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Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google has this to say: https://x.com/ericschmidt/status/1725625144519909648?s=20 https://x.com/ericschmidt/status/1725625144519909
by gzer0 3y ago
Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google has this to say:
https://x.com/ericschmidt/status/1725625144519909648?s=20 https://x.com/ericschmidt/status/1725625144519909648?s=20
Sam Altman is a hero of mine. He built a company from nothing to $90 Billion in value, and changed our collective world forever. I can't wait to see what he does next. I, and billions of people, will benefit from his future work- it's going to be simply incredible. Thank you @sama for all you have done for all of us.
Making such a statement before knowing what happened, or, maybe he does know what happened, make this seem it might not be as bad as we think?
- jasonwatkinspdx 3y agoEric Schmidt is also the person that said Google's old "do no evil" slogan was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard. Given that there's apparent tension at OpenAI over non profit vs for profit goals I'd not draw any particular conclusions from Schmidt's statement.
- throwoutway 3y agoAnd of course he gives credit to the CEO and not the 400 people under him who actually built the thing, nor the other 10 people who actually founded the company. Nor those who gave initial funding. From wikipedia: > OpenAI was founded in 2015 by Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Trevor Blackwell, Vicki Cheung, Andrej Karpathy, Durk Kingma, Jessica Livingston, John Schulman, Pamela Vagata, and Wojciech Zaremba, with Sam Altman and Elon Musk serving as the initial board members.
- otteromkram 3y agoLots of companies are funded every year. Those without solid leadership and clear mission are bound to fail. Founding a company is also fairly easy (if you're in the US). In most US states, you just need to complete some paperwork, pay administrative fees, and you're good to go. Founding something isn't tough. Leading through adversity and setbacks is. Finally, if we're praising workers, what about those who came and went between 2015 and today? That probably pushes the number higher than 400 FTEs.
- staticman2 3y ago*Founding a company is also fairly easy (if you're in the US). In most US states, you just need to complete some paperwork, pay administrative fees, and you're good to go.* This is true in the sense that being a CEO is also easy, you just fill out some paperwork that says you are CEO. Are you saying the founders of OpenAI just filled out some paperwork and did nothing more?
- throwoutway 3y agoWhat adversity and setbacks did Sam personally overcome?
- lmm 3y ago> Lots of companies are funded every year. Those without solid leadership and clear mission are bound to fail. IME companies with solid workers (in engineering and elsewhere) but weak leadership and mission have a much better chance than the converse. Even the best companies rarely end up following the mission or the leader.
- satvikpendem 3y agoNo they don't. Leadership can make or break a company, that is why they are paid so much.
- throwoutway 3y agoLeadership without talented employees can break a company. That's why they are paid so...
- strikelaserclaw 3y agoI'm of the firm opinion that the heavy lifting at open ai is doing by the scientists but of courses ceos like to applaud themselves on the back for doing the "tough" job.
- consumer451 3y agoHe was also against the creation of Chrome to the point where it had to be done in secret, according to him. From a total outsider/uninformed pov, he really seems like a fail upward story.
- leoh 3y agolol! Um, do you remember who the main champion of Chrome was?
- OrangeMusic 3y agoNo
- leoh 3y agoBig daddy sundar
- nvm0n2 3y agoBut that was fair. Page wanted to do a browser super early, like years before the IPO, and Schmidt was brought in specifically to try and bring some focus to the company and balance out the founder's ambition with more "adult" execution. Yes eventually Chrome became a successful project and Schmidt wisely didn't pick a fight over it, but he wasn't wrong to insist the company try to avoid getting distracted with that so early in its life.
- consumer451 3y agoAgain, I am an outsider and uniformed. But the established money printer was already going brrrrr... I would imagine that it's arguable that a pheasant could have ridden that rocket to the moon. My bias and stupidity may be showing here, but I just don't think that he is very smart. Maybe that was the point of his position: to keep the company from going beyond the imagination of Wall Street normies.
- 3y ago
- spuz 3y agoIt's possible for our heroes to fall from grace. There's nothing wrong with Eric saying this without knowing the full story.
- throw555chip 3y agoYour use of the word "our" is too liberally applied, he was no hero of mine. I believe history will have a very different view of Altman, "Open"AI, and AI in general.
- c0pium 3y agoThat’s the rhetorical “our”.
- Intralexical 3y ago> rhetorical Plural generic first-person possessive pronoun.
- c0pium 3y agoIs English not your first language? They were making a rhetorical argument about our heroes, whoever they may be. It’s clear from context that they’re talking about how Sam is a hero of Eric’s and Sam has fallen which is a thing that can happen.
- Intralexical 3y ago> They were making a rhetorical argument about our heroes, whoever they may be. Yes? That's what "plural generic first-person possessive pronoun" means. I was agreeing with you, mate.
- spuz 3y agoNote I said "heroes", not "hero". I'm making a general statement about how the views people can have about others can evolve over time.
- herval 3y agoTons of high profile people spoke like this about Adam Neumann or Elizabeth Holmes too
- H8crilA 3y agoTons of high profile people spoke like that about a large number of individuals in the past. Here I think it's clear that OpenAI has indeed delivered something serious.
- vdfs 3y agoI'm starting to think what people say reflect their own thought about other people, and not facts we should accept depending on their net worth
- mardifoufs 3y agoNot everyone that you don't like is a fraudster. Just say that you don't like Sam, no need to make an obviously absurd comparison. The reason those were bad CEOs were that they swindled investors and lied about what their corporation is doing. I have absolutely no opinion on Sam Altman (didn't know about him before openai) btw, it's just that the comparison is completely nonsensical. (It reminds me of comparing AI to crypto because both have hype behind them.)
- jrflowers 3y agoI like that you have no opinion about this guy that got fired for “not [being] consistently candid in his communications with the board” other than it is plainly obvious that he isn’t a liar.
- mardifoufs 3y agoNo that's not my point. I'm not saying he's a liar or not, I'm saying that they are not similar regardless. He could be a liar without being a fraud. Openai is already not Theranos no matter what happens next.
- deleted 3y ago
- linuxftw 3y agoHe's mega rich. Doesn't matter what other people think about him at this point.
- ksaj 3y agoTrue. He's certainly wealthy enough that no amount of "additional" money to his name would change his life in any notable manner.
- siavosh 3y agoI think it's logical in these scenarios if you don't know what happened to presume something forgivable and maintain that relationship (cynically, opportunity to invest), and if something truly unforgivable comes out post another tweet.
- jug 3y agoOr maybe Eric Schmidt is worse than we think. ;-) (half joking)
- gumballindie 3y ago[flagged]
- vault 3y agoI think OpenAI built something amazing with ChatGPT, but building a company from nothing is a little bit different from being > initially funded by Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Infosys, and YC Research. When OpenAI launched in 2015, it had raised $1 billion. (Wikipedia)
- theropost 3y agoThis sounds celebratory to me. Bad news for OpenAI is good news for google.
- csomar 3y agoHere is what's wrong about that statement: Sam Altman did not "build" Open AI from nothing to $90Bn. Open AI raised $1bn from several investors and had top talents. Sam managed the company through that. But I am certain other people given the same circumstances will be able to do more or less the same.