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“CEO said a thing” journalism
- tadfisher 6mo agoIt is at least entertaining when certain CEOs speak off-the-cuff and reveal they have no clue what they are talking about. Jensen thinks DLSS 5 works at "the geometry level", for instance. Oh and he pays engineers $500,000 to spend $250,000 on Claude tokens.
- m00x 6mo agoIt doesn't reveal that they have no clue of what they're talking about. They know that a good number of idiot CEOs will hear this and dictate their engineers spend more claude/codex money, which benefits them. Jensen isn't an idiot, he's capitalizing on the market.
- bluefirebrand 6mo ago> They know that a good number of idiot CEOs will hear this This is true regardless of the specific jargon used, though. Or are you saying that idiot CEOs will not be impressed by correct claims only stupid claims?
- kimixa 6mo agoIt doesn't reveal they don't have no clue either - the problem is that both "Doesn't actually understand" and "Does understand but saying it because they think it'll benefit their products" look exactly the same from the outside. All we know is he's saying things that are technically incorrect. And I'm not sure where that falls on the line of "Just Acceptable Marketing BS" to "Lying to the market about a Publicly Traded company" that would fall if he does understand it. And while true he very much had deep technical education and roles, he's been C-level for over 30 years now. And a lot can change - both in the underlying technology and an individual's technical understanding - in 30 years.
- TallGuyShort 6mo agoHe might be, but this sounds suspiciously like "Trump is playing 4D chess and trolling the media - he would never actually do the dumb thing he just suggested he was about to do."
- MeetingsBrowser 6mo agoThe joke is on everyone else, our favorite leader is just pretending to be an idiot!
- altmanaltman 6mo agoI mean you're kind of attributing this to malice when its actually incompetence. Nvidia doesn't need any shilling by its CEO to increase its sales or capitalize on the market. It's purely banter from his pov, not some super intelligence spectre ploy to sell more GPUs.
- qwertox 6mo ago> Oh and he pays engineers $500,000 to spend $250,000 on Claude tokens. What he said was that if he's paying 500,000 for an engineer, he expects that engineer to spend at least 250,000 in tokens, to get the most out of those $500,000. Basically that it would be counterproductive to hire a top tier engineer and restrict his token usage to let's say $200 or $500 a month. I think he's right on this.
- tadfisher 6mo ago> Basically that it would be counterproductive to hire a top tier engineer and restrict his token usage to let's say $200 or $500 a month. That's not what he said, though. He gave a number, and that number happens to correspond to something on the order of 25 billion Opus 4.6 tokens (hard to say what input vs. output ratio is like). He also said he is currently "deeply alarmed" if his engineers don't spend that much.
- pydry 6mo agoJensen Huang knows that this is a gold rush and that his job is to sell shovels. He's not stupid.
- ai_critic 6mo agoSo, is your position that Jensen Huang, CEO of NVDA, is an idiot?
- _se 6mo agoYes, it is very possible for someone to be smart and an idiot at the same time. Do you think you're smart? Have you ever done something and said "man, I'm an idiot"? It's just like that. Of course, the other explanation is that he's just grifting, which is also very possible.
- kentm 6mo ago"Smart" is something you do, not something you are. People with very large amounts of raw intelligence fall down some very dumb intellectual rabbit holes that its practically a meme: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21 Having raw intelligence doesn't help if you don't apply rigor to your thinking. I suspect that very successful people actually end up falling into habitual mental shortcuts that cause them to promote stupid things at a later time.
- hn_throwaway_99 6mo agoI don't know the quote you're referring to, but if there were a CEO who I think understands the technical details of his products much better than most, it would be Jensen Huang. And there is a huge difference between a CEO having "no clue" and a CEO trying to speak in terms that laymen and the business press can understand (even if a ton gets lost in translation).
- yoyohello13 6mo agoHow is "the geometry level" lost in translation. It's simply a lie.
- hn_throwaway_99 6mo agoAgain, I'm not familiar with the quote, nor the details of the tech behind DLSS 5. But even just taking what you wrote, there is a huge difference between lying to the press to get positive coverage/hype and just being outright clueless, which is what the GP comment was asserting. I sincerely doubt Jensen Huang is clueless.
