Becoming CTO at OpenAI (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Becoming CTO at OpenAI (2017)

blog.gregbrockman.com

80 pointsjxub20 comments

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Just casually having dinner with Elon Musk and Sam Altman, as one does.

Not _so_ casual.

> This was my first time meeting Elon and Ilya, and I strongly remember my impressions of both.

It makes sense given Sam Altman runs the most renowned accelerator in the world and Elon has a big interest in AI.

And yes, I know you're joking but it piqued my interest.

Half-joking. I read that sentence and couldn't help but groan because it came across as so damn privileged.

If Elon was his uncle, that would be privilege. But Greg Brockman is a MIT and Harvard grad, and was CTO of Stripe for 5 years (he was employee #4).

Yes: smart, successful people get dinner together and talk about projects. That's not privilege, that's just how it works. Is Elon only supposed to get dinner with a randomly selected person every night?

(For what it's worth, I believe nobody has done as much to open up Silicon Valley to anyone, regardless of connections, as YC has. Between Sam and Stripe, he was there due to YC connections.)

Yes, I found much of the article had similar problems with tone.

CTO of well known tech company (Stripe) speak with their investor and a person looking to poach him.

Am I supposed to be collecting the baseball cards of Silicon Valley's elite?

That context is extremely relevant in this case.

Yes I understand the relevance but I am not a person reading that blog post with that context. The context I have is this:

Here I am, some guy browsing hacker news. Oh look, some other guy wrote a blog post on becoming a CTO. I will click on that. Oh, he had dinner with Elon Musk and Sam Altman and came up with his idea with them. Sounds like something I will never do in my life. Next.

I hope HN can get over the sleight of me not showing proper deference to the masters of the universe.

Don’t you think in some ways it’s the opposite of what you’re describing?

I mean to me they’re “just” people. Successful people but just people. I may or may not have lunch with them.

You passing on because you would “never” do that in your life seems to be the deification. And not sure why you think you wouldn’t. Seems like it could happen easily if there was a reason for it.

Are they "just" people? I'm not sure.

I've worked with or been around some of these top people before and, with few exceptions, they seem to have some kind of aura or something. I can't explain it exactly but it's disquieting.

would they have the same aura if you didn’t know who they were?

In any case I am not saying you should not be impressed by their accomplishments. But ... lunch? Come on!

The aura comes from other people putting them on a pedestal. The tech world is surprisingly small and you don't have to be an SV elite to meet folks at this level.

I understand what you're saying, but I don't think you are correct. Yes these are just people, but to me this is a typical Silicon Valley insider story. It would be more interesting if he was some talented AI researcher or something like that. But no, he's a founder/CTO of a different successful company, so he meets up with other successful people and dreams up the idea for his next successful idea. And of course there will be no issues with funding or finding the best people, he already has those cards in his pocket.

It’s just the way they talk because it becomes normal for them. One of my friends candidly said I should be friends with a person in a conversation, the persons writing made the news. Those two were friends, but the writer also happened to the founder of a major tech company. Not exactly in my personal circle lol. But my friend said it so normally because that’s who she hangs out with now. Don’t count that against her or any privilege. Just meeting the right people to introduce you to more people. And suddenly it becomes normal.

I mean. You brought up the point of dining with two Silicon Valley elites in the first place. Elon is more famous, but most people wouldn’t know Sam.

This post is incredibly motivating! I really long back to the days of working in start-up with the smartest people around. Maybe time for that again...

It's nice to hear some of the back story behind OpenAI, especially since they seem to be making so much progress lately. It would make a nice documentary some day.

I love the way you solicit applicants for the various jobs! I think I'm going to borrow that for my own company. No silly questions, just a couple of focused paragraphs about yourself that relates to the work you'll be doing.

Thanks!

Probably about time to write an update. Things have progressed quite a bit since this post :).

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