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Sam Altman's knack for dodging bullets with a little help from bigshot friends

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Re: Sam Altman's knack for dodging bullets with a little help from bigshot friends

#81

Post by baking »

odyssey7 wrote: post #65

I have to wonder, why is this criticism showing up now? Who would benefit from taking him down a peg at this current point in time, and how?

It's called journalism. This is going to be happening for a while as journalists get more and more of the inside scoop. The new board also has a full slate ahead for it, including the investigation, recruiting a full board, and dealing with the non-profit and corporate structure which has a few holes showing. Plus there is all the stuff the company is actually doing with new products and the "Preparedness Framework" they are working on.

Up until recently, the press about OpenAI has been mostly "look at the shiny lights" and now it's going to get the Elon Musk treatment.

Re: Sam Altman's knack for dodging bullets with a little help from bigshot friends

#82

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Timber-6539 wrote: post #79
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why does he have such broad support? He makes people money. Plenty of terrible people commanded great loyalty. All the loyalty tells you is he’s a good leader. Not where he’s leading us. (Not saying anything about Sam. Just pointing out that loyalty is orthogonal.)

He should be making investors money. That's his #1 job. Aside from that, who cares about loyalty to the CEO of a tech company. He's a replaceable employee and OpenAI should be able to continue without him. What were his actual crimes. It's not clear from the previous board nor anyone who's spoken about the matter what those were.

> What were his actual crimes

Boards don’t judge crimes. And unlike courts, they have no disclosure obligation. Particularly for a private company.

Re: Sam Altman's knack for dodging bullets with a little help from bigshot friends

#83

Post by wslh »

BeefDinnerPurge wrote: post #73
wslh wrote: post #18

After reading more articles about Sam it seems he is a genius in the game of power. Am I right? He is at the center of the stage and many powerful people and organizations trust on him beyond the "anecdotes". He will gain more power while he is an amplifier of capital and business opportunities. For an investor point of view he is a business ace and you just need to be careful about partnering with him because he wil…

A combination of real drive and a tremendous amount of dumb luck. Never forget the dumb luck part though. Life isn't fair, ask Trevor Moore who wrote a song about that, oh wait, you can't, life isn't fair...

If Sam continues to have "luck" it is not survivorship bias. As I said before he is at the center of the stage.

Re: Sam Altman's knack for dodging bullets with a little help from bigshot friends

#84

Post by [deleted] »

MicolashKyoka wrote: post #76

Sam is great, some eggs might've been cracked along the way, but overall, very positive influence on the world. You could shine a light into most people's lives and find in most cases broken egg shells here & there. Fixating on them at the expense of the bigger picture is a mistake. Regarding the openai board, the problem imo is that too much weight was given to a nebulous & subjective mission, allowing those sitting…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman's knack for dodging bullets with a little help from bigshot friends

#85

Post by matrix_overload »

Apreche wrote: post #23
gkoberger wrote: post #7

You don't have to like Sam. But people who do big things, by definition, have to get there by pushing things along at a cadence that differs from most other people. I'm not necessarily saying it's a good thing, but I don't get why every article about Sam seems to be surprised that the guy who helped build something nobody thought was possible (AI this decade) got there by doing things in a fast, unique way. If he fol…

My question is, what do you count as "doing"? Imagine I win the lottery and hire really smart architects and tell them to make a revolutionary new building. They go on to make some amazing building that gets all sorts of awards and recognition. Is anyone really so naive as to suggest that I am deserving of any credit whatsoever? In the words of Urkel, "Did I do that?" There are some leaders in the tech world who have…

>Imagine I win the lottery and hire really smart architects and tell them to make a revolutionary new building.

Each one will end up pulling in their own direction, fighting with others over minor things, and nothing will ever get done.

Managing smart people, resolving conflicts, and making sure stuff gets done is a rare and underappreciated skill.

Re: Sam Altman's knack for dodging bullets with a little help from bigshot friends

#86

Post by dclowd9901 »

jstummbillig wrote: post #15
gumballindie wrote: post #6

The more we learn about this person the more we understand how dubious he is. I am not entirely sure what the end game is for those protecting and promoting him. He’s clearly not steve jobs. Behaves and talks more like a cheap imitation.

