from Hacker News

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

by CartyBoston on 11/22/23, 12:17 PM with 746 comments

by helsinkiandrew on 11/22/23, 12:20 PM
https://archive.ph/fLzoF

by QuadrupleA on 11/22/23, 7:07 PM

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%20since:2019-01-01%2...

Seems incredibly respectful and supportive, I'm not buying that there's a lot of bad blood there.

by greatNespresso on 11/22/23, 5:37 PM
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.
by lhnz on 11/22/23, 1:44 PM
If Paul Graham fired Sam Altman from YCombinator it's interesting that he appears to have such a favourable opinion of him [0].
However, personally, what I've taken away from this is that he is a much better strategic/tactical operator than many other high-flying executives and very capable of winning the respect and trust of a lot of smart people. I wouldn't expect OpenAI to be run by anybody that wasn't revered in this way; a lot of CEOs aren't saints.
[0] https://twitter.com/search?q=from:paulg%20since:2019-01-01%2...
by Merrill on 11/22/23, 1:31 PM
Based on the article and the loyalty shown by openai employees, he appears to be the "difficult to manage" type, rather than the "difficult to work for" type.
That's not necessarily a bad thing in employees. I was once told that it is easier to round off the corners of a cube than to develop corners on a sphere.
by bambax on 11/22/23, 8:54 PM
> “Ninety plus percent of the employees of OpenAI are saying they would be willing to move to Microsoft because they feel Sam’s been mistreated by a rogue board of directors,” said Ron Conway (...) “I’ve never seen this kind of loyalty anywhere.”
95% is the kind of score one sees when there's an "election" in a dictatorship. Unanimity is often suspect.
by reissbaker on 11/22/23, 8:59 PM
The double-dipping charge doesn't seem particularly real — even pg still to this day personally invests in YC companies while they're in YC, even before Demo Day (e.g. Phind). I very much doubt he fired Sam for doing it too. It reads to me like Sam was focusing more on OpenAI (the "absenteeism" that the article mentions was primarily due "to his intense focus on OpenAI") and pg told him he couldn't do both.
Somehow trying to tie that to the OpenAI board — which couldn't even come up with a concrete reason for firing him to their attempted CEO replacements, who both then switched sides to supporting Sam — seems like a stretch.
by Geee on 11/22/23, 7:40 PM
It seems that there are a lot of people who are loyal to Sam because they are scared of crossing him. If this is really the pattern here, then this is probably not the timeline we want to be on.
by patall on 11/22/23, 1:39 PM
> 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 an investor (like Elmo). Honestly, who is too ethically different here and yet still within the anglosphere to be considered a board member?
by _fizz_buzz_ on 11/22/23, 7:06 PM
Kind of interesting that Jessica Livingston (Paul Graham's spouse) tweeted this a couple of days ago:
> 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.
https://twitter.com/jesslivingston/status/172628436492378127...
by lynx23 on 11/22/23, 1:03 PM
It is hard to see through the unfolding drama. Since I am lacking data (and we all do), I can only fall back to my intuition. When I was listening to Sam being interviewed by Lex, I had to turn the podcast off because I felt I am listening to a deeply flawed and manipulative character. He left a creepy feeling of "Never ever trust this guy".
by fhub on 11/22/23, 7:13 PM
Shortly after it happened the rumor in SF was that Altman was distracted and not really dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Like they had a cash flow issue where they had to ask for a top up from investors which was a bit embarrassing. Anyway, just a rumor.
by mousetree on 11/22/23, 1:31 PM
> One of those people whose career Altman helped propel was Ilya Sutskever, chief scientist and board member at OpenAI — the person who ultimately fired him.
Ilya was plenty successful before OpenAI and would've been just fine without Altman helping to "propel" his career.
by CartyBoston on 11/22/23, 12:18 PM
The bit about PG and Altman parting ways is interesting I wonder if anyone wants to share more :).
by whyleyc on 11/22/23, 1:21 PM
https://web.archive.org/web/20231122121846/https://www.washi...
by demadog on 11/22/23, 5:45 PM
I predict his character arch will be similar to Adam Neumann and Travis Kalanick - first the media gushes over him and praises him as a genius. Then the media starts to question him. Then they start to fully dig in and dig up a ton of dirt.
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.
