Sam Altman Considering Run for CA Governor
sfchronicle.com
sfchronicle.com
SF Chronicle article: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/williesworld/article/The-...
Recode article that links the to the SF Chronicle article: https://www.recode.net/2017/5/14/15638046/willie-brown-colum... with the title 'Sam Altman for governor?'
My submission (now flagged): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14337211
I originally found the Recode article from http://techmeme.com/river . Here is a screenshot as of 5:20 PM EDT: https://imgur.com/a/xJFcS
In hindsight, I should have used Techmeme's description as the title of my submission, but I did not think of that at all at the time. I feel as though that users should be able to post the original title and a possibly editorialized version in cases where the original title is suspect, but the article itself has some newsworthy merit.
I hope it does not cause any significant changes to the community here, either from signs of censoring criticism or the topic consistently derailing threads. Every single online community I am apart of is getting wrapped up more and more into American politics it seems.
Skills that would be useful as governor:
* Learning new things quickly
* Running and improving existing organizations
* Hiring great people and building teams
* Identifying the most important and undervalued things to work on or invest in
Sam:
* Learning new things - e.g. with nuclear power, see comments by nuclear power founder https://blog.ycombinator.com/jacob-dewitte-oklo-interview/
* Running and improving existing organizations - see YC since 2014
* Hiring great people and building teams - YC since 2014, https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-hire, YC Research organizations like OpenAI
* Identifying the most important and undervalued things to work on or invest in - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman#Angel_Investing
I'd certainly like these attributes in my governor!
Sam Altman is obviously an impressive, wealthy & ambitious guy. However, he is 32 & has literally zero experience in CA state government & politics. Sure, Altman has raised money for Hillary, but, no one knows better than Willie how far a distance it is from a Hillary fundraiser at his home to a pancake breakfast at a labor union in Sacramento. Brown even acknowledges that it’s been an unsuccessful pattern for wealthy tech guys. Why would anyone who knows anything about California politics (let alone Willie Brown) recommend that a virtually unknown wealthy 32 year old with no relevant experience run for governor of any state, let alone California? Has Brown signed on to be a paid advisor for Altman’s campaign?
Gavin Newsom, on the other hand, is also wealthy & young(ish) but has decades of experience. As Brown well knows, Newsom could face actual competition from Kamala Harris, Antonio Villaraigosa or even Tom Steyer--none of whom are political novices.
That said, its fantastic that Altman has political aspirations. And I hope many people do encourage him to pursue public service. But why wouldn't Altman start out by running for State Assembly or Congress?
I hope Altman asks himself why Willie Brown didn't say exactly this to him--& that actually, thankfully, in his experience, California is beyond unlikely to elect a 32 year old with no experience as its governor.
Frankly, deciding to run for governor as a wealthy 32 year old with no experience in government or politics, suggests that Altman, at least presently, lacks the judgment being governor of CA requires. Its concerning that Altman himself would not know as much --let alone think that in the age of Trump, that such a campaign could be successful in CA--and even more so that he'd surround himself with folks that wouldn't tell him as much.
To be clear, my criticism is not cynicism or hate. I am critical because I admire Altman (& separately, differently, Brown) & think he can do better. But, it'll take surrounding himself with folks who challenge him, not those who benefit from agreeing with him. Maybe this'll help him learn as much?
(Admittedly Pete Wilson and Gray Davis were both career politicians with plenty of CA experience, and both terrible – we might say that decades of experience is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a great governor.)
If Altman is serious, he should try running for state legislature first.
If this is a play to get younger people to pay attention to government, also an OK idea.
Seems like an OK idea.
Granted, both had deep experience in politics before cutting their skin in the game and staking themselves out in a major way. But I no longer see age and perceived experience as a major obstacle to policy-making and electability -- especially in an age where most people are yearning for a different kind of politics.
"As part of the settlement, Cruise and its founder Kyle Vogt now acknowledge that Guillory was a cofounder of the company."[2]
On top of that, Sam's post originally included the statement "it’s important to the way Silicon Valley works that such behavior not be tolerated" in reference to Guillory fighting for his recognition, which he later removed.[3]
This is not someone I would support for any sort of public office.
