[HN Gopher] I got tired of hearing that YC fired Sam, so here's ...
___________________________________________________________________
I got tired of hearing that YC fired Sam, so here's what actually
happened
Author : hakanderyal
Score : 590 points
Date : 2024-05-30 09:19 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| piker wrote:
| I start a side gig and my employer tells me to choose the side
| gig or my employment. I choose side gig and lose employment. I am
| fired.
| raverbashing wrote:
| PG clarified (on the thread) that if he chose the other way
| (staying on YC) it would have been fine with them as well
| cthalupa wrote:
| That is the exact scenario covered in the post you are
| replying to.
| aaronharnly wrote:
| That phrasing struck me as oddly limp. They would have been
| "fine" for their president to stay At his job? That's not
| exactly a strong statement of support. If my boss told me
| they'd be "fine" if I stayed at my job I'd be pretty worried.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yeah I agree with this. And you probably know when it's
| time to move on for one reason or another
| robertlagrant wrote:
| You're overanalysing something that wasn't the actual word
| used, and is an accurate word. We might all be a bit used
| to hyperbole, but the lack of it doesn't imply anything.
| Stop reading into it.
| tasuki wrote:
| Indeed, and consider that pg is British. Not all nations
| share the American need for hyperbole. Some even look
| down on it.
|
| If my boss told me he was "fine with me staying at my
| job", I'd take it to mean that they were fine with me
| staying at my job.
| pydry wrote:
| It's also the kind of thing you'd say if you knew that
| their heart isn't in it.
|
| I don't think this press release (is it that?) does a very
| good job of dispelling the rumors that it wasn't entirely
| mutual, though. He ought to have said something like
| "delighted to have him stay".
| piker wrote:
| pg disputing the narrative that Sam was forced out for being
| dishonest is totally valid, there is just some real interesting
| language parsing here to rule this not a "firing". He lost
| employment at his employer's behest and it wasn't a layoff.
| consp wrote:
| > pg disputing the narrative that Sam was forced out for
| being dishonest
|
| Yet he doesn't do that (in this tweet) as it's only an
| alternative reason and does not address those accusations.
| cies wrote:
| I think Sam has amassed a net worth enough to live
| comfortably not having to work another day in his life.
|
| To me that changes the meaning of "fired". I'd read it as
| "co-entrepeneurs parting ways". Yes one of the co-
| entrepeneurs has more say in who stays and who goes. But even
| if there was an employment contract, I'd see it more as a
| good/bad leave clause when no body loses their much required
| primary source of income.
| cma wrote:
| Wouldn't the same be true of him getting fired from OpenAI
| then? He was never fired since he was independently
| wealthy?
| cies wrote:
| I'm not saying he's technically fired or not (i think
| "fired" is a term with a law-definition).
|
| I'm saying that he prolly has a deal at OpenAI with some
| stock and a good/bad leaver agreement, and a salary.
| Getting fired in this cases is not the same as firing
| someone who has zero stock and needs the jobs to put food
| on the table.
|
| It just does not carry the same weight for me, regardless
| of the lawful definition.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Yeah. The provided explanation certainly sounds like firing to
| me. If he had been performing at a level worthy of his
| continued employment he wouldn't have gotten the ultimatum.
|
| It doesn't sound like he was incapable of doing that - just
| incapable of doing that while also running OpenAI.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| Not that I'm looking to take any side here, but they could
| see it as a conflict of interest, especially given YC may
| wish to invest in competitors, which wouldn't have anything
| to do with performance.
| atsjie wrote:
| It's a bit of stretch to compare a side gig with someone
| becoming the CEO of a for-profit subsidiary.
| rendaw wrote:
| How so? Aren't all side gigs solo entrepreneurial activities?
| asdfaoeu wrote:
| A side gig is something on the side, not your "main gig".
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| If your employer previously tolerated your side gig then it's
| different.
|
| An employer who forces employees to stop working from home or
| leave the company isn't firing them, for example.
| manquer wrote:
| It was involuntary that is the point . It was not Sam idea to
| leave YC at the time
|
| Your remote work example is not different companies ask a
| performance improvement plan they are saying improve your
| performance or leave. That " or leave" doesn't always mean
| you get fired legally , some companies would be more generous
| with severance if you resign voluntarily, but it doesn't
| alter the fact you were asked to do so and effectively were
| fired.
|
| Senior management typically leave by mutual agreement even if
| they "asked to resign".
|
| His employment was not terminated by YC legally yes , that
| would be rare and would happen if there is no trust left that
| he would do so properly when asked to resign, like it
| happened in OpenAI for him .
| taneq wrote:
| I don't think an employer can legally force that, can they?
| They can request that employees stop working from home, and
| they can fire them if they refuse. Forcing them to come to
| the office would be kidnapping.
| belter wrote:
| Then your employer makes a diplomatic tweet, because you are
| known to be a Silicon Valley billionaire with grunges...
| michaelt wrote:
| It does indeed sound a lot like firing. But what if the
| conversation went like this:
|
| PG: Quit your second job or be fired
|
| Altman: You can't fire me, because I quit
|
| PG: Great, as thanks for going quietly I'll tell everyone you
| "weren't fired"
|
| It's a firing for all practical purposes, sure. But
| _technically_ Altman voluntarily resigned.
|
| This is actually somewhat common when firing people - if you
| ever find yourself in a disciplinary meeting with HR and you
| know you're about to get fired, you can just resign right then
| and there, one second before they tell you you're fired, and
| they'll accept. You sacrifice the right to sue for unfair
| dismissal, in exchange they'll tell future employers that you
| left voluntarily and weren't fired.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| They can and will tell future employers that you suck and
| aren't eligible for rehire though. And you lose unemployment
| benefits
| tivert wrote:
| > They can and will tell future employers that you suck and
| aren't eligible for rehire though.
|
| I believe that's increasingly uncommon, I believe due to
| legal risk. I think it's usually the case that HR will only
| verify the bare objective facts of employment: dates of
| service, title, salary, etc.
|
| I also know of at least one company where policy states
| _everyone_ who leaves involuntarily is not eligible for
| rehire, and that includes people who were laid off due to
| downsizing /site closures/etc. So "not eligible for rehire"
| my not indicate any performance or behavioral issues.
| KingMob wrote:
| You also sacrifice unemployment benefits in many cases, which
| costs businesses time to administer and risks fines and
| higher insurance rates. So, a lot of businesses will pressure
| you to quit instead of being fired, since it's easier for
| them.
| mihaaly wrote:
| You chose to be fired, basicly quit.
|
| (this whole terminology debate is so futile and useless, mental
| food for the bored. WTF cares which exact colorful sticker we
| put on disagreements and the consequent parting. It's over,
| carry on.)
| 9dev wrote:
| I live in Germany, a country infamous for its strong employee
| protections. It's very hard to fire someone here. Yet, I don't
| see how this is in any way unjust. Your employer pays you for
| putting your skills and time to their use.
|
| If you start working on a side gig, that will take up a chunk
| of your time and invariably occupy your brain; thus, your
| employer doesn't get their full value out of you anymore. Up to
| a certain degree, employers (have) to tolerate this--in
| Germany, that would be when your performance at your job starts
| to suffer from it. But once your commitment to the side gig
| increases so much that you're about to become CEO, there's no
| reasonable way to claim you can still carry out your
| contractual duties to your employer.
|
| If your employer then offers you to either step down from that
| side gig or lose your employment, that is completely reasonable
| and frankly something you should expect?
|
| Put differently, if you pay me to paint your shed, and after
| finishing the front side I went off and painted my own house
| with the rest of the paint, you certainly wouldn't consider the
| job done or full payment to be justified.
| chris_wot wrote:
| If you do your side gig out of work hours, and it doesn't
| affect your work (and you aren't competing...) then what of
| it?
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Then you are dreaming (because of course running a second
| demanding company will affect your work, in some way, not
| necessarily negatively) but, more importantly, people might
| disagree about the impact and either side would have a hard
| time proving anything. So probably be upfront about the
| rules and make a choice, when you have to.
| eertami wrote:
| Well in Germany specifically it's a legal issue (and some
| other EU countries), because there are labour market laws
| stipulating the maximum amount of time someone can work per
| week (48hrs).
|
| Sure, you can fly under the radar if you're working on your
| own business/start-up by simply lying about the hours
| worked, but if you're doing paid work for another employer
| it will be obvious, and they would not be legally able to
| employ you if total working time goes above 48hrs/week.
| 9dev wrote:
| That may work if you're coding in you're spare time on a
| side project that may turn into a business at some point.
| But even then, you're going to be more tired and drained at
| your main job--humans just aren't capable of working two
| jobs for a prolonged amount of time without one of them
| being negatively affected. Sure, you might be the one out
| of thousands that manages. But most are not.
|
| And we're not talking about creating a small online T-shirt
| store, but being CEO of a venture backed organisation to
| evolve the state of AI. There's just no way to pull that
| off.
| notachatbot1234 wrote:
| I wish we would hold these standards to politicians with
| their many side-gigs.
| geff82 wrote:
| As you live in Germany, you know that many members of boards
| and C-Levels serve so in multiple companies. There is a
| difference in being a regular employee and C-Level/Board
| level.
| davedx wrote:
| There's a huge difference between c-level and board
| responsibilities. I think it's generally not wise for
| c-levels to be at multiple companies. Board is a totally
| different role
| andyferris wrote:
| This is common the world over. Board roles typically aren't
| meant to be full time. However executive officer (chief or
| otherwise) roles typically are.
|
| I'm sure people can manage doing one of both (so long as
| there is no conflicts of interest). Heck, now that I think
| of it, technically I'm a chief science officer of a startup
| and a casual employee of a university...
| badpun wrote:
| > If you start working on a side gig, that will take up a
| chunk of your time and invariably occupy your brain; thus,
| your employer doesn't get their full value out of you
| anymore.
|
| It's the same if you have a family, an interest, or any
| semblance of a life really.
| 9dev wrote:
| That's true, but a generally accepted fact of life
| employers have to cope with. They don't have to cope with
| employees taking on _another_ responsibility next to their
| existing job _and_ family.
| badpun wrote:
| What if someone doesn't have a family? Can they take a
| second job then?
| 9dev wrote:
| As long as it doesn't interfere with you performing your
| contractual duties to your employer? Sure. Although that
| can include showing up to work tired because you spent
| your night tending a bar, using knowledge acquired at
| your primary job for your side gig, or being unfocused in
| meetings because you constantly think about the other
| venture.
|
| So instead, you might just want to check with your
| employer beforehand and talk about what they're cool
| with. Something Sams could have chosen to do, but did
| not, apparently.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Important in this context is the board members insinuation that
| sam was unwanted. According to pgs account, that was not the
| case.
|
| Perhaps we can agree that "firing" is a fairly fuzzy term, and
| maybe not entirely fit to meaningfully contain, both:
|
| a) me losing my job because I am (apparently) not creating
| enough value for the company
|
| b) me losing my job because I am not willing to split time
| between my current main gig and my unicorn startup
| jameshush wrote:
| "I choose to be fired" is quitting in my books. There aren't
| enough hours in a week to work two 40-hour-a-week jobs if you
| also want to eat and sleep
| fooker wrote:
| These are not factory jobs, most of the job is about making
| consequential high stakes decisions.
|
| It doesn't take 40 hours of work all the time, especially if
| you can delegate well.
| lox wrote:
| No, you resigned. It's completely possible to have adult
| conversations and to part ways without being terminated for
| cause (which "fired" is a euphemism for).
| ben_w wrote:
| Departure by mutual agreement can be a secret way of getting
| fired, but if _both_ parties go out of their way to deny it was
| a firing, then I 've no reason to doubt them. Even silence by
| one or both, which allows doubts to remain, isn't enough to be
| positive evidence that it was actually a firing, owing to the
| legal implications of different causes of departure in
| different jurisdictions.
|
| I've had several job contracts which say I'm not allowed to
| have another job at the same time unless I have written
| permission, which they can't say no to without good reason --
| "This has become a conflict of interest, pick one" or "both of
| these are now full time, pick one" seem like reasonable grounds
| to for an employer to rescind permission.
|
| (It's also one of the ways Musk gets flack, given how many
| companies he's CEO/CTO/president of).
| Urahandystar wrote:
| But that goes against the soap opera narrative! What muck will
| people raise now?
| ml-anon wrote:
| Narrator: they fired him.
| seydor wrote:
| Deeper voice: They were forced to fire him
| tasuki wrote:
| No: pg made sama choose whether he wanted to head YC or OpenAI.
| As per his own account, pg would have been happy with either.
| justanotherjoe wrote:
| PG: 'What did I just f-in say? Am I a mirage'
| earnesti wrote:
| Who cares
| brettkromkamp wrote:
| My sentiments exactly.
| tetris11 wrote:
| _Open your eyes, what do you see?_
|
| _The cult of personality._
| KaiserPro wrote:
| To expand further, to the tune of "you're welcome" from
| moana:
|
| _Okay, okay, I see what 's happening here_
|
| _You 're face to face with greatness, and it's strange_
|
| _You don 't even know how you feel_
|
| _It 's adorable_
|
| _Well, it 's nice to see that humans never change_
|
| _Open your eyes, let 's begin_
|
| _Yes, it 's really me, it's Altman_
|
| _Breathe it in_
|
| _I know it 's a lot_
|
| _The hair, the bod_
|
| _When you 're staring at a demi-god_
| walteweiss wrote:
| Now, I don't regret my daughter adores Moana. As I can
| enjoy the joke thoroughly!