I respect his hustle but there is something about him in watching him speak live and in person that comes off as incredibly manipulative. He knows how to speak and pause in a way that gets the audience to laugh and gives soundbites. I am long OpenAI but I don’t trust Sam.
He could follow the character arch of his friend Thiel where the media come after him but he’s too resilient.
Or Zuckerberg where the media hated him for years and then moved on.
What do you think?
by fevangelou on 11/22/23, 2:12 PM
It's oh so weird the article does not mention any of these though...
- https://twitter.com/phuckfilosophy/status/163570439893983232... (SA's sister - also have a look at her recent posts)
- Also: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QDczBduZorG4dxZiW/sam-altman... (utterly distressing)
- https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1727096607752282485 (check the comment with snapshots of the letter - "strangely" that Gist was deleted)
by bananapub on 11/22/23, 1:25 PM
it is absolutely fascinating how in all the threads about him, there's all these huge fans, and some people who are apparently highly connected, but no one ever seems to discuss why he has these fancy jobs, why he left others, and why is apparently so well regarded?
by vikramkr on 11/22/23, 6:02 PM
At least one of the arguments against him, that he cared too much about openai to lead Microsoft effectively, probably helps him more than it hurts. Otherwise, idk how much of this was really about Sam altman as much as it was a staggeringly incompetent board that drove employees and investors to unify and protest en masse to save the organisation from itself. I guess there's a chance there's an AGI in the basement but if it was actually about safety they should fucking say what the hell they were freaking out about. But if they leave the only logical conclusion as this being a power struggle between someone who wants to move fast and make bank and a board that wants to kill the company for ego reasons - uhh yeah that's not a hard choice
by 1vuio0pswjnm7 on 11/22/23, 8:32 PM
""Ninety plus percent of the employees of OpenAI are saying they would be willing to move to Microsoft because they feel Sam's been mistreated by a rogue board of directors," said Ron Conway, a prominent venture capitalist who became friendly with Altman shortly after he founded Loopt, a location-based social networking start-up, in 2005. "I've never seen this kind of loyalty anywhere.""
Perhaps this looks like "loyalty" when viewed with the narrow mindset of Silicon Valley and so-called "tech" venture capitalism. But it also looks like disloyalty to OpenAI and its stated mission when viewed more broadly.
"A former OpenAI employee, machine learning researcher Geoffrey Irving, who now works at competitor Google DeepMind, wrote that he was disinclined to support Altman after working for him for two years. "1. He was always nice to me. 2. He lied to me on various occasions 3. He was deceptive, manipulative, and worse to others, including my close friends (again, only nice to me, for reasons)," Irving posted Monday on X."
One could see similarities with the way so-called "tech" companies treat computer users.
It's no surprise people working for so-called "tech" companies are trying to hide behind labels such as "Effective Altruism". These are not altruistic people. They need a cover.
by ojosilva on 11/22/23, 2:55 PM
> Though full reasoning for Altman’s initial firing is still unclear, one person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, pointed to Altman’s aggressive fundraising efforts for a chips venture with autocratic regimes in the Middle East, which raised concerns about the use of AI to facilitate state surveillance and human rights abuses.
That's a concern of mine from one year ago when ChatGPT exploded: Altman holds a feeble position as a zero-equity co-founder of a non-profit. He should be enabled to become a stinking rich SV mogul of some sort, or at least have his existence tied to substantial equity. Otherwise, having power but no (huge, absurd) money, or promises thereof, from his commitment to OpenAI will only boost these side gigs or even future coups. He's an ambitious and powerful leader and entrepreneur, he should be compensated accordingly so that OpenAI goals become aligned to his own.
Somehow the new board's powerful oversight goals should be leveraged with valuable equity for Altman (and other key people, employees) or equivalent. Create a path to a for-profit, consolidate the Incs and LLCs floating around - OpenAI has a complex structure for such a young enterprise. He has a comfortable upper hand right now (employees, Ilya, a resigning board, MSFT), so this is the moment to rewrite OpenAI's charter.
by tracerbulletx on 11/22/23, 5:27 PM
CEOs are professional communicators who have reached the highest level of the craft, they use their communications to achieve an end, expressing their inner selves is not the point. You might know a great kind person who is a car salesman, when they are at work a good one comes off as genuine and friendly, the things they're saying include many truths, but their words and actions are primarily designed to sell cars. Assume this is true of any professional communicator when they're communicating.
