5 ms·

Amazing how these are two of the most powerful men currently in existence and they bicker like children.

by pesus 5mo ago

api 5mo ago
International politics is familiar to anyone who has supervised a group of 2-4 year olds.
jMyles 5mo ago
It's no surprise; immense power precludes maturity.
lesuorac 5mo ago
Growing older is mandatory, growing up is not.
- sethops1 5mo ago
  Especially if you possess obscene wealth and surround yourself with sycophants.
surgical_fire 5mo ago
A good reminder to not treat rich retards as visionaries just because they happen to be rich.
afavour 5mo ago
This is what happens when you’ve spent most of your adult life being told you’re an unparalleled genius. Expect it to get worse in the AI era because it comes with flattery as default.
- sixtyj 5mo ago
  I’d feel at ease if people like them didn’t have guns - luckily, they don’t have a briefcase with a red button.
  - pseudohadamard 5mo ago
    I'd be quite happy for them to have guns, then they could settle it in the traditional two men enter, one man leaves format and stop wasting everyone's time. Well, ideally in their case, no man leaves, but getting rid of half of them would be a good start.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
m463 5mo ago
Your statement seems to imply altman is comparable in power to musk.
- nostrademons 5mo ago
  This is probably true, given his history with YCombinator, ties to Thiel and Microsoft, leadership of OpenAI, and other investments in Reddit, AirBnB, Stripe, and others. Power doesn't always look like what you think it does.
  - m463 5mo ago
    I don't buy it, even a little. Seems like those comparisons where "some issue" should weigh against "opposing viewpoint" as if they should be equal. Although money might not be a proxy, musk is #1 net worth, altman isn't top 1000.
    - keeda 5mo ago
      Agreed, we've seen the kind of world-power level shenanigans that Elon can pull. He's directly messing with governments, manipulating markets, and even influencing the course of armed conflicts by controlling StarLink. Altman can only dream of that kind of power. Which he well might be doing, but he strikes me more as the type to pursue conventional political power.
nostrademons 5mo ago
That's probably why they are two of the most powerful men currently in existence. When there is something genuinely acknowledged as being valuable - and a $900B company certainly qualifies - people are going to fight over it. Only natural, because in most cases the way to get power is to fight for things that will make you powerful. Just look at the history of Facebook or Twitter or Google Chauffeur/Waymo or Cisco or the U.S. presidency. When you get wealth and power without fighting, it's usually because you managed to identify something that would eventually make you powerful without anyone else realizing that it's important, until you become too big to overthrow. This is the story of the Google founders or E-bay or Github or...I can't really think of others, it's a pretty rare path to success. Either that, or seem non-threatening and mild-mannered enough that nobody attacks you and then be the last one standing after all the combative types have destroyed each other, like how Sundar got to be CEO of Alphabet or Bran Stark won the Seven Kingdoms.
- htrp 5mo ago
  > Sundar got to be CEO of Alphabet any background on the game of thrones played inside google for Sundar to get there?
  - nostrademons 5mo ago
    Google's executive leadership team in the late 2000s to early 2010s famously consisted of a number of very strong and ambitious personalities. Amit Singhal ran Search Eng; Marissa Mayer ran Search PM/UX; the two of them famously did not get along, to the point where they would actively undermine each others' decisions. Alan Eustace was over them and often responsible for mediating, but he was close to retirement (which he later did to set the world record for highest skydive [1]). Sundar started by running the Google Toolbar efforts and then Chrome. Andy Rubin was in charge of Android. Urs seemed content to run hardware and datacenter ops; he's one of the non-combative ones, and is still there now though he's semi-retired. Likewise with Susan Wojcicki and Ads. Milo Medin had been brought in from Excite@Home to lead Google Fiber. Sebastian Thrun and Anthony Levandowski had been brought in from acquisitions to form Google Chauffeur (now Waymo). Over the 5 years between 2010-2015, the search PM/TLM org chain basically revolted and said "We can't get anything done when Marissa tells us to do it one way and Amit says no, we have to do it another way". Marissa was moved to run Geo and then eventually left to become CEO of Yahoo. Amit himself got canned over a few sexual harassment complaints. Alan Eustace retired, as everyone expected. Andy Rubin made some ill-faited acquisitions of Motorola and Boston Dynamics that lost him a lot of cred, and then the nail in his coffin was when the media discovered his sex dungeon [2][3]. GFiber failed to gain significant traction, so Milo wasn't really a viable successor candidate (arguably he wasn't really in the running, and was there just to run Google's ISP ambitions). Anthony Levandowski stole Google's trade secrets on self-driving cars and sold them to Uber; he was criminally convicted for this but was pardoned by President Trump and is now founding a religion [4]. Sebastion Thrun left to found Udacity. Sundar, meanwhile, steadily delivered on Toolbar, and then Chrome, and then took over Android when Andy Rubin was ousted, and steadily improved Android as well. He was unremarkable on the product front, but had a reputation as a peacemaker among Google's more volatile execs, as well as a very good translator of Larry's brilliant ideas into terms that mere mortals could understand. When he became CEO, it wasn't because he was remarkable, but because he was unremarkable enough to manage a number of remarkable personalities that had the egos to go along with it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Eustace#Stratosphere_jump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Eustace#Stratosphere_jump [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-paid-35million-former-executive-amit-singhal-accused-sexual-harassment/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-paid-35million-former-ex... [3] https://mashable.com/article/andy-rubin-sex-ring-court-docs https://mashable.com/article/andy-rubin-sex-ring-court-docs [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Levandowski#Criminal_conviction_and_pardon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Levandowski#Criminal_c...

