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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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)

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