24 ms·

I got tired of hearing that YC fired Sam, so here's what actually happened

• piker 2y ago
  I start a side gig and my employer tells me to choose the side gig or my employment. I choose side gig and lose employment. I am fired.
  • raverbashing 2y ago
    PG clarified (on the thread) that if he chose the other way (staying on YC) it would have been fine with them as well
    • cthalupa 2y ago
      That is the exact scenario covered in the post you are replying to.
    • aaronharnly 2y ago
      That phrasing struck me as oddly limp. They would have been “fine” for their president to stay At his job? That’s not exactly a strong statement of support. If my boss told me they’d be “fine” if I stayed at my job I’d be pretty worried.
      • raverbashing 2y ago
        Yeah I agree with this. And you probably know when it's time to move on for one reason or another
      • robertlagrant 2y ago
        You're overanalysing something that wasn't the actual word used, and is an accurate word. We might all be a bit used to hyperbole, but the lack of it doesn't imply anything. Stop reading into it.
        • deleted 2y ago
          [deleted]
        • tasuki 2y ago
          Indeed, and consider that pg is British. Not all nations share the American need for hyperbole. Some even look down on it. If my boss told me he was "fine with me staying at my job", I'd take it to mean that they were fine with me staying at my job.
      • pydry 2y ago
        It's also the kind of thing you'd say if you knew that their heart isn't in it. I don't think this press release (is it that?) does a very good job of dispelling the rumors that it wasn't entirely mutual, though. He ought to have said something like "delighted to have him stay".
  • piker 2y ago
    pg disputing the narrative that Sam was forced out for being dishonest is totally valid, there is just some real interesting language parsing here to rule this not a “firing”. He lost employment at his employer’s behest and it wasn’t a layoff.
    • consp 2y ago
      > pg disputing the narrative that Sam was forced out for being dishonest Yet he doesn't do that (in this tweet) as it's only an alternative reason and does not address those accusations.
    • cies 2y ago
      I think Sam has amassed a net worth enough to live comfortably not having to work another day in his life. To me that changes the meaning of "fired". I'd read it as "co-entrepeneurs parting ways". Yes one of the co-entrepeneurs has more say in who stays and who goes. But even if there was an employment contract, I'd see it more as a good/bad leave clause when no body loses their much required primary source of income.
      • cma 2y ago
        Wouldn't the same be true of him getting fired from OpenAI then? He was never fired since he was independently wealthy?
        • cies 2y ago
          I'm not saying he's technically fired or not (i think "fired" is a term with a law-definition). I'm saying that he prolly has a deal at OpenAI with some stock and a good/bad leaver agreement, and a salary. Getting fired in this cases is not the same as firing someone who has zero stock and needs the jobs to put food on the table. It just does not carry the same weight for me, regardless of the lawful definition.
  • cthalupa 2y ago
    Yeah. The provided explanation certainly sounds like firing to me. If he had been performing at a level worthy of his continued employment he wouldn't have gotten the ultimatum. It doesn't sound like he was incapable of doing that - just incapable of doing that while also running OpenAI.
    • DragonStrength 2y ago
      Not that I’m looking to take any side here, but they could see it as a conflict of interest, especially given YC may wish to invest in competitors, which wouldn’t have anything to do with performance.
  • trash3 2y ago
    [dead]
  • atsjie 2y ago
    It's a bit of stretch to compare a side gig with someone becoming the CEO of a for-profit subsidiary.
    • rendaw 2y ago
      How so? Aren't all side gigs solo entrepreneurial activities?
      • asdfaoeu 2y ago
        A side gig is something on the side, not your "main gig".
  • spacebanana7 2y ago
    If your employer previously tolerated your side gig then it's different. An employer who forces employees to stop working from home or leave the company isn't firing them, for example.
    • manquer 2y ago
      It was involuntary that is the point . It was not Sam idea to leave YC at the time Your remote work example is not different companies ask a performance improvement plan they are saying improve your performance or leave. That “ or leave” doesn’t always mean you get fired legally , some companies would be more generous with severance if you resign voluntarily, but it doesn’t alter the fact you were asked to do so and effectively were fired. Senior management typically leave by mutual agreement even if they “asked to resign”. His employment was not terminated by YC legally yes , that would be rare and would happen if there is no trust left that he would do so properly when asked to resign, like it happened in OpenAI for him .
    • taneq 2y ago
      I don't think an employer can legally force that, can they? They can request that employees stop working from home, and they can fire them if they refuse. Forcing them to come to the office would be kidnapping.
  • belter 2y ago
    Then your employer makes a diplomatic tweet, because you are known to be a Silicon Valley billionaire with grunges...
  • michaelt 2y ago
    It does indeed sound a lot like firing. But what if the conversation went like this: PG: Quit your second job or be fired Altman: You can't fire me, because I quit PG: Great, as thanks for going quietly I'll tell everyone you "weren't fired" It's a firing for all practical purposes, sure. But technically Altman voluntarily resigned. This is actually somewhat common when firing people - if you ever find yourself in a disciplinary meeting with HR and you know you're about to get fired, you can just resign right then and there, one second before they tell you you're fired, and they'll accept. You sacrifice the right to sue for unfair dismissal, in exchange they'll tell future employers that you left voluntarily and weren't fired.
    • whamlastxmas 2y ago
      They can and will tell future employers that you suck and aren’t eligible for rehire though. And you lose unemployment benefits
      • tivert 2y ago
        > They can and will tell future employers that you suck and aren’t eligible for rehire though. I believe that's increasingly uncommon, I believe due to legal risk. I think it's usually the case that HR will only verify the bare objective facts of employment: dates of service, title, salary, etc. I also know of at least one company where policy states everyone who leaves involuntarily is not eligible for rehire, and that includes people who were laid off due to downsizing/site closures/etc. So "not eligible for rehire" my not indicate any performance or behavioral issues.
    • KingMob 2y ago
      You also sacrifice unemployment benefits in many cases, which costs businesses time to administer and risks fines and higher insurance rates. So, a lot of businesses will pressure you to quit instead of being fired, since it's easier for them.
  • mihaaly 2y ago
    You chose to be fired, basicly quit. (this whole terminology debate is so futile and useless, mental food for the bored. WTF cares which exact colorful sticker we put on disagreements and the consequent parting. It's over, carry on.)
  • 9dev 2y ago
    I live in Germany, a country infamous for its strong employee protections. It’s very hard to fire someone here. Yet, I don’t see how this is in any way unjust. Your employer pays you for putting your skills and time to their use. If you start working on a side gig, that will take up a chunk of your time and invariably occupy your brain; thus, your employer doesn’t get their full value out of you anymore. Up to a certain degree, employers (have) to tolerate this—in Germany, that would be when your performance at your job starts to suffer from it. But once your commitment to the side gig increases so much that you’re about to become CEO, there’s no reasonable way to claim you can still carry out your contractual duties to your employer. If your employer then offers you to either step down from that side gig or lose your employment, that is completely reasonable and frankly something you should expect? Put differently, if you pay me to paint your shed, and after finishing the front side I went off and painted my own house with the rest of the paint, you certainly wouldn’t consider the job done or full payment to be justified.
    • chris_wot 2y ago
      If you do your side gig out of work hours, and it doesn’t affect your work (and you aren’t competing…) then what of it?
      • jstummbillig 2y ago
        Then you are dreaming (because of course running a second demanding company will affect your work, in some way, not necessarily negatively) but, more importantly, people might disagree about the impact and either side would have a hard time proving anything. So probably be upfront about the rules and make a choice, when you have to.
      • eertami 2y ago
        Well in Germany specifically it's a legal issue (and some other EU countries), because there are labour market laws stipulating the maximum amount of time someone can work per week (48hrs). Sure, you can fly under the radar if you're working on your own business/start-up by simply lying about the hours worked, but if you're doing paid work for another employer it will be obvious, and they would not be legally able to employ you if total working time goes above 48hrs/week.