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > to the tune of "you're welcome" from moana
|
| It's usually not necessary to indicate what tune the words
| are set to when you haven't changed more than one of them.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Or maybe I was assuming that not everyone reading this
| would be familiar with Disney show tunes.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| In that case, what would they gain from being told that
| the tune was something they didn't know?
| Eldt wrote:
| I think you'll find that humans do many things that
| aren't necessary, particuarly when they're trying to
| convey something and it helps the reader understand
| hoherd wrote:
| That is such a great album with some prescient messages. I
| know what I'm listening to today.
| walteweiss wrote:
| Please, make it the top comment already.
| mihaaly wrote:
| WTF is Sam Altman, asks a random busy folk from the other side
| of town not really interested in personal fame but common
| progress.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| CEO of one of the most _insert your chosen adjective here_ tech
| companies and formerly ran YC which runs Hackernews. I can 't
| imagine a topic that this website would care about more...
| SilverBirch wrote:
| "We didn't want him to leave, we were very happy that he went off
| and started a different company while he was working for us, and
| when we asked him to please either work full time at the job
| we're paying for, he quit".
|
| I know that Silicon Valley VC is all about relationships (read:
| not calling out shitty behaviour) but it's difficult to spin
| someone just full on walking off the job.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It's just a mild, appropriate reigning in. My main complaint
| about this story is how dull it is.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| It's not a reigning in if he quit. It sounds a lot like Sam
| went off and found another job, didn't bother to quit his old
| one, and when challenged... quit.
|
| I'm sure PG and many others don't want to get on the bad side
| of someone who controls a decent amount of deal flow, but
| really it's pretty obvious that's unacceptable behaviour.
| It's the same thing that happens with Elon Musk - people run
| around excusing the shitty things he does, but if you drill
| down the excuse is basically "Elon Musk controls a bunch of
| things that could line my pocket and I don't want to piss him
| off", that doesn't suddenly make things ethical.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > It's not a reigning in if he quit
|
| Reigning in an enthusiastic person they know, not an
| employee.
|
| > It sounds a lot like Sam went off and found another job,
| didn't bother to quit his old one
|
| He didn't "find another job", or that's a silly way to put
| it. He was already was running OpenAI not for profit. When
| that company decided to create a for-profit subsidiary, and
| SA to go with it, is when they said to him he couldn't be
| both.
|
| > and when challenged... quit.
|
| If you're saying he wasn't fired, you're right. He chose to
| leave and move to another company full time. That's what
| makes this such a dull topic.
|
| Anyway - breaking this down point by point is unnecessary,
| because it's all in the original Tweet, and you're still
| saying what you're saying.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| I mean sure... if you redefine Sam as not an employee
| then you can definitely argue he wasn't fired. Also, you
| seem to imply that OpenAI decided to start a non-from
| profit but.. isn't that just... Sam? Like Sam was running
| the non-for-profit, Sam decided to start a for-profit
| part of it -and from what we know of what went on at
| OpenAI it seems like Sam was the one driving that. So
| you're presenting this as if this was thrust upon Sam,
| but so far all we've seen seems to indicate the exact
| opposite, that all the way along Sam has been the one
| driving this.
|
| To be clear, I'm not saying he was fired. I'm saying he
| acted unethically, pushed PG to the point where he gave
| an ultimatum and then quit, but PG is smart enough not to
| burn bridges.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > if you redefine Sam as not an employee then you can
| definitely argue he wasn't fired
|
| No, I'm saying the "reigning in" was a personal one, not
| an employee one. Obviously Sam was an employee.
|
| > So you're presenting this as if this was thrust upon
| Sam
|
| No, I'm not. I'm saying he didn't go and find another
| job. His role changed with OpenAI's structure change, and
| he probably didn't think it through as to him it was a
| gradual transition.
|
| > I'm saying he acted unethically, pushed PG to the point
| where he gave an ultimatum and then quit, but PG is smart
| enough not to burn bridges.
|
| Okay. At this point we're just doing celebrity gossip,
| but with tech celebrities. I've no idea if your guess is
| correct or not.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| Well PG, you didn't let him stay. Not to imply that you were the
| bad guy, or this was a bad decision. The idea that you fired sam
| was certainly a lot more gangster than this story.
|
| In light of sams public perception I find it interesting that PG
| is clearing the air NOW.
|
| EDIT: it needs to be stated that "when we found out from a press
| release that our CEO would be double dipping at another for
| profit venture..." is shitty way to find out your CEO is
| moonlighting. The fact that you DIDNT fire him on the spot isnt
| the best look.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > I find it interesting that PG is clearing the air NOW
|
| So much drama is created by overanalysing the timing of things,
| though. It's just air.
| langsoul-com wrote:
| Pg is clearing it now because of the wild rumours about WHY Sam
| was fired.
|
| Also, I bet he'd be getting annoyed if clarifying things to
| multiple people. Before, no one gave a damn, so it didn't
| matter, but now Sam's hot news.
| parenthesis wrote:
| Can someone quote the whole thing here? Not everyone has a
| twitter / X account.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GO0OQMrXoAAiIfO?format=png&name=...
| arrowsmith wrote:
| It's one tweet with an attached image; you can see it all
| without needing to be logged in.
| ploum wrote:
| YMMV : sometimes, X seems to force being connected. Sometimes
| not. And when not, it sometimes bury the tweet in lot of
| popups to ask you to connect which makes it very painful to
| access the information.
|
| So, yeah, if people could stop assuming everybody can read
| X/Linkedin/Facebook, that would be nice...
| worble wrote:
| Sometimes twitter just decides that it's had enough of you
| and won't show anything. I can't figure out what triggers
| this but one day you'll find you can't see anything, and then
| the next day you'll be able to view it just fine.
|
| Twitter is quickly becoming as bad as discord for siloing
| information.
| eqvinox wrote:
| > [...] you can see it all without needing to be logged in.
|
| No, you can't, Twitter is degenerating further:
| Something went wrong, but don't fret -- let's give it another
| shot. [Try Again] /!\ Firefox's
| Enhanced Tracking Protection (Strict Mode) is known to cause
| issues on x.com
|
| (Weird how no other website has issues like this...)
| hakanderyal wrote:
| So that's why I couldn't access Twitter while using FF.
| Interesting. That notice wasn't there before.
| joveian wrote:
| This just means that there are exceptions for twitter.com
| that haven't been switched to x.com. I use uBlock Origin
| with all scripts and third party resources blocked by
| default and got this page when they switched to x.com, but
| it works once you unblock the same stuff on x.com that was
| unblocked on twitter.com.
|
| The exception is that some accounts still require login to
| read. I'm not sure why but I'm guessing that it might be a
| per account setting that won't be set by accounts that
| haven't logged in for a long time (I don't have an acount
| to check). Actually, worble and ploum's comments below
| would explain what I see, I usually don't try to check the
| same content twice (or anything all that often) so I
| wouldn't notice if it sometimes works and sometimes
| doesn't.
| VancouverMan wrote:
| > (Weird how no other website has issues like this...)
|
| The Firefox 126 preferences UI for the "Strict" setting
| shows this warning:
|
| "Stronger protection, but may cause some sites or content
| to break."
|
| When the panel for that setting is expanded, it shows an
| additional warning:
|
| "Heads up! This setting may cause some websites to not
| display content or work correctly. If a site seems broken,
| you may want to turn off tracking protection for that site
| to load all content."
|
| Presumably such problems are not unexpected or unheard of
| if two warnings are deemed necessary for that setting.
| eqvinox wrote:
| Slight problem: you're assuming I use Firefox _and_ have
| that setting on "Strict". Only half of that assumption
| is correct: I use Firefox. But the setting is on
| "Standard"...
|
| (I'm not a web person, so I'll save my speculation on
| what is breaking there, but Twitter is the only webpage I
| experience as broken. It is absolutely possible I mucked
| around with some setting 5 years ago and completely
| forgot about it. Or Twitter is doing weird things.
| Probably a combination of both.)
| timeon wrote:
| There is also mention why those specific sites are
| broken:
|
| > Firefox blocks the following:
|
| > Social media trackers
|
| > Cross-site cookies in all windows
|
| > Tracking content in all windows
|
| > Cryptominers
|
| > Known and suspected fingerprinters
| scblock wrote:
| We can't know before clicking whether it's a single image,
| single statement, or 800-tweet essay that should have been a
| blog post. (Unless someone tells us, as you did here).
|
| All too often it's the latter, meaning anyone without an
| account can't see the content, meaning it has zero value. No
| way in hell am I creating an account. So the conclusion is
| twitter links are now useless.
| ploum wrote:
| I use one of the few remaining nitter instance:
|
| https://nitter.poast.org/paulg/status/1796107666265108940
| skulk wrote:
| Be careful to never drop the subdomain on that one, there are
| some real fun types of people there.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| I was a curious cat - what a weird place. Lots of
| discussions about "jews", anime and how hard white people
| have it. Feels a bit like *chan displayed on a Twitter-like
| UI.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _People have been claiming YC fired Sam Altman. That 's not
| true. Here's what actually happened. For several years he was
| running both YC and OpenAI, but when OpenAI announced that it
| was going to have a for-profit subsidiary and that Sam was
| going to be the CEO, we (specifically Jessica) told him that if
| he was going to work full-time on OpenAI, we should find
| someone else to run YC, and he agreed. If he'd said that he was
| going to find someone else to be CEO of OpenAI so that he could
| focus 100% on YC, we'd have been fine with that too. We didn't
| want him to leave, just to choose one or the other._
| rexf wrote:
| Paul Graham (@paulg):
|
| I got tired of hearing that YC fired Sam, so here's what
| actually happened:
|
| > People have been claiming YC fired Sam Altman.
|
| > That's not true. Here's what actually happened.
|
| > For several years he was running both YC and OpenAI,
|
| > but when OpenAI announced that it was going to
|
| > have a for-profit subsidiary and that Sam was going
|
| > to be the CEO, we (specifically Jessica) told him
|
| > that if he was going to work full-time on OpenAI,
|
| > we should find someone else to run YC, and he
|
| > agreed. If he'd said that he was going to find
|
| > someone else to be CEO of OpenAI so that he could
|
| > focus 100% on YC, we'd have been fine with that
|
| > too. We didn't want him to leave, just to choose
|
| > one or the other.
|
| https://x.com/paulg/status/1796107666265108940
| davej wrote:
| For context, Helen Tonor [0] was a board member of OpenAI before
| they tried to fire Sam Altman. She claimed that Sam was fired by
| YC in a recent interview [1]. In the interview, she implied that
| Sam's firing at YC was kept quiet and that there was something
| underhanded about it.
|
| [0] https://x.com/hlntnr
|
| [1] https://link.chtbl.com/TEDAI
| gbnvc wrote:
| But the original post says otherwise, who do I believe?
| davej wrote:
| I would give more credibility to the firsthand account (PG &
| Jessica) rather than speculations from a fired board member.
| xdavidliu wrote:
| and a fired board member who didn't have anything to do
| with YC
| rtpg wrote:
| I think that the split seems amicable, but from a 10k view
| "we had a convo telling Sam he couldn't do both at once"
| leading to him leaving rhymes with a firing. Sometimes this
| stuff can be amicable!
| roenxi wrote:
| He had a choice to either go to work the next day or not
| as he preferred. That isn't a firing in the usual sense
| of the word. As described it is an amicable end to his
| time at YC that was agreed on by both parties.
|
| If people really want to describe that as "fired" there
| is no stopping them. But it isn't. PG is more correct
| than that quadrant of the backseat managers.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Paul explicitly states they wanted him to stay.
|
| Firing implies you want somebody gone.
| threeseed wrote:
| Jessica and by extension PG are early investors in OpenAI.
|
| So it's not like they are impartial parties either.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| No one, it's all PR game at play here, and there's no reason
| that anyone is being fully transparent.
| nickfromseattle wrote:
| I read there was additional drama related to Sam leaving YC;
| unilaterally declaring himself Chairman of YC, including a YC
| blog announcement that was quickly deleted. [0]
|
| [0] https://archive.is/Vl3VR
| ml-anon wrote:
| Of course theres additional drama and context. PG is
| retconning it to make himself look less incompetent and
| absent.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Paul Graham would have been officially retired from YC at
| the time. Jessica Livingston still worked full-time at YC
| for some years after Paul Graham hired Sam Altman to
| replace him as president and hired Dan Gackle to replace
| him as moderator. If Paul Graham had not been retired, this
| entire conversation wouldn't exist. His retirement is why
| Altman was president of YC.