- Aurornis 6mo ago> Oh and he pays engineers $500,000 to spend $250,000 on Claude tokens. If a CEO wants to pay engineers $500,000 and then let them spend as much as they need on tools and services, I'm all for it. Getting angry at a CEO for paying high compensation and also having a high tool use budget is not a take I expected on Hacker News.
- _se 6mo ago250k isn't a budget. It's the minimum that he said someone _should_ spend or else he would think they're doing something wrong. It's an insane take. Completely bone-headed. Just obvious grift.
- vrganj 6mo agoDLSS5 is such a disaster of corporate AI slop brain. Completely replaces the artistic vision with generic AI faces: https://xcancel.com/foxygames_uk/status/2034010117851463914 https://xcancel.com/foxygames_uk/status/2034010117851463914
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- yoyohello13 6mo agoThey very much have a clue what they are talking about. The truth of what they are saying is the problem. Their job is to say whatever makes number go up, truth has nothing to do with it.
- stackedinserter 6mo agoAlso "some minority group is concerned about something" journalism.
- jsbisviewtiful 6mo agoThat's still more interesting than what some sociopath rich person without a real clue says.
- somewhatjustin 6mo ago"[Thing] happened and [group] are furious!" journalism
- morkalork 6mo agoAnd the "X slammed by media/journalists" meta articles lazy journalists write about others' headlines.
- airstrike 6mo agoThis is ultimately a consequence of the attention economy, which is absolutely harmful for most everyone in the long term, with the exception of, you know, Elon, Sam, Mark and the like.
- tolerance 6mo agoI'm confident this phenomenon exists in other industries too. Is there a term that's equivalent to "reactionary" but applies to leftist/liberal ideals or is it fine for me to start referring to this kind of writing as "reactionary" save that I apply some sort of qualifier like "leftist" or "liberal" before or afterwards?
- code_for_monkey 6mo agoim not sure what about this makes it left reactionary but I suppose left reactionary would be the term
- thrance 6mo agoI fail to see any connections between this piece and Reaction, even tenuous ones. Also, what would define a "leftist reactionary" anyway? An opposition to social conservatism? That's already the left's stance. > is it fine for me to start referring to this kind of writing as "reactionary" I really don't understand what's wrong with asking journalists to do their damn jobs and spend even a tiny amount of time checking the validity of what the people they're quoting are saying. Don't remove their statement, just point at the various potential ways they're misleading/wrong. Journalists better start doing this basic part of their job again lest you want to be ruled by shameless incompetent buffoons that go unchallenged. Oh wait...
- jayd16 6mo agoThe equivalent word is "radical".
- hollasch 6mo agoI believe that the standard word for this is "radical", but standard use is sloppy enough that it's reasonable to seek a clearer term. I also think that "knee-jerk" may capture the quick reflexive nature you're thinking of.
- tolerance 6mo agoYeah it feels like you're catching on to the vibe I got from this article the best.
- John23832 6mo agoReaction-baiting (or -bating depending on your perspective) really has ruined most discourse. There a direct line to advertising and social media.
- hn_throwaway_99 6mo agoThis is so true. There is a person popular on social media for debunking health and nutrition misinformation and "wellness influencer" BS, Dr. Jessica Knurick. I think her content is great, but even she has talked about how in order for the algorithms to pick up her content, she usually highlights something idiotic that some wellness influencer or RFK Jr. is saying to debunk it (always with citations!) She's said how if she just put forward good, evidence-based health and nutrition content that she wouldn't have near the audience or exposure she does as when she highlights how some ignoramus thinks niacin fortification in grains is bad because they can't pronounce it.
- dgxyz 6mo agoThe worst is "Jony Ive said"
- josefritzishere 6mo agoUncritically regurgitating what sources tell you is not journalism. It's too lazy to rise to the level of propaganda. It's more like writing them a press release for free.
- worik 6mo agoNaturally media are on the side of money.
- baggy_trough 6mo ago[flagged]
- vrganj 6mo agoHe's a remarkable white supremacist, I'll give you that.
- Y-bar 6mo agoTrue. His wealth and racism are both remarkable traits.
- baggy_trough 6mo agoIs that what you think is most remarkable? Seems blinkered.
