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Sam Altman is not on YC's board. So why claim to be its chair?
- jpm_sd 2y agoSam Altman is a pathological liar https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/29/ex_openai_board_member_accuses_altman_lying/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/29/ex_openai_board_membe... https://www.wheresyoured.at/sam-altman-is-full-of-shit/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/sam-altman-is-full-of-shit/
- ninininino 2y agoThis is startup land. We call it a Painted Door test of the truth. He's just selling product roadmap before things are feature complete, we all do it.
- mtnGoat 2y agoPlease don’t say all… I for one have never done this.
- ninininino 2y agoMy comment was meant to be satire.
- malfist 2y agoWhen you or I lie on a resume the background check knocks us out of the job. But when the CEO lies on a resume, nothing happens.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> when the CEO lies on a resume, nothing happens I think it’s abundantly clear that if OpenAI fails, powerful people will face prosecution. It’s an uncomfortable but unavoidable part of our justice system that we don’t like to prosecute people until they’re no longer winners.
- anitil 2y agoI'm not familiar with the whole situation - what would they be prosecuted for? Violation of copyright? Or is this some sort of 'everything is securities fraud' situation?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lenerdenator 2y agoIt's far from clear. Dozens of finance executives wiped a decade worth of economic growth off the United States the year before I graduated high school. My generation will never recover. They left their jobs with more money that I'll make in an entire lifetime. None went to prison.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoIf someone in your generation (graduating high school 2009) obtained in demand credentials or skills, then they should have reaped enormous returns from 2013 to 2024. The only people who really “lost” in 2008 were those who were overleveraged from going into debt for houses or education, and then had to default due to income loss in 2008 to 2011 or so. Or those who panic sold all their equities.
- metadat 2y agoHow is a new college grad supposed to reap "enormous returns" without significant savings?
- lotsofpulp 2y agoFrom entering a hot labor market with rising wages and investing? The alternative is entering a cool labor market with stagnant or decreasing wages. Obviously, people who already had assets made out better, but that is not a possibility for 99% of high school/college graduates, so useless to consider.
- riku_iki 2y ago> But when the CEO lies on a resume, nothing happens. this can be considered as essential job function, so checking the quality of lying is a part of interviewing process.
- Optimal_Persona 2y agoI worked at a ~$20M food company where we had a new CEO coming in. Management/Board were over the moon, saying "This guy has been running a multi-billion $$ company for years." Curious as to why someone would transition so abruptly from the major leagues to the minors, I searched on his name and the first hits were about an active SEC investigation into him for witholding payments to suppliers (small and medium farmers) to inflate the balance sheets to give it a higher valuation for a buyout. He actually turned out to be more effective than the previous 2 CEOs and I forged a perfectly fine working relationship with him, but it made me aware that business people will ignore any variety of moral/legal issues when the dollar signs are in their eyes. I believe he put the SEC thing behind him, avoiding jail time by not quite admitting nor denying guilt and writing a ~$2M personal check.
- slowmovintarget 2y agoHe used Chat GPT to hallucinate his CV, I guess.
- S_A_P 2y agoJust the sort of personality type that we need leading the most potentially dangerous new technology in the past 50 years.
- bamboozled 2y agoWhile I get the sentiment, things have a way of working out. Maybe he is actually the best person to do it...no one knows who the best person for an undefined situation will be.
- gigatree 2y agoIs the best person for any position (especially one with tremendous implications for the future of humanity) someone with his character?
- dylan604 2y agoDoes it matter if the person is the best or if people think they are? Even our government is led by people that think the person is the best for the role even if they really are not. Why would anyone care about this particular company when that's their view on the gov't?
- TheNewsIsHere 2y agoI would submit that if we care about outcomes then it matters if someone is the best suited for the role. There will always be subjectivity, and “the best” is going to be at least partly defined in terms of who is available. Nevertheless we could insist upon certain standards. Not being a pathological liar, a sociopath, deeply conflicted or self-interested, and so on, seem like good starting positions. I’m not arguing that we live in a reality that reflects this, of course. Just that it would be nice to.