|
| Accusing Graham of being "absent" sounds silly.
| ml-anon wrote:
| And yet here he is talking about how he was making the
| decisions.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| He was still one of the two main founders and married to
| the other main founder. He wasn't totally uninvolved with
| the company.
|
| He still did Office Hours, at least for a time. He
| described that as "ten percent of what he did" and hired
| at least two people to divide up the other 90 percent.
|
| I imagine he and Livingston discussed the company over
| breakfast/dinner and a lot of decisions were likely joint
| decisions privately hashed out. It's a company founded by
| a dating couple who later married. There is probably no
| clear, bright dividing line between "her" decisions and
| "his."
| tptacek wrote:
| No, we're talking about Jessica Livingston making a
| decision. It's right there in the statement.
| ml-anon wrote:
| Lol no in the statement he says "we" in the wsj its just
| his wife. The buck stops...somewhere?
| tptacek wrote:
| Well, if you want to read it tendentiously, I guess your
| choices are the buck stopping with Jessica, with Paul, or
| with Jessica and Paul. Seems straightforward to reason
| about.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| What does it mean to be officially retired in the YC firm
| world view anyway... if you have a significant ownership
| stake are you actually ever really retired? Are major
| decisions not vetted by the stakeholders? YC was founded
| by JL and PG (I'd assume equally). And this decision is
| now described as a JL decision.
|
| Anyway, there's a Hollywood movie in this drama... maybe
| I'll write a script using ChatGPT... :)
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| As a guess: It means he got to see his kids grow up
| instead of working 100 hours a week.
|
| He handed off a lot of the day-to-day scut work. He
| didn't go "I'm just a shareholder who reads the annual
| report and counts my pennies from the DRIP."
| bookaway wrote:
| To be fair to Helen Toner, she was probably was going off the
| Washington Post/WSJ articles that were discussed here 6 months
| ago.[0] And pg has been trying to de-sensationalize the issue
| ever since, and often doing a pretty terrible job at it by
| complimenting Altman without directly denying certain
| statements.
|
| The WP article implied that there was a drop in Altman's
| performance and hands-on presence due to multi-tasking of his
| other interests including OpenAI, whereas pg seems to imply
| that jl gave the ultimatum to Altman before there were any
| performance complaints.
|
| It's also a little strange that pg doesn't mention the for-
| profit Worldcoin at all, which announced a 4 mil seed round a
| few months prior to Altman exiting YC and for which Altman was
| already CEO.
|
| I'm not sure pg is aware how much he's risking, or how much
| he's putting Jessica's reputation at risk. He often posts
| touting Jessica as being a great judge of character.[1] The
| world is witnessing in real time just how great a character his
| prince really is. But at least he had the courtesy to mention
| that Jessica was the one that gave Altman the ultimatum.
|
| There was something missing in his post though. He forgot to
| add "Sam and Paul" at the end of his statement.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38378216
|
| [1] To be fair, it's usually for determining whether the person
| has characteristics that make a good startup founder, like
| resilience or co-founder compatibility. "Having moral fiber"
| might be at the bottom of the list in terms of priority.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| "To be fair Helen was going off of "articles" from WaPo" is
| some kind of defence. What kind of competence did she have if
| she just forwards stuff without thinking or investigating
| first? I would say this solidifies why she wasn't fit for the
| job
| bookaway wrote:
| The WaPo article states unambiguously that Altman was fired
| from YC for dropping the ball. It apparently cites three
| anonymous sources from YC, not pg. Why would she bother
| investigating whether that was true or not when she was
| already fired from OpenAI? You would only know that was
| disputed if you were actively following pg's twitter
| account, or somebody quoting pg's tweets.
| the_real_cher wrote:
| I was fired from Taco Bell as a kid and I would talk trash
| about the management and the company to anyone who asked.
|
| I can't imaging being fired from a company like OpenAI and
| being asked my thoughts about the people responsible and the
| company and people taking it seriously! LOL
| wrsh07 wrote:
| Honestly, I thought her Ted ai interview was balanced and
| reasonable. I don't recall her mentioning yc, but I might have
| missed it.
|
| That said, the interviewer tries to sensationalize the upcoming
| interview as much as possible in the intro, so I didn't love
| that
| jumperabg wrote:
| I think that you can't work as a CEO at one company and a
| responsible role at another one. Do you invest your whole life
| for two companies?
| DragonStrength wrote:
| Don't buy the hustle porn. Most people in these roles are
| leisure class and working essentially part time jobs. Their
| most important functions are PR and sales, which in this age
| aren't nothing for sure -- that's just not enough work to
| really take your whole day. It's why seeing people be CEO of
| multiple companies actually isn't rare and how all these folks
| manage to hold down so many board seats while also working so
| much. Decision making, especially in technical companies, has
| to be delegated out of the C-suite.
| davedx wrote:
| This is nonsense. I know CEOs and they are not "leisure
| class", managing the running of a company and executing on
| strategy is an _endless_ job.
|
| Sure some CEOs might drop out and play golf, but all that
| proves is you have slackers at any level of an org
| lnsru wrote:
| That's my observation at all the bigger companies I worked
| for. The manager of the manager of the lowest level workers
| has no contact with the workshop reality. They live in the
| PowerPoint world with hockey stick growth slides and ideal
| project plans. There were exemptions, but very rare. One
| level above has absolutely no touch with reality without any
| exemptions. Some of them were able to participate in meetings
| from the shower with enabled camera in the past... I doubt
| these are working hard.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Yup! Most people never fully grasp the extent to which this
| is true
| lawgimenez wrote:
| Ahhh here we go again
| throwaway_5753 wrote:
| A lot of people here bending over backwards to try to interpret
| this maximally negatively.
|
| Probably because the "Sam Altman is an amoral, power hungry
| mastermind who was run out of all his previous gigs" is a more
| interesting narrative than whatever is actually happening.
| ImaCake wrote:
| Yeah, this is about the most positive and amiable way to solve
| the real problem of Sam Altman not having enough time to lead
| YC. It is a testament to Sam's own marketing skills that even
| banal stuff is driving mad speculation.
| nprateem wrote:
| It's more a testament to jealousy which is probably what
| underlies most of these comments.
| latexr wrote:
| This is such a tired and wrong argument. People are allowed
| to disagree with, dislike, and distrust others without
| being jealous of them. Think of _anyone_ you don't like.
| Pick a specific politician you abhor. Now imagine someone
| saying you dislike them because you're jealous. Does that
| make sense to you? If it does, you have a very warped view
| of the world.
| smt88 wrote:
| The only enviable thing about Altman is that he's rich, and
| I doubt anyone here hates all rich people out of jealousy.
| latexr wrote:
| > It is a testament to Sam's own marketing skills that even
| banal stuff is driving mad speculation.
|
| That's beginning to enter "he's playing 5D chess and making
| you think exactly what he wants" territory. Would you say
| that it's a testament to tobacco companies' marketing skills
| that everyone talks about cigarettes being cancerous?
|
| The mad speculation is due to him being CEO of a highly
| talked about company but also the creator of dubious
| exploitative ventures[1][2] and rubbing a lot of people the
| wrong way, many of which talk in vague terms instead of being
| specific from the start.
|
| [1]: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worl
| dcoi...
|
| [2]: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/richardnieva/worldc
| oin-...
| ImaCake wrote:
| I wish I could appraise someone's skill at something
| without that being considered as a general endorsement but
| I guess not.
|
| I don't think Sam Altman is probably that great at most of
| what he would like ppl to think he is great at. But he must
| be alright at marketing and getting into the right places
| because we are talking about him.
| latexr wrote:
| > I wish I could appraise someone's skill at something
| without that being considered as a general endorsement
| but I guess not.
|
| Ironic[1] that that you're lamenting a misunderstanding
| of your comment while misunderstanding mine. I don't
| think you were generally endorsing him, my claim is that
| you're giving him credit for a skill based on faulty
| assumptions.
|
| > But he must be alright at marketing and getting into
| the right places because we are talking about him.
|
| That's what I disagree with. Would you say that Justine
| Sacco[2] was great at marketing too? For a while there
| everyone was talking about her, _which she did not
| intend_ and didn't end particularly well for her. Being
| talked about and being good at marketing don't
| automatically correlate. Barbara Streisand knows that
| very well[3].
|
| [1]: Or maybe not:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40507616
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_shaming#Justine
| _Sacco_i...
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
| muzani wrote:
| Lots of people dislike PG and YC too, so it's doubly fun to
| strike up some bad blood between them.
| edgyquant wrote:
| I can see why, Paul Grahams Twitter is good enough reason to
| find him insufferable
| mindwok wrote:
| Agree, people need to chill. The thread says they would have
| been happy if Sam stayed, they just wanted him to choose one or
| the other which he agreed with. It seems like a very amicable
| parting of ways when the parties involved were being pulled in
| different directions.
| mateus1 wrote:
| Weird times when moral relativism is saved for the rich and
| powerful instead of the poor and meek.
| cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
| I don't think that you actually mean anything by this.
| "Moral relativism" seems entirely irrelevant.
| mindwok wrote:
| Can you explain what you mean by this?
| weberer wrote:
| How does this in any way relate to moral relativism?
| mateus1 wrote:
| I should've phrased it better. It seems like many people
| think those in power are entitled to some moral leniency
| when they should face higher scrutiny.
| burnished wrote:
| No, what you are seeing is people refusing to be spun up
| into rumor-mongering, which is good because you don't want
| all the air going to spurious claims and counterclaims when
| there are factual and uncontroversial observations to be
| angry about instead
| lukan wrote:
| "The thread says they would have been happy if Sam stayed"
|
| No, he said they would have been fine with it. That has a
| different quality and honestly, I am quite sure they knew
| sama was so invested in OpenAI that he would not have choosen
| to step away from it.
|
| So everybody could save face and no one was "fired".
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Oh my goodness. Different quality? This is like seeing a
| bunch of soothsayers looking at tea leaves intently to
| match a pattern.
| lukan wrote:
| I am fine with your comment, but not happy about it.
| nostrebored wrote:
| This comment has a 'different quality' than most I'd
| expect to see on HN
| throwup238 wrote:
| Have you ever seen Sam Altman with his palms pointing at
| the camera? You can clearly see from the intersection of
| his life and fate lines that he is a supervillain in the
| making.
| meiraleal wrote:
| Well, that's visible. It doesn't need to be said and PG doesn't
| wanna be his arch enemy. The guy's becoming too powerful after
| all
| gizmo wrote:
| What you call "maximal negativity" is what I would call
| skepticism about spin. Giving Sam an ultimatum, forcing him to
| choose one or the other, is a very forceful move. PG is not
| universally opposed to people running multiple organizations.
| He's fine with Musk being in charge of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink
| and Starlink. I don't think pg was unhappy about Dorsey running
| both Square and Twitter[1]. OpenAI leadership was fine with Sam
| in both roles. But Sam had to either quit OpenAI or quit YC,
| and would get fired from YC if he refused to choose.
|
| [1] https://x.com/paulg/status/1235363862159003649
| zild3d wrote:
| > PG is not universally opposed to people running multiple
| organizations
|
| I don't see why that matters, YC is "his" organization, other
| organizations can do what they want
|
| Take out all the names, and it's just a belief that YC should
| be run by someone that's all in / fully committed.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Right but this is him being fired
| apgwoz wrote:
| This is Sam being given an ultimatum and making a choice
| before being fired. Is it effectively the same thing?
| Yes. But technically, he left to pursue OpenAI. YC never
| said "You'rrrrrrrrrrrre Firedddd!!!" (In my best Spacely
| Sprockets voice); it just politely asked him to leave if
| he couldn't give 100%.
| tomhoward wrote:
| _Fired_ means or at least connotes a specific thing,
| I.e., is against the will of the departing employee.
| _Leaving the organisation by mutual agreement after an
| adult conversation to focus on exciting new project_ is a
| very different thing to _fired_.
| gregates wrote:
| The adult conversation in question being, in a nutshell:
| "We've decided it's time for you to move on. Would you
| like the public perception of this event to be that it
| was a mutual decision, or would you prefer to burn some
| bridges on your way out?" Sure, in some sense the
| departing individual chooses to go one way rather than
| the other.
| throw0101d wrote:
| 'Mutual agreement' could be that the employer didn't want
| the employee, and the employee was tired of BS being
| unreasonably dumped on them:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal
|
| (Not saying that this is such a situation.)
| lolinder wrote:
| Except that isn't at all what Paul is claiming here--he
| says YC offered him the choice between running YC and
| running OpenAI but not both at once. Altman chose OpenAI.
| That might have been the obvious choice in the
| circumstances (it certainly appears so in retrospect),
| but that doesn't turn the conversation into the kind
| you're claiming.
| tomhoward wrote:
| Or the adult conversation was: you need to pick one thing
| to focus on, we'd prefer it was YC but obviously we can't
| force you to choose YC.
|
| PG's telling if it, and Occam's Razer, support that
| version.