  • jstummbillig 2y ago
    Important in this context is the board members insinuation that sam was unwanted. According to pgs account, that was not the case. Perhaps we can agree that "firing" is a fairly fuzzy term, and maybe not entirely fit to meaningfully contain, both: a) me losing my job because I am (apparently) not creating enough value for the company b) me losing my job because I am not willing to split time between my current main gig and my unicorn startup
  • jameshush 2y ago
    "I choose to be fired" is quitting in my books. There aren't enough hours in a week to work two 40-hour-a-week jobs if you also want to eat and sleep
    • fooker 2y ago
      These are not factory jobs, most of the job is about making consequential high stakes decisions. It doesn’t take 40 hours of work all the time, especially if you can delegate well.
  • lox 2y ago
    No, you resigned. It’s completely possible to have adult conversations and to part ways without being terminated for cause (which “fired” is a euphemism for).
  • ben_w 2y ago
    Departure by mutual agreement can be a secret way of getting fired, but if both parties go out of their way to deny it was a firing, then I've no reason to doubt them. Even silence by one or both, which allows doubts to remain, isn't enough to be positive evidence that it was actually a firing, owing to the legal implications of different causes of departure in different jurisdictions. I've had several job contracts which say I'm not allowed to have another job at the same time unless I have written permission, which they can't say no to without good reason — "This has become a conflict of interest, pick one" or "both of these are now full time, pick one" seem like reasonable grounds to for an employer to rescind permission. (It's also one of the ways Musk gets flack, given how many companies he's CEO/CTO/president of).
• Urahandystar 2y ago
  But that goes against the soap opera narrative! What muck will people raise now?
• ml-anon 2y ago
  Narrator: they fired him.
  • seydor 2y ago
    Deeper voice: They were forced to fire him
  • tasuki 2y ago
    No: pg made sama choose whether he wanted to head YC or OpenAI. As per his own account, pg would have been happy with either.
  • rizky05 2y ago
    [dead]
  • justanotherjoe 2y ago
    PG: 'What did I just f-in say? Am I a mirage'
• earnesti 2y ago
  Who cares
  • brettkromkamp 2y ago
    My sentiments exactly.
  • tetris11 2y ago
    Open your eyes, what do you see? The cult of personality.
    • KaiserPro 2y ago
      To expand further, to the tune of "you're welcome" from moana: Okay, okay, I see what's happening here You're face to face with greatness, and it's strange You don't even know how you feel It's adorable Well, it's nice to see that humans never change Open your eyes, let's begin Yes, it's really me, it's Altman Breathe it in I know it's a lot The hair, the bod When you're staring at a demi-god
      • walteweiss 2y ago
        Now, I don’t regret my daughter adores Moana. As I can enjoy the joke thoroughly!
      • thaumasiotes 2y ago
        > to the tune of "you're welcome" from moana It's usually not necessary to indicate what tune the words are set to when you haven't changed more than one of them.
        • KaiserPro 2y ago
          Or maybe I was assuming that not everyone reading this would be familiar with Disney show tunes.
          • 2y ago
• SilverBirch 2y ago
  "We didn't want him to leave, we were very happy that he went off and started a different company while he was working for us, and when we asked him to please either work full time at the job we're paying for, he quit". I know that Silicon Valley VC is all about relationships (read: not calling out shitty behaviour) but it's difficult to spin someone just full on walking off the job.
  • robertlagrant 2y ago
    It's just a mild, appropriate reigning in. My main complaint about this story is how dull it is.
    • SilverBirch 2y ago
      It's not a reigning in if he quit. It sounds a lot like Sam went off and found another job, didn't bother to quit his old one, and when challenged... quit. I'm sure PG and many others don't want to get on the bad side of someone who controls a decent amount of deal flow, but really it's pretty obvious that's unacceptable behaviour. It's the same thing that happens with Elon Musk - people run around excusing the shitty things he does, but if you drill down the excuse is basically "Elon Musk controls a bunch of things that could line my pocket and I don't want to piss him off", that doesn't suddenly make things ethical.
      • robertlagrant 2y ago
        > It's not a reigning in if he quit Reigning in an enthusiastic person they know, not an employee. > It sounds a lot like Sam went off and found another job, didn't bother to quit his old one He didn't "find another job", or that's a silly way to put it. He was already was running OpenAI not for profit. When that company decided to create a for-profit subsidiary, and SA to go with it, is when they said to him he couldn't be both. > and when challenged... quit. If you're saying he wasn't fired, you're right. He chose to leave and move to another company full time. That's what makes this such a dull topic. Anyway - breaking this down point by point is unnecessary, because it's all in the original Tweet, and you're still saying what you're saying.
• zer00eyz 2y ago
  Well PG, you didn't let him stay. Not to imply that you were the bad guy, or this was a bad decision. The idea that you fired sam was certainly a lot more gangster than this story. In light of sams public perception I find it interesting that PG is clearing the air NOW. EDIT: it needs to be stated that "when we found out from a press release that our CEO would be double dipping at another for profit venture..." is shitty way to find out your CEO is moonlighting. The fact that you DIDNT fire him on the spot isnt the best look.
  • robertlagrant 2y ago
    > I find it interesting that PG is clearing the air NOW So much drama is created by overanalysing the timing of things, though. It's just air.
  • langsoul-com 2y ago
    Pg is clearing it now because of the wild rumours about WHY Sam was fired. Also, I bet he'd be getting annoyed if clarifying things to multiple people. Before, no one gave a damn, so it didn't matter, but now Sam's hot news.
• parenthesis 2y ago
  Can someone quote the whole thing here? Not everyone has a twitter / X account.
  • rpastuszak 2y ago
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO0OQMrXoAAiIfO?format=png&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO0OQMrXoAAiIfO?format=png&name=...
  • arrowsmith 2y ago
    It's one tweet with an attached image; you can see it all without needing to be logged in.
    • ploum 2y ago
      YMMV : sometimes, X seems to force being connected. Sometimes not. And when not, it sometimes bury the tweet in lot of popups to ask you to connect which makes it very painful to access the information. So, yeah, if people could stop assuming everybody can read X/Linkedin/Facebook, that would be nice…
    • worble 2y ago
      Sometimes twitter just decides that it's had enough of you and won't show anything. I can't figure out what triggers this but one day you'll find you can't see anything, and then the next day you'll be able to view it just fine. Twitter is quickly becoming as bad as discord for siloing information.
    • eqvinox 2y ago
      > […] you can see it all without needing to be logged in. No, you can't, Twitter is degenerating further: Something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another shot. [Try Again] /!\ Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (Strict Mode) is known to cause issues on x.com (Weird how no other website has issues like this…)
      • hakanderyal 2y ago
• davej 2y ago
  For context, Helen Tonor [0] was a board member of OpenAI before they tried to fire Sam Altman. She claimed that Sam was fired by YC in a recent interview [1]. In the interview, she implied that Sam's firing at YC was kept quiet and that there was something underhanded about it. [0] https://x.com/hlntnr https://x.com/hlntnr [1] https://link.chtbl.com/TEDAI https://link.chtbl.com/TEDAI
  • gbnvc 2y ago
    But the original post says otherwise, who do I believe?
    • littlestymaar 2y ago
      No one, it's all PR game at play here, and there's no reason that anyone is being fully transparent.
    • davej 2y ago
      I would give more credibility to the firsthand account (PG & Jessica) rather than speculations from a fired board member.
      • xdavidliu 2y ago
        and a fired board member who didn't have anything to do with YC
      • rtpg 2y ago
        I think that the split seems amicable, but from a 10k view “we had a convo telling Sam he couldn’t do both at once” leading to him leaving rhymes with a firing. Sometimes this stuff can be amicable!
        • roenxi 2y ago
          He had a choice to either go to work the next day or not as he preferred. That isn't a firing in the usual sense of the word. As described it is an amicable end to his time at YC that was agreed on by both parties. If people really want to describe that as "fired" there is no stopping them. But it isn't. PG is more correct than that quadrant of the backseat managers.
• jumperabg 2y ago
  I think that you can't work as a CEO at one company and a responsible role at another one. Do you invest your whole life for two companies?