by mrkramer on 11/22/23, 7:20 PM
Why would Sam Altman be held as someone irreplaceable....the dude seems like a smart guy but c'mon he is not Jobs or Gates. I remember first time hearing him when he interviewed Zuck about Facebook and entrepreneurship (when he worked for Y Combinator). Now we talk about him as the next Gates or Jobs. I think this was one big marketing stunt from OpenAI, now the whole software and business community talks about them. Big boost in popularity and big downfall for Google when we talk about competing in AI. Sam's biggest mistake was that Worldcoin privacy nightmare but idk what was he thinking about, maybe it was noble idk.
by sfjailbird on 11/22/23, 1:43 PM
I really liked the New Yorker portrait 'Sam Altman's Manifest Destiny':
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-ma...
It seemed to really get to the depths of his personality, both the impressive parts, and with some very subtle jabs.
by moogly on 11/22/23, 4:55 PM
Perhaps the least interesting most talked-about person of 2023.
by belligeront on 11/22/23, 2:28 PM
I don’t have a strong opinion on the events of the past several days. But a lot of the behavior I’ve seen on twitter from Open AI employees, some led by Sam, feels very cult like: posting in all lower case, the heart emojis, rumors of employees calling each other in the middle of the night to pressure people to sign letters supporting Sam.
There isn’t necessarily anything wrong of this behavior. It is good to like your coworkers, but something about the manipulative nature of it triggers an “ick” feeling that I can’t really put into words.
I’ve also spent very little time in the Bay Area, but from afar, there does seem to be something in the DNA that makes people there more susceptible to cult like behavior.
by keepamovin on 11/22/23, 1:17 PM
Now that he’s back with MSOAI I think we’ve got AGI disaster in 7 years. Thin possibility of good path for humanity. I wish he’d stuck to his guns and gone his own way, no MS, and no OAI. No disrespect to MS, they good, but this path is bad.
by davesque on 11/22/23, 7:56 PM
Even if Graham supposedly booted Altman from Y Combinator, I don't see any reason to assume that a similar disagreement would have occurred in this case. Citing that history also seems to assume that Graham himself is an impeccable judge of character. And we don't necessarily have any reason to believe that. Seems to me like they're swinging at windmills with this narrative.
Given that the board provided very few details about their reasoning, the ideological divide seems like the most likely explanation because it's the most nebulous by nature. Also likely given the climate of hype/doom surrounding ChatGPT.
by throwbadubadu on 11/22/23, 1:33 PM
> "Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity."
Ahhh now I get that, all humanity, exclude noone :D
> pointed to Altman’s aggressive fundraising efforts for a chips venture with autocratic regimes in the Middle East, which raised concerns about the use of AI to facilitate state surveillance and human rights abuses.
by ur-whale on 11/22/23, 1:23 PM
https://archive.is/eVZvb
by urbandw311er on 11/23/23, 10:35 AM
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.
by throwitaway222 on 11/22/23, 10:49 PM
2015, so like 8 years ago. People do change. And there's two people here.
Also, in general, when you have a CEO that's passionate, they tend to be bossy. If you don't have that, then you're just passing the time until the VC money is gone.
by projectileboy on 11/23/23, 1:53 PM
This is an interesting story and was worth reporting, but I don’t believe it changes the fact that Altman is uniquely qualified to lead OpenAI. I am, however, disappointed to see that an organization that at first espoused the ideal of careful, responsible development of AI seems to has decided to go full throttle no matter what. I’m very sad the board tried to exercise their authority in such an amateurish, hamfisted way. They overplayed their hand, and now we’ll all just have to hope that everyone at OpenAI chooses to keep ethical considerations in mind.
by ilsel on 11/23/23, 6:05 PM
Just 2 cents. What about the undisclosed deal with OpeanAI and UAE ruling family? UAE was the first country to congratulate Taliban on taking back power in Afghanistan and to open embassy there. Both are based on sharia law, stoning, cutting off hands etc. Combine OpenAI gptvision tech with stealth screen surveillance and boom, you have automated extrajuridical sharia punishments based on screen activity and why not throw in security camera monitoring as well. Also check what sharia islam says about jewish people. Welcome to the dark ages, Sam. What good, good man you are to your people. The UAE man who owns the company that signed the deal with Sam himself is also orchestrator of Quatargate ie. bribing EU officials, that case is still ongoing and one can just expect it to expire. He controls a fund in worth of 1.5 trillion USD among long list of companies, mostly related to oil money. 2nd wife fleed to Europe then dissapeared etc. The ruling family and their wives are all close blood relatives. What is really going on? I got this info just before Bing Chat disabled my web search functionality and refused to discuss the topic any further. More biases than weights I would say.
by fredgrott on 11/22/23, 8:27 PM
My read not knowing PG and only having dealt with Sam once is that the firing was to push Sam into AI which he already was involved with before the firing...a GaryVee mercy firing to be sure...