|
| Many people here want to imagine that it was vastly more
| dramatic than this, or need to reinterpret the word
| "fired" to support the narrative that Sam is bad. I
| understand it can be fun to think that way.
|
| For the record I'm no great fan of OpenAI and I think
| people who are convinced they are about to achieve AGI
| are, er, mistaken. I mostly just care about correct
| definitions of words and avoiding sensationalism.
| gregates wrote:
| My point is mainly that PG's telling isn't trustworthy,
| because that's what you agree to say when the person
| you're "firing" chooses to go quietly. Obviously I have
| no specific insight into the situation, but given what I
| have observed about how career changes happen for people
| who've reached a certain level of power, I have no faith
| that the people involved have any interest in accurately
| describing the situation to the public.
| tomhoward wrote:
| All you have to do is look at the fact that PG has been
| consistently effusive about Sam in his public comments
| and essays since the mid 00s through till the present
| day, for it to be clear that Sam wasn't simply fired.
|
| Of course these situations are always complex behind the
| scenes, with many factors and considerations at play.
|
| But the _no he must really just have been fired against
| his will_ claim just doesn't pass the sniff test to
| anyone paying attention.
| lolinder wrote:
| I wonder how much of the impulse to believe (in the face
| of the evidence) that Altman parted ways with YC/PG on
| bad terms is really rooted in an impulse to believe that
| YC/PG couldn't be complicit in enabling the kind of
| person that it now increasingly appears that Altman is.
|
| If Altman truly is as bad a person as it appears that he
| might be, that doesn't reflect well on the people who
| have praised him through the last few decades. If you
| like those people, then cognitive dissonance forces you
| to either believe that Altman is being unduly villainized
| _or_ to believe that the people that you like secretly
| hate him but just can 't say so openly.
| QuantumGood wrote:
| Virtually all info that reaches outsiders has a strong PR
| component, and often is entirely PR. We're left to "read
| the tea leaves" from our own experience with such
| statements.
| 1024core wrote:
| Even Jack couldn't handle being CEO of Twitter and
| Square. It's just not easy to do.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I wonder what evidence could possibly convince you, if
| both sides of the alleged "firing" saying it wasn't so
| isn't convincing enough.
| greentxt wrote:
| History being different than it has been. Like the
| statements Paul has made to date have been in agreement
| with the common perception of it being a firing, not very
| consistent with this newer counter narrative. Obviously
| just imo and ymmv.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| The entire point of the tweet is to explain that he wasnt
| fired.
| fwip wrote:
| Yeah, and the tweet isn't being honest. Issuing somebody
| an ultimatum that you know they'll refuse is just a
| different way to get rid of someone.
| burnished wrote:
| Which was also clearly not the case here.
| fwip wrote:
| Clearly?
| imgabe wrote:
| Being fired does not include the option to stay.
| goodcanadian wrote:
| _Giving Sam an ultimatum, forcing him to choose one or the
| other, is a very forceful move._
|
| Sure, but is that what happened? Or, did they sit down and
| have a chat and mutually agree that on what was best? I guess
| we will never know with certainty (and I frankly don't care).
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't know what happened either and I wouldn't even be
| surprised if the parties have internalized it in ways that
| aren't 100% consistent. I do know that situations arise
| where it becomes mutually apparent that a parting of the
| ways is best for everyone concerned even if not explicitly
| stated. And, in those circumstances, there's a public story
| that is often not untrue but isn't the whole backstory
| either because it's simpler for everyone involved that way.
| fwip wrote:
| Yes, it's directly in the tweet. "We told him that if he
| was going to work full-time on OpenAI, we should find
| somebody else to run YC."
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Is there actually a difference between those two things?
|
| When your immediate superior sits you don't for a "chat",
| and you "mutually agree on what is best", it comes across
| an awful lot like an ultimatum.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| Or it's not a forceful move at all.
|
| Maybe YC requires more dedication than Altman could provide
| to both it and OpenAI.
|
| You print off companies as if being a CEO is just being a
| CEO, and as if Musk doesn't work an unhealthy amount of
| hours.
|
| Or maybe there's some secret reason for pg to carry water for
| Sam and it's worth his integrity.
| fwip wrote:
| "Secret reason" = Paul knows it looks bad for him to fire
| the guy. So he comes up with justifications why it's not
| really firing. Maybe he even believes them.
| 1024core wrote:
| You seem to have an axe to grind with @sama. This deep-
| rooted bias does not make for an honest discourse; as you
| are just expressing your opinions. If you have some facts
| to back up your claims, please put them out.
|
| Otherwise, I would urge just stepping away and taking a
| few deep breaths.
| tptacek wrote:
| It it nothing whatsoever like being fired.
| bfeist wrote:
| That Twitter thread (as most are) is poison.
| ctvo wrote:
| > Probably because the "Sam Altman is an amoral, power hungry
| mastermind who was run out of all his previous gigs" is a more
| interesting narrative than whatever is actually happening.
|
| It's not either or. The above can be true and also the reason
| pg wanted him to run YC.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Because PG is being very selective.
|
| Does he forget that it is known that Sam posted to YC's site
| that he was now Chairman in the day or so prior to him leaving?
| So... what... they asked him to choose, he decided to promote
| himself and make a post about it, and then they hurriedly
| deleted that post and then Same "chose" to leave YC?
| burnished wrote:
| Or someone had some copy prepared (you don't think everyone
| waits until afterwards to write anything do you?) and
| whoopsied the publish button?
|
| This line of thinking just reads as sensationalist or
| needlessly conspiratorial given that the indictment it is
| trying to support is so weak.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I personally find it a lot less interesting. It's probably not
| true and even if it were, it's still basically an ad hominem.
| The story is the tech.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _A lot of people here bending over backwards to try to
| interpret this maximally negatively._
|
| This thread exposes who buys into whatever the SF/VC overlords
| say.
|
| "Got fired" may be a tad ambiguous, but being told "stop
| working on that other thing or leave" is not too far off.
| fairity wrote:
| > "Got fired" may be a tad ambiguous, but being told "stop
| working on that other thing or leave" is not too far off.
|
| It's very different.
|
| When employees begin working at my company, they're told a
| list of things they're not allowed to do. And, they're told
| if they do these things, they will be shown the door.
|
| By your definition of "not too far off", we're basically
| firing people on day one. Absurd.
| dmix wrote:
| Getting fired usually implies they did something wrong. Sam
| was always going to have a lot going on in his life so it was
| a given there would be competing priorities when he joined
| YC.
|
| It's like not he was some random full time employee at YC and
| concealing his busy life.
|
| So when a smaller AI project he started (with PGs
| involvement) rapidly turned into a monster overnight and
| started demanding the bulk of his attention, it's not a big
| deal to ask him if he has enough time for both, and to make a
| decision early on before it becomes overwhelming (note: he
| still gave him the choice to decide).
|
| Like a lot of entrepreneurs they take on a lot of
| responsibilities and think they can swing a lot more stuff
| than they really can, and PG's whole thing is guiding
| entrepreneurs to make the best decisions.
| nottorp wrote:
| I have no idea what Sam Altman is but based on how he runs
| OpenAI's marketing I have zero trust in him.
|
| The lies start at the company name. What's "open" about OpenAI?
| 1024core wrote:
| > What's "open" about OpenAI?
|
| It's "open" for everyone to use, for the right fee.
| nottorp wrote:
| Isn't it interesting that Altman cries for government
| regulation of "AI" sellers but not for requiring a permit
| to use "AI" for their potential customers?
|
| I mean, if he were concerned about our safety he'd want
| restricted access, not universal...
| dehrmann wrote:
| Between the weird exit agreements OpenAI had departing
| employees sign and the Scarlett Johansson voice incident,
| people are wondering if there's a pattern to Altman's behavior.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| There was no Scarlett voice incident. There was a verifiably
| different actress hired before Scarlett was approached.
| That's it.
| Matticus_Rex wrote:
| And she sounds more like Rashida Jones than Scarlett
| Johannsson, too. Wild that this took off so much.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| How many logical fallacies are in this statement?
|
| I mean, so what, this still has no bearing on what happened
| between pg and sama. I may think sama has done some sketchy
| things but why would that lead anyone to believe pg is lying?
| It's not like he had to make this statement or anything - it
| appears much more likely that it was just characterized in a
| way pg thought was not true.
| loceng wrote:
| Have you read his sister's allegations about their childhood?
| He avoids addressing those and apparently gaslights her about
| it.
|
| There appears to be a pattern in regards to honesty and
| integrity.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Why post an image of blurry text instead of just the text? Does
| he not want blind people to read this message?
| latexr wrote:
| I inspected the element to check if it had any alt text[1] and
| it just says "Image". Why bother[2] adding `alt="Image"` to an
| `<img>` tag?
|
| [1]: Adding it is popular on Mastodon but I'm unsure if Twitter
| allows it.
|
| [2]: I'm guessing this is Twitter and not Paul.
| raphman wrote:
| Twitter allows manually adding alt text to an image. It
| doesn't have the nice OCR feature that Mastodon has,
| unfortunately.
| taylorfinley wrote:
| So the YC board found out Altman would be CEO of a for-profit
| OpenAI when it was publicly announced, just like the OpenAI board
| found out about ChatGPT when it was publicly announced. Thanks
| for the clarification!
| bbarnett wrote:
| What in earth are you talking about? PG is clearly saying he
| was running _both_ for years, everyone knew, everyone was
| happy, but when openai became a for profit, it was time to
| choose.
|
| Nothing nefarious, nothing sneaky, no tricks, nada, ziltch.
|
| The immense bias, bull, made up junk, and outright
| maliciousness in some of these replies is beyond disgusting.
| belter wrote:
| Your employer found out you were planning on having two
| "real" jobs, you pretend you did not notice...and accuse
| others of maliciousness?
| z7 wrote:
| You left out the part where PG wrote that Altman had
| already been doing two jobs for several years ("For several
| years he was running both YC and OpenAI").
| cma wrote:
| OpenAI the non-profit was partly funded by YC or at least
| affiliated with "YC Research." So it is still odd for
| them to find out about the quasi-conversion to for-profit
| like that.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Your comment reads as if you think I'm Altman.
| relaxing wrote:
| In English "you" can be used as a generic, impersonal
| pronoun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| CEO isn't that kind of job. I don't have any love for
| Altman but this reasoning doesn't fly. You can be CEO of
| multiple companies at once, and apparently he had been for
| some time.
| belter wrote:
| > You can be CEO of multiple companies at once
|
| PG did not think so....
| breck wrote:
| > The immense bias, bull, made up junk, and outright
| maliciousness in some of these replies is beyond disgusting.
|
| Imagine if you were in a classroom and some new students
| entered the room and all sat together in a group and were
| wearing walkie talkies, and then started shouting out
| comments non-stop at the teacher that seemed to have some
| non-constructive motive.
|
| You would see something was up immediately.
|
| On the Internet this is harder to see.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| > Nothing nefarious, nothing sneaky, no tricks, nada, ziltch.
|
| "When OpenAI announced that it was going to have a for-
| profit" clearly indicates it wasn't something that was
| communicated beforehand to YC.
| jasode wrote:
| _> PG is clearly saying he was running _both_ for years, _
|
| Friendly clarification about _" both"_ because the OpenAI
| structure is very confusing and muddies up the narrative.
|
| (1) first in 2015, there was the 501c3 _non-profit_ OpenAI
| entity. From the public statements, this was more of a
| "idealistic research & development" organization to create
| truly open and publicized machine learning data & algorithms
| so humanity wouldn't be beholden to big tech like Google
| "controlling AI". This is the entity that Elon Musk and
| others (including YC Jessica Livingston) donated $40+ million
| to and the one that Sam was "running for years" along with
| YC. Maybe this non-profit R&D gig seemed more like a "part-
| time" job to PG.
|
| (2) then in 2019, OpenAI created a _new for-profit_ OpenAI
| company (a subsidiary) to raise money and build proprietary
| products. Sam was then tapped to _also run this for-profit
| company_. This new entity is not part of the "running both
| for years". That's where PG said Sam needed to choose where
| to be full-time. The additional responsibilities of being the
| CEO for the new for-profit company was a change in
| circumstances.
| noncoml wrote:
| You are quick to characterize the comments but you don't
| demonstrate any evidence that you are following the argument
| to which you replied.
|
| Try reading again both there original tweet and the comment
| you replied to, slower this time.
| santiagobasulto wrote:
| And what would this be an issue? If we want to consider this
| firing or not firing, it's the same. PG did the right thing
| asking his employee to fully focus on 1 thing. Honestly, what's
| the big deal about all this?
| tempodox wrote:
| If I never have to hear about Sam Altman again, it will be too
| soon.
| baq wrote:
| +1 but this is absolutely not happening. We'll be hearing about
| sama and OpenAI for a long, long time.
| bell-cot wrote:
| It's like the British Royals - _way_ too many people obsessed
| with it...and keeping those obsessions going is a steady
| paycheck for way too many "journalists".