- Y-bar 6mo agoIt’s the only parts of his person I consider such. All other ”accomplishments” are a-dime-a-dozen for the ultra-rich. Why would it for example be remarkable that he does not seem to understand the difference between gender and sex? Or why would it be remarkable that he has an inability to keep the timelines he has made for Tesla? Well, I suppose it is remarkable (and a bit funny) that he wanted to party with Epstein and was rebuffed. I don’t think it is remarkable that he is not a good PoE player, but should I?
- baggy_trough 6mo agoI rest my case.
- ratrace 6mo ago[dead]
- shevy-java 6mo agoLike media reporting about Trump. Trump is a (mostly) fake-news generator. The problem is that the traditional media is largely structued to suit different goals, often the owner (make more money), in part to send out a certain narrative (propaganda). Or both. I don't have a good work-around for this either. I try to gather news from different sources and use my brain, but even then my brain is influenced a lot by what information is given. Youtube is kind of great and awful here; great because you may have critical content (e. g. I like Vlad Vexler's thinking and reasoning, even if I may not always agree with the rationale, analysis, premise or outcome), but there is also soooo much propaganda on youtube. Tons of parrots repeating a certain narrative. Peter Zeihan is my personal disfavourite right now (the recent "How to Break Iran" is pure propaganda IMO) but there are so many more examples, influencers too. One day I'll need to disconnect myself from youtube (and, in the process, Google); right now I admit I am too addicted to some of it (the content, not the platform; the platform pisses me off. It is not even usable anymore without ublock origin).
- yoyohello13 6mo agoI've come to the conclusion recently that if a tech CEO is pushing for something , it's probably something normal people should be fighting against. To the point where "Elon/Mark/Jensen/Peter wants society to do [thing]" is a pretty strong signal that [thing] is actually a terrible idea.
- nickvec 6mo agoYep. CEOs care about the bottom line. Sadly, that is normally not compatible with something that is good for society, at least in the tech world.
- pseudohadamard 6mo agoYou forgot to include the CEO of the US in that list.
- brk 6mo agoThe thing this article does not cover is that the average journalist has no sway. Most readers don't want the opinion of some random person covering a space, so "CEO Said a Thing" is the headline that draws the reader in. Many times the journalist also is not getting paid enough to inject any sort of counterpoint or unique perspective. This just seems like the natural outcome of the click-whoring online "news" structure we've created.
- balkanist 6mo ago[flagged]
- hamdingers 6mo agoIf a journalist is not being paid enough to do journalism, what do we call their output? Certainly not journalism.
- MeetingsBrowser 6mo agoclickbait
- righthand 6mo agoSpam
- saaaaaam 6mo agoThe fairly well established term is churnalism.
- catcowcostume 6mo agoThen a better approach would be to not report on CEO's ramblings, and instead focus journalistic resources on topics of more interest to society. But, as the article points, that is not the purpose of journalism (at least in the United States).
- warpspin 6mo agoNow this was an article where I didn't even need to read the article. The headline was all I needed to know it has all the same complaints I do.
- enjoylife 6mo agoAnother restatement of Brandolini’s Law. The cost of parroting this kind of information is very low, while the cost of refuting it is very high. And the value an outlet can extract from its readership to fund that refutation is nowhere close to cover its outlay. Maybe a counter is the occasional take-down article can sometimes go more viral than the original claim, but chasing those is probably unprofitable too.
- kleinsch 6mo agoClosely related to “people are upset about a thing” articles which just regurgitate quotes from random people on social media.
- dylan604 6mo agoSometimes that is newsworthy though. For example, are people happy with ICE storm troopers running amok in their city and you're just the weird one not liking it, or are you one of many?
- Paratoner 6mo ago[dead]
- pydry 6mo agoNo, but this stuff would magically stop being newsworthy if the DNC linked oligarchy couldnt or didnt want to use it as a stick to beat the RNC linked oligarchy. It's good that this ulterior motive exists but it's not something you can rely upon. Similarly there wouldnt have been a pushback on net neutrality if big tech didnt want it so desperately.
