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It's strangely paradoxical. Sam has zero charisma. Zero looks. No technical ability. He's not a storyteller. He's not a hype man. He comes off as a mildly surl

It's strangely paradoxical. Sam has zero charisma. Zero looks. No technical ability. He's not a storyteller. He's not a hype man. He comes off as a mildly surly sloth when he talks. His actual pre-OpenAI achievements from a product perspective are a joke. But he was nevertheless "there" for YC and "there" in OpenAI, and a bunch of money was raised, and he's successfully managed to get all spotlights on him at all times, so he's highly visible. He's like a weird geek following plays from Trumps book: just stay highly visible, associate with any possible win, and be at the center of attention. Why does it work? Because subconsciously who WOULDNT want to operate this way in life? It takes the least amount of effort compared to many other job tracks or even CEO tracks, and it's become wildly profitable for him. So the cult of personality idolizing America of today can't help but want their tech Jesus fantasy to work out.

CPLX 3y ago
It’s actually much less confusing than that. It’s clear he has a knack for becoming a favorite son of billionaire oligarchs who see him as useful. Which, assuming he’s like everyone else who’s done that, was accomplished by a combination of flattery and willingness to operate on behalf of the ruling class totally untethered from any principles whatsoever.
- kossTKR 3y ago
  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 principle - stemming from the richest members of society pulling the strings to benefit themselves. Then some note or some FOIA request will be released in 40 years about the orchestration and no one will care. Just follow the money, or the networks of people and it's easy to see the undercurrents of class warfare, elite power via the security state or oligarch clubs siphoning money and power away from the public, but that's called conspiracy these days and is dangerous (to the ruling classes).
  - CPLX 3y ago
    Yeah this stuff isn't rocket science. If you shut the fuck up and play along and don't make people uncomfortable you get a kitchen renovation and a vacation home and a job for your kid. It's the oldest game there is.
  - astrange 3y ago
    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.
    - johnnyworker 3y ago
      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.
      - astrange 3y ago
        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.
        johnnyworker 3y ago
        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.
        3y ago
refurb 3y ago
> mildly surly sloth I had to read that twice, but it was well worth it.
barrkel 3y ago
What makes you think he has no technical ability? It seems more likely to me, given his background (programming from 8, accepted to Stanford CS) that he has technical aptitude, but he has even more dealmaking ability. https://www.quora.com/Is-Sam-Altman-highly-technical-Has-he-contributed-to-the-code-base-of-Loopt https://www.quora.com/Is-Sam-Altman-highly-technical-Has-he-... - Patrick Collison says he had technical conversations on Lisp machine implementations and iframe security policies, which to me is a measure of some depth. And on hype, I think the carefully staged GPT PR over the years had an element of controlled hype. I remember them talking about how they couldn't release it because of how e.g. spammers could use it - https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/14/18224704/ai-machine-learning-language-models-read-write-openai-gpt2 https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/14/18224704/ai-machine-learn... (They weren't entirely wrong, there's a flood of junk text out there now. Twitter popular posts have their replies flooded by AI-generated "on topic" responses by bots. Content mills are switching to AI.)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
kubrickslair 3y ago
I have only interacted briefly with Sam but I found him to be one of the smartest YC folks. But I will let a Paul Graham essay speak [1]: Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?" What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html
- pdonis 3y ago
  Graham doesn't say Altman is smart. He says he's driven. They're not the same thing. Quite frankly, every time I read one of Altman's essays I am seriously underwhelmed as far as smartness goes.
washadjeffmad 3y ago
It's funny, but I adopted a similar approach, and it's amazing how the tides turn in your favor when your name is on everyone's lips. I'm nothing special, but I have an eye for quality people and a great reputation (thanks to it), so I'm the one who keeps getting the calls. Also, some people would rather be shot than talk in front of a crowd or get up in front an audience. I used to have panic attacks during introductions in small meetings, and now I'm the one who spots the nervous professionals and helps them feel that they belong. Anyway, that's all to say there's value in it. I don't personally enrich myself off of it, but if I could offer a correction to your dim view of the imperfect, the world isn't actually run by intimidatingly charismatic, beautiful geniuses, and I have found that helping people that have the simple capacity for success connect and communicate isn't a worthless skill.

CPLX 3y ago

It’s actually much less confusing than that. It’s clear he has a knack for becoming a favorite son of billionaire oligarchs who see him as useful. Which, assuming he’s like everyone else who’s done that, was accomplished by a combination of flattery and willingness to operate on behalf of the ruling class totally untethered from any principles whatsoever.

kossTKR 3y ago
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 principle - stemming from the richest members of society pulling the strings to benefit themselves. Then some note or some FOIA request will be released in 40 years about the orchestration and no one will care. Just follow the money, or the networks of people and it's easy to see the undercurrents of class warfare, elite power via the security state or oligarch clubs siphoning money and power away from the public, but that's called conspiracy these days and is dangerous (to the ruling classes).
- CPLX 3y ago
  Yeah this stuff isn't rocket science. If you shut the fuck up and play along and don't make people uncomfortable you get a kitchen renovation and a vacation home and a job for your kid. It's the oldest game there is.
- astrange 3y ago
  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.
  - johnnyworker 3y ago
    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.
    - astrange 3y ago
      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.
      - johnnyworker 3y ago
        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.
        3y ago

refurb 3y ago

> mildly surly sloth I had to read that twice, but it was well worth it.

barrkel 3y ago

What makes you think he has no technical ability? It seems more likely to me, given his background (programming from 8, accepted to Stanford CS) that he has technical aptitude, but he has even more dealmaking ability. https://www.quora.com/Is-Sam-Altman-highly-technical-Has-he-contributed-to-the-code-base-of-Loopt https://www.quora.com/Is-Sam-Altman-highly-technical-Has-he-... - Patrick Collison says he had technical conversations on Lisp machine implementations and iframe security policies, which to me is a measure of some depth. And on hype, I think the carefully staged GPT PR over the years had an element of controlled hype. I remember them talking about how they couldn't release it because of how e.g. spammers could use it - https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/14/18224704/ai-machine-learning-language-models-read-write-openai-gpt2 https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/14/18224704/ai-machine-learn... (They weren't entirely wrong, there's a flood of junk text out there now. Twitter popular posts have their replies flooded by AI-generated "on topic" responses by bots. Content mills are switching to AI.)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

kubrickslair 3y ago

I have only interacted briefly with Sam but I found him to be one of the smartest YC folks. But I will let a Paul Graham essay speak [1]: Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?" What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html

pdonis 3y ago
Graham doesn't say Altman is smart. He says he's driven. They're not the same thing. Quite frankly, every time I read one of Altman's essays I am seriously underwhelmed as far as smartness goes.

washadjeffmad 3y ago

It's funny, but I adopted a similar approach, and it's amazing how the tides turn in your favor when your name is on everyone's lips. I'm nothing special, but I have an eye for quality people and a great reputation (thanks to it), so I'm the one who keeps getting the calls. Also, some people would rather be shot than talk in front of a crowd or get up in front an audience. I used to have panic attacks during introductions in small meetings, and now I'm the one who spots the nervous professionals and helps them feel that they belong. Anyway, that's all to say there's value in it. I don't personally enrich myself off of it, but if I could offer a correction to your dim view of the imperfect, the world isn't actually run by intimidatingly charismatic, beautiful geniuses, and I have found that helping people that have the simple capacity for success connect and communicate isn't a worthless skill.