| aiauthoritydev wrote:
| Fired generally implies that the employee was removed because
| they were not needed or they were adding negative value. It does
| not appear to be the case here.
|
| Sam was given an option to continue with YC but he chose a bigger
| project.
| rossant wrote:
| Agreed. Hard to say he was "fired" when he had a chance to stay
| if he decided to leave his other project. Like, "You are fired
| -- but you can stay if you want."
| edgyquant wrote:
| No you're twisting meanings here. If it was just "stay if you
| want" that wouldn't be firing but saying "if you want to
| remain here you have to stop doing X" is firing someone full
| stop
| qarl wrote:
| If you don't stop your side gig, we're going to have to part
| ways.
|
| If you don't stop spitting in the food, we're going to have
| to part ways.
|
| Sam didn't want to leave but had to leave.
| legohead wrote:
| Fired means forced to quit employment. It's not illegal to have
| two jobs, they made him choose, thus firing him. I don't know
| why Paul is so defensive about this.
| boringg wrote:
| Easy to understand why he would want to make it look smooth
| Sam has now generated an incredible amount of power since
| being at YC. Also most people when they part ways with an
| organization want to smooth any differences in case there is
| some way to work together in the future.
|
| Also FWIW it just sounds like PG needed someone full time at
| YC - Sam couldn't and thus he went elsewhere. The length of
| discussion on this thread is quite long given the banality of
| the content. Yes I realize by commenting I am adding to that
| length.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _they made him choose_
|
| Correct.
|
| > _thus firing him_
|
| Not correct, because he was free to keep the YC job by
| leaving OpenAI.
|
| Firing is when you _aren 't_ given a choice.
| legohead wrote:
| So if I go to my boss and say I have another job X, they
| say choose, and I say no thanks I'll keep both. What's
| going to happen? They essentially fired him, but with
| different paperwork. Paul is being pedantic.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Making him choose isn't generally considered firing.
| burnished wrote:
| Two things: first, you could choose to prioritize the
| first job whereas firings are unilateral, second,
| consider yourself in a similar situation making a similar
| choice and then someone describes you leaving as being
| fired. You would likely feel badmouthed because of the
| specific connotations that word has.
|
| Oh probably worth considering that we can describe the
| last position you voluntarily left as being fired - you
| weren't going to show up anymore, so what was going to
| happen? You got fired but with different paperwork.
| crazygringo wrote:
| No, you still had the choice of quitting the job at X and
| keeping the one with your boss.
|
| Therefore it's not firing.
|
| Words meaning things isn't being pedantic. It's that
| words actually have meaning and you can't just change
| them to mean what you want -- not if you want to be
| understood when you communicate.
|
| It's no different from if your office moves to a
| different building 5 minutes away and your boss says you
| have to show up at the new address and you say no thanks
| I'll only go to the old address. You're not "essentially
| fired but with different paperwork". You're being
| unreasonable and choosing to quit.
|
| Expecting to keep a full-time position at one company
| while also being a full-time CEO somewhere else is being
| unreasonable and Sam chose to quit.
| bradlys wrote:
| > Firing is when you aren't given a choice.
|
| Actually, that's not what it is.
|
| Your boss can be like, "Hey, you can continue working here
| but you will need to take a 50% paycut." You say, "Uh, no."
| So, you end up leaving the place.
|
| Were you fired? Yes, that's being fired. They were
| renegotiating the terms of your employment - just like they
| were with Sam. The terms of his employment now became
| contingent on not working at another company - which
| weren't the terms of his employment before.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _Were you fired? Yes, that 's being fired._
|
| No, it's not. It's getting a (horrific and generally
| unrealistic) pay cut. In more realistic terms, things
| like 10% pay cuts sometimes _do_ happen when a company is
| struggling, and _nobody_ calls those "firings". Because
| they're not.
|
| Words have meaning. Being fired has a specific meaning,
| which is a different meaning from being laid off, and is
| a different meaning from quitting/resigning when you
| don't like how your job has changed.
|
| (Also, terms of full-time employment often _are_
| contingent on not working full-time at another company --
| this is a pretty standard clause. So the terms didn 't
| necessarily change at all -- what changed was Sam became
| CEO of another for-profit company. That was _his choice._
| )
| bradlys wrote:
| Oh cool. I'm not firing any of my employees then. I'm
| just saying, "Hey, you can continue working here as long
| as you work for free! No benefits either, haha! You're
| totally not fired though - just gotta work for free!
| Definitely don't try to file anything with the
| unemployment office because it won't work! You're totally
| _not_ fired! "
|
| > Also, terms of full-time employment often are
| contingent on not working full-time at another company --
| this is a pretty standard clause
|
| This is also not in any contract that I've ever signed
| and I've been in SV for a decade.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Your example is nonsensical. There are minimum wage laws.
| And if somebody is not getting paid at all, then of
| course they are fired. You've completely changed the
| example to where they clearly _are_ fired, so I don 't
| know what you're trying to argue.
|
| > _This is also not in any contract that I 've ever
| signed_
|
| Are you sure you've looked? It can also be implicit in
| standard clauses such as the company owns all rights to
| all of your work. In which case starting a second job
| would be fraudulent.
|
| But of course it's also one of those things that's so
| common sense it doesn't need to be written into a
| contract in at-will employment countries (although it
| often is). There's the expectation in a full-time
| salaried professional job that the employer is getting
| all your productive professional work. It's mentally
| impossible to give 100% to two full-time jobs
| simultaneously. There's no reasonable expectation that
| anyone _should_ be able to hold a second full-time CEO
| job. Nobody is "changing the terms" when the terms are
| commonly understood. If you start showing up to work
| shirtless and it wasn't in your employment contract that
| you're required to wear a top, complaining that they're
| "changing the terms" is missing the point entirely.
| bradlys wrote:
| Considering a shit ton of employees in SV are working on
| their own projects in their spare time, start their own
| companies, and moonlight - I don't think this is as
| common in contracts as you're making it out to be.
|
| The example is in the headline.
| crazygringo wrote:
| No, a great deal of that is explicitly prohibited.
|
| If you work for Google, they own anything you develop on
| the side. They're actually nice in that they have a
| review process where they will give you your rights back
| if they decide it isn't competitive with any of their
| lines of business.
|
| A lot of other companies don't even provide that. If you
| start a business on the side, they own all of its IP.
| Period.
|
| This is extremely common. Both with large corporations as
| well as with startups. You just might not be aware of it.
| bradlys wrote:
| It is extremely not common, lol.
|
| I've done startups myself and it's not common in any
| contracts I've signed nor have my coworkers. If it was,
| we all wouldn't be able to start our own companies.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Why are you trying to make this argument with a
| hyperbolic and/or inapplicable definition? Working for
| free would mean no job or slavery. It's not an effective
| way to make an argument in this case.
| qarl wrote:
| > or they were adding negative value
|
| It seems pretty clear that PG thought Sam was distracted from
| his YC job and forced him to choose.
|
| That would imply that Sam was adding negative value to YC, and
| PG replaced him as a result.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I was given an option to improve my performance, but I chose a
| different path.
|
| Look if this was dave from some no name company, there would be
| no real debate about what happened.
|
| Altman isn't special, he's just rich and well connected.
|
| Altman was booted from YC because he shouldn't have been making
| money from his side gigs. He broke the rules, and had some
| level of consequence.
|
| Now that he's rich, and famous, he's not going to get much
| consequence, unless he vaporises a lot of money from the wrong
| people. But then he might be WeWork cult leader good and get
| away with it.
| dbuder wrote:
| In risk capital businesses making money from side deals/gigs
| has long been acceptable, but there has always been a line
| and Sam danced right over even the most generous conception
| of it and was duly removed.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| Sam was already rich, famous, and well-connected when he
| worked for YC.
| varjag wrote:
| He is still chasing money so clearly he doesn't see himself
| as rich enough.
| noirscape wrote:
| Isn't this the usual "we're not going to fire you because we want
| you to preserve your own dignity, so you should step down now or
| else we _will_ fire you and it 's going to get ugly" spiel?
| Y'know, the same thing that happens whenever [big corporation]
| gets into a scandal and heads are required to roll in the
| C-suite; rarely do they actually get fired but "they step down"
| as if it was from the good of their own heart.
|
| I dunno, PG claims that Altman wasn't fired but to me this reads
| like a difference that ultimately doesn't matter.
| tasuki wrote:
| But that is not the case. He was told that he had to choose
| between the two options, and he did. "You can no longer head YC
| and OpenAI at the same time, pick one", and he did. This does
| not sound like firing. It sounds like basic adulting on both
| sides.
| noirscape wrote:
| I think the fact he had to be _told_ this by the board is
| more telling here. It 's pretty obvious that YC was told
| about Altman becoming CEO of the for-profit OpenAI at the
| same time everyone else was told about it.
|
| Effectively, they gave him an ultimatum: stay at YC and drop
| that CEO offer or leave. Sure, it's dressed up in nicer words
| to protect Altman's dignity (which is fine, in terms of "this
| is bad" it's pretty low, so preserving his dignity makes
| sense), but that's still what it is. The ultimatum is
| obviously not a realistic one - be beholden to the board or
| become your own chief while it's blatantly clear where his
| ambitions lie, so effectively it's a firing.
| blitzar wrote:
| People have been claiming my wife left me. That's not true.
| Here's what actually happened. For several years I was sleeping
| with both her and another woman ...
| mort96 wrote:
| I mean literally yes? It's a weird analogy but if you decide to
| leave your wife for another woman then that's you leaving your
| wife, not your wife leaving you?
|
| If you decide to leave one company to focus on working for
| another company then that's not the first company firing you,
| that's you leaving the first company?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| "For several years I was sleeping with both her and another
| woman" generally implies that the wife left him, not that he
| left the wife. The guy in that scenario is pretty clearly
| fine not leaving his wife.
| mort96 wrote:
| > "For several years I was sleeping with both her and
| another woman" generally implies that the wife left him
|
| No it doesn't.
|
| "For several years, I was sleeping with both her and
| another woman, she eventually had enough and filed for
| divorce" means that the wife left.
|
| "For several years, I was sleeping with both her and
| another woman, she eventually had enough so she asked me to
| choose between her and the other woman. I chose to leave
| her for the other woman" means that the husband left. He
| could have chosen to stay with the wife, but chose not to.
| ojosilva wrote:
| No, it's more like... People have been claiming I left my wife.
| That's not true. She had a guy BFF but then this guy publicly
| announced that my wife and him would start dating. So I said
| it's me or him. She chose him and we thereafter divorced.
|
| > but when OpenAI announced that it was going to have a for-
| profit subsidiary and that Sam was going to be the CEO
|
| If anything (in case you're looking for a scoop), PG implies
| that YC found-out about Sam's raising the stakes on OpenAI
| _through a third-party_ ( "OpenAI announced"), which does not
| look good for Sam. There's even a subtle "but" in there. The
| firing versus resigning discussion is irrelevant, the focus is
| probably (and arguably) the lack of clear communication on
| Sam's part regarding a conflict of interest for both parties,
| YC and Sam.
|
| As a counter-argument, OpenAI was a running show anyway, which
| YC was on the know and apparently openly allowed and the for-
| profit thing was just a matter of time.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| It's actually fine to sleep with multiple people over the same
| time span as long as everyone knows about it and everyone
| consents. It's only a violation of trust when one of the people
| is under the impression they're sexually monogamous with the
| person who has multiple sexual partners. Then that person has
| broken an agreement.
|
| Sometimes in these situations, one party who was consenting to
| non-monogamy decides that they want to be monogamous. When that
| happens, their partner is asked to make a choice as to whether
| they want to participate in monogamy with that person or go
| their separate ways.
|
| That's what this is like.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Only a sith speaks in absolutes. There exist numerous
| cultures, and world views
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Good faith here, but where were the absolutes? I said that
| if everyone knows and everyone consents then it's okay.
| That's not really absolute, that's precisely qualified. Is
| there a culture in which everyone could both know about it
| and consent to it and it would still be morally wrong?
| zarathustreal wrote:
| You're assuming "it's a violation of trust!" is the hazard in
| this situation but that's a very shallow, naive understanding
| of why having two "partners" is almost universally frowned
| upon. See the sibling comment for a full write-up.
|
| The human psychological and interpersonal aspect is the real
| hazard. You either A) don't find two other people that can
| emotionally handle it or B) do find two other people that can
| emotionally handle it but suffer from the trauma they've
| experienced that numbed them enough to be able to emotionally
| handle it, which is a hazard in itself. Either way, it just
| doesn't work in the long run.
| edgyquant wrote:
| It's actually not fine to do this regardless of if some
| people do so and pretend everyone's fine with it
| skwirl wrote:
| This is a terrible analogy that implies all instances of "doing
| two things at once" are somehow immoral. You would compare
| someone eating both steak and potatoes for dinner to an
| adulterer.
| the_real_cher wrote:
| Did you commit to your company for the rest of your life, to
| have and to hold in sickness and in health?
