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

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701–710 of 798 posts

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

#701

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.

Believing in people isn't religious discourse like believing in God is, or more generally "believing in the coming of superhuman entity," and I think there's no denying that AI safety circles are somewhat similar in structure to 60s, and then later 80s doomsday cult-craze. The setting is different every time, i.e. it doesn't have to be a church-like organisation, it could also be nuclear cold-war, or ecological catastrophe kind of thing; a network of sparse, but also surprisingly well-connected groups, primarily occupied with religious discourse, petty in-group politics of psychosis, all of it contributes to institutional syndrome of sorts.

Sam is very transparent in his self-interest, it's the "patriots" you should beware.

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

#702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty incredible that the upper echelons have so thoroughly psyopped everyone below them that the public runs confused around in an endless maze of ideology, false pretexts and stirred up drama. This way only insiders recognise the most fundamental realpolitical power struggles of all ages; that the "very confusing" wars, coups or power grabs is not very complex at all but always - almost as a physical principl…

One thing I've universally noticed in unintelligent/conspiratorial political analysis is they think you can explain everything by "following the money", like here. These people are sometimes known as "low-information voters". It's amazing how much this is actually never true. Politics is largely about sincerely-held ideologies.

That's an incredibly unintelligent "everything is fine move along" comment. Seeing how it contains nothing of value whatsover, I'm surprised it's this short, usually they're several paragraphs. These people are sometimes known as the lazy ones amongst the unintelligent ones.

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

#703

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.

>prefer scientific method

If you know some scientific method to pick CEOs and it works

then patent it quickly and open it as SaaS or something cuz big companies are waiting with trucks full of cash

Btw her "believing" in him may be due to serious and measurable results, how is this religious?

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

#704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More or less intelligent people can differentiate between allegations and facts.

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

#705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty incredible that the upper echelons have so thoroughly psyopped everyone below them that the public runs confused around in an endless maze of ideology, false pretexts and stirred up drama. This way only insiders recognise the most fundamental realpolitical power struggles of all ages; that the "very confusing" wars, coups or power grabs is not very complex at all but always - almost as a physical principl…

One thing I've universally noticed in unintelligent/conspiratorial political analysis is they think you can explain everything by "following the money", like here. These people are sometimes known as "low-information voters". It's amazing how much this is actually never true. Politics is largely about sincerely-held ideologies.

> Politics is largely about sincerely-held ideologies

Close. Politics is about interests. It’s about who gets the resources and who gets status and dignity and who doesn’t.

There are a lot of sincerely held ideologies that rise up around those questions. But if you don’t analyze politics through that lens you’re fucking delusional.

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

#706
post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Everything influences the incredibly vague notion of “the society we live in”.

It’s not a useful litmus test.

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

#707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's counterproductive to take business conflicts personally. 100% agree with this, but it is productive to understand what was behind a business conflict. Personal like or dislike can change which alternative of a choice of equal alternatives, someone might make. As Tony Soprano would say, "It's just business."

Your comments are great but your audience is inexperienced. Most of our experience is largely in pointless, online arguments and few serious real-life struggles. The latter scares the hell out of us so we run from the conflict and from our feelings. Then we say we "didn't take it personally" to cover up the cowardice.

If that is the case for you, consider yourself lucky. And for once, this comment isn't containing even trace amounts of sarcasm.

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

#708

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.

I agree that it's fanatical. I don't understand how people can be such sheep to these fake engineer celebrities like Altman and Musk. They talk like Trump: no real substance, half fluff and half word salad compared to listening to an actual expert who, god forbid, had the attention span to finish linear algebra. It's sickening how much credit and money these narcissistic charlatans walk away with.

Look up to the true geniuses that actually do the work and discover and invent rather than the ones who can only pretend to.

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

#709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There’s no reason a manager can’t also have been a hacker. Or still might be, from time to time.

Even YCs application includes the option to show examples of hacking processes. Good managers and C-Level people do that qiuite often.

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

#710
We attach such a negative sentiment to the word “fired”. Sometimes a “firing” can be by mutual consent, or unavoidable and regrettable etc. It’s nuanced and doesn’t necessarily imply that the 2+ people involved don’t respect each other or can’t work together again in future.
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