Amazing how these are two of the most powerful men currently in existence and they bicker like children.

by pesus 5mo ago

Amazing how these are two of the most powerful men currently in existence and they bicker like children.

api 5mo ago

International politics is familiar to anyone who has supervised a group of 2-4 year olds.

jMyles 5mo ago

It's no surprise; immense power precludes maturity.

lesuorac 5mo ago

Growing older is mandatory, growing up is not.

sethops1 5mo ago
Especially if you possess obscene wealth and surround yourself with sycophants.

surgical_fire 5mo ago

A good reminder to not treat rich retards as visionaries just because they happen to be rich.

afavour 5mo ago

This is what happens when you’ve spent most of your adult life being told you’re an unparalleled genius. Expect it to get worse in the AI era because it comes with flattery as default.

sixtyj 5mo ago
I’d feel at ease if people like them didn’t have guns - luckily, they don’t have a briefcase with a red button.
- pseudohadamard 5mo ago
  I'd be quite happy for them to have guns, then they could settle it in the traditional two men enter, one man leaves format and stop wasting everyone's time. Well, ideally in their case, no man leaves, but getting rid of half of them would be a good start.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

m463 5mo ago

Your statement seems to imply altman is comparable in power to musk.

nostrademons 5mo ago
This is probably true, given his history with YCombinator, ties to Thiel and Microsoft, leadership of OpenAI, and other investments in Reddit, AirBnB, Stripe, and others. Power doesn't always look like what you think it does.
- m463 5mo ago
  I don't buy it, even a little. Seems like those comparisons where "some issue" should weigh against "opposing viewpoint" as if they should be equal. Although money might not be a proxy, musk is #1 net worth, altman isn't top 1000.
  - keeda 5mo ago
    Agreed, we've seen the kind of world-power level shenanigans that Elon can pull. He's directly messing with governments, manipulating markets, and even influencing the course of armed conflicts by controlling StarLink. Altman can only dream of that kind of power. Which he well might be doing, but he strikes me more as the type to pursue conventional political power.

nostrademons 5mo ago

That's probably why they are two of the most powerful men currently in existence. When there is something genuinely acknowledged as being valuable - and a $900B company certainly qualifies - people are going to fight over it. Only natural, because in most cases the way to get power is to fight for things that will make you powerful. Just look at the history of Facebook or Twitter or Google Chauffeur/Waymo or Cisco or the U.S. presidency. When you get wealth and power without fighting, it's usually because you managed to identify something that would eventually make you powerful without anyone else realizing that it's important, until you become too big to overthrow. This is the story of the Google founders or E-bay or Github or...I can't really think of others, it's a pretty rare path to success. Either that, or seem non-threatening and mild-mannered enough that nobody attacks you and then be the last one standing after all the combative types have destroyed each other, like how Sundar got to be CEO of Alphabet or Bran Stark won the Seven Kingdoms.

htrp 5mo ago
> Sundar got to be CEO of Alphabet any background on the game of thrones played inside google for Sundar to get there?
- nostrademons 5mo ago
  Google's executive leadership team in the late 2000s to early 2010s famously consisted of a number of very strong and ambitious personalities. Amit Singhal ran Search Eng; Marissa Mayer ran Search PM/UX; the two of them famously did not get along, to the point where they would actively undermine each others' decisions. Alan Eustace was over them and often responsible for mediating, but he was close to retirement (which he later did to set the world record for highest skydive [1]). Sundar started by running the Google Toolbar efforts and then Chrome. Andy Rubin was in charge of Android. Urs seemed content to run hardware and datacenter ops; he's one of the non-combative ones, and is still there now though he's semi-retired. Likewise with Susan Wojcicki and Ads. Milo Medin had been brought in from Excite@Home to lead Google Fiber. Sebastian Thrun and Anthony Levandowski had been brought in from acquisitions to form Google Chauffeur (now Waymo). Over the 5 years between 2010-2015, the search PM/TLM org chain basically revolted and said "We can't get anything done when Marissa tells us to do it one way and Amit says no, we have to do it another way". Marissa was moved to run Geo and then eventually left to become CEO of Yahoo. Amit himself got canned over a few sexual harassment complaints. Alan Eustace retired, as everyone expected. Andy Rubin made some ill-faited acquisitions of Motorola and Boston Dynamics that lost him a lot of cred, and then the nail in his coffin was when the media discovered his sex dungeon [2][3]. GFiber failed to gain significant traction, so Milo wasn't really a viable successor candidate (arguably he wasn't really in the running, and was there just to run Google's ISP ambitions). Anthony Levandowski stole Google's trade secrets on self-driving cars and sold them to Uber; he was criminally convicted for this but was pardoned by President Trump and is now founding a religion [4]. Sebastion Thrun left to found Udacity. Sundar, meanwhile, steadily delivered on Toolbar, and then Chrome, and then took over Android when Andy Rubin was ousted, and steadily improved Android as well. He was unremarkable on the product front, but had a reputation as a peacemaker among Google's more volatile execs, as well as a very good translator of Larry's brilliant ideas into terms that mere mortals could understand. When he became CEO, it wasn't because he was remarkable, but because he was unremarkable enough to manage a number of remarkable personalities that had the egos to go along with it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Eustace#Stratosphere_jump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Eustace#Stratosphere_jump [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-paid-35million-former-executive-amit-singhal-accused-sexual-harassment/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-paid-35million-former-ex... [3] https://mashable.com/article/andy-rubin-sex-ring-court-docs https://mashable.com/article/andy-rubin-sex-ring-court-docs [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Levandowski#Criminal_conviction_and_pardon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Levandowski#Criminal_c...