|
| I have some bad news for you
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| Sometimes a topic comes up that you not only don't care about,
| that you can't even conceive of a way to incentivise yourself to
| care about it. It's not that you harbour some hidden like or
| dislike, it's just that to the extent humanly possible, you
| really REALLY don't care.
|
| Reading the replies and the tribal colours / flag waving is
| fascinating. I suppose This tribalism happens for every topic but
| it's just hard to be gifted this perspective on topics your
| career is invested in.
|
| It's been fun reading clearly fabricated explanations that don't
| base themselves on any objectivity but on the posters inner
| desires.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I have heard the term "wish casting" used to refer to this
| phenomenon. When people are deeply emotionally charged, they
| start asserting facts they _want_ to be true, and ignoring the
| line between fantasy and reality, as if saying something enough
| makes it real
|
| I see it almost exclusively online, and people don't seem to
| notice what they are doing.
| dmix wrote:
| Plus whenever powerful people are involved they get treated
| as these great masterminds, always conspiring, and it's a
| given there's more to the story than the plebs will never
| know about. So with that assumption people's minds start
| filling in the blanks with all the things that are REALLY
| happening behind the scenes and anyone who doesn't assume the
| same is naive at how the powerful operate (just look at
| Twitter discourse for anything related to the British
| monarchy).
|
| IRL the vast majority of the time they are just flawed humans
| like the rest of us. Sometimes people take on more
| responsibilities in life than they can realistically handle.
| And everyone needs to be challenged and questioned whether
| they're being honest with themselves at various points in
| their lives.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yeah, there is a deep human drive to both form opinions on
| topics and fit them to narratives. Most people are deeply
| uncomfortable admitting that they don't know, cant know, or
| will never know something.
|
| As a result, random people on the street form strong
| opinions on everything, from Sama's psychology and internal
| narrative to nuclear reactor design.
|
| It is wildly delusional when you think about it.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| This is self-referential right?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think everyone is prone to it. Personally, i've been
| trying to be more selective about what I form opinions
| and stake claims about.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| I'm highlighting the irony of your first comment. It'd
| make a great tweet.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Can you explain the irony?
| theGnuMe wrote:
| [delayed]
| ankit219 wrote:
| Everybody loves some sort of drama. If they don't find it, they
| invent it.
| jrussino wrote:
| > can't even conceive of a way to incentivise yourself to care
| about it
|
| A lot of people on this forum came of age at a time when the
| internet and computers and tech companies built around them
| were ascendant and seen as a force for good in the world. We
| had the open source movement and peer-to-peer sharing and
| everything was going to be free and egalitarian and connected.
| Google was "organizing the world's information" and went from
| underdog to champion while telling us "don't be evil" was their
| core value. Kids who were bullied for being sincere and
| passionate were becoming the adults who ran things and got
| success and admiration.
|
| Also, in the first ~decade or so that I was on HN speculative
| fiction about AI was extremely popular here. We weren't really
| sure if superhuman intelligence would happen anytime soon, but
| we all had the sense that if/when it did it better be designed
| and run by people with high ethical standards if we have any
| hope of avoiding major catastrophe.
|
| (I personally see the concerns about mis-aligned "superhuman
| AI" and mis-aligned mega-corporations as representing
| essentially the same underlying anxiety: that there are
| powerful forces in the world that are beyond our ability to
| influence in meaningful ways but which have outsized effects on
| our environment and lives while being completely agnostic to
| our happiness or even our existence.)
|
| Now we've been through one or more cycles of seeing our heroes
| turn into villains. Google got rid of "don't be evil". Musk
| turned his attention away from the stars and the "good of
| humanity" and toward petty political spats and gossip. And now
| OpenAI, which sold itself as the organization that will "do
| AGI" and do it the safe and ethical way, looks like it's run by
| somebody who is incredibly shrewd and self-serving.
|
| So while I understand why you wouldn't care about this, I also
| completely understand why it's such an engaging topic for so
| many people here.
| wvenable wrote:
| Complex effects of mundane decisions become compelling stories
| of good and evil involving heros and villains.
|
| People don't really want to litigate these things in particular
| but use it as proxy for their own personal feelings about the
| effects of AI or even capitalism itself.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| - (PG/YC) Assuming that someone who is (or is about to be) the
| CEO of a different company won't have time to 100% commit to your
| own company and planning accordingly seems like a reasonable
| position.
|
| - (SA) The new CEO of a company wanting to commit as much of
| their time as possible to that company also seems like a
| reasonable position.
| dudeinjapan wrote:
| So you're saying that PG fired Sam.
| pluc wrote:
| Reminder: Musk runs Twitter, Tesla, SpaceX and whatever the fuck
| else.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| Yes thank you for reminding us of the very public takeover a
| couple of years ago.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| That's pretty much how you fire someone. What would YC have done
| if Sam refused to choose?
| tasuki wrote:
| No it isn't how you fire someone. What would YC have done had
| sama chosen to stay at YC? As per pg, they would've kept him.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| And what if he had chosen both?
|
| He got an ultimatum: choose to quit one or we'll choose for
| you.
|
| If you want to be super pedantic about it, then let's just
| say that PG kicked him out, but Sam at least got a say in
| what he was being kicked out of.
| imgabe wrote:
| JFC, no you don't get to choose whatever you want and being
| denied the choice of your #1 preference is not being
| "forced" to do anything. Other people exist and have
| interests too, you know?
|
| If he had chosen both then that is the same as choosing
| OpenAI. "Both" was not an option on the table.
|
| Being told to commit or leave is not being kicked out. You
| can choose to commit and stay.
| bartread wrote:
| And, of course, the first response twitter shows me is from some
| absolute dingbat claiming that PG's statement still means Sam was
| fired from YC.
|
| It's frustrating but at least some people are going to believe
| whatever conspiracy theory they want to believe regardless of any
| other evidence or argument presented to them.
|
| I'm not sure how we solve this, but it's becoming ever more
| important that we do. Make reading comprehension and critical
| thinking a core part of our education systems? Aren't they
| already though? And still... idiots gonna idiot, and the internet
| will give them as many platforms as they want.
| jarbus wrote:
| I thought PG moved off twitter when Elon banned accounts that
| linked to mastodon?
| mort96 wrote:
| The comments here and on Twitter are really weird. I don't like
| the guy either but surely anyone has to agree that there's a
| difference between being told, "We don't want you on as CEO
| anymore", and being told "We want you as CEO but we need a CEO
| who's only focused on one company"? It seems weird to describe
| the situation where Altman is asked to choose and chooses OpenAI
| as "he was fired from YC".
| mort96 wrote:
| Like if I say to my boss, "Hey I want to reduce my position to
| 50% to spend 50% of my time working for this other company",
| and they respond with "Sorry, we don't want part-time
| employees", and I respond "ok I quit", who in their right mind
| would describe that as me getting _fired_?
| falcor84 wrote:
| Did he actually ask to reduce his position? As far as I'm
| aware, being a CEO is never based on hours worked, and there
| are plenty of other CEOs with multiple commitments.
| mort96 wrote:
| The way the tweet is phrased makes me think he was asked by
| the board to choose, so I guess a more appropriate analogy
| would be:
|
| I'm employed by a company, I start a side gig which I spend
| 50% of my productive time on, my boss eventually tells me
| that they need someone in my position to be a proper full
| time employee and I need to choose. I respond, "okay, in
| that case I resign".
|
| There's no difference between the two analogies in my eye,
| they're the same except that the first is about asking
| permission while the second is about just doing it.
| falcor84 wrote:
| There is definitely a difference to discuss, but simplified it
| still states "Unless you change your behavior, you need to go",
| as suck, I don't feel that "fired" is inaccurate.
| mort96 wrote:
| This feels reductive. He was asked to choose between two
| jobs, and told that he couldn't have both. He chose one of
| them. Describing that as being "fired" is whack. "He was
| fired for choosing to work somewhere else instead of here",
| really?
| yurishimo wrote:
| In layman's terms, we call that "quitting"!
| jfoster wrote:
| I would call it an ultimatum.
|
| Quitting: You decide that it's time to go.
|
| Firing: Your boss decides that it's time for you to go.
|
| Ultimatum: Choose between these options, or it's time for
| you to go.
|
| The only part that might not be right is the tone. I
| think "ultimatum" sounds a bit adversarial, whereas PG is
| describing something more cooperative in nature.
| addicted wrote:
| You're not "fired" if you were given an option to continue in
| the job.
| falcor84 wrote:
| How so? If my boss tells me that I have to stop my out-of-
| work political activism or he he'll fire me, what would you
| call that?
| belter wrote:
| Both scenarios involve a loss of control over one's
| professional destiny, not by choice but by external forces...
| mort96 wrote:
| Are you making the argument that "every situation which
| involves losing control over one's professional destiny is by
| definition a situation in which one is fired"? If so, I
| disagree. If not, I don't see the relevance.
| belter wrote:
| > Are you making the argument that "every situation which
| involves losing control over one's professional destiny is
| by definition a situation in which one is fired"?
|
| No, I am saying these two are similar.
|
| > I don't see the relevance.
|
| The relevance is that trying to pull an Elon Musk one...Has
| relevance to the professional ethics of the current manager
| of the OpenAI new safety team...
| mort96 wrote:
| Aha so you're saying you agree with me, calling this a
| firing isn't appropriate. It's just similar to a firing
| in that both involve not working at a place anymore. Cool
| belter wrote:
| Ah..ah..nice try:-) That is like those cheating husband
| arguments.
|
| - You are not leaving me...I am leaving you!
| mort96 wrote:
| Person A to person B: "Hey I love you, please stay with
| me but you have to choose between me and person C"
|
| Person B: "okay I choose person C, bye"
|
| Person B left
|
| ---
|
| Contrast with:
|
| Person A to person B: "I'm leaving you because you have a
| relationship with person C"
|
| Person A left
|
| ---
|
| It's really not complicated, and I seriously don't
| understand why so many people here don't get it...
| whether you're fired or resigning, and whether you're the
| person leaving or the person being left, depends on who
| has the agency. If you're making the choice, you're
| resigning. If you have no say, you're being fired.
|
| People leave their jobs all the time because their job
| requires something from them that they don't want to
| give. That's not being fired, that's resigning. (If the
| job requires something which you're _unable_ to give,
| such as if you 're doing as good of a job as you can
| reasonably do but your employer requires you do better
| still and you're just not good enough, then you don't
| have the agency; you're being fired.)
|
| Now, I'm done with this conversation, if you have a
| counter argument then try to think hard about what I
| would say in response. You can handle both sides of this
| conversation from here. I have been clear enough.
| tivert wrote:
| > The comments here and on Twitter are really weird. I don't
| like the guy either but surely anyone has to agree that there's
| a difference between being told, "We don't want you on as CEO
| anymore", and being told "We want you as CEO but we need a CEO
| who's only focused on one company"? It seems weird to describe
| the situation where Altman is asked to choose and chooses
| OpenAI as "he was fired from YC".
|
| But maybe not as big a difference as some make it out to be. A
| PIP is technically a statement of "we want you to be an
| employee, but we need you to change X to stay," but someone
| doesn't meet the PIP requirements you'd still say they were
| fired.
| mort96 wrote:
| If someone _can 't_ meet the PIP requirements, then they're
| fired.
|
| If someone could easily meet the PIP requirements, but
| decides to leave instead, then they left.
|
| In my mind, the entire question is about who has agency.
| bradlys wrote:
| A PIP is almost always a formal nothingburger as a
| paperwork enforced means to get someone fired. Very often
| the goals of PIPs are either ridiculously high or
| nonsensically vague as to be interpreted in whatever way
| that would please the person doing the firing.
|
| It gives a false sense of "agency" for the employee. In
| reality, the employee was already fired 3 months ago in the
| mind of the manager.
| mort96 wrote:
| Right. So there's no real agency, so it's a firing.
| Unlike the case where you're just asked which of the two
| companies you want to be CEO of.
| tivert wrote:
| No, it's not a simple binary like that. PIPs aren't about
| ability, they're about performance (as in "doing the
| thing"). For instance, someone who _can_ meet the PIP
| requirements can still _choose_ not to meet them yet _also_
| choose not to resign. Those choices will probably lead them
| to be fired.
| stefan_ wrote:
| I suppose you also think all these executives really quit to be
| with their family?
| mort96 wrote:
| That's a completely different question. You're alleging that
| Paul is lying, which might very well be the case. I'm just
| saying that if everything Paul said is correct, I don't think
| the word "fired" is appropriate.
| mettamage wrote:
| Sounds like Sam was overemployed and had to choose. That seems
| fair.
| FergusArgyll wrote:
| HN goes off the rails when it comes to successful ppl /
| companies. (OpenAI, Google, Tesla, Microsoft, Apple etc etc.)
|
| It's almost like no one here wants to be a successful
| entrepreneur
| mvc wrote:
| Call me old an old fashioned economist but I believe that we
| all succeed better when there are many small companies. Not
| just a single big one.
