6 ms·

Anonymous source close to the OpenAI situation, according to the Financial Times: "His superpower is getting people onside, shaping narratives, pushing situatio

Anonymous source close to the OpenAI situation, according to the Financial Times: "His superpower is getting people onside, shaping narratives, pushing situations into the shape that work for him." Paul Graham: "Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful."

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Yeah, trying to read between the lines of what pg has said/written about sama (and obviously I'm just some rando bullshitting, so what do I know) it seems like he is genuinely in awe of a lot of Sam's capabilities, but he also has some real concerns about his ethics (e.g. when the report came out relatively recently that Sam was fired as YCom president). Given this background, while I might normally take the comment that "We wanted to get started quickly and the easiest way to do that due to our structure was to put it in Sam's name" at face value, there has been enough past shenanigans that I don't buy that.
- boringg 3y ago
  Well there is the whole debacle last year at openAI. Im starting to get those weird vibes and his history is a bit spotty.
- lupire 3y ago
  The YCombinator application that pg created had a question asking CEOs to tell a story about how they unethical they achieved a goal. He called it "bring naughty" and "hacking a system". Hiring sama wasn't a a surprise twist. sama was who pg knew he wanted.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    > asking CEOs to tell a story about how they unethical they achieved a goal. I know what you're talking about, and in my opinion that's a gross misrepresentation (that, unfortunately, I've often seen repeated). I think people can judge the actual statement on its own merits, from paulgraham.com/founders.html: > 4. Naughtiness > Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination. > Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the most successful alumni, so we asked him what question we could put on the Y Combinator application that would help us discover more people like him. He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications.
archy_ 3y ago
It really is impressive how some people seem to be able to embed themselves so well in an industry. Not many people have the drive to pull it off, even fewer have the circumstances.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

Yeah, trying to read between the lines of what pg has said/written about sama (and obviously I'm just some rando bullshitting, so what do I know) it seems like he is genuinely in awe of a lot of Sam's capabilities, but he also has some real concerns about his ethics (e.g. when the report came out relatively recently that Sam was fired as YCom president). Given this background, while I might normally take the comment that "We wanted to get started quickly and the easiest way to do that due to our structure was to put it in Sam's name" at face value, there has been enough past shenanigans that I don't buy that.

boringg 3y ago
Well there is the whole debacle last year at openAI. Im starting to get those weird vibes and his history is a bit spotty.
lupire 3y ago
The YCombinator application that pg created had a question asking CEOs to tell a story about how they unethical they achieved a goal. He called it "bring naughty" and "hacking a system". Hiring sama wasn't a a surprise twist. sama was who pg knew he wanted.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > asking CEOs to tell a story about how they unethical they achieved a goal. I know what you're talking about, and in my opinion that's a gross misrepresentation (that, unfortunately, I've often seen repeated). I think people can judge the actual statement on its own merits, from paulgraham.com/founders.html: > 4. Naughtiness > Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination. > Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the most successful alumni, so we asked him what question we could put on the Y Combinator application that would help us discover more people like him. He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications.

archy_ 3y ago

It really is impressive how some people seem to be able to embed themselves so well in an industry. Not many people have the drive to pull it off, even fewer have the circumstances.