  • DragonStrength 2y ago
    Don’t buy the hustle porn. Most people in these roles are leisure class and working essentially part time jobs. Their most important functions are PR and sales, which in this age aren’t nothing for sure — that’s just not enough work to really take your whole day. It’s why seeing people be CEO of multiple companies actually isn’t rare and how all these folks manage to hold down so many board seats while also working so much. Decision making, especially in technical companies, has to be delegated out of the C-suite.
    • davedx 2y ago
      This is nonsense. I know CEOs and they are not “leisure class”, managing the running of a company and executing on strategy is an endless job. Sure some CEOs might drop out and play golf, but all that proves is you have slackers at any level of an org
      • ric2b 2y ago
        When you can be CEO of multiple companies at the same time _and_ be on the board of several other companies, being CEO clearly isn't a full time job, at least for the people that aren't just focused on being CEO of a single company.
        • davedx 2y ago
          Yes, see my second point. Anyone can slack off on their job. Leading a real business with any kind of significant headcount is a full time job.
    • lnsru 2y ago
      That’s my observation at all the bigger companies I worked for. The manager of the manager of the lowest level workers has no contact with the workshop reality. They live in the PowerPoint world with hockey stick growth slides and ideal project plans. There were exemptions, but very rare. One level above has absolutely no touch with reality without any exemptions. Some of them were able to participate in meetings from the shower with enabled camera in the past… I doubt these are working hard.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• santiagobasulto 2y ago
  And what would this be an issue? If we want to consider this firing or not firing, it's the same. PG did the right thing asking his employee to fully focus on 1 thing. Honestly, what's the big deal about all this?
• lawgimenez 2y ago
  Ahhh here we go again
• throwaway_5753 2y ago
  A lot of people here bending over backwards to try to interpret this maximally negatively. Probably because the "Sam Altman is an amoral, power hungry mastermind who was run out of all his previous gigs" is a more interesting narrative than whatever is actually happening.
  • ImaCake 2y ago
    Yeah, this is about the most positive and amiable way to solve the real problem of Sam Altman not having enough time to lead YC. It is a testament to Sam's own marketing skills that even banal stuff is driving mad speculation.
    • nprateem 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • latexr 2y ago
        This is such a tired and wrong argument. People are allowed to disagree with, dislike, and distrust others without being jealous of them. Think of anyone you don’t like. Pick a specific politician you abhor. Now imagine someone saying you dislike them because you’re jealous. Does that make sense to you? If it does, you have a very warped view of the world.
      • smt88 2y ago
        The only enviable thing about Altman is that he's rich, and I doubt anyone here hates all rich people out of jealousy.
    • latexr 2y ago
      > It is a testament to Sam's own marketing skills that even banal stuff is driving mad speculation. That’s beginning to enter “he’s playing 5D chess and making you think exactly what he wants” territory. Would you say that it’s a testament to tobacco companies’ marketing skills that everyone talks about cigarettes being cancerous? The mad speculation is due to him being CEO of a highly talked about company but also the creator of dubious exploitative ventures[1][2] and rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, many of which talk in vague terms instead of being specific from the start. [1]: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoin-cryptocurrency-biometrics-web3/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoi... [2]: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/richardnieva/worldcoin-crypto-eyeball-scanning-orb-problems https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/richardnieva/worldcoin-...
• globular-toast 2y ago
  Why post an image of blurry text instead of just the text? Does he not want blind people to read this message?
  • latexr 2y ago
    I inspected the element to check if it had any alt text[1] and it just says “Image”. Why bother[2] adding `alt="Image"` to an `<img>` tag? [1]: Adding it is popular on Mastodon but I’m unsure if Twitter allows it. [2]: I’m guessing this is Twitter and not Paul.
    • raphman 2y ago
      Twitter allows manually adding alt text to an image. It doesn't have the nice OCR feature that Mastodon has, unfortunately.
• taylorfinley 2y ago
  So the YC board found out Altman would be CEO of a for-profit OpenAI when it was publicly announced, just like the OpenAI board found out about ChatGPT when it was publicly announced. Thanks for the clarification!
  • b112 2y ago
    What in earth are you talking about? PG is clearly saying he was running both for years, everyone knew, everyone was happy, but when openai became a for profit, it was time to choose. Nothing nefarious, nothing sneaky, no tricks, nada, ziltch. The immense bias, bull, made up junk, and outright maliciousness in some of these replies is beyond disgusting.
    • belter 2y ago
      Your employer found out you were planning on having two "real" jobs, you pretend you did not notice...and accuse others of maliciousness?
      • z7 2y ago
        You left out the part where PG wrote that Altman had already been doing two jobs for several years ("For several years he was running both YC and OpenAI").
        • cma 2y ago
          OpenAI the non-profit was partly funded by YC or at least affiliated with "YC Research." So it is still odd for them to find out about the quasi-conversion to for-profit like that.
      • b112 2y ago
        Your comment reads as if you think I'm Altman.
        • relaxing 2y ago
• tempodox 2y ago
  If I never have to hear about Sam Altman again, it will be too soon.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • baq 2y ago
    +1 but this is absolutely not happening. We’ll be hearing about sama and OpenAI for a long, long time.
  • bell-cot 2y ago
    It's like the British Royals - way too many people obsessed with it...and keeping those obsessions going is a steady paycheck for way too many "journalists".
• aiauthoritydev 2y ago
  Fired generally implies that the employee was removed because they were not needed or they were adding negative value. It does not appear to be the case here. Sam was given an option to continue with YC but he chose a bigger project.
  • rossant 2y ago
    Agreed. Hard to say he was "fired" when he had a chance to stay if he decided to leave his other project. Like, "You are fired -- but you can stay if you want."
    • edgyquant 2y ago
      No you’re twisting meanings here. If it was just “stay if you want” that wouldn’t be firing but saying “if you want to remain here you have to stop doing X” is firing someone full stop
      • rossant 2y ago
        So let's call it at least "conditional firing". It's not "you're fired right now -- never come back" but "you're fired unless you decide to do X".
    • qarl 2y ago
      If you don't stop your side gig, we're going to have to part ways. If you don't stop spitting in the food, we're going to have to part ways. Sam didn't want to leave but had to leave.
  • legohead 2y ago
    Fired means forced to quit employment. It's not illegal to have two jobs, they made him choose, thus firing him. I don't know why Paul is so defensive about this.
    • boringg 2y ago
      Easy to understand why he would want to make it look smooth Sam has now generated an incredible amount of power since being at YC. Also most people when they part ways with an organization want to smooth any differences in case there is some way to work together in the future. Also FWIW it just sounds like PG needed someone full time at YC - Sam couldn't and thus he went elsewhere. The length of discussion on this thread is quite long given the banality of the content. Yes I realize by commenting I am adding to that length.
• noirscape 2y ago
  Isn't this the usual "we're not going to fire you because we want you to preserve your own dignity, so you should step down now or else we will fire you and it's going to get ugly" spiel? Y'know, the same thing that happens whenever [big corporation] gets into a scandal and heads are required to roll in the C-suite; rarely do they actually get fired but "they step down" as if it was from the good of their own heart. I dunno, PG claims that Altman wasn't fired but to me this reads like a difference that ultimately doesn't matter.
  • tasuki 2y ago
    But that is not the case. He was told that he had to choose between the two options, and he did. "You can no longer head YC and OpenAI at the same time, pick one", and he did. This does not sound like firing. It sounds like basic adulting on both sides.
    • noirscape 2y ago
      I think the fact he had to be told this by the board is more telling here. It's pretty obvious that YC was told about Altman becoming CEO of the for-profit OpenAI at the same time everyone else was told about it. Effectively, they gave him an ultimatum: stay at YC and drop that CEO offer or leave. Sure, it's dressed up in nicer words to protect Altman's dignity (which is fine, in terms of "this is bad" it's pretty low, so preserving his dignity makes sense), but that's still what it is. The ultimatum is obviously not a realistic one - be beholden to the board or become your own chief while it's blatantly clear where his ambitions lie, so effectively it's a firing.