| danem wrote:
| So what are you saying? That deliberately misinterpreting and
| sensationalizing a clear statement is justified because of
| the size and success of OpenAI? There's no good faith reading
| of PGs statement that implies Altman couldn't have remained
| CEO of YC if he wanted to.
| mvc wrote:
| I couldn't care less about whatever hyped up argument
| involving OpenAI is the current drama.
|
| I was just speculating on why some hn members might feel
| like entrepreneurs even though they have nothing in common
| with Sam Altman. And how it might even be in their long
| term interest for one man to not be quite so powerful.
| latexr wrote:
| You're framing the argument in a way that prevents you from
| empathising with the other side and understanding it. This has
| nothing to do with being "successful", it has to do with being
| highly influential while doing things which harm others to
| befit yourself.
|
| A successful company or individual who does right by its users
| or employers and puts them above personal gain is lauded. Maybe
| people would prefer to be successful entrepreneurs who retain
| human decency.
|
| Your argument also makes it sound like HN is a hive mind who
| all think the same. It's not. You'll find just as many people
| defending that behaviour as you'll find detractors.
| qxfys wrote:
| I can see two different interpretations in the comment section.
| just like our world. people believe what they want to believe.
| jeltz wrote:
| And both are totally valid interpretations. Pg' tweet does
| nothing to clarify what happened.
| d--b wrote:
| This is quite suspicious. There were tons of articles relaying
| the rumor that he was fired for obscure reasons.
|
| Why would Altman not deny them, and why would pg wait until now
| to say it wasn't true? The reason pg gives is uncontroversial.
| nathanasmith wrote:
| This week on GenerativeAI Hospital..
| Havoc wrote:
| Seems reasonable on the face of it. Though lately my trust in
| taking anything SV related at good faith face value has
| plummeted.
| niffydroid wrote:
| This sounds like a mutal consent sort of thing. Its like with
| football managers, normally the board is unhappy with the manager
| and the manager knows it and even agrees with it (to some extent)
| so rather being fired and having the animosity of it, they all
| agree things aren't working out and walk. Sounds similar here. YC
| basically implied you're spreading yourself thin so we think its
| best you pick one and it sounds like he agreed!
| emadm wrote:
| "The increasing amount of time Altman spent at OpenAI riled
| longtime partners at Y Combinator, who began losing faith in him
| as a leader. The firm's leaders asked him to resign, and he left
| as president in March 2019. Graham said it was his wife's doing.
| "If anyone 'fired' Sam, it was Jessica, not me," he said. "But it
| would be wrong to use the word 'fired' because he agreed
| immediately." Jessica Livingston said her husband was correct. To
| smooth his exit, Altman proposed he move from president to
| chairman. He pre-emptively published a blog post on the firm's
| website announcing the change. But the firm's partnership had
| never agreed, and the announcement was later scrubbed from the
| post. For years, even some of Altman's closest associates--
| including Peter Thiel, Altman's first backer for Hydrazine--
| didn't know the circumstances behind Altman's departure. "
|
| From the Wall Street journal
|
| https://archive.is/WiqtZ#selection-1177.0-1207.168
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| "You can't fire me if I quit first."
|
| But seriously, this tweet doesn't claim that WSJ is wrong, it's
| just a different spin. If you have an upcoming lucrative side
| business and your employer comes and says "hey bro, it's either
| us or them" then this is not technically a "firing" if you
| chose the other one. But let's not pretend like there was much
| choice here in the first place. For all intents and purposes,
| he was made to leave.
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| Didn't know Thiel was one of Altman's closest associates. Might
| explain a few things, e.g. maybe he got some useful tips from
| Thiel how to acquire and maintain power at all costs ; )
| causal wrote:
| I agree with everyone saying this is not technically being
| fired, but PG's tweet omits the important context of YC
| partners losing faith in Sam as a leader.
| neom wrote:
| I ran a multi-million dollar a year non-profit and had a full-
| time job. It's not unusual to chair or "run" a non-profit and
| have a regular job, non-profits are actually set up to make this
| easy to do. If that non-profit somehow mystically turned into a
| for-profit enterprise, for a multitude of reasons (some less
| obvious) I would have clearly had to pick one or the other. If
| said non-profit had commercialized transformer as a service, I'd
| have quit DigitalOcean (double so if I was well vested).
|
| Just to make it fair with the situation: I honestly don't know if
| I would have proactively quit one or the other. Depending on the
| workloads, I may very well have tried to moonlight both for a
| while, I'm unsure.
|
| I don't think this tweet by Paul is weird at all.
| samastur wrote:
| They didn't seem to mind him running Worldcoin though. Doing
| two (several) jobs problem came later and this explanation
| doesn't really address this.
|
| Personally I don't care if pg is completely honest or if sam
| was fired or not. It doesn't have meaningful impact on my view
| of either.
| rco8786 wrote:
| The tweet specifically says "if he was going to run OpenAI
| full-time ..". Sounds like they were fine with him
| moonlighting other projects, Worldcoin, OpenAI as a non-
| profit, but if YC wasn't going to be his primary "full-time"
| focus then he would need to choose.
|
| Feels entirely reasonable.
| tomhoward wrote:
| > Sounds like they were fine with him moonlighting other
| projects
|
| Even that's not quite right. OpenAI had been a research
| project inside YC. So there was no "moonlighting" about it
| (and Worldcoin started around the same time Sam left YC).
|
| It seems everyone accepted that things qualitatively
| changed when OpenAI stopped being a non-profit research
| project inside YC to becoming a for-profit venture, and
| they just had an adult conversation about it.
| scarmig wrote:
| Was OpenAI at all affiliated with YC? I think they were
| entirely independent organizations.
| tomhoward wrote:
| OK, it was independent but established with funding from
| YC Research and Jessica (among others including Sam
| himself and Elon) and initially operating from YC office
| space.
|
| So it was always something that was closely linked to YC
| and his involvement with it was generally accepted as
| being harmonious with his role running YC, until it
| became for-profit.
|
| Details here:
|
| https://www.wired.com/2015/12/how-elon-musk-and-y-
| combinator...
| schrodinger wrote:
| I haven't ever heard of worldcoin but ChatGPT has actually
| made it to the average person's lexicon, and been covered in
| the NYTimes repeatedly. Surely some non jobs take more effort
| than others...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Sometime things becomes a problem when they start having
| practical impacts.
|
| Not everything is a matter of principle
| tomhoward wrote:
| > They didn't seem to mind him running Worldcoin though
|
| He left YC in March 2019. Worldcoin was formed in 2019.
| CalChris wrote:
| Crunchbase says the WorldCoin seed round was January 2019.
|
| https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/worldcoin/investor_
| f...
| tomhoward wrote:
| Right, so, no evidence that they had no problem with him
| running Worldcoin. It could all have been part of the
| "Sam now has too much on his plate to adequately focus on
| YC" conversation.
| llm_trw wrote:
| >multi-million dollar a year non-profit
|
| At 24 I ended up as the chair of a not for profit that stood on
| top of $30 million of real estate _because no one else wanted
| to_. Getting quorum was impossible because we needed three out
| of five board members to show up to a meeting.
|
| People have this idea it's mustache twirling villains running
| these things. It's usually the idiot thats about to burn out.
| ianhawes wrote:
| Happy to hear that my experience in non-profits was not
| unique.
| llm_trw wrote:
| One of these days I should write a book about it.
|
| Question: It's 2 am, a dead opossum is stuck in the main
| drain for the property and the water is rising during a
| once in a decade storm. What do you do?
|
| Answer: Wade neck deep into the water, with a stoner
| tripping on mushroom holding a light, then stab it with a
| crowbar until the water pressure flushes it down.
| justinclift wrote:
| And the stoner tripping on mushrooms was you, but you
| didn't realise it wasn't someone else at the time? :)
|
| Maybe you could turn it into a movie script, something
| like 'Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas'?
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120669
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| Glad to know you didn't get sucked down too, neck deep
| water draining has some crazy strength. I'm sure that was
| quite a magical experience for Flashlight Stoner as well!
| cpach wrote:
| _"One of these days I should write a book about it."_
|
| Please do!
| garaetjjte wrote:
| Was that part of chairman duties?
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| as another idiot about to burn out, it's not unique. :)
| OccamsMirror wrote:
| > It's usually the idiot thats about to burn out.
|
| 99 times out of 100 it's that idiot. The only time it's not
| is when it is someone that has figured out how to truly
| benefit themselves from the appointment. Whether ethically or
| no.
| llm_trw wrote:
| Everyone wants to be Mitchell Baker.
| drewda wrote:
| Baker was the CEO of the Mozilla Foundation.
|
| For what it's worth, the above comments are talking about
| serving on the board of directors of a foundation --
| which is most often part-time and not paid.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Baker is the Chairman of Mozilla Foundation and is (was)
| the CEO of Mozilla Corporation.
| drewda wrote:
| Yes, but for what it's worth, I was reading the above
| comment as being about the large compensation package
| that Baker received as the CEO of Mozilla Foundation.
| fetzu wrote:
| A compensation (as CEO of Mozilla Corporation) which is
| set by (I imagine) the board of the Mozilla Foundation.
| gabrielsroka wrote:
| Chairwoman
|
| https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/
| janderson215 wrote:
| From your link: "Executive Chair of the Board, Member of
| the Nominating and Governance Committee"
| gabrielsroka wrote:
| > As Chairwoman of Mozilla for the last two decades,
| Mitchell Baker...
|
| Also from my link
|
| https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/#mitchell-
| bak...
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Chairman. Men and women are equal and should be treated
| no different from the other.
| wzdd wrote:
| You obviously do not believe that, or you would have
| written "men and men are equal".
| Dalewyn wrote:
| There are irreconcilable biological differences, but as
| far as socio-political bullshittery is concerned that's
| irrelevant.
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| Genuine question: Why did you include "about to burn out" in
| the description?
|
| Is it because the chairing the non-profit is enough
| work/burden that it causes folks to burn out, or does this
| role tend to attract people who are already on the path to
| burning out, or some other thing?
|
| I thought that was a really interesting detail to include but
| couldn't quite figure it out on my own. :)
|
| Thanks in advance!
| sdenton4 wrote:
| It's often people who have a hard time saying no who end up
| spread thin over a number of gigs - this leads to burn out.
| Or not showing up to meetings... The 3/5 of the board who
| can't be rounded up are also signed up for too many things.
| ghaff wrote:
| When I was chair of a small non-profit (currently still a
| board member after a hiatus for a few years), I'm not
| sure I'd have described it as burnout but increased lack
| of engagement and interest definitely became a problem
| over time. When we did require in-person votes/quorums,
| that did become a problem because it usually required
| traveling for most board members 2 or 3 weekends a year.
|
| At some point, while I was on hiatus, the board did
| change its rules to allow telephone and, later, Zoom
| attendance which has been IMO something of a mixed bag
| but probably inevitable especially post-COVID. I'd like
| people to get together in person more but it's harder
| than when the board skewed younger; people have more
| family responsibilities at this point and, of course at
| this point, a lot of people just have less patience about
| getting together physically when business can mostly be
| taken care of over a couple hour Zoom call.
|
| Fortunately, the non-profit's regular activities and
| finances have been on a pretty even keel so the board
| mostly just keeps an eye out for problems.
| extragood wrote:
| Not sure if it's what was meant, but an HOA board isn't too
| far off of that description. In my experience, the job is
| necessary but relatively thankless and uncompensated. No
| one wanted to volunteer their time, and I was interested in
| cash flow and a building improvement so I served for a
| year. The only other board members ran uncontested and also
| had very demanding jobs outside of the association.
| Everyone else was happy to let us take care of all the
| minutiae of coordinating maintenance, budget, property
| management, etc. It was a lot of work.
|
| So to answer your question, I've observed that it attracts
| people who are already ambitious in other aspects of their
| life (and maybe a little too generous with their own time),
| and the extra work it entails compounds with their other
| commitments which can lead to burnout.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| IME: because the people who are ok with abandoning things
| are gone, and people who are not ok with abandoning things
| are stuck there due to some kind of fucked-upness (in the
| grandparent, lack of quorum) that makes it impossible to
| 'properly' depart until they just can't do it any more. I
| chaired an organization for four years (in a planned term
| of two years) and had nobody interested in being my
| successor. Finally I said "I can't be involved in this any
| more" and basically disappeared on them.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| amusing, private foundations + a donor advised fund is way
| better, have you tried that?
| croes wrote:
| Lets ask ChatGPT:
|
| Was Sam Altman fired by YC?
|
| >Yes, Sam Altman was effectively fired from Y Combinator (YC).
| Although the official announcement framed his departure as a
| resignation to focus on other projects like OpenAI, multiple
| sources indicate that Paul Graham, the founder of YC, made the
| decision to let him go. This decision was due to Altman
| prioritizing his personal ventures over his responsibilities at
| YC.
|
| https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-dramatic-firings
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38378216
|
| https://english.elpais.com/technology/2023-11-24/why-everyon...
| flurdy wrote:
| > This decision was due to Altman prioritizing his personal
| ventures over his responsibilities at YC.
