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Comment by habosa | Hacker News Reader

I hesitate to ask on HN (given that this is an arm of YC) but can anyone explain the rise of Sam?

He had a startup that seemingly had an uninteresting exit (raised 30M sold for 43M). Then he’s somehow PG’s protege and the role of YC president is invented for him.

Next thing you know he’s attempting a replacement for traditional currencies (worldcoin) and running the most technologically significant startup in the world (OpenAI) funded by everyone from Elon Musk to Microsoft.

Meanwhile he’s got infinite side hustles like the one in this article.

Obviously a guy that people trust with their money but from my perspective (nowhere near his circles) there are some missing pieces in this meteoric rise.

Anyone know of a resource to help me fill in the gaps?

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He seems to be very good at making people think he is competent and get people to trust him.

Not sure how he does that, but I've noticed he does a lot of interviews and becomes the face of things, many does that though so there is probably much more to it.

I think he's incredibly good with people or networking in some way. Paul Graham said “Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful.”

I don't have any resources to help and I'm also interested if anyone knows anything.

> Paul Graham said “Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful.”

Are you paraphrasing, or did he say that verbatim? Not attacking your statement, just curious. I always am reminded of this part from a pg essay:

> Sam Altman has it. You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king. If you're Sam Altman, you don't have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without them. (He wasn't, and he did.) Not everyone has Sam's deal-making ability. I myself don't. But if you don't, you can let the numbers speak for you.

http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html

That is a direct quote from Graham.

Even before taking over as President at YC, he was incredibly helpful to a bunch of YC founders and others doing startups -- a combination of willingness to help, and knowing what to do/how to do it, plus being able to do it with high leverage. Mostly weird/unpleasant situations (like the OpenAI drama was, but at a much smaller scale). Doing that for several years before YC President, then presumably continuing to do so while YC President (I'd mostly drifted away from YC by then), goes a long way to explain everything.

The ruling class can always find a great use for extremely ambitious and energetic leaders who are absolutely, fundamentally, and ruthlessly committed to the interests of the ruling class.

Walter Isaacson bio in 3..2..1

As a pleb, the article linked below is his biggest accomplishment that I know of, and I am not being sarcastic:

https://blog.samaltman.com/productivity

I do think it's cool that he is investing in fusion and life extension, and it seems "reasonable". Obviously, as a pleb, it's very hard for me to know what's reasonable.

As a side note, the whole concept of going from pleb to someone is fascinating, though I do think it's myth most of the time (e.g. Musk, Bezos, Caesar, Alexander the Great, etc).

edit: Just skimmed his bio again. Kind of fascinating how one person grinds code and begs to be promoted to senior / architect and another is directing billions.

Sam, if you are here, drop some advice.

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