• blitzar 2y ago
  People have been claiming my wife left me. That's not true. Here's what actually happened. For several years I was sleeping with both her and another woman ...
  • mort96 2y ago
    I mean literally yes? It's a weird analogy but if you decide to leave your wife for another woman then that's you leaving your wife, not your wife leaving you? If you decide to leave one company to focus on working for another company then that's not the first company firing you, that's you leaving the first company?
    • thaumasiotes 2y ago
      "For several years I was sleeping with both her and another woman" generally implies that the wife left him, not that he left the wife. The guy in that scenario is pretty clearly fine not leaving his wife.
      • mort96 2y ago
        > "For several years I was sleeping with both her and another woman" generally implies that the wife left him No it doesn't. "For several years, I was sleeping with both her and another woman, she eventually had enough and filed for divorce" means that the wife left. "For several years, I was sleeping with both her and another woman, she eventually had enough so she asked me to choose between her and the other woman. I chose to leave her for the other woman" means that the husband left. He could have chosen to stay with the wife, but chose not to.
        • thaumasiotes 2y ago
          This isn't a coherent viewpoint. How do you distinguish these two cases? ----- 1(A). Wife discovers cheating. 1(B). Wife gives ultimatum. 1(C). Husband declines ultimatum. 1(D). Husband leaves. ----- 2(A). Wife discovers cheating. 2(B). Wife gives ultimatum. 2(C). Husband declines ultimatum. 2(D). Wife leaves. ----- You seem to be arguing that it's always scenario 1, because in step (C), the husband "could have chosen to stay with the wife, but chose not to". But that immediately implies that this scenario cannot occur: 3(A). Wife discovers cheating. 3(B). Wife gives ultimatum. 3(C). Husband declines ultimatum. 3(D). Wife stays. What we know is that the husband sees no reason for the marriage to change, and the wife does. The breakup of the marriage, in this context, is almost always the wife's choice, as identified by the very simple criterion that it's something the wife wants and the husband doesn't want. She can equally choose to take the husband's offer of a stable marriage with adultery.
• pluc 2y ago
  Reminder: Musk runs Twitter, Tesla, SpaceX and whatever the fuck else.
  • Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y ago
    Yes thank you for reminding us of the very public takeover a couple of years ago.
• suroot 2y ago
  [dead]
• CraigJPerry 2y ago
  Sometimes a topic comes up that you not only don’t care about, that you can’t even conceive of a way to incentivise yourself to care about it. It’s not that you harbour some hidden like or dislike, it’s just that to the extent humanly possible, you really REALLY don’t care. Reading the replies and the tribal colours / flag waving is fascinating. I suppose This tribalism happens for every topic but it’s just hard to be gifted this perspective on topics your career is invested in. It’s been fun reading clearly fabricated explanations that don’t base themselves on any objectivity but on the posters inner desires.
  • s1artibartfast 2y ago
    I have heard the term "wish casting" used to refer to this phenomenon. When people are deeply emotionally charged, they start asserting facts they want to be true, and ignoring the line between fantasy and reality, as if saying something enough makes it real I see it almost exclusively online, and people don't seem to notice what they are doing.
    • dmix 2y ago
      Plus whenever powerful people are involved they get treated as these great masterminds, always conspiring, and it’s a given there’s more to the story than the plebs will never know about. So with that assumption people’s minds start filling in the blanks with all the things that are REALLY happening behind the scenes and anyone who doesn’t assume the same is naive at how the powerful operate (just look at Twitter discourse for anything related to the British monarchy). IRL the vast majority of the time they are just flawed humans like the rest of us. Sometimes people take on more responsibilities in life than they can realistically handle. And everyone needs to be challenged and questioned whether they’re being honest with themselves at various points in their lives.
      • s1artibartfast 2y ago
        Yeah, there is a deep human drive to both form opinions on topics and fit them to narratives. Most people are deeply uncomfortable admitting that they don't know, cant know, or will never know something. As a result, random people on the street form strong opinions on everything, from Sama's psychology and internal narrative to nuclear reactor design. It is wildly delusional when you think about it.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• DavidPiper 2y ago
  - (PG/YC) Assuming that someone who is (or is about to be) the CEO of a different company won't have time to 100% commit to your own company and planning accordingly seems like a reasonable position. - (SA) The new CEO of a company wanting to commit as much of their time as possible to that company also seems like a reasonable position.
• dudeinjapan 2y ago
  So you’re saying that PG fired Sam.
• wodenokoto 2y ago
  That’s pretty much how you fire someone. What would YC have done if Sam refused to choose?
  • tasuki 2y ago
    No it isn't how you fire someone. What would YC have done had sama chosen to stay at YC? As per pg, they would've kept him.
    • wodenokoto 2y ago
      And what if he had chosen both? He got an ultimatum: choose to quit one or we’ll choose for you. If you want to be super pedantic about it, then let’s just say that PG kicked him out, but Sam at least got a say in what he was being kicked out of.
      • imgabe 2y ago
        JFC, no you don’t get to choose whatever you want and being denied the choice of your #1 preference is not being “forced” to do anything. Other people exist and have interests too, you know? If he had chosen both then that is the same as choosing OpenAI. “Both” was not an option on the table. Being told to commit or leave is not being kicked out. You can choose to commit and stay.
• bartread 2y ago
  And, of course, the first response twitter shows me is from some absolute dingbat claiming that PG’s statement still means Sam was fired from YC. It’s frustrating but at least some people are going to believe whatever conspiracy theory they want to believe regardless of any other evidence or argument presented to them. I’m not sure how we solve this, but it’s becoming ever more important that we do. Make reading comprehension and critical thinking a core part of our education systems? Aren’t they already though? And still… idiots gonna idiot, and the internet will give them as many platforms as they want.
• mettamage 2y ago
  Sounds like Sam was overemployed and had to choose. That seems fair.
• jarbus 2y ago
  I thought PG moved off twitter when Elon banned accounts that linked to mastodon?
• mort96 2y ago
  The comments here and on Twitter are really weird. I don't like the guy either but surely anyone has to agree that there's a difference between being told, "We don't want you on as CEO anymore", and being told "We want you as CEO but we need a CEO who's only focused on one company"? It seems weird to describe the situation where Altman is asked to choose and chooses OpenAI as "he was fired from YC".
  • mort96 2y ago
    Like if I say to my boss, "Hey I want to reduce my position to 50% to spend 50% of my time working for this other company", and they respond with "Sorry, we don't want part-time employees", and I respond "ok I quit", who in their right mind would describe that as me getting fired?
    • falcor84 2y ago
      Did he actually ask to reduce his position? As far as I'm aware, being a CEO is never based on hours worked, and there are plenty of other CEOs with multiple commitments.
      • mort96 2y ago
        The way the tweet is phrased makes me think he was asked by the board to choose, so I guess a more appropriate analogy would be: I'm employed by a company, I start a side gig which I spend 50% of my productive time on, my boss eventually tells me that they need someone in my position to be a proper full time employee and I need to choose. I respond, "okay, in that case I resign". There's no difference between the two analogies in my eye, they're the same except that the first is about asking permission while the second is about just doing it.
  • falcor84 2y ago
    There is definitely a difference to discuss, but simplified it still states "Unless you change your behavior, you need to go", as suck, I don't feel that "fired" is inaccurate.
• FergusArgyll 2y ago
  HN goes off the rails when it comes to successful ppl / companies. (OpenAI, Google, Tesla, Microsoft, Apple etc etc.) It's almost like no one here wants to be a successful entrepreneur
  • mvc 2y ago
    Call me old an old fashioned economist but I believe that we all succeed better when there are many small companies. Not just a single big one.
    • danem 2y ago
      So what are you saying? That deliberately misinterpreting and sensationalizing a clear statement is justified because of the size and success of OpenAI? There’s no good faith reading of PGs statement that implies Altman couldn’t have remained CEO of YC if he wanted to.