BTW, Sam was wrong about GPS-powered dating at Loopt. He was not wrong about pushing teleco's to free up GPS instead of hidding behind some wall of forbidden access.
by jgalt212 on 11/22/23, 10:24 PM
It seems like many of Sam's sins are basically securities professionals know as Selling Away.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sellingaway.asp
by Obscurity4340 on 11/23/23, 1:03 PM
How do we know this isn't an Obama-McCain diamond heist type deal á la South Park? I think a lot of leaps are being made?
How do we know he wasn't so much "fired" as "reassigned" or "differentially delegated"?
by throwaway98221 on 11/22/23, 2:22 PM
Possible psychopath: https://hintjens.gitbooks.io/psychopathcode/content/preface....
by Obscurity4340 on 11/23/23, 8:27 AM
Why wasn't or isn't D'Angelo toast? What is his value to anyone?
by fvdessen on 11/22/23, 1:14 PM
I've had the 'chance' to work with some deeply manipulative persons in the past, the kind who goes to your desk and say 'Hey, I noticed you started to speak to X again, and your performance seems to suffer as a result", where X is a friendly colleague that opposed some plan of that person. It is incredibly difficult to keep those people in check as all that behaviour is off the record and impossible to prove. When people complain it's a 'you said, he said' situation where the manipulator inevitably wins. Wether those persons are positive or negative for the company is not all that clear, but they create an incredibly unpleasant work environment.
by tamarlikesdata on 11/23/23, 2:11 PM
And then built the most powerful company in the world. Ok.
by imjonse on 11/22/23, 2:07 PM
He may turn from powerful and well liked startup poster-child to simply powerful (like Larry Ellison, Bezos, Gates and countless other CEOs have in the past).
by reqo on 11/22/23, 6:26 PM
Very interesting if this is true, considering how pg has shown huge support for sama during this drama!
by tempsy on 11/22/23, 6:28 PM
the more outwardly successful someone is by modern standards (ceo, celebrities, other powerful people) the more likely it is they are ethically compromised in some way
you don't reach the top without screwing over a lot of people along the way
by coolbreezetft22 on 11/22/23, 6:23 PM
Why are people so obsessed with this guy? Keep falling into the same trap of Cult of the Tech CEO
by gregwebs on 11/23/23, 2:10 AM
TLDR there's a claim that Altman was among other things distracted by OpenAI by the end of his tenure at YC and PG flew back to SF to deal with the situation. It's possible that PG didn't fire him but instead continued to play the role of mentor and told him things weren't going as well as they had before and that his advise was to choose between OpenAI and YC.
by sertbdfgbnfgsd on 11/22/23, 1:17 PM
Yeah, the craziest thing for me to come out of this was how everyone in HN just assumed he was "innocent". Poor poor sam altman, he's a victim. He comes across as a sleazebag to me.
by photochemsyn on 11/22/23, 1:42 PM
The fight over OpenAI's leadership is more like celebrity gossip than anything else. The most salient takeaway is that closed-source proprietary LLMs are a bad idea and that everyone with any long-term interest in the subject should switch over to the open-source model.
It also has revealed that non-profit philanthropic business models are little more than marketing ploys designed to fool the gullible, and that 'corporate values' statements should be viewed in the same light as the self-serving claims of narcissitc sociopaths are. In particular OpenAI's vague claims about 'ensuring AGI benefits humanity' were so subject to interpretation as to be meaningless (e.g. some may claim that cutting the size of the current human population in half would be a great benefit to humanity, others would argue for doubling it, see the history of eugenics for more of that flavor).