Is the idea that Steve Jobs never strong armed anyone?

I’m with you. I think the point here is that he _is_ like Steve Jobs, and everything that goes with that comparison.

Re: Sam Altman's knack for dodging bullets with a little help from bigshot friends

#87

Post by asfgkadnhiok »

foobaw wrote: post #36
Apreche wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question is, what do you count as "doing"? Imagine I win the lottery and hire really smart architects and tell them to make a revolutionary new building. They go on to make some amazing building that gets all sorts of awards and recognition. Is anyone really so naive as to suggest that I am deserving of any credit whatsoever? In the words of Urkel, "Did I do that?" There are some leaders in the tech world who have…

You're implying that you knew how to hire and identify smart architects and provided them the right vision to build a good building. There wouldn't be a counterfactual in your hypothetical scenario, but I'm confident that the difference between someone that got lucky and hired "smart" architects versus a visionary doing the same task would be drastic. Money can only get you so far.

That's extremely easy. There are awards and magazines and Wikipedia. Smart architects are smart because they're able to come up with the "right vision" all on their own.

We know it's possible for someone with no technical ability to look like genius just by having lots of money. I knew people who believed Musk was going to bring about an AI revolution all on his own because of his very special brain, but his tenure at Twitter was laughable to anyone who has passed CS 101. What makes you convinced all the rich "geniuses" who haven't revealed themselves to be idiots are actually smart for real this time?

Re: Sam Altman's knack for dodging bullets with a little help from bigshot friends

#88

Post by pclmulqdq »

Method-X wrote: post #40
pclmulqdq wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know a lot about Sam Altman's history, but I do know that there is a lot of misattribution in tech circles away from the doers and toward the managers. Has he had significant tangible results, or has he managed people who have had those tangible results? This sort of misattribution seems to show up when you have individuals with sociopathic tendencies running firms that do cool things: Elon Musk is the king o…

What do you think the leader of multiple billion dollar companies would be doing exactly? People like Musk are like conductors of an orchestra. That's not easy, especially with multiple successful companies.

The conductor of an orchestra, and the leader of a company, sets the vision and direction. Steve Jobs was exceptional at this. Two examples, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk, are clearly not particularly adept at this.

SpaceX and Tesla have the equivalent of the principals of each section of the orchestra feeding their conductor his cues and making sure he gets them right. Google has someone standing on the podium and bowing, but nobody waving the baton at all.

OpenAI is more of a research organization than a product company, and so it's hard to see where someone like Altman can contribute meaningfully to the direction.

Re: Sam Altman's knack for dodging bullets with a little help from bigshot friends

#89

Post by asfgkadnhiok »

gkoberger wrote: post #7

You don't have to like Sam. But people who do big things, by definition, have to get there by pushing things along at a cadence that differs from most other people. I'm not necessarily saying it's a good thing, but I don't get why every article about Sam seems to be surprised that the guy who helped build something nobody thought was possible (AI this decade) got there by doing things in a fast, unique way. If he fol…

>If he followed the norms, he'd be a mid-level manager at FAANG company.

If we followed the norms, he's be in prison. If you think fraud and self-dealing are justified if it moves a lot of value to shareholders, write to your senator. Until then the laws should be enforced against the rich as well as the poor.

Of course, I can't much bring myself to care in this case, because all that's at stake is a chatbot.

Re: Sam Altman's knack for dodging bullets with a little help from bigshot friends

#90

Post by Timber-6539 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #82
Timber-6539 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He should be making investors money. That's his #1 job. Aside from that, who cares about loyalty to the CEO of a tech company. He's a replaceable employee and OpenAI should be able to continue without him. What were his actual crimes. It's not clear from the previous board nor anyone who's spoken about the matter what those were.

> What were his actual crimes Boards don’t judge crimes. And unlike courts, they have no disclosure obligation. Particularly for a private company.

> they have no disclosure obligation.

If true, that board deserved to be dissolved privately without being given the courtesy of raising any voices against Sam or OpenAI's future.

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