      • mvc 2y ago
        I couldn't care less about whatever hyped up argument involving OpenAI is the current drama. I was just speculating on why some hn members might feel like entrepreneurs even though they have nothing in common with Sam Altman. And how it might even be in their long term interest for one man to not be quite so powerful.
  • latexr 2y ago
    You’re framing the argument in a way that prevents you from empathising with the other side and understanding it. This has nothing to do with being “successful”, it has to do with being highly influential while doing things which harm others to befit yourself. A successful company or individual who does right by its users or employers and puts them above personal gain is lauded. Maybe people would prefer to be successful entrepreneurs who retain human decency. Your argument also makes it sound like HN is a hive mind who all think the same. It’s not. You’ll find just as many people defending that behaviour as you’ll find detractors.
• qxfys 2y ago
  I can see two different interpretations in the comment section. just like our world. people believe what they want to believe.
  • jeltz 2y ago
    And both are totally valid interpretations. Pg' tweet does nothing to clarify what happened.
    • qxfys 2y ago
      he did actually.
• d--b 2y ago
  This is quite suspicious. There were tons of articles relaying the rumor that he was fired for obscure reasons. Why would Altman not deny them, and why would pg wait until now to say it wasn’t true? The reason pg gives is uncontroversial.
• nathanasmith 2y ago
  This week on GenerativeAI Hospital..
• Havoc 2y ago
  Seems reasonable on the face of it. Though lately my trust in taking anything SV related at good faith face value has plummeted.
• niffydroid 2y ago
  This sounds like a mutal consent sort of thing. Its like with football managers, normally the board is unhappy with the manager and the manager knows it and even agrees with it (to some extent) so rather being fired and having the animosity of it, they all agree things aren't working out and walk. Sounds similar here. YC basically implied you're spreading yourself thin so we think its best you pick one and it sounds like he agreed!
• emadm 2y ago
  "The increasing amount of time Altman spent at OpenAI riled longtime partners at Y Combinator, who began losing faith in him as a leader. The firm’s leaders asked him to resign, and he left as president in March 2019. Graham said it was his wife’s doing. “If anyone ‘fired’ Sam, it was Jessica, not me,” he said. “But it would be wrong to use the word ‘fired’ because he agreed immediately.” Jessica Livingston said her husband was correct. To smooth his exit, Altman proposed he move from president to chairman. He pre-emptively published a blog post on the firm’s website announcing the change. But the firm’s partnership had never agreed, and the announcement was later scrubbed from the post. For years, even some of Altman’s closest associates—including Peter Thiel, Altman’s first backer for Hydrazine—didn’t know the circumstances behind Altman’s departure. " From the Wall Street journal https://archive.is/WiqtZ#selection-1177.0-1207.168 https://archive.is/WiqtZ#selection-1177.0-1207.168
  • sigmoid10 2y ago
    "You can't fire me if I quit first." But seriously, this tweet doesn't claim that WSJ is wrong, it's just a different spin. If you have an upcoming lucrative side business and your employer comes and says "hey bro, it's either us or them" then this is not technically a "firing" if you chose the other one. But let's not pretend like there was much choice here in the first place. For all intents and purposes, he was made to leave.
  • uxcolumbo 2y ago
    Didn't know Thiel was one of Altman's closest associates. Might explain a few things, e.g. maybe he got some useful tips from Thiel how to acquire and maintain power at all costs ; )
  • causal 2y ago
    I agree with everyone saying this is not technically being fired, but PG's tweet omits the important context of YC partners losing faith in Sam as a leader.
    • hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
      I think this is really important context: > To smooth his exit, Altman proposed he move from president to chairman. He pre-emptively published a blog post on the firm’s website announcing the change. But the firm’s partnership had never agreed, and the announcement was later scrubbed from the post. That's just f'ing weird in my opinion. Actually publishing a blog post saying you transitioned to chairman before the partners had agreed??? I've generally defended the "naughtiness" that YC famously valued, because I thought it was usually misconstrued by its detractors. But that doesn't at all come across as "naughtiness" to me, it comes across as borderline psycho.
• neom 2y ago
  I ran a multi-million dollar a year non-profit and had a full-time job. It's not unusual to chair or "run" a non-profit and have a regular job, non-profits are actually set up to make this easy to do. If that non-profit somehow mystically turned into a for-profit enterprise, for a multitude of reasons (some less obvious) I would have clearly had to pick one or the other. If said non-profit had commercialized transformer as a service, I'd have quit DigitalOcean (double so if I was well vested). Just to make it fair with the situation: I honestly don't know if I would have proactively quit one or the other. Depending on the workloads, I may very well have tried to moonlight both for a while, I'm unsure. I don't think this tweet by Paul is weird at all.
  • samastur 2y ago
    They didn't seem to mind him running Worldcoin though. Doing two (several) jobs problem came later and this explanation doesn't really address this. Personally I don't care if pg is completely honest or if sam was fired or not. It doesn't have meaningful impact on my view of either.
    • rco8786 2y ago
      The tweet specifically says "if he was going to run OpenAI full-time ..". Sounds like they were fine with him moonlighting other projects, Worldcoin, OpenAI as a non-profit, but if YC wasn't going to be his primary "full-time" focus then he would need to choose. Feels entirely reasonable.
      • tomhoward 2y ago
        > Sounds like they were fine with him moonlighting other projects Even that’s not quite right. OpenAI had been a research project inside YC. So there was no “moonlighting” about it (and Worldcoin started around the same time Sam left YC). It seems everyone accepted that things qualitatively changed when OpenAI stopped being a non-profit research project inside YC to becoming a for-profit venture, and they just had an adult conversation about it.
• croes 2y ago
  Lets ask ChatGPT: Was Sam Altman fired by YC? >Yes, Sam Altman was effectively fired from Y Combinator (YC). Although the official announcement framed his departure as a resignation to focus on other projects like OpenAI, multiple sources indicate that Paul Graham, the founder of YC, made the decision to let him go. This decision was due to Altman prioritizing his personal ventures over his responsibilities at YC. https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-dramatic-firings https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-dramatic-firings https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38378216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38378216 https://english.elpais.com/technology/2023-11-24/why-everyone-is-fighting-over-sam-altman-the-prodigal-son-of-silicon-valley.html https://english.elpais.com/technology/2023-11-24/why-everyon...
  • flurdy 2y ago
    > This decision was due to Altman prioritizing his personal ventures over his responsibilities at YC. Which is essentially what Paul Graham's tweet sayed: Choose YC or other ventures (OpenAI)
    • croes 2y ago
      The why he left YC is the same but the how is in question. >You're fired. >No, I quit.
  • 6510 2y ago
    That's nothing, Bing copilot does much better: > Yes, Sam Altman was indeed fired from Y Combinator (YC). The decision to remove him from his position as CEO was made due to long-standing patterns of behavior1. Former OpenAI board member Helen Toner accused Altman of lying to and obstructing OpenAI’s board, as well as retaliating against those who criticized him. She also mentioned that Altman created a “toxic atmosphere” within the company2. Interestingly, Altman had previously been affiliated with YC but was later reported to have been fired from YC and even appointed himself chairman without authorization3. It seems his behavior led to significant consequences in both organizations. Not sure what to think, Lucy in the sky with diamonds?
• aaron695 2y ago
  [dead]
• croes 2y ago
  Who knows what agreements exist between Altman and YC. There could be a kind of non-disparagement agreement like OpenAI used to have.
  • adastra22 2y ago
    There is absolutely no way YC/PG signed a non-disparagement agreement. I think you are very confused about the power dynamic here. OpenAI is small beans compared to YC.
• deadghost 2y ago
  >The number one thing not to do is other things. https://www.paulgraham.com/die.html https://www.paulgraham.com/die.html
  • tarr11 2y ago
    Paul Graham's blog is the Poor Richard's Almanack of startups.
• lkdfjlkdfjlg 2y ago
  It's the Curdleboot Effect: best way to get the information isn't to ask for it, but to make wrong statements and someone on the internet will correct you? Well there ya go.
• cometfall 2y ago
  [flagged]
• sergiotapia 2y ago
  dude this is spin lol. yc fired him, it's OK.