For-profit entities who are upfront about the fact that their only interest is in making money for their investors, executives and stock-holding employees are at least honest about their goals. Of course, this means their activities must be subjected to independent governmental regulation (which is the outcome that the whole 'we have values' BS is intended to avoid).
by npalli on 11/22/23, 8:41 PM
Like many hotshot young entrepreneurs, it is possible Sam learnt a lot from the firing and has done a 180 to go on to supporting others (seen by his support from OpenAI rank-and-file). He probably needed that life lesson (getting fired) to grow.
by kwertyoowiyop on 11/22/23, 2:13 PM
Will this tempest in a teapot never end?
by rantee on 11/22/23, 7:11 PM
Somebody page Kanye to say something stupid so we can flush SA out of the news cycle already. Elon's just not up to par these days.
by dist-epoch on 11/22/23, 1:09 PM
How dare you question the savior of humanity.
by jorater on 11/22/23, 2:55 PM
From Garry Tan ~2 Months ago: https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/1702561008190165448
> The scariest sociopaths are the ones you let in to your house, who met your family, who you broke bread with
> ...
In a comment:
> Just heard some disturbing news about someone who I once thought highly of
by fiforpg on 11/22/23, 3:13 PM
Wasn't really following the subject, but amazed at how tendentious the writing here is. Starting with the title, unsubstantiated claims, really weird turns of phrase, etc. Here's an example:
> not just common, it’s start-up gospel from Altman’s longtime mentor, venture capitalist Peter Thiel
— according to whom? Is it supposed to be common knowledge? Is this even a helpful parallel?
In comparison, reporting on FT on this same topic is a lot more subdued and matter-of-fact.
by mattfrommars on 11/22/23, 8:00 PM
I am not sure but Sam Altman is probably the next Steve Jobs. One of the greatest CEO of our generation.
by CPLX on 11/22/23, 1:22 PM
Must say that a spirited defense from Keith Rabois is not the best way to dispel rumors you’re a predatory sociopath.
by yalogin on 11/24/23, 3:18 PM
If Sam is self serving and a master tactician, it doesn’t bode well for AI ethics and responsibility. Who am I kidding, that ship has sailed a long time ago. However I really hope Sam doesn’t turn into another Elon musk
by lkbm on 11/22/23, 9:02 PM
> Graham did not respond to a request for comment.
Not said: "...but has consistently spoken in support of Sam Altman."
This article is incredibly disingenuous. Almost to the level that I'd cancel my Washington Post subscription over if I hadn't already for similarly bad journalism.
by rideontime on 11/22/23, 6:23 PM
A reminder that the "e" in "e/acc" does not stand for "ethical"
by DotaFan on 11/22/23, 2:06 PM
I am no behaviorist expert, but for me, someone who in world of trouble can post tweets as relaxing as Sam's, and do smile poses comes of as extremely manipulative.
by xkekjrktllss on 11/23/23, 3:06 AM
>Graham did not respond to a request for comment.
by dougmwne on 11/22/23, 3:54 PM
I think everyone is missing the point. Sam Altman seems to be a reasonably effective leader (and certainly flawed and a bit sociopathic), but ultimately unimportant and replaceable. This was not about Sam, this was about the strategic direction of a critical Microsoft partner. Microsoft felt Sam would take orders and therefore supported him. If Sam ever asserts himself, he will be gone, just like the board was replaced.
by 23B1 on 11/22/23, 7:20 PM
I for one am just totally shocked that a silicon valley executive would exhibit some sociopathic behaviors.
by ldjkfkdsjnv on 11/22/23, 6:35 PM
Red pill: Most very successful people are like this.
by eksapsy on 11/22/23, 7:06 PM
ive been working for a company for 3 years and i had great behavior, respected the people around me, they hired me from the consultant company because they liked me so much they wanted to take me because i had already done so much for that company that usually employees don't take the initiative to do (performance fixes nobody asked or tickets for performance that were abandoned because the developer just got bored of it, then being congratulated for fixing the performance, making new projects inside the company and them realizing my new potentials and making new tools and services etc.)
Then I got fired on the spot for just talking a little more angrier at the manager because they put me on a task that nobody communicated to me they wanted in 1 month, and then when I realized after the leader was compaining that they wanted the task in 1 month I was like "do you realize you placed me in a project I dont know, the devs themselves don't know some answers I'm asking for the project, i have to implement a whole driver for getting API signals etc." you get the point. The leader asked me to put me in a project he did not even code in ever, and he thought it was gonna take 1 month and took 4-5 months and when I realized that he thought that I contested. To the point that the first manager agreed with me that "yeah it's not a 1 month task." and he was one of the best programmers in the company and was just a manager now. Like the first manager on the line agreed with me but on a 1-1 meeting, so his voice was not heard to the leader.