- guessmyname 6mo agoProblem is, it is often just 1-2 posts on Twitter. Maybe 5… Heck! maybe 10, but that’s it. And it’s often people who are only superficially involved in the thing they are so expertly talking about. Sometimes it’s teenagers who just want to troll adults, especially knowing that their posts could appear in the news. Sometimes it’s adults who want to troll other adults for the LOLs or to fulfill a particular agenda. Sometimes it’s bots, actually, usually bots. Something the posts don’t even exist.
- vntok 6mo agoYou can't infer anything about 3 choice Twitter quotes copied into an article, though.
- salemh 6mo ago[dead]
- righthand 6mo agoThis is like half of the writing at Arstechnica for the last decade or more.
- michaelsshaw 6mo agoThis is all a result of the techbro "genius" worship culture that YC & co are definitely guilty in helping to create. Writing code on a computer doesn't make anyone smarter than anyone else, and hopefully people will wake up to that fact sooner rather than later.
- jasonlotito 6mo ago> There's no better example of this than what I affectionately refer to as "CEO said a thing!" journalism. If you are half wrong with your first examples, maybe you should focus on yourself first? I get the point you are trying to make, but you can't do that spreading misinformation. Jesus.
- LeoDaVibeci 6mo agoAt least it's slightly more interesting than "company X raises Y millions at Z billions valuation", but point taken
- hnthrow0287345 6mo ago>I'd end with some noble call for the U.S. media industry to do better, but it's abundantly clear they don't want to. Yeah, shrinking revenue, lawsuits, death threats, buyouts and takeovers, government strong-arming all contribute to not really wanting to fight the fight that they need to. There isn't a solution to this as you can't bankroll media outlets or journalists and not expect to be considered biased. The revenue has to come from every day people. So if the revenue isn't there to pay the best people, you're simply not going to have a good, independent media industry any more. Any very-rich person bankrolling that probably also has political affiliations, which again introduces bias. With rising cost of living, the population will clearly cut out the media subscriptions thinking that the free journalism slop is enough to keep them informed.
- Animats 6mo agoThis guy is all too right. Fortune.com today: > A CEO trying to reindustrialize America says blue-collar pay is headed for ‘massive hyperinflation’ and kids should skip college to become welders > Trump said the Iran war was ‘very complete’ three weeks ago. > Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says ‘We’ve achieved AGI.’ It's like reading dispatches from an alternate post-truth universe. > You can never return back to the claims to inform your readership whether they were actually true (this is especially true of CEO promises made before giant, pointless, disastrous mergers). That's the worst. It's like it's now wrong to call CEOs on their bullshit. Yesterday I noted that Donut Labs, with their heavily promoted solid state battery, had previously announced they would be shipping in volume in Q1 2026. I wrote on HN "They have until Tuesday." That was voted down.
- nickvec 6mo agoAs an aside, Mark Zuckerberg claiming that you’ll be at a “cognitive disadvantage” if you don’t use Meta Glasses is hilarious and beyond out of touch. If anything, you’re at a social advantage for not constantly recording your peers like some pervert. They really are “creeper glasses”
- nickvec 6mo ago> The result is a sort of alternative reality journalistic simulacrum that kind of looks like journalism, but genuinely isn't interested in any context or truth that upsets the apple cart. It's a sort of journalistic Ken Doll with the genitals sanded off to a smooth hump to avoid offending anyone. > This lazy simulacrum tends to be a death knell for genuine public interest reporting, resulting in a press that broadly normalizes (or just outright ignores) rampant corruption and real world impact. Amazing article, and beautifully crafted conclusion. Thanks for taking the time to write this. Your sentiment is shared by many, even if the media wants you to believe otherwise with all the “CEO said a thing!” journalism.
- 6thbit 6mo agoQuotes should be around “journalism”. Let’s recognize those bait posts as what they are, which for sure is not journalism.
- slooonz 6mo ago"What Elon Musk think or at least pretend to think" is indeed an useful/interesting piece of information, and I don’t see why a commentary on it is necessary or particularly useful ? I mean, I can do the "critical reading of CEO claim" part myself, thank you very much. And it’s not just CEOs. Politicians, spokepersons of foreign nations, academics, journalists also do that "X said a thing" thing. It’s perfectly fine. I don’t need or desire the personal take of the journalist on that declaration. They have opinion pieces for that.
- tim333 6mo agoPresident truths a thing can also be a bit substandard journalism.