• stephc_int13 2y ago
  When in doubt, we should always try to evaluate from the facts, they are more reliable than people, especially in this type of context.
• mola 2y ago
  Why is the text in a picture typewriter style? Is he trying to project formality?. Odd person
  • phatfish 2y ago
    I thought the coveted "blue check" allowed long Tweets? Even less reason to post an image of text.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • z7 2y ago
    Is he perhaps implying something nefarious about a typewriter? Maybe his typewriter disappeared and he's suspecting Sam Altman? Very suspicious.
    • mattigames 2y ago
      You have said the actual truth
  • dlivingston 2y ago
    It's a monospaced font and he's a computer programmer. Probably a screenshot from emacs or whatever text editor he uses. Not that weird.
    • Arainach 2y ago
      I expect my aging parents who were working full time before personal computers existed to know how to copy and paste text instead of taking a picture of a screen, and my bar for managing a technology incubator/fund is higher than that.
      • reportgunner 2y ago
        Perhaps it was intentional to make it not copy pastable as text.
• elorant 2y ago
  I fucking hate all these threads about Altman. We’re here to discuss technology, not gossip about someone’s personality, or make assumptions about his motives. This is not an annual convention of psychiatrists.
  • smt88 2y ago
    Counterpoint: you can't separate technology, especially powerful/influential products like OpenAI's, without talking about their governance. The ethics of OpenAI directly affect my career and life. They affect the future elections, art, my dad's pension fund, and many other things I care about. Discussing Altman as person helps us understand what he might do with is near-complete control over the ethics of OpenAI.
  • hackernewds 2y ago
    The personality impacts the most influential technology of our decade. It matters.
• yashg 2y ago
  "We didn't fire him, we just asked him to leave because he decided to become CEO of another for profit company." OK. It doesn't matter anyway.
• netcan 2y ago
  Well... considering where Sam is today, you just have to accept and expect that speculation will be maxed out.
• AnonHP 2y ago
  Does anybody else wonder how our world would've been if Sam had chosen YC and instead left OpenAI?
  • s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Would be absolutely insane if openAI was another Musk company.
    • s1artibartfast 2y ago
      That is to say, I think this is a possible alternative if Sam was less engaged. If I recall correctly he tried to take over before he left the board in 2018
• ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
  Jesus Christ I have not seen more mental bending over backwards. Pg is clearly saying he wasn't fired and he was asked to choose between the two in a friendly manner and people can still do their best to turn it into some Macbeth like events. Hate makes people absolutely mental.
• spdustin 2y ago
  Tweet is simply text on an image that reads: "People have been claiming YC fired Sam Altman. That's not true. Here's what actually happened. For several years he was running both YC and OpenAI, but when OpenAI announced that it was going to have a for-profit subsidiary and that Sam was going to be the CEO, we (specifically Jessica) told him that if he was going to work full-time on OpenAI, we should find someone else to run YC, and he agreed. If he'd said that he was going to find someone else to be CEO of OpenAI so that he could focus 100% on YC, we'd have been fine with that too. We didn't want him to leave, just to choose one or the other."
  • dmd 2y ago
    Why even is it an image? paulg pays for twitter, he could have just tweeted the whole thing. It's bizarre.
    • aaronharnly 2y ago
      Perhaps a habit from the days of more limited Twitter character counts.
    • namrog84 2y ago
      Maybe it's to help distance one self from what you want to say or reverse seo thing?
    • CarVac 2y ago
      You can't read an entire >280 character tweet without clicking on it.
  • NKosmatos 2y ago
    Hey, if Paul Graham can post an announcement on Twitter/X as an image with Courier monospaced font (left justified) instead of just typing the actual text, then who am I to judge people sending me Word documents, containing bitmap images of screen captures of a photo showing an image of a handwritten note :-)
• bmitc 2y ago
  This seems revisionist, doesn't it? The articles claiming this came out last year and Graham didn't return requests for comments or make any statements then. So why now? Why wasn't there more details when Altman left Y Combinator? It sure sounds like a firing. If I was fired from a job because I was breaking some contract or rule, it seems weird for the employer to say they didn't fire me because if I hadn't broken the rule they would have been happy to keep me.
  • onion2k 2y ago
    They said 'If you continue to do this thing then you can't work here, so you either stop or leave.' Had he stopped then he would have continued working for YC. That makes it pretty obvious that he wasn't fired - you aren't given the option to keep your job if you're fired.
    • bmitc 2y ago
      That's like saying anyone put on a PIP that made the decision not to improve wasn't fired.
  • andsoitis 2y ago
    > It sure sounds like a firing. You fire someone when you don’t want them anymore. In this case, he was asked to choose between YC and OpenAI (because doing both is too big a job). That is not firing someone when they choose whether or not to stay.
    • bmitc 2y ago
      > That is not firing someone when they choose whether or not to stay. That's only true if they left on their own accord. That isn't what happened.
      • andsoitis 2y ago
        They chose a different job (OpenAI) over YC. They chose to leave. When I someone the option, that is not a firing. I really don’t understand why you, and others who insist otherwise, have this worldview.
• dredmorbius 2y ago
  Twitter breakage: <https://archive.is/HnTkV https://archive.is/HnTkV>
• totallymike 2y ago
  Isn't an ultimatum just a firing with extra steps?
• aarghh 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_without_a_difference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_without_a_differen...
  • thiago_fm 2y ago
    That's a perfect article of what happened in reality. They belong to a similar high social class and protect each other. If it were just a random employee with no power, money, or status that was moonlighting or trying to run their side business, they would be scrutinized and possibly sued. If their generated IP were any good, the company would claim it was theirs. But yeah, if you are a CEO, you can run a few companies and participate in a couple of boards, even while not disclosing this to the many boards you partake in and having many businesses with conflicting interests. As you are part of the elite, you are safe.
    • euphismkk 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • hluska 2y ago
        What the fuck?
    • hluska 2y ago
      I founded and ran a non profit for several years while I worked for a startup. I am the polar opposite of an elite. That’s just how non profits work.
  • hluska 2y ago
    Asking someone to choose one or the other is not the same as firing them. It’s clearly written that if Sam Altman had chosen YC he would have stayed there.
    • crazygringo 2y ago
      Exactly. I don't understand how people are getting that this is a difference. If I offer you either chicken or pasta for a meal, and you pick the pasta, you don't get to say I denied you the chicken. If you have a choice over which job you want to keep, you're not getting fired. It is very much a meaningful difference.
• firesteelrain 2y ago
  Reddit has a term for this: Everyone Sucks Here (ESH)
• dartos 2y ago
  I’ve never seen HN so thirsty over celebrity tea before.
  • odyssey7 2y ago
    Celebrity tea is when Elon gets into yet another altercation with someone on Twitter and nothing really changes about his professional reputation or his ability to keep running multiple companies. In fact, like a lot of celebrity gossip, these situations seem to be advantageous for Elon as he tends to go out of his way to court the situations and they keep his name and the names of his companies in the media. What I’ve been seeing seems more like an attempted character assassination of an accomplished business leader who has done a great deal for society on many occasions. Sam was literally fired from the organization he co-founded — before being re-instated, because apparently the action wasn’t tenable, and yet we keep seeing attacks against his character as if someone still wants him gone, or at least wants his influence and credibility reduced going forward.
• opentokix 2y ago
  So just regular work stuff, got it.
• habosa 2y ago
  Ok but … that means Sam was still greedy and overconfident enough to try and run both OpenAI and YC until Paul/Jessica told him he had to choose.
• redbell 2y ago
  > I got tired of hearing that YC fired Sam This story was discussed last November, by the title "Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor" with +1k points and +700 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38378216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38378216).
• wbl 2y ago
  Sounds like Sam got sacked for refusing to resolve a conflict of interest to me.
• stuff4ben 2y ago
  who the fuck cares really
• dboreham 2y ago
  At least we know for sure now that he was fired.