|
| Which is essentially what Paul Graham's tweet sayed: Choose YC
| or other ventures (OpenAI)
| croes wrote:
| The why he left YC is the same but the how is in question.
|
| >You're fired.
|
| >No, I quit.
| 6510 wrote:
| That's nothing, Bing copilot does much better:
|
| > Yes, Sam Altman was indeed fired from Y Combinator (YC). The
| decision to remove him from his position as CEO was made due to
| long-standing patterns of behavior1. Former OpenAI board member
| Helen Toner accused Altman of lying to and obstructing OpenAI's
| board, as well as retaliating against those who criticized him.
| She also mentioned that Altman created a "toxic atmosphere"
| within the company2. Interestingly, Altman had previously been
| affiliated with YC but was later reported to have been fired
| from YC and even appointed himself chairman without
| authorization3. It seems his behavior led to significant
| consequences in both organizations.
|
| Not sure what to think, Lucy in the sky with diamonds?
| croes wrote:
| Who knows what agreements exist between Altman and YC.
|
| There could be a kind of non-disparagement agreement like OpenAI
| used to have.
| deadghost wrote:
| >The number one thing not to do is other things.
|
| https://www.paulgraham.com/die.html
| tarr11 wrote:
| Paul Graham's blog is the Poor Richard's Almanack of startups.
| lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote:
| It's the Curdleboot Effect: best way to get the information isn't
| to ask for it, but to make wrong statements and someone on the
| internet will correct you?
|
| Well there ya go.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| dude this is spin lol. yc fired him, it's OK.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| When in doubt, we should always try to evaluate from the facts,
| they are more reliable than people, especially in this type of
| context.
| mola wrote:
| Why is the text in a picture typewriter style? Is he trying to
| project formality?. Odd person
| phatfish wrote:
| I thought the coveted "blue check" allowed long Tweets? Even
| less reason to post an image of text.
| z7 wrote:
| Is he perhaps implying something nefarious about a typewriter?
| Maybe his typewriter disappeared and he's suspecting Sam
| Altman? Very suspicious.
| mattigames wrote:
| You have said the actual truth
| dlivingston wrote:
| It's a monospaced font and he's a computer programmer. Probably
| a screenshot from emacs or whatever text editor he uses. Not
| that weird.
| Arainach wrote:
| I expect my aging parents who were working full time before
| personal computers existed to know how to copy and paste text
| instead of taking a picture of a screen, and my bar for
| managing a technology incubator/fund is higher than that.
| reportgunner wrote:
| Perhaps it was intentional to make it not copy pastable as
| text.
| jjulius wrote:
| Respectfully, what in the world would be the point of
| that? It's not like it's impossible to reproduce the text
| if you can't copy/paste.
| layer8 wrote:
| You're aware that OCR-copying text from images is a
| builtin feature of smartphones and even some desktop OSes
| nowadays?
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| That's what I came to ask. Why is it a picture at all? A screen
| shot of text rather than the actual text? If it's posted from
| his own account why post a screen shot of something he wrote?
| That frankly makes it less authentic and more weird.
|
| The font itself is weird. It's not a programming monospaced
| font it's a typewriter font which has weird kerning and other
| aspects that make it both noticeable and less useful than a
| console font.
|
| What an end to end bizarre post.
| ksherlock wrote:
| That's just courier, which was originally developed by IBM in
| the 1950s for their typewriters, but is perfectly fine as a
| programming font. Heck, you can find it in use as a
| programming font (in books, reports, papers, etc) probably
| going back to the 1950, so it's been a "programming font" for
| nearly 70 years.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I'm not saying people didn't use this font for a terminal
| but it's not a font designed for terminals it's designed to
| optimize the strike of a typewriter. Using it on a modern
| terminal is anachronistic at best, but using it to provide
| the content of a tweet in an image is bizarre.
| elorant wrote:
| I fucking hate all these threads about Altman. We're here to
| discuss technology, not gossip about someone's personality, or
| make assumptions about his motives. This is not an annual
| convention of psychiatrists.
| smt88 wrote:
| Counterpoint: you can't separate technology, especially
| powerful/influential products like OpenAI's, without talking
| about their governance.
|
| The ethics of OpenAI directly affect my career and life. They
| affect the future elections, art, my dad's pension fund, and
| many other things I care about.
|
| Discussing Altman as person helps us understand what he might
| do with is near-complete control over the ethics of OpenAI.
| hackernewds wrote:
| The personality impacts the most influential technology of our
| decade. It matters.
| yashg wrote:
| "We didn't fire him, we just asked him to leave because he
| decided to become CEO of another for profit company."
|
| OK. It doesn't matter anyway.
| netcan wrote:
| Well... considering where Sam is today, you just have to accept
| and expect that speculation will be maxed out.
| AnonHP wrote:
| Does anybody else wonder how our world would've been if Sam had
| chosen YC and instead left OpenAI?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Would be absolutely insane if openAI was another Musk company.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| That is to say, I think this is a possible alternative if Sam
| was less engaged. If I recall correctly he tried to take over
| before he left the board in 2018
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Jesus Christ I have not seen more mental bending over backwards.
| Pg is clearly saying he wasn't fired and he was asked to choose
| between the two in a friendly manner and people can still do
| their best to turn it into some Macbeth like events. Hate makes
| people absolutely mental.
| spdustin wrote:
| Tweet is simply text on an image that reads:
|
| "People have been claiming YC fired Sam Altman. That's not true.
| Here's what actually happened. For several years he was running
| both YC and OpenAI, but when OpenAI announced that it was going
| to have a for-profit subsidiary and that Sam was going to be the
| CEO, we (specifically Jessica) told him that if he was going to
| work full-time on OpenAI, we should find someone else to run YC,
| and he agreed. If he'd said that he was going to find someone
| else to be CEO of OpenAI so that he could focus 100% on YC, we'd
| have been fine with that too. We didn't want him to leave, just
| to choose one or the other."
| dmd wrote:
| Why even is it an image? paulg pays for twitter, he could have
| just tweeted the whole thing. It's bizarre.
| aaronharnly wrote:
| Perhaps a habit from the days of more limited Twitter
| character counts.
| namrog84 wrote:
| Maybe it's to help distance one self from what you want to
| say or reverse seo thing?
| CarVac wrote:
| You can't read an entire >280 character tweet without
| clicking on it.
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Hey, if Paul Graham can post an announcement on Twitter/X as an
| image with Courier monospaced font (left justified) instead of
| just typing the actual text, then who am I to judge people
| sending me Word documents, containing bitmap images of screen
| captures of a photo showing an image of a handwritten note :-)
| bmitc wrote:
| This seems revisionist, doesn't it?
|
| The articles claiming this came out last year and Graham didn't
| return requests for comments or make any statements then. So why
| now? Why wasn't there more details when Altman left Y Combinator?
|
| It sure sounds like a firing. If I was fired from a job because I
| was breaking some contract or rule, it seems weird for the
| employer to say they didn't fire me because if I hadn't broken
| the rule they would have been happy to keep me.
| onion2k wrote:
| They said 'If you continue to do this thing then you can't work
| here, so you either stop or leave.' Had he stopped then he
| would have continued working for YC. That makes it pretty
| obvious that he wasn't fired - you aren't given the option to
| keep your job if you're fired.
| bmitc wrote:
| That's like saying anyone put on a PIP that made the decision
| not to improve wasn't fired.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > It sure sounds like a firing.
|
| You fire someone when you don't want them anymore.
|
| In this case, he was asked to choose between YC and OpenAI
| (because doing both is too big a job).
|
| That is not firing someone when they choose whether or not to
| stay.
| bmitc wrote:
| > That is not firing someone when they choose whether or not
| to stay.
|
| That's only true if they left on their own accord. That isn't
| what happened.
| andsoitis wrote:
| They chose a different job (OpenAI) over YC. They chose to
| leave.
|
| When I someone the option, that is not a firing.
|
| I really don't understand why you, and others who insist
| otherwise, have this worldview.
| barnabee wrote:
| > So why now?
|
| Presumably because "[PG] got tired of hearing that YC fired
| Sam"
|
| > Why wasn't there more details when Altman left Y Combinator?
|
| Why on earth should there be? If it was me I'd think it's
| nobody else's business and therefore be uninterested in sharing
| or explaining those details.
|
| However once the world starts speculating and assuming
| something else happened, I can see why at some point it makes
| sense to provide some more detail to try to correct that, even
| if you'd rather not.
| bmitc wrote:
| Paul Graham really likes hearing himself soeak, so it's weird
| he was quiet on this until now. One would have assumed that
| he was tired of hearing this way back last year. And his
| previous statements have indeed pointed more to it being a
| forceful split.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Twitter breakage: <https://archive.is/HnTkV>
| totallymike wrote:
| Isn't an ultimatum just a firing with extra steps?
| aarghh wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_without_a_differen...
| thiago_fm wrote:
| That's a perfect article of what happened in reality.
|
| They belong to a similar high social class and protect each
| other. If it were just a random employee with no power, money,
| or status that was moonlighting or trying to run their side
| business, they would be scrutinized and possibly sued. If their
| generated IP were any good, the company would claim it was
| theirs.
|
| But yeah, if you are a CEO, you can run a few companies and
| participate in a couple of boards, even while not disclosing
| this to the many boards you partake in and having many
| businesses with conflicting interests. As you are part of the
| elite, you are safe.
| hluska wrote:
| I founded and ran a non profit for several years while I
| worked for a startup. I am the polar opposite of an elite.
| That's just how non profits work.
| hluska wrote:
| Asking someone to choose one or the other is not the same as
| firing them. It's clearly written that if Sam Altman had chosen
| YC he would have stayed there.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Exactly. I don't understand how people are getting that this
| _is_ a difference.
|
| If I offer you either chicken or pasta for a meal, and you
| pick the pasta, you don't get to say I denied you the
| chicken.
|
| If you have a choice over which job you want to keep, you're
| not getting fired. It is _very much_ a meaningful difference.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Reddit has a term for this: Everyone Sucks Here (ESH)
| dartos wrote:
| I've never seen HN so thirsty over celebrity tea before.
| opentokix wrote:
| So just regular work stuff, got it.
| habosa wrote:
| Ok but ... that means Sam was still greedy and overconfident
| enough to try and run both OpenAI and YC until Paul/Jessica told
| him he had to choose.
| redbell wrote:
| > I got tired of hearing that YC fired Sam
|
| This story was discussed last November, by the title " _Before
| OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor_ "
| with +1k points and +700 comments
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38378216).
| wbl wrote:
| Sounds like Sam got sacked for refusing to resolve a conflict of
| interest to me.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| who the fuck cares really
| dboreham wrote:
| At least we know for sure now that he was fired.
| playingalong wrote:
| "I don't believe in news that has not been denied"
| gwern wrote:
| pg was already on the record about Altman being fired back in
| December: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sam-altman-openai-
| protected-by-s...
|
| > Graham said it was his wife's doing. "If anyone 'fired' Sam,
| it was Jessica, not me", he said. "But it would be wrong to use
| the word 'fired' because he agreed immediately." Jessica
| Livingston said her husband was correct....To smooth his exit,
| Altman proposed he move from president to chairman. He pre-
| emptively published a blog post on the firm's website
| announcing the change. But the firm's partnership had never
| agreed, and the announcement was later
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38384090) scrubbed from
| the post...For years, even some of Altman's closest associates
| --including Peter Thiel, Altman's first backer for Hydrazine--
| didn't know the circumstances behind Altman's departure.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| Yes but why not tweet this months ago
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| Unfortunately the evidence does not favor his version of events.
| LargeWu wrote:
| I think it's important to remember that PG has deeply vested
| interests into making sure the billionaire class keeps their
| wealth and status. He's part of a big club that's all looking out
| for each other, selling everybody on the idea that "what would
| you poors do without us pulling the strings". So yeah, it
| shouldn't surprise anybody that he's vouching for his colleague.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| The tweet is weird.
|
| For starters, it features a guy blaming his wife for a decision.
| Sounds like a certain Supreme Court justice. It is inherently
| bullshit.
|
| Separately, corporate communications are as much about what you
| don't talk about as what you do.
|
| Paul Graham probably wishes he could turn back the clock, and
| never fire Altman from YC in the first place.
|
| They would have loved to have Altman be the figurehead of YC at
| this time.
|
| I'm sure they had these conversations for months: "You can come
| back to YC as a figurehead president." The conversations went
| nowhere. Maybe YC was ready to genuflect, ready to co-administer
| the OpenAI startup fund, which is obviously Altman's BANTA. Like
| why deal with YC at all, when Altman could administer an index on
| all AI startups better than they can? That's what happened.
| What's in it for this billionaire Altman to generate wealth for
| YC LPs, at this stage?
|
| The best Graham could do was this tweet. YC is not yet an index
| on all the best AI startups. End of story. This is an existential
| crisis for them. They are of course a great organization who
| sincerely care about people succeeding, but so do many
| accelerators and venture studios. So it's very hard to see this
| play out.
|
| Sam Altman was incomprehensibly lucky. