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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

#781

Post by ethbr1 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #738
ethbr1 wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst option, except for all the other ones. What's the better alternative?

Have the KPIs, but stay aware that they aren't objective and complete measurements of individual performance, thus keeping the entire revision and verification of reported data.

> "thus keeping the entire revision and verification of reported data."

What does that mean?

The entire point of KPIs is to better solve the "subjective measures allow politicial employees to dominate less-so ones" problem, by converting it into a "defining KPIs such that gaming them produces outcomes beneficial to the company" problem.

KPIs aren't objective, but they're certainly more objective than manager opinions.

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

#782

Post by astrange »

kossTKR wrote: post #776
astrange wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take a look at the highly conspiratorial website https://www.opensecrets.org for an example of how i enquire by looking at sources and money flow helping me realise most politicians are bought by lobby groups working for the owning classes and vote thereafter, not "sincere belief in ideology". Generally when I see people use this they're misreading it. For instance, they'll see donations from people working at Goog…

The two parties both represent the same class interests with slight differences in a thin veneer of identity politics. There's never been an alternative to vote for, and every attempt gets smeared in the media owned by the two-party system representing the oligarchs. Candidates like Bernie who's still in line with most of above policies are showcased as alternatives but the distribution of power is never challenged o…

You just typed a bunch of vague stuff because you can't actually respond to me.

> There's never been an alternative to vote for, and every attempt gets smeared in the media owned by the two-party system representing the oligarchs.

The two parties aren't controlled by anyone except primary voters. There is hardly any mechanism in the US to stop anyone who wants from joining either party, as long as you can get votes.

This is an unusual case of other countries' politics infecting ours; in other countries the parties actually can fire people and control their candidate list. Here they can't do anything.

Also the US doesn't have oligarchs. That's a specific word with a specific meaning. Closest you can get would be defense contractor CEOs but those just aren't that important here; you probably only know one.

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

#783

Post by astrange »

johnnyworker wrote: post #770
astrange wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average normie "everything is fine" position is not that intelligent. The problem is that the first level cynical reaction is /even worse/. That's why it's a minority position. Most people aren't low-openness conspiracy theorists. It's like the midwit meme where the people at both ends agree.

You're just proving their point by calling what they wrote conspiracy theory, without refuting or even interacting with a single thing they actually said, to claim politics is "actually never" about money or power grabs, and "almost always" about sincerely held beliefs. That's just laughable.

Why did you put words in quotes that aren't what I said?

Do you think we invaded Iraq for their oil, or that anyone profited from it? (Answer to both is no.)

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

#784

Post by lessbergstein »

dang wrote: post #313
lessbergstein wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This website is YCombinator. Sam was with YCombinator

We don't moderate HN according to that. I wrote extensively about this yesterday if anyone wants a verbose explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372125

They had to make these rules because they weren't being followed

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

#785

Post by jmye »

cbsmith wrote: post #692
jmye wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find that answer hand-wavey. Which YC company has impacted any specific person’s life more directly than, say, Philip Brailsford?

I also think pretending you weren’t making a comparison is absurd - why post about the evils of big companies in this context if that were the case?

Saying “rich people are all bad and have hurt way more people” is specious. Implying that I can’t imagine it, when you are apparently incapable of being specific, is juvenile.

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

#786

Post by jmye »

serf wrote: post #665
jmye wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>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? If a cop shoots someone and kills them, it destroys that life and possibly the family of those around him, the legal system kicks in -- that cop gets ousted or thrown into prison. how many lives have been destroyed by the mere existence of reddit and twitch, and by extension the h…

> how many lives have been destroyed by the mere existence of reddit and twitch, and by extension the human trafficking they help to support?

Do externalities not exist, or is the platform (and somehow, whomever leads YC) solely and completely to blame for the users? Why is Reddit to blame, rather than BBSes or Mosaic, without which a platform like Reddit wouldn’t have existed? Do you blame, say, Tim Berners-Lee for the fact that sex trafficking is enabled by the Internet, or only ephemeral “CEOs” and/or “billionaires”?

> how many lives are fucked up when an acquihire or business movement of some sort liquidates 80% of the staff?

Do you think getting laid off, typically with severance, is the same as getting shot or imprisoned? Do you think you are perpetually and permanently entitled to the specific job you currently have?

> I think the fantasy of the reins-holder being pardoned for the sins of their business is a concept that needs to be re-evaluated; these elements do serve to do damage as well as social good.

I think pretending losing or making money is the same as losing years of your life to prison is a weird progressive fantasy, that comes from people vastly to entitled to understand the consequences of the latter.

> a rogue cop constitutes a rogue element in society that is dealt with in fairly swift fashion

This is demonstrable nonsense, more so given that “rogue cop” presupposes cops who do egregious things, rather than simply cops who, for instance, over-police crimes or neighborhoods.

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

#787

Post by hnfong »

empathy_m wrote: post #729
throwaway_xghd wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The statement about Sam on the announcement post at https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/updates-from-yc/ evolved over time: 1. March 2019: "Sam is transitioning to Chairman of YC and has shifted his operational responsibilities at YC to other partners. This change will allow Sam to spend more time focusing on OpenAI while still being responsible, along with the rest of the partnership, for the long-term social and econo…

Yeah I was reading about this last week on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/EricNewcomer/status/1725633569056506282 ) - the departure was "under explored". I have to imagine that the industry does not appreciate this kind of attention from the mainstream press. Everybody is making loads of money -- does it really matter if a particular business deal went south in a particular way? Maybe it's better if we all just focus…

Reading about how YC handled the situation, it's quite obvious that OpenAI's board should have taken a page out of YC's playbook on how to fire an important person (or maybe even sama specifically) without stirring up unnecessary drama.

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

#788

Post by dang »

lessbergstein wrote: post #784
dang wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't moderate HN according to that. I wrote extensively about this yesterday if anyone wants a verbose explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38372125

They had to make these rules because they weren't being followed

No, to my knowledge, pg had that rule in place right from the beginning.

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

#789

Post by jesterson »

ghufran_syed wrote: post #698
jesterson wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 justifi…

it's rather simple - albeit for some reason you seemingly suggesting it is complicated - I would prefer (and share consecutively) if someone says person A did this and that, therefore I support him/her.

Fanatics and blindfolded admirers on the opposite side, say I trust him, I like him (and certainly those fanatical definitions have no substance besides blind admirations).

I find no peculiar reason to share the latter, however the former provides observer with evidence why person A is worthy of this and that.

Hope this clarifies a bit

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

#790

Post by jesterson »

tucnak wrote: post #701
jesterson wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 catas…

I humbly disagree, but respect your opinion on the matter.
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