EDIT: He's not above criticism, folks. If you disagree with me, how about replying and explaining instead of down-voting?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11490188
[2] http://www.businessinsider.com/car-startup-cruise-settles-le...
> the chances of the publicly known story being accurate are pretty slim
That's empty speculation. If that's the only defense for his actions then there isn't any.
It's going to take a lot more than that to convince people to vote for him.
If this implies using technology to deliver greater public services more efficiently, it is unlikely to solve structural inequality.
If you deliver public services more effectively and make California a more attractive place to live, then land values will rise, and landowners and mortgage investors can charge even higher rent.
The primary driver of inequality is housing costs and the only combination which would allow for high public spending on services and low rent paid to landholders and banks is switching state revenue from income, sales, and personal property taxes to a land value tax.
You can incentivize an incremental switch to land value taxation by sponsoring legislation which would allow residents to obtain an exemption from all state taxes if they lived in a county which made quarterly payments to the state on their behalf.
If a county can figure out how to get around Proposition 13 and raise local revenues from quarterly assessed unimproved land values sufficient to pay for both local and state services, it should be allowed to forward a portion of the money to the state in exchange for exemptions from state taxes for residents.
From a technical standpoint, it would be great if there was a public map of a single land value tax rate for every parcel of land in the state. However private developers could build this using data published by the county governments.
If he were at all effective, I'd consider ending my California boycott. I'm concerned that unless the rest of state government is fixed, including Prop 13 and the voter initiative system in general, California is just too fucked to be fixed even by a great Governor, though.
He then fired his chief of staff and replaced her with a Democrat and governed from the center, even from the center left. I preferred him to Gray Davis since Davis was so in bed with the prison guards union that he never used his clemency powers for fear it would cost a prison guard job.
A few years later, in 2010 Schwarzenegger dusted off the redistricting initiative and it passed.
Kingmaker, no. And Brown is definitely not a kingmaker if you want to run statewide. I doubt he has any pull in LA or the Central Valley. Any at all.
Frankly, this bores me. If Altman wants to run for office, he should start a little lower and get a little experience. At 32, I don't count a social networking startup and an incubator for much of a resume especially with respect to running the government of the 6th largest economy in the world.
I came here to say the same thing. I am not American but politics is pretty much the same all over the world nowadays.
Effective leadership in political positions demands specialized knowledge and skills developed over long periods of time. This is so often ignored. Socio-economic problems do not succumb to neat textbook solutions. The real world is messy
To add to my previous points.
Many people labor under the misconception that solutions are lacking to many problems they face in their communities and the job of the politician is to magically conjure them. This is false.
There are some issues with no clear way to solve them but these are the minority. For the vast majority of problems(think teacher shortages, healthcare costs, pollution, government corruption etc) solutions exist: it is the political will and organization to implement them that is lacking.
And sometimes it is. Sometimes seniority beats sanity, sometimes self-interest beats public interest.
But, taking the view from the other side, the establishment sees an endless parade of bold, brilliant, I'm-the-exception types running up to knock it down. In such a position they might be forgiven, after the dozenth encounter with yet another visionary, for rolling their eyes.
And I imagine that the California establishment has seen one or two techno-utopians by now.
At the rate things are currently going, I'd be happy with someone having that kind of résumé for president.
As the son of a beloved governor, Brown not only grew up in state politics, but also devoted his career to law & government. After winning a few Democratic party elections, he ran for & served on LA Community College Board (which had just been created...coincidentally, his father actually created the UC system when he was governor) & then ran for & won the statewide office that would best prepare him to serve as governor.
Altman has no law degree or legislative experience, no background or education in government, and has never run for office. Founding a company and running an incubator is fantastic, but not sure why it'd be comparable to the legal, government or legislative experience Brown had when he first ran for governor.
There's a reason that rich folk who get elected are nominated by a major party.
It's because in a voluntary voting system, a large "Get Out The Vote" machine is necessary, even though it's not sufficient.
You don't get that machine with machine learning. You get it with thousands of organised volunteers managed by experienced party hacks.
Afterwards, having seen where the money goes, I suspect Sam will decide to invest in political consultancies.
(Copied here and modified since this submission has replaced the other submission)