- drcode 2y agoThere is no "plot armor" in the real world, protecting humans from having bad things happening Things do not, in fact, have a way of "working out" If we don't want bad things to happen, we have to actively stop bad things from happening
- chx 2y agoOn Reddit he doesn't even bother lying, he just straight up admits being a conman. Yishan Wong describes the con: https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_best_long_con_you_ever_pulled/cszjqg2/ https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_bes... Altman admits it's true: https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_best_long_con_you_ever_pulled/cszwpgq/ https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_bes...
- maxbond 2y agoTo my eyes, Altman appears to be joking.
- MrBuddyCasino 2y agoAltman saving Reddit makes me like him more, not less. Imagine rooting for Condé Nast letting Reddit rot to death, Yahoo acquisition style.
- s5300 2y ago[dead]
- Copenjin 2y agoAt this point, I hope this is well known.
- floppiplopp 2y agoIf Elon Musk were still alive, he'd be soooo jealous.
- whateveracct 2y ago[flagged]
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoHe would still be leading board meetings even without a board vote perhaps?
- apojomovsky 2y agohttps://archive.ph/Vl3VR https://archive.ph/Vl3VR
- infecto 2y agoI only skimmed through the beginning but I am not sure what the news is. Looks like they mostly/only? pulled it from some filings that I am sure was being put together by third party agents.
- dmitrygr 2y ago> I am not sure what the news is The news is that lying on those filings is a federal crime and can lead to jail time (for normal people who are actually subject to law).
- infecto 2y agoYour distorted view of Altman is probably causing you to go down the wrong path of securities law. 1) I don't believe even if malicious this would be a criminal case that leads to jail time. 2) The s-1 filings are prepared and audited by third party companies. 3) Most likely in this case, these positions are listed to outline any potential conflicts of interest. I am not well read on the matter but I could see that you would list potential engagements to note the conflict of interest even if they are not finalized.
- riku_iki 2y ago> 2) The s-1 filings are prepared and audited by third party companies. does it completely release liability?
- infecto 2y agoNo but the point being that multiple people looked at this and most likely this is immaterial to the S1 and would never be on the radar for the SEC.
- dmitrygr 2y ago> The s-1 filings are prepared and audited by third party companies. And signed by…whom?
- bowsamic 2y agoThis is going to fall off the front page very quickly, just watch. The mods suppress anything that makes YC or anything they invest in look bad
- ryandrake 2y agoYou predicted it. Already on page 3. Algorithmic or not, we'll never know.
- dmitrygr 2y agoWe will never be able to prove, but we DO know...
- dang 2y agoWe answer questions about this kind of thing all the time (literally many times a day), both on the site and via email (hn@ycombinator.com). There's no question like this you can't find out the answer to. Whether you want the answer, or like the answer, or choose to believe the answer, are other questions.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- ryandrake 2y agoThe fact that there can be a thumb on the scale is (or should be) well known by now. Since the thumb is invisible, though, we can never truly know unless it's directly addressed, which was the case with this one. +1 to the other commenter's suggestion of visibly marking manual moderation activity (vs. algorithmic voodoo which is more understandably opaque). We've already got the [flagged] tag that transparently shows end-user moderation activity.
- dang 2y agoActually we moderate less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is the story. This is the #1 rule of HN moderation and has been since pg first explained it to me on the morning he started showing me how to moderate HN. If anyone wants to read about this, there are ten years' worth of past explanations here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20%22less%2C%20not%20more%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... It looks like a mod downweighted this story but also saved it, along with your comment, for me to review. Since the rule is the rule, I'm reducing the downweight now. (Edit: I've since checked with the mod and indeed their intention was to follow the same rule - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40720026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40720026.) This looks like a flimsy story from a couple of months ago about something from many years ago. It's hard to tell if there's any there-there but, given how this sort of story usually works, the odds seem low*. It's obviously getting attention not because of intellectual curiosity (the right reason on HN) but because of celebrity outrage (a popular human pastime but not the right reason on HN). It's also repetitive of many other outrage threads we've had in recent months—an additional reason to downweight it (beyond the outrage aspect). We never let articles like this stay on HN's frontpage normally—if we did, HN would consist of little else. Still, I'm happy to reduce the downweight on this because that rule is key to the trust we have with the bulk of the community. I think most HN readers know that we moderate shallow outrage stories off the front page, and why; and I think most can appreciate that we bend that rule the other way for the sake of the above principle, even if they don't like it. It doesn't stop people from making up false claims (edit: I mean about HN moderation, like the parent comment), but it does let us answer them in good conscience, and the rest is just standard internet dynamics (sinister speculation, etc.) * Note the photo that describes Geoff as YC's "new president". That hasn't been the case for 5 years, and he stopped being president 18 months ago.
- tensility 2y agoThe real problem is that Altman has legitimately destroyed public trust. We already have way too many immature robber barons playing the oligarchy game for the likes of such as him to be positive for society in the end. If he had a conscience, it appears that he's sold it already.
- PretzelPirate 2y ago> The real problem is that Altman has legitimately destroyed public trust. This might seem true in our technical buble, but most of the public probably has no idea who he is. They try ChatGPT for a work task and think it's amazing and love it. I've seen this happen many times, and once one person in a small team/company tries it, everyone else starts using it and they also love it. These people don't know what OpenAI or who Sam Altman is and there hasn't been any trust broken because ChatGPT works for them.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gexla 2y agoApple just gave the company under his leadership a huge vote of confidence.
- dylan604 2y agoAnd? That's the company and not him as far as what iDevice users will care about. Again, even if they bother to learn the name of the company that makes chatgpt. Hell, they might even think that is the name of the company and not the product. I don't really understand your point
- tiahura 2y agoThat's what they thought with Qualcomm.
- 2y ago
- blindriver 2y agoThis is really dumb, and I'm not even a fan of sama, I think he's a snake. Sam Altman was CEO and President. The fact he was not Chairman is not material. There's a thousand different explanations how that misstatement could have occurred. Maybe someone wrote that up, and sama didn't review every single line, and other people just assumed it was right. But it's not material. Being being the CEO and President of YC is much, much more important and more material than Chairman of the board, which is largely a figurehead position. No one is going to care and this is extreme nitpicking. They should fix the misstatement, but to claim some sort of conspiracy around this is stupid.
- fsckboy 2y ago>But it's not material. the corporation President, VP, Secretary, Treasurer, and Board of Directors and Chairman are legally defined titles, they are material titles, they imply fiduciary duty, loyalty, etc. (CEO isn't really a thing, it was made up to point out whether the President or Chairman wielded the ultimate power in situations where the largest shareholder might be more active than passive)
- s1artibartfast 2y agoMateriality depend on the question at hand.
- triblemaster 2y agoSEC filings would be enough for materiality one would assume.
- infecto 2y agoNot an S1 and especially for a SPAC. Nothing is truly material until an acquisition is made.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoFor what question? What is it evidence of exactly? E.g. It doesn’t tell you what sama had for breakfast.
- resoluteteeth 2y agoI'm not a Sam Altman fan but this really seems like nothing. If he was personally going around telling people he was YC's chairman that would be quite different, but this is just a few documents that he obviously didn't write himself.
- pbiggar 2y agoLying in an SEC filing is not "just a few documents".
- blast 2y agoYou don't think people make clerical errors in SEC filings? What was Sam supposed to have gained by this? The document was signed by Michael Klein and Jay Taragin (whoever they are), not Sam. But that wouldn't make much of a story, so Sam it is.
- nobutterbetter 2y ago[dead]
- chipdart 2y agoI think you're completely wrong. It's worse than going around saying stuff, it's publishing that statement on official documents for multiple years. From the article: > Yet, Altman has been claiming the chairman title for at least three years in securities filings and a website associated with the AltC Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition corporation, or SPAC, that he registered in 2021.
- diziet 2y agoI think these types of posts are extremely nitpicky and not useful. From my experience, these sort of SEC filings are compiled by associates in a biglaw firm under a lot of time pressure, with file names like "version 41.B FINAL EDIT". Things get lost in translation. The signing off parties on the document are not sama: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849056/000110465921035909/tm218987-1_s1.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849056/000110465921... I think someone made a mistake. Also, from looking at the sig page the signing parties are others...
