"King of the Cannibals": How Sam Altman Took over Silicon Valley

So, what I care about is a true lens into how we will be getting to the next step in the path.

Thats all I care about...

And obviously SA is a master at ensuring the engineers in his harem are well fed (paid).

But its really important to note who his closest bodies are in his orbit. There is no question about Thiels propensity for imbuing his views in his interests - and, personally, I'd really like to know what SA's goals and views and desires are especially WRT how they are colored by those he trusts, or advises him, such as Thiel.

Its critically important to see the path ahead - because there is no going back from the level of entanglement AI is causing, and will cause. I love how Tristan said it regarding AI, and where it is today

>"It the worst it will ever be" (meaning its only going to get stronger and more entangled, and thus, this is the only optimal time to check our rudder)

And SA and Thiel have a solid grasp on the inputs to that rudder.

I hope that all the youngin's in tech (like the actual teenagers, like my children) are really paying attention to where we are in tech history with AI in general - and with OpenAI in particular - as SA can attempt to look like a Carnegie but actually be a Rockefeller.

Serious answer then.

The reality is that the higher the pay, the less it stings when people screw you over. If OpenAI was a low pay startup, Ilya would probably feel a lot more bitter about what happened. People care for various reasons. You don't need to care, because you actually already have what I described above, because of three reasons:

1. the work that you did and the country in which you did it

2. the people you were surrounded with while you were doing it

3. the culture around it, especially the US is very vocal about what they achieve, which automatically became a huge (possibly) unintentional mutual marketing platform for you and your friends.

There are plenty of security people that have contributed to the security community just as much as you, but make a fraction of the money. Good for you, honestly, but not everyone has had those opportunities. For many of us(I for example grew up in Germany as an immigrant), the predominant culture is to not invest in people like us(very different from the valley), and to make sure to constantly tell them that they can only be successful if they are good worker bees. It took someone convincing me to leave to the UK to realize that.

I want to know and improve, because I have made several people and institutions rich or contributed to their fame, because of whatever work I did or whatever thing I reverse engineered, and got ultimately burned with zero credit.

LLM's would exist with or without OpenAI, but it's absolutely fascinating that Sam how somehow managed to convince the world(outside of a big scientific and engineering niche) that ChatGPT would not have happened without him, but that conversely everyone at ChatGPT is disposable. Even if you don't care about Sam in general it may be worth caring about it in some fashion, when he's lobbying on Capitol Hill to limit access to non regulated AI.

It's only natural for me to want to learn some of it, to at least protect myself in the future.

So I think for PR or whatever the same thing would work, simply deciding to become skilled in this area and you will naturally begin to pick up the patterns already present in your reality.