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Comment by CyberRabbi | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

I'm not sure why you think "HN staff" down ranked this, it's on the front page for me.

But more to the point, I kind of hate it when someone posts something with an obvious negative/snarky context and then defenders try to pretend "he was just asking a valid question!" In my opinion this would be a much better, and more valid post, if the title were simply "What qualifications led Sam Altman to be CEO of OpenAI" or some such.

And, by the way, your assumptions are wrong, pg has written posts on why he thinks sama is one of the most impressive people he's ever met - they even changed the YC rules after him to make the percentage stake that YC takes standardized and non-negotiable because sama was such a good negotiator.

> And, by the way, your assumptions are wrong, pg has written posts on why he thinks sama is one of the most impressive people he's ever met - they even changed the YC rules after him to make the percentage stake that YC takes standardized and non-negotiable because sama was such a good negotiator.

I don't doubt that sama is talented. What's unexpected to me is that there have been many much more successful YC alums than sama yet PG essentially chose him as his successor. It's not unheard of but you'd expect merit amongst startup founders to be rooted in their ability to build large companies and not on other qualifications or abilities in the abstract.

If you take it as read that YC is not run by complete idiots then you may also realize that they probably made some effort to ensure that their decision was the right one. That you aren't privilege to that information is perfectly fine, they are under no obligation to open the books on their selection process and/or on any assistance provided to Sam afterwards. The main giveaway is that you think that a successful YC alumn by your standard would automatically be more qualified to run YC, which is not at all like any one of the companies that YC has invested in. Besides that unless a company exists a typical YC alumn will be running their company, which is typically a >> full time job for those companies that are successful.

> they even changed the YC rules after him to make the percentage stake that YC takes standardized and non-negotiable because sama was such a good negotiator.

I don't think this is accurate. The first time I did YC they took 7% (2008). The second time PG offered me 3%. This was 2009, after SamA did YC.

Spot on.

Fair comment, I am the OP and I regret the way I titled the post (though it was a bit click baity in hopes of getting good discussion)

I think the tone of the question is a bit more aggressive than it could be. The same question could have been asking without implying Sam Altman is incompetent (I doubt it).

OP think he doesn’t fit the profile required to be head of OpenAI, but, it seems, he’s been quite successful there. It’s easy to judge someone by failed projects but that underestimates one key factor for success: luck. It could be he failed for lack of luck and that he got the job by having a combination of relationships, skills, and luck.

It seems to me OP doesn’t mean incompetent but more like unqualified for that type of position. The best answer to that is to back it up by data that he’s qualified if it is so

The best answer is to realize that you probably don't have access to that data even if it exists. This is a nonsense question.

I'm not sure what that kind of data would even look like.

How does HN staff downrank a post and how would you know if they did it?

This post is currently on the front page but immediately after it was first posted and hit the front page, it was downranked to the second page.

Not sure why you're immediately accusing HN staff, anyone past a certain level of karma can flag a topic and cause it to drop significantly.

There have been many posts and explanations of how the moderators will modify the order of the first page. Sometimes to consolidate duplicates. But often just of their own whims. While this site has an excellent content posted usually, it is not a fully transparent voting system.

But explicitly not on the topic of YC and YC related companies.

That said this kind of veiled personal attack is really not nice.

Of course but "how would you know if they did it?"

It's extremely unlikely that any HN staff "downranked" this post, but I certainly flagged it, and I assume lots of other people did, too. I'm no fan of Altman's, but stories like this are just toxic drama.

I disagree with your flag, but applaud you for publicly stating you flagged it, and stating why you flagged it.

I disagree because I think stories like this can cause interesting information to rise up. As dang's profile says "Conflict is essential to human life"

I can see many ways in which you could achieve much the same effect without the downsides.

I'm not HN staff and flagged, this, see other comment for my reasons why. HN staff as a rule stays very far away from anything questioning YC or YC companies per Paul's instructions.

Your assumption has to the best of my knowledge no basis in fact.

I disagree with your flag, but applaud you for stating why you flagged it.

I also vouched for your comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34471998, which should not have been flagged.

Posts without a link are always penalized automatically in the rankings. Some overdiscussed topics are as well I believe so they may be at work. Nobody from HN would have touched it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com