  • playingalong 2y ago
    "I don't believe in news that has not been denied"
  • gwern 2y ago
    pg was already on the record about Altman being fired back in December: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sam-altman-openai-protected-by-silicon-valley-friends-f3efcf68 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sam-altman-openai-protected-by-s... > Graham said it was his wife’s doing. “If anyone ‘fired’ Sam, it was Jessica, not me”, he said. “But it would be wrong to use the word ‘fired’ because he agreed immediately.” Jessica Livingston said her husband was correct.…To smooth his exit, Altman proposed he move from president to chairman. He pre-emptively published a blog post on the firm’s website announcing the change. But the firm’s partnership had never agreed, and the announcement was later (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38384090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38384090) scrubbed from the post…For years, even some of Altman’s closest associates—including Peter Thiel, Altman’s first backer for Hydrazine—didn’t know the circumstances behind Altman’s departure.
• throwitaway222 2y ago
  Yes but why not tweet this months ago
• whoknowsidont 2y ago
  Unfortunately the evidence does not favor his version of events.
• LargeWu 2y ago
  I think it's important to remember that PG has deeply vested interests into making sure the billionaire class keeps their wealth and status. He's part of a big club that's all looking out for each other, selling everybody on the idea that "what would you poors do without us pulling the strings". So yeah, it shouldn't surprise anybody that he's vouching for his colleague.
• doctorpangloss 2y ago
  The tweet is weird. For starters, it features a guy blaming his wife for a decision. Sounds like a certain Supreme Court justice. It is inherently bullshit. Separately, corporate communications are as much about what you don't talk about as what you do. Paul Graham probably wishes he could turn back the clock, and never fire Altman from YC in the first place. They would have loved to have Altman be the figurehead of YC at this time. I'm sure they had these conversations for months: "You can come back to YC as a figurehead president." The conversations went nowhere. Maybe YC was ready to genuflect, ready to co-administer the OpenAI startup fund, which is obviously Altman's BANTA. Like why deal with YC at all, when Altman could administer an index on all AI startups better than they can? That's what happened. What's in it for this billionaire Altman to generate wealth for YC LPs, at this stage? The best Graham could do was this tweet. YC is not yet an index on all the best AI startups. End of story. This is an existential crisis for them. They are of course a great organization who sincerely care about people succeeding, but so do many accelerators and venture studios. So it's very hard to see this play out. Sam Altman was incomprehensibly lucky. His feet which people stepped on were constantly connected to his ass which they had to kiss tomorrow. His executive collaborators also were people whose feet were stepped on and whose ass now gets kissed. Satya Nadella - the CEO of a far more successful and influential company - has to kiss these asses! He even got fired from OpenAI - of course the science PhDs were right, he had to go, what's wrong with you people, you should always be on Team PhD - and yet again you must kiss his ass after stepping on his toes. The OpenAI board got mocked in the media, implications of being unqualified, with all the associated sexism, for doing their jobs correctly! Sounds like a certain toxic politician. Truthfully, all of his antagonists should stop wasting their time worrying about this guy. Anthropic is likely to be very successful. Work for them! There are alternatives. It took only a year for competition to force OpenAI to make its core offering free. All the Thrive ass kissers may yet have bought billions of dollars of units of OpenAI that will turn out to be worth far less than they bargained for. Time will tell.
  • Aloha 2y ago
    I think we're about to see yet another AI winter, and the people who did not invest in AI will look smart in 2-3 years. I think we're a long way off from a general purpose AI - its not that AI isn't useful as a tool, it is - but its an additive tool to leverage human creativity.
• tasty_freeze 2y ago
  I don't have a twitter account and generally avoid links to it unless I really care what apparently is on there. Is it normal that people will post an image of text of what they want to say vs just typing it directly into twitter?
  • paxys 2y ago
    It used to be a lot more prevalent when Tweets had a 160 character limit, but yes people still do it now.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• vlovich123 2y ago
  The weirdest part for me in how this is worded is that Paul G learned about OpenAI’s for-profit arm through an announcement and wasn’t something that Sam sought his or Jessica’s advice on. For what it’s worth that alines pretty closely with Helen Toner’s narrative that he kept the board in the dark and they (or she) learned about things through announcements.
  • gitfan86 2y ago
    Also strange that PG didn't know that Sam had invested in OpenAI through YC until today.
    • blast 2y ago
      I didn't see that in the OP, are you referencing some other information?
      • gitfan86 2y ago
        https://x.com/paulg/status/1796174494026879040 https://x.com/paulg/status/1796174494026879040
        • blast 2y ago
          Oh right, the twitfuckers don't display threads anymore. Thanks.
          • mindslight 2y ago
            If you're using a secure browser, Xitter doesn't even display single tweets any more. Just: > Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (Strict Mode) is known to cause issues on x.com (lovely inversion of responsibility gaslighting, too)
          • loceng 2y ago
            Can you elaborate on what 'twitfuckers' means in some nuance? If you're signed in you'd see threads, right? Do you think it's bad or unreasonable they try to fight against at least unsophisticated bots and mass scraping attempts?
• wnevets 2y ago
  why did he post an image of text instead of just text, very confusing.
  • piyuv 2y ago
    Maybe he doesn’t want LLM bots training on his data /s
• thomastraum 2y ago
  Man says "Just to clarify, rain is wet" Intelligent people on the internet "very suspicious, that must imply he was wearing no clothes or something fishy, I knew it"
• fairity 2y ago
  Most of the conversation in this thread consists of people talking past each other bc they aren't aligned on the definition of the word: fired. Yes, there's a way to define the word "fired" such that PG did fire Sam. But, that definition is not the colloquial definition of the word "fired". Just go outside on the street, and ask someone: "My boss just told me that I need to stop working on my side project to keep working at his company. Would you say I just got fired?" The answer 95%+ of the time will be no. So, while I can understand why you might argue that PG fired Sam, if you can't understand why PG claims that he did not fire Sam, you simply have your head buried in the sand.
  • tptacek 2y ago
    100% of the time the answer will be no†. He simply wasn't fired. † Note key proviso: "going outside"
  • bradlys 2y ago
    > The answer 95%+ of the time will be no. This is where I think everyone will disagree with you. I don't know anyone who would agree with your statement. Most people I know would agree that you're being fired when your terms of continued employment change drastically in such an unfavorable way. If my boss told me, "Hey, you can keep working here as long as you work for free" then that's being fired but by your definition - it's not.
• m3kw9 2y ago
  It was a smear campaign
• barbazoo 2y ago
  Unrelated but I'm curious. Why do people often post pictures of text instead of the actual text on twitter?
  • esafak 2y ago
    The practice came about when Twitter had a brief length limit, and persisted.
• nostrademons 2y ago
  This isn't really incompatible with the rumor mill of "Sam got fired for putting his interest above YC's." The situation described - where you are CEO of two different for-profit companies and one may have investments (and inside knowledge and advice) into firms that potentially compete with or buy from the other - is a textbook conflict of interest. It's reasonable for the board of one enterprise to ask the CEO to pick one or the other, and fire him if he refuses. Same situation that led to Eric Schmidt stepping down off the Apple board c. 2010. The white-glove treatment that PG describes is probably much closer to the rumors that PG flew back from London to fire Sam on the spot. At the exec level, things are usually done civilly, because you know that you'll have to deal with these people again. But the CEO knows that the board and shareholders are his boss, the law is on their side, and so if they want him gone, he will be gone. That motivates the CEO to amicably part ways rather than force the issue.
• roflyear 2y ago
  He was essentially fired. Like, imagine I'm parking in the CEO's parking spot each day. I would probably be told "stop doing that, or you're getting fired" and if I was like "nah I'll just leave" - it's basically me being fired, though with good communication. He was doing something that did not align with YC and he was told to stop doing that, and he said no, and left. Basically pushed out of YC. Not "fired for cause" but pushed out, absolutely.
• pierrebai 2y ago
  Was it firing was it not? It's all semantics, people on both sides of the fence have legitimate reasons to choose one over the other. Get over it. The real interesting bit, is that Paul Graham somehow thought it was worthwhile to stick his neck out and improve Sam Altman public image by clarifying he was ever fired from YC.