So I contacted the second manager on the line to have a conversation with the leadership about this task and that I had these concerns, and after realizing he agrees with the leader despite him not even remotely knowing what we were doing, I was kinda pissed off not gonna lie. It was the first time I actually just kinda exploded to him which diplomatically ngl is bad move ... but i was angry because I've pissed blood for this task, coz "the leader wanted it in 1 month" and I did unfortunately work days and hours just because I felt like it out of pressure, and I thought that I DIDN'T want to be fired for this stupid task taking "longer than the leader thought should take" despite him not even having direct experience on the project or the Data Aggregator API they placed me to get data from.
But was I fired because of MY mistake? No. I was fired, on the spot, without notice, after working for 3 years and doing so many things for that company, coz I made somebody angry.
And please believe me when I say that when I told this same manager "hey this other guy (not the leader) treated me with disrespect" he just said "yeah you know how he is we all know, he is just this way". Like what the hell? So, I'm so bad you're gonna fire me on the spot for making you angry just so you can powertrip, but he's "just the way he is"?
You guys get my point. You can get fired, without it being your actual fault. Yes, you may have some responsibility, as I had to be more diplomatic but I'm a human too. I can be angry about some things too some times. But I didn't fire anybody on the spot for making them angry.
I'm not claiming Sam's case is the same. But I do claim that just because you're fired, doesn't mean you're on the wrong. It seems like a cliche point to make that "you were fired thus it was your mistake". Things are just not that simple sometimes. You may be fired just because you pissed off somebody and he couldn't keep his feelings inside and powertripped without second thinking, like the board of directors did when they fired Sam without a proper discussion with all the individuals first and making sure it's the right decision.
by 7e on 11/22/23, 8:46 PM
Sounds like Sam Altman is a sociopath.
by Arson9416 on 11/22/23, 6:44 PM
```
  Step 1: Dazzle an influential person
  Step 2: Persuade them to hitch their reputation to you
  Step 3: Do whatever you want with minimal repercussions
```
Follow these 3 steps and influential people will actively fight on your behalf, against their own best interests, to avoid embarrassing themselves and diminishing their reputations. Use each influential person as a stepping stone to an even more influential person and repeat.
by Keats on 11/22/23, 1:30 PM
I can't believe someone that created Worldcoin could not be trustworthy.
by throwawaaarrgh on 11/22/23, 1:02 PM
People love a good cult of personality, don't they
by intellectronica on 11/22/23, 1:52 PM
Sensationalist clickbait title. There's nothing in the article that supports the claim that Altman has been "fired".
It's almost invariably the case that to most of us, people who are powerful and effective appear "manipulative". In fact, they are manipulative, which is how they achieve so much. It's only a problem if they are manipulative in the service of goals that are unethical or harmful.
See also: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-... - successful, powerful people ("sociopaths" in vgr's comical treatise on office politics) are people who create and shape reality. Those who are not able to create and shape reality themselves (the "clueless", according to vgr) benefit from having someone create a reality for them, while at the same time, take offence at the manipulation.
by anoncow on 11/22/23, 2:28 PM
Hit piece by wapo.
by KingOfCoders on 11/22/23, 6:38 PM
If this is true, interesting, as PG was several times profits over ethics (e.G. see the AirBnB discussion on HN he participated in).
by andrewstuart on 11/22/23, 9:34 PM
Is this actually true?
Did Paul Graham fire Sam Altman?
Is there factual information about this - has pg said anything?
by armchairhacker on 11/22/23, 6:52 PM
Why was Sam fired from Y Combinator? Why was he fired from OpenAI?
Not saying he's good or trustworthy, but it's unfair to speak badly about him without evidence or even examples of wrongdoing.
by Gaussian on 11/22/23, 3:17 PM
Sam is a leader. Let there be no doubt. Does he have foibles? I’m sure. I do. Everybody has people out there who will proffer criticism of them, especially those at the top of the pyramid. Our summer at YC was heavily influenced by him; he always had time for us, and always thought hard about our problems.