Sama: I feel so bad about advice I gave while running YC I might delete my blog

His career advice was not actionable. It was the equivalent of, "To win at chess, make sure that you select the best move every turn." I'm convinced he was just in the right place at the right time with support from incredible people to be successful, circumstances that are impossible to deliberately replicate.

I've seen a number of blogs that automatically add a banner to the top of posts over a year old, something like: "this post is over a old and may not align with my current views"

But really I think it would be good for him to post a new entry with a brief overview of what his views are now, and link to that from a banner.

With all these types of advice, it's subjective and the motivation of the person giving the advice is important to take into account when considering said advice.

Can we please stop erasing history. Add context to it instead.

It’s perfectly fine to acknowledge that we were deeply flawed individuals in the past. Erasing history makes it so much more difficult to learn from it.

Being insecure about what you wrote or said in the past is 100% normal part of putting yourself out in the public. When you go back and actually read it then it’s usually never as bad as you remember.

Even if you are more wise today it doesn’t mean other people at prior stages of your earlier development won’t benefit from the immediate perspective you likely lack now.

That’s just the human brain at work.

I realize this isn't a high quality comment, but half a year ago I kept confusing Sam Altman with Steve Huffman. I was really confused for a while when Chat GPT took off.

(Like, how did this spez person go from mass-manipulating a production database containing the comments of hundreds of millions customers' comments to this...)

Almost exactly the same age, look kinda similar, have kinda similar backgrounds, both YC-backed, similar-sounding last names, have first names that begin with the same letter.

Every time I accidentally read a Twitter thread I'm thankful I'm not on Twitter.

He's just going to pretend it was never a non-profit and he never deceived donors.

I feel like the experience he’s using as a counter-example to his old YC advice is reliant on having the connections that come with running YC. Who else can raise a billion dollars and work four years without releasing a product?

Yes, if you happen to have access to huge amounts of money and social capital, then you may not need to deliver/sell a product in the same time frame as people who don’t have those advantages. How does this help me?

Im certain his advice was good when companies like airbnb could get away with launching without a functional product and handling everything via phone calls

I’m like 95%, but not 100%, sure this is not a deep fake. Is there any corroborating evidence that he actually said this? If true, it should be easy, since it looks like a pretty well attended event.

Alternatively, I would love some pointers for spreading deep fakes at this stage of technology. I am no expert, but the counterintuitive statement makes me double check.

sama, please don't delete your blog. I appreciate reading gems like this one: https://blog.samaltman.com/productivity

What led to the realization that it was all crap?