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What I don't get is that they are gunning for the people that brought us the innovations we are working with right now. How often does it happen that someone re

What I don't get is that they are gunning for the people that brought us the innovations we are working with right now. How often does it happen that someone really strikes gold a second time in research at such a high level? It's not a sport.

MichaelRazum 1y ago
How about Ilya
- matusp 1y ago
  What about him?
  - koakuma-chan 1y ago
    Right, what about him? Didn't he start his own company and raised 1 billion a while ago? I haven't heard about them since then.
    - scrollop 1y ago
      Didn't he say their goal is AGI and they will not produce any products until then. I admire that, in this era where CEOs tend to HYPE!! To increase funding (looking at a particular AI company...)
      - koakuma-chan 1y ago
        > Didn't he say their goal is AGI and they will not produce any products until then. Did he specify what AGI is? xD > I admire that, in this era where CEOs tend to HYPE!! To increase funding (looking at a particular AI company...) I think he was probably hyping too, it's just that he appealed to a different audience. IIRC they had a really plain website, which, I think, they thought "hackers" would like.
  - MichaelRazum 1y ago
    Alexnet, AlphaGo, ChatGPT Would argue he did strike gold few times.
    - matusp 1y ago
      I don't follow him very closely. Was he important for these projects?
      - MichaelRazum 1y ago
        Yes
- Agraillo 1y ago
  Reworded from [1]: Earlier this year Meta tried to acquire Safe Superintelligence. Sutskever rebuffed Meta’s efforts, as well as the company’s attempt to hire him [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/19/meta-tried-to-buy-safe-superintelligence-hired-ceo-daniel-gross.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/19/meta-tried-to-buy-safe-super...
croes 1y ago
Because the innovations fail to deliver what was promised and the overall costs are higher than the outcome
this_user 1y ago
Who else would you hire? With a topic as complex as this, it seems most likely that the people who have been working at the bleeding edge for years will be able to continue to innovate. At the very least, they are a much safer bet than some unproven randos.
- Closi 1y ago
  Exactly this - people that understood the field well enough to add new knowledge to it has to be a pretty decent signal for a research-level engineer. At the research level it’s not just about being smart enough, or being a good programmer, or even completely understanding the field - it’s also about having an intuitive understanding of the field where you can self pursue research directions that are novel enough and yield results. Hard to prove that without having done it before.
kkoncevicius 1y ago
Even if they do not strike gold the second time, there can still be a multitude of reasons: 1. The innovators will know a lot about the details, limitations and potential improvements concerning the thing they invented. 2. Having a big name in your research team will attract other people to work with you. 3. I assume the people who discovered something still have a higher chance to discover something big compared to "average" researchers. 4. That person will not be hired by your competition.
- cma 1y ago
  5. Having a lot of very publicly extremely highly paid people will make people assume anyone working on AI there is highly paid, if not quite as extreme. What most people who make a lot of money spend it on is wealth signalling, and now they can get a form of that without the company having to pay them as much.
  - stogot 1y ago
    What good is a wealth signal without wealth? You’re promoting vacuous vanity
    - andai 1y ago
      Higher status, access to higher quality mates, etc.
      - cma 1y ago
        It might even play role in getting you to US President
    - cma 1y ago
      > promoting Where?
gdbsjjdn 1y ago
You're falling victim to the Gambler's Fallacy - it's like saying "the coin just flipped heads, so I choose tails, it's unlikely this coin flips heads twice in a row". Realistically they have to draw from a small pool of people with expertise in the field. It is unlikely _anyone_ they hire will "strike gold", but past success doesn't make future success _less_ likely. At a minimum I would assume past success is uncorrelated with future success, and at best there's a weak positive correlation because of reputation, social factors, etc.

MichaelRazum 1y ago

How about Ilya

matusp 1y ago
What about him?
- koakuma-chan 1y ago
  Right, what about him? Didn't he start his own company and raised 1 billion a while ago? I haven't heard about them since then.
  - scrollop 1y ago
    Didn't he say their goal is AGI and they will not produce any products until then. I admire that, in this era where CEOs tend to HYPE!! To increase funding (looking at a particular AI company...)
    - koakuma-chan 1y ago
      > Didn't he say their goal is AGI and they will not produce any products until then. Did he specify what AGI is? xD > I admire that, in this era where CEOs tend to HYPE!! To increase funding (looking at a particular AI company...) I think he was probably hyping too, it's just that he appealed to a different audience. IIRC they had a really plain website, which, I think, they thought "hackers" would like.
- MichaelRazum 1y ago
  Alexnet, AlphaGo, ChatGPT Would argue he did strike gold few times.
  - matusp 1y ago
    I don't follow him very closely. Was he important for these projects?
    - MichaelRazum 1y ago
      Yes
Agraillo 1y ago
Reworded from [1]: Earlier this year Meta tried to acquire Safe Superintelligence. Sutskever rebuffed Meta’s efforts, as well as the company’s attempt to hire him [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/19/meta-tried-to-buy-safe-superintelligence-hired-ceo-daniel-gross.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/19/meta-tried-to-buy-safe-super...

croes 1y ago

Because the innovations fail to deliver what was promised and the overall costs are higher than the outcome

this_user 1y ago

Who else would you hire? With a topic as complex as this, it seems most likely that the people who have been working at the bleeding edge for years will be able to continue to innovate. At the very least, they are a much safer bet than some unproven randos.

Closi 1y ago
Exactly this - people that understood the field well enough to add new knowledge to it has to be a pretty decent signal for a research-level engineer. At the research level it’s not just about being smart enough, or being a good programmer, or even completely understanding the field - it’s also about having an intuitive understanding of the field where you can self pursue research directions that are novel enough and yield results. Hard to prove that without having done it before.

kkoncevicius 1y ago

Even if they do not strike gold the second time, there can still be a multitude of reasons: 1. The innovators will know a lot about the details, limitations and potential improvements concerning the thing they invented. 2. Having a big name in your research team will attract other people to work with you. 3. I assume the people who discovered something still have a higher chance to discover something big compared to "average" researchers. 4. That person will not be hired by your competition.

cma 1y ago
5. Having a lot of very publicly extremely highly paid people will make people assume anyone working on AI there is highly paid, if not quite as extreme. What most people who make a lot of money spend it on is wealth signalling, and now they can get a form of that without the company having to pay them as much.
- stogot 1y ago
  What good is a wealth signal without wealth? You’re promoting vacuous vanity
  - andai 1y ago
    Higher status, access to higher quality mates, etc.
    - cma 1y ago
      It might even play role in getting you to US President
  - cma 1y ago
    > promoting Where?

gdbsjjdn 1y ago

You're falling victim to the Gambler's Fallacy - it's like saying "the coin just flipped heads, so I choose tails, it's unlikely this coin flips heads twice in a row". Realistically they have to draw from a small pool of people with expertise in the field. It is unlikely _anyone_ they hire will "strike gold", but past success doesn't make future success _less_ likely. At a minimum I would assume past success is uncorrelated with future success, and at best there's a weak positive correlation because of reputation, social factors, etc.