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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
by lhnz 3y ago
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%20sam&src=typed_query&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=from:paulg%20since:2019-01-01%2...
- tom_ 3y agoI dunno, man. As an English person, to me these tweets sound a lot like he is publicly calling Altman a cunt.
- lhnz 3y agoReally? It seems like a glowing appraisal. He seems to think that Sam is devestatingly effective at what he does.
- tom_ 3y agoIf I didn't know Graham was English, perhaps I would take them at face value - and, indeed, perhaps I should anyway. (And my characterisation was an extreme one!) But: they do just all sound rather coldly backhanded, if you ask me.
- skilled 3y agoI like your way of seeing it and I see the same now. If this is true (the article) then for sure it’s a nice inside jab that only Sam would get. Also, I doubt pg would hold a grudge for years on end. You learn many lessons in life and some you are bound to repeat because of stubbornness or whatever.
- itronitron 3y agoI think with some of pg's tweets he definitely seems to be laying it bare, but only for those people that know what to watch out for.
- turzmo 3y agoAmerican, but I read PG's tweets as someone who absolutely does not want to piss off Sam but is willing to come close to the edge of plausible deniability in damning him, e.g.: > The most alarming thing I've read about AI in recent memory. And if Sam thinks this, it's probably true, because he's an expert in both AI and persuasion. There certainly isn't the paternal warmth you might expect from a proud mentor.
- lhnz 3y agoWell, I'm also English and I didn't read them that way. However, I do think that Paul is telling people that competing with Sam in certain domains would be extraordinarily difficult. The other thing is that if you take a look at Paul Graham's blog posts, he used to regularly thank Sam at the bottom of these -- this isn't something you do if you don't like or respect someone. However, on the other hand, perhaps they fell out at some point? I can't personally make out that signal from the little data there is.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lupire 3y agoGraham moved to the US at age 14. He's as American as he is British.
- eddtries 3y agoHe lives in England nowadays too
- thatguysaguy 3y agoThey all say he's good at what he does, but none of them actually sound like he likes the guy.
- adastra22 3y agoGraham is English. The English have a wonderful talent for making backhanded “complements.” E.g. “you’re a truly unique individual” or “I always feel more intelligent after speaking with you.” The American convention is to look for the positive and assume that was intended. The English convention is to look for the negative and assume that was the real meaning. E.g. “Sam is going better than you. Do better.” Could mean “Even that incompetent dipshit Sam is going to do better than you can, that’s how much of a hole you’re in.”
- lhnz 3y agoI am also English. :)
- specialist 3y agoPer Guy Kawasaki (The Macintosh Way), the sincerity of Jean-Louis Gassée's feedback was inversely proportional to the level of praise. That anecdote prompted me to do the same (in corporate battlefields). Works great.
- VeejayRampay 3y agoGassée is French though, very different feedback culture
- jacquesm 3y ago'Interesting' -> 'you're barking mad'.
- hef19898 3y agoOne example, sorry for the bad translation from Bavarian, would be: "You can see it that way (as well)". Which can basically mean, a) you might actually have a point or b) you are dead wrong.
- FeepingCreature 3y agoYeah that one's funny, it's either "that's a legitimate point of view" or "amazing that somebody can manage to hold such a ridiculous point of view", depending on tone.
- thepasswordis 3y agoIt’s really funny to re read this with that perspective. >My kid was really surprised to find out that Sam cofounded this company. >Sam is going better than you. Do better. Etc. I don’t know that you’re right, since these do sound like praise, but it’s kind of a funny game to change the tone and make them into catty insults.
- nothrowaways 3y agoI read it like so.
- Sai_ 3y agoAgree. Reads like a warning more than praise - do not cross Altman because he will rip your face off.
- andrelaszlo 3y agoAnyone able to quote these xweets for people without an account?
- martinclayton 3y agoMight work: https://nitter.poast.org/search?f=tweets&q=from%3Apaulg+since%3A2019-01-01+sam&since=&until=&near= https://nitter.poast.org/search?f=tweets&q=from%3Apaulg+sinc...
- justrealist 3y agoPaul's wife has a huge financial stake in OpenAI, so I suspect massive success there has softened his opinion.
- liuliu 3y agoThese are donations. How that becomes investment / financial stakes? (It is a question, since how the transition to capped-profit left a lot of questions unanswered).
- didibus 3y agoDonations are to the non-for-profit, but now that there is a for-profit arm, private investors can purchase "stock" if you want. Share of the company that grants them some percentage of the company profit (when it eventually starts turning a profit). And they can also resell those "shares" to other people, at whatever prices people are willing to pay for them. The only restriction is there is a 100x cap on return. So if you paid 1 billion for your "shares", once they've returned you 100 billion as a profit percentage, or by reselling the "shares" to other people, you can't make anymore money for the profit sharing. But if you still have "shares", you can still sell them to others at whatever price they want. So for example, say I buy 100 shares worth 100$ each. That's worth 10k total. My cap is thus at 1 million. Say there are 1000 shares total, that means I'm owed 10% of the profit OpenAI makes. But after making 1 million, it stops and I'm not owed anymore profit. That said, I still have 100 "shares". They just stop returning me a percentage of the profit. But I can sell those shares to someone else at whatever price they want. So I could sell them to someone else at 200$ each. And the person that receives them is now owed profit from the percentage of share he owns up to their own cap, which for them would be based on a 200$ price, so they can make a profit return up to 100x of 200$.
- liuliu 3y agoYes. But my post (and the one I replied to) are talking about Jessica's early donation to OpenAI non-profit. Did that somehow "transferred" to be shares in the for-profit or did Jessica purchased some during the transition (hence the financial interests OP accused her of)?
- jpeter 3y agoRokos Basilisk
- erikig 3y agoIs this why there was a power struggle for OpenAI’s direction?
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y agoClicksaver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk
- raverbashing 3y agoaka "Catholic guilt for atheists"
- TuringNYC 3y agoFascinating! It feels like a Sixth Sense moment where, as I go back and look at these, many can be interpreted a whole different way.
- JeremyNT 3y agopg can both respect Altman's abilities, while concluding that his presence could be detrimental to his own objectives. It's not in either man's interests to create drama, either. It all makes me wonder what really happened with Musk and OpenAI. There's so much we don't and can't know about these billionaires and their internal sparring, despite the fact that we give them such huge amounts of control over our society.