  • tptacek 2y ago
    It was, obviously, not a firing.
    • ahahahahah 2y ago
      A: Hey B, you must stop doing this thing or we'll need to replace you. B: Ok, I can't do that. You can replace me B proceeds to be replaced and no longer works there Some time later... T: obviously, B was not fired.
      • ahahahahah 2y ago
        Like if "this thing" had been "doing drugs during the workday", would you have considered the scenario a firing?
        • philwelch 2y ago
          If an employee was caught doing drugs at work and was given the option of keeping his job if he could just quit the drugs and maybe go to rehab, that’s not a firing at all, that’s a second chance!
          • ahahahahah 2y ago
            I agree! I certainly don't think that making the offer is itself a firing. However, when the offer is declined and the person must leave the company as in the described scenario...
      • tptacek 2y ago
• greentxt 2y ago
  I suspect the truth is he was fired but Paul is afraid to say that so has come up with a counter narrative. Paul is very clever like that.
  • nuz 2y ago
    Yeah both their reputations are kind of screwed at this point so I don't really believe what they say based on just this
  • baxtr 2y ago
    It doesn’t necessarily mean he is lying though. Our brains change our memories such that it fits our current narratives.
    • loceng 2y ago
      "Maybe it's better/a good time you leave" as part of a conversation is one such way to recommend someone leave rather than a likely alternative.
      • baxtr 2y ago
        I don’t understand. Do you care to explain?
        • loceng 2y ago
          A talk with YC head like Paul or other, a "read the room" situation, the writing is on the wall, etc.
        • kelnos 2y ago
          That kind of phrasing often carries an undertone of "and if you don't leave voluntarily, we will fire you".
          • baxtr 2y ago
            I understand that. Thanks. I just don’t know how this relates to what I wrote.
• radres 2y ago
  Everyone is trying to read the tweet but not talking about what it actually means. This tweet is yelling "Look Sam, if you have any problems, come the fuck back. We realize we loved you, even if we wanted you gone."
• fhub 2y ago
  I'm sure everything in that tweet is true. But I feel it omits some details on why running both wasn't working out for YC. e.g. He allegedly was dropping the ball on important things - such as making sure YC had enough cash on hand (and reaching out to LPs for an embarrassingly urgent top-up).
• travisporter 2y ago
  10 MB of network activity to read maybe 2 kb of text which was screen captured. What's the web coming to... God I'm ancient
  • yieldcrv 2y ago
    it’s X though, all social media and most news sites are like that
  • yumraj 2y ago
    Maybe the text came from legal/PR, or Sam himself, which he decided to just screen capture and post, instead of copy-paste.
  • pizzafeelsright 2y ago
    Stated positively - 10mb loaded in 400ms That's ~10 minutes with ISDN.
• odyssey7 2y ago
  To me, the biggest thing here is that pg seems to be vouching for Sam, so this seems like an important rebuttal to Toner's attacks against Sam's character.
  • warunsl 2y ago
    Or that PG has a lot of money at stake which might suddenly become a lot less valuable if the public perception towards Sam were to lean towards Sam being unreliable as a CEO of OAI.
  • hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
    I don't know where you got that from. It seems easily possible that both of the following are true: 1. There was reporting and online discussion that sama was fired from YC. pg didn't believe this framing was correct and sent out his tweet to correct the record. 2. Toner made some very specific allegations about instances where sama was not truthful to the OpenAI board, especially with respect to instances of self-dealing. If #1 is true (and I see no reason to believe it's not), that in no way implies #2 is false.
    • odyssey7 2y ago
      Toner has cast out a whole constellation of vague and non-specific incidents that motivated her to oust Sam. If the case was as open-and-shut as (2), why has Toner continued making vague and non-specific character attacks, and why did the board put out that bizarre "not consistently candid" line? Clearly, Microsoft didn't see much of a legal problem when Microsoft supported Sam's return to OpenAI and when Microsoft offered to hire Sam. If Toner has been telling the truth about all of the myriad things that she claims happened, where was she when she was responsible for oversight during recent years? Toner comes across as unprofessional and reckless in how she handled all of this, whether her claims are true or not.
      • hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
        I wholeheartedly agree that the board's communication and how they handled the firing was woefully naive and extremely poorly done. That said, you may have missed it but Toner alleged some very specific instances of lying and withholding information from the board: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40506582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40506582. That's very different from "vague and non-specific character attacks". And, importantly, 4 total board members agreed that was the right action to take.
• rootusrootus 2y ago
  That's a healthy attitude, I wish someone would have a come to jesus talk with Elon along those same lines. Pick something to lead, and do it well, do not try to split your loyalties a half dozen different ways.
• asveikau 2y ago
  This is absolutely a firing. I think some people in that Twitter thread, pg included, have become so brainwashed by euphemistic phrases like "we agreed to part ways" to cover a firing, that they start to believe their own hype. A firing can have varying degrees of amicability. It can be a reluctant firing. You can literally say "we're sad to see you go" and mean it. But I think it's still a firing in this case. It is so weird to see people have trouble grasping this.
  • hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    Not in a negative sense, it was an ultimatum of attention focus.
    • jrflowers 2y ago
      I remember when my neighbor’s boss gave him an amicable ultimatum of attention focus when he was splitting his time between smoking weed and serving ice cream. He wasn’t fired but simply given a set of choices about his future at Cold Stone
      • hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
        Surely, he could do both if he applied himself and limited intake of weed and ice cream. PS: It's not advertised, but YC participants smoke a lot of bowls.
        • jrflowers 2y ago
          At the end of the day he was simply more passionate about gravity bong rips and surf rock than he was about dairy and a parting of ways occurred. The fact that the conversation was instigated by his boss should in no way be construed as a firing, but simply a focus of attention ultimatum that led to an ideal outcome for all parties
          • hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
• hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Sigh. I was already 99.999% sure that's what happened. @sama became a instavillian because of finding success with a giant bullseye painted on his rep.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• naveen99 2y ago
  Maybe PG feels like michael Jordan’s high school coach kicking himself for cutting Mike. YC might have been better off with Sam still in charge, distracted or not.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• mempko 2y ago
  If an employee works from home too much and a manager comes to them and says "We want you to work for us, but want you in the office, so choose whether you want to work from home or still work for this company". Isn't giving an such ultimatum a threat to fire? If a worker keeps coming in late and the owner says to them "We love the work you do here but you need to be at the desk at 9am or choose to work somewhere else" Is that ultimatum a threat to fire? So they didn't fire Sam but threatened to fire him and he chose to leave?
• thefaux 2y ago
  What PG doesn't say is at least as interesting as what he does.
• gweinberg 2y ago
  It's worth pointing out how different this is from the previous narrative. Now they're saying "we don't think Sam can simultaneously do two strenuous full time jobs and still give each the full attention it deserves". Before it was "Sam is recklessly pursuing lines of research on the logic that a 51% chance of doubling the value of the earth and a 49% chance of wiping us all out is a positive expectation".
• snewman 2y ago
  This seems clear and authoritative. The one thing I can't wrap my head around: why didn't he say this when the story of Sam getting fired first circulated? Why didn't Sam ask him to clarify the record sooner? It would have been easy to tweet this out at any time. Edit to add: obviously pg isn't going to respond to every rumor, but this one has had significant attention and he was particularly well placed to address it.
• tensility 2y ago
  PG trying to pretend that he isn't materially biased in the matter of Sam's image, even without knowing about the early investment that YC made into OpenAI, is incredibly dubious given that brand and reputation have such amazing value and are implicitly reflected upon YC in the case of Mr. Altman. The impact of this post on me has been to tarnish my regard of PG, although I will likely always think highly of his early essay writing.
• goodmunky 2y ago
  Hmmm so Paul blocked me on X for calling out his effective support for Hamas. And then this double-talk nonsense. He’s really quite something of a fragile little narcissist who can never be wrong.
• angrydingo 2y ago
  I scrolled down and saw some questionable tweets, not sure how reliable this source is.
• willf 2y ago
  Sounds like firing to me!