

> Another person familiar with Altman’s thinking said he was willing to meet with the board’s shortlist of proposed candidates, except for one person whom he declined on ethical grounds. Now you have me interested, who could that one person be? Charles Koch? Henry Kissinger? Because many of those I would normally have guessed are either in the article as possible collaborator (middle-easter connection) or is already…

Assuming he's as manipulative as the worst reports of him say, "ethical grounds" translates to "doesn't believe my lies"

"Ethical grounds" read: has them.

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

#698

Post by ghufran_syed »

jesterson wrote: post #694
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…

> because I believed in Sam Nothing is worse than religious fanatics. While I am not implying she is so, for this kind of enterprise I would personally prefer scientific method of evidential support of Sam being this and that, rather then fanatical speaches how they like him.

It's a statement communicating her strength of opinion, I find it hard to understand how you perceive that as "fanatical" - what would a "scientific method of evidential support" even look like in a domain like business? Is she meant to publish a paper with p-values of his effectiveness running YC or being a YC partner? If she pointed to the success of YC during his tenure (which she could well have done with justification), you'd probably complain there were many other factors (true) and so was only association, not causation?

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

#699

Post by concordDance »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #607
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 feel the same way about Annie Altman's allegations. Those were out there, but somehow I wasn't aware of them, and I see almost no one discussing them. I mean, I understand why, but it's still disheartening.

> I understand why

Because its pointless and unpleasant, we have zero means of verifying or discomfirming the story and it won't go anywhere because its unprovable.

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

#700

Post by ghufran_syed »

skygazer wrote: post #616
gjvc wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

simplest explanation is most likely the one nearest the truth

ironically, that’s too simplistic. Simplicity is only virtuous in an explanation if the explanation itself is not contradicted by reality. Unbound from reality, simplicity is dangerously seductive because it’s easy and wrong.

very glib (though true) - but do you have any evidence in this case as to what reality is? If so, could you please explain how the given statement is "contradicted by reality"?
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