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Comment by Obscurity4340 | Hacker News Reader

What makes Sam Altman so damn special in this regard? Why is he immune to all these same adversarial interests and inputs where anyone else would be imperiled?

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It's more "how" than "who" (although "who" also matters)

If the board talked to Altman and said, "hey this is the wrong direction" or "it's moving too fast." Then if they'd given him a chance to adjust. And only if they were unable to agree after a reasonable time, then they crafted a plan to responsibly change leadership after a transition period, that'd probably be fine.

But instead they just bounced him randomly and called him a liar publicly without any thought on who would step in. Who would want to work for them?

He's honestly a bit more "sympathetic" than this incorporeal Board even thought there is innuendo he's awful and there's obviously accusations re:sister altho she seems a little waffley based on what I've resd about her comments on the matter

I think to a certain extent they knew how weak they were. They knew if it turned into a long drawn out protracted fight in public it would be bad for them. You can imagine it now - David Sacks going on a long rant about how they don't have skin in the game and they're woke etc. etc. What the board was there to do - act as a check on the for-profit part of the company, goes basically directly against what most people in silicon valley want. So I don't think it's unreasonable that they thought they needed to move before Sam shored up support from investors etc.

Because he's the former president of YC. One of the powerful people you'd be pissing of by doing this is Sam Altman.

Don’t think the former CEO of GitHub is going to be that alarmed about upsetting Sam Altman. You may be seeing their decision making through the lens of a no-name founder applying to YC for their first cheque.

Can he like...hack my HN account aha? That would be the extent of my concern or fear of him

Well he could have you shadowbanned on every platform except Onlyfans and Pornhub.

How so? Yallenge accepted

Edit: moar elaboration please

I think the implication is that he could “talk to his friends”, more than doing things directly.

Ya but that still ain't gonna tell them anything? Who uses "real" credentials anymore?

Also, why doesn't she just hire a lawyer to help her sign up ?

This is what his sister said, they are just trolling I think.

wat

His sister has been reported to say that Sam Altman banned her from every platform except those two. It's been reported she might struggle with mental issues, though who knows what happened. So I'm pretty sure whoever said that was just trolling.

How the hell does that work? Why can't she use a VPN and not use her real identity like the rest of us? Does she insist on assuming her rightful place as an Altman?

Edit: she seriously said that re:Pornhub?! What is her association with porn and why would she bring that up?

Edit: unless the words came from her mouth, I wouldn't blow it up any further

I don't know any of these people, just came across this stuff in the last couple of days and wanted to flag the possible troll, but here you go: https://twitter.com/phuckfilosophy/status/170997828542437802...

Its weird cuz he's gay so its duly disturbing if they shared in that discovery and also talked to Mom and Dad about it. This whole situstion sounds like it may have sufficient legs to moonlight as an Aristocrats joke

Is there any such thing as like a reverse class action suit but like from one-to-many like her context would sort of fit in? Can one person do like an omnibus lawsuit against a bunch of companies for a common basis? That would very legal and very cool!

How does that fit in with the fact he's gay? That timeline better be tight and also that's kind of a not great thing for her. Like that's how they both discovered he was gay?

Yep, I'm trolling. Thought it was obvious, but apparently not.

Sounds like an easy way to get off of social media!

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Even federated platforms, or private ones that I run on my own? How does that work? Please be precise when you say "every".

Defederate me harder, Altman

How would that benefit him other than discrediting his sister? She's not 1000% credible already in my view based on the tenor of her claims but I'm open to correction.

I'd be more worried that all your employees don't want you there, and you'll be in for a lot of cold shoulder meetings every day. Doesn't sound like fun.

The "powerful" people outside, matter a lot less. No matter what you do, if you're influential, about half the powerful will hate you and half will love you.

Its like Mr. Burns relying on the competing diseases to bottleneck his death

What does YC have to do with OpenAI?

Sam Altman was President of YC and CEO of OpenAI.

And...?

Are you trolling? I answered your question in the clearest way I could think to.

I have no idea what the actual implications are of the relation. But it's there and it's suggested his network of friends from YC could bolster his position with OpenAI. No idea if that's true, but it's not like it is so strange a notion that it merits "playing dumb" like you're doing.

It just seems like such a weird claim. Like, does she have receipts to prove all these platforms are denying her? It just seems to be stretching credulity and I can't see how its possible for them to get this granular about it. I dunno, she needs to substantiate these things.

Appeal to hallucinated authority

Unlike my objection to the use of the concept of hullucination in relation to the output of LLMs, I concur here!

If 90% of the employees who signed the letter to dismiss the board would follow him, he is kind of special right now. Or maybe anyone in their right mind would side with the ousted CEO rather than an impulsive board.

Am ai a bad person for considering this a reasonable heuristic for concluding the wrong decision was made and also that he may very well be the leader we need for OpenAI rather than the leader we deserve or would ideally best comport in that role?

Maybe 90% of employees doesn't follow Sam specifically, but are appalled by the board's behavior?

It’s simply greed:

OAI employees have $5-20m+ equity packages and want that number to grow, and they trust the guy who’s made himself the face of the company through its growth

The large financial stakes of OAI employees is more powerful than ideas about morality or idealism that are offered as the reasons here

They have an opportunity to sell equity next month as well in a second offering and obviously don’t want to wipe out that value suddenly. The workers stand to make hugely generational wealth overnight. Of course that’s on their mind as otherwise wage earners.

It seems also similar to that old conspiracy thing where "Nobody talks [acts unilaterally] and everyone escspes justice"

Imagine the huge change the company took. They went from negotiating on a deal which would turn OpenAI into an 80 billion dollar company to this deal may no longer going through.

You would then be working under this huge change with a CEO with a mission to "slow down" and likely feeling much more constrained by the board. Altman would likely push back a lot more.

Momentum

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