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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

by 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.
    - scarmig 2y ago
      Was OpenAI at all affiliated with YC? I think they were entirely independent organizations.
      - tomhoward 2y ago
        OK, it was independent but established with funding from YC Research and Jessica (among others including Sam himself and Elon) and initially operating from YC office space. So it was always something that was closely linked to YC and his involvement with it was generally accepted as being harmonious with his role running YC, until it became for-profit. Details here: https://www.wired.com/2015/12/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator-plan-to-stop-computers-from-taking-over/ https://www.wired.com/2015/12/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator...
- schrodinger 2y ago
  I haven’t ever heard of worldcoin but ChatGPT has actually made it to the average person’s lexicon, and been covered in the NYTimes repeatedly. Surely some non jobs take more effort than others…
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Sometime things becomes a problem when they start having practical impacts. Not everything is a matter of principle
- tomhoward 2y ago
  > They didn’t seem to mind him running Worldcoin though He left YC in March 2019. Worldcoin was formed in 2019.
  - CalChris 2y ago
    Crunchbase says the WorldCoin seed round was January 2019. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/worldcoin/investor_financials https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/worldcoin/investor_f...
    - tomhoward 2y ago
      Right, so, no evidence that they had no problem with him running Worldcoin. It could all have been part of the “Sam now has too much on his plate to adequately focus on YC” conversation.
llm_trw 2y ago
>multi-million dollar a year non-profit At 24 I ended up as the chair of a not for profit that stood on top of $30 million of real estate _because no one else wanted to_. Getting quorum was impossible because we needed three out of five board members to show up to a meeting. People have this idea it's mustache twirling villains running these things. It's usually the idiot thats about to burn out.
- ianhawes 2y ago
  Happy to hear that my experience in non-profits was not unique.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    One of these days I should write a book about it. Question: It's 2 am, a dead opossum is stuck in the main drain for the property and the water is rising during a once in a decade storm. What do you do? Answer: Wade neck deep into the water, with a stoner tripping on mushroom holding a light, then stab it with a crowbar until the water pressure flushes it down.
    - justinclift 2y ago
      And the stoner tripping on mushrooms was you, but you didn't realise it wasn't someone else at the time? :) Maybe you could turn it into a movie script, something like 'Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas'? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120669 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120669
    - I_Am_Nous 2y ago
      Glad to know you didn't get sucked down too, neck deep water draining has some crazy strength. I'm sure that was quite a magical experience for Flashlight Stoner as well!
    - QuinnyPig 2y ago
      [flagged]

by neom 2y ago

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.
  - scarmig 2y ago
    Was OpenAI at all affiliated with YC? I think they were entirely independent organizations.
    - tomhoward 2y ago
      OK, it was independent but established with funding from YC Research and Jessica (among others including Sam himself and Elon) and initially operating from YC office space. So it was always something that was closely linked to YC and his involvement with it was generally accepted as being harmonious with his role running YC, until it became for-profit. Details here: https://www.wired.com/2015/12/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator-plan-to-stop-computers-from-taking-over/ https://www.wired.com/2015/12/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator...
schrodinger 2y ago
I haven’t ever heard of worldcoin but ChatGPT has actually made it to the average person’s lexicon, and been covered in the NYTimes repeatedly. Surely some non jobs take more effort than others…
s1artibartfast 2y ago
Sometime things becomes a problem when they start having practical impacts. Not everything is a matter of principle
tomhoward 2y ago
> They didn’t seem to mind him running Worldcoin though He left YC in March 2019. Worldcoin was formed in 2019.
- CalChris 2y ago
  Crunchbase says the WorldCoin seed round was January 2019. https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/worldcoin/investor_financials https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/worldcoin/investor_f...
  - tomhoward 2y ago
    Right, so, no evidence that they had no problem with him running Worldcoin. It could all have been part of the “Sam now has too much on his plate to adequately focus on YC” conversation.

llm_trw 2y ago

>multi-million dollar a year non-profit At 24 I ended up as the chair of a not for profit that stood on top of $30 million of real estate _because no one else wanted to_. Getting quorum was impossible because we needed three out of five board members to show up to a meeting. People have this idea it's mustache twirling villains running these things. It's usually the idiot thats about to burn out.

ianhawes 2y ago
Happy to hear that my experience in non-profits was not unique.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  One of these days I should write a book about it. Question: It's 2 am, a dead opossum is stuck in the main drain for the property and the water is rising during a once in a decade storm. What do you do? Answer: Wade neck deep into the water, with a stoner tripping on mushroom holding a light, then stab it with a crowbar until the water pressure flushes it down.
  - justinclift 2y ago
    And the stoner tripping on mushrooms was you, but you didn't realise it wasn't someone else at the time? :) Maybe you could turn it into a movie script, something like 'Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas'? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120669 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120669
  - I_Am_Nous 2y ago
    Glad to know you didn't get sucked down too, neck deep water draining has some crazy strength. I'm sure that was quite a magical experience for Flashlight Stoner as well!
  - QuinnyPig 2y ago
    [flagged]