- rasengan 2y agoI had the opportunity to chat with Sam, and I would say that the majority of publicly written opinion about him is false. He’s a pretty genuine guy with a lot of advice and wisdom. He definitely doesn’t come off as a capitalist but more of a helper type — someone who helps people become whole. I felt like OpenAI and the sector in general made a lot of sense — now he can help everyone in the world. As for the issue at hand, for one it’s doubtful he prepared this, but moreover, I have seen quite a many resumes in my day and not one wasn’t padded so to speak.
- louwrentius 2y agoHe thinks Worldcoin is a great idea.
- rasengan 2y agoIt's a bad execution for a wholesome, world helping, idea.
- nobutterbetter 2y ago[dead]
- louwrentius 2y agoIt’s a bad solution for the wrong problem
- floppiplopp 2y agoWhy does the guy claim to be a chair? It's what people place their asses and fart on. Is it some kind of weird fetish? Hey, I'm not judging, just asking the important questions.
- cynusx 2y agoThe media obsession with Sam Altman reminds me of the old dutch saying 'high trees capture a lot of wind' (hoge bomen vangen veel wind) I suppose that's why many HNWI individuals consciously stay below the radar.
- eru 2y agoDefinitely. Though part of your job as a leader typically is also to catch that attention and direct it to serve the organisation.
- christogreeff 2y agoHoë bome vang die meeste wind (Afrikaans)
- Two4 2y agoIt would either be "Die hoogste bome vang die meeste wind" or "Hoë bome vang veel wind", if my idioms serve me correctly
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Y_Y 2y agoUnless you're a high net worth HNWI individual, right?
- n4r9 2y agoIn Aus and NZ this is known as "cutting down the tall poppy": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
- lioeters 2y agoIn Japan it goes, "The nail that sticks out gets hammered." (Well not a metal "nail", but a wooden post.)
- lilbaby 2y agoReading this comment section, I'm realising that smart people in tech are still just people. They love to gossip, shit-talk about others, prop up cartoon villains to hate on. I'm a big fan of sama. It's been said he's a snake. I hope he is. And he will do things you will hate and be successful doing it. And in doing so, will teach you a priceless lesson. DGAF about other people. Be yourself, look out for yourself and fucking bring it and step on the stage, as you are. You don't have to be a perfect and excruciatingly boring paragon of virtue before you become a public figure. How wonderful!! It's ok to be a character. As long as it's your character.
- sampullman 2y agoThe love and hate comes with the territory when you're a public figure. I don't think he needs defending, and I don't think there is any lesson to be learned if a famous person you dislike is successful.
- inferiorhuman 2y agoThat level of contempt for the people around you is exactly why tech companies can't even create something as boring as a taxi company or corporate shuttle without raising the ire of everyone else.
- tomalbrc 2y agoIt’s even worse on here since the HN audience seems to worship Altman, although table seem to have turned and he is a bad guy now. Can’t make this stuff up
- navigate8310 2y agoYou put together perfectly. Haters don't realize sama actually put together something tangible and believable while others either berated looked down upon each other or fried their brain theorizing transformers.
- CRConrad 2y agoIt's not Ok to be an asshole or a snake. You calling that "character" doesn't help; assholes and snakes are not OK characters to be. (And I think in order not to be able to grasp that, one would have to be an asshole or a snake oneself.)
- InDubioProRubio 2y ago[flagged]
- rrgok 2y agoI've never met him in person and I don't usually judge a book by its cover, but he gives me a creepy vibe. It is difficult to put in words because this the first time I feel like this about someone I've never met. Something feels always off when I look at his photos or videos. This has been happening long before all this OpenAi drama.
- kidme5 2y agoThis may give some insight on the creepiness you sense, it involves DARPA https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-manifest-destiny#:~:text=Obviously%2C%20that%20would%20be%20great https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-ma...
- kidme5 2y agoThe idea that "DARPA is incompetent" because they promote hair-brained ideas, is one of their biggest ruses. Of course they're competent. Corollary: Elon Musk https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1dgyujd/comment/l8tgf79/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1dgyujd/comment/l8...
- fsmv 2y agoWhat even is this? People reading conspiracy theories from a chatbot spouting random garbage?
- CRConrad 2y ago> The idea that "DARPA is incompetent" because they promote hair-brained ideas Hare-brained. It refers not to hair on the brain, but to hares not being the world's smartest animals.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- o0-0o 2y agoYup. Personally I think he might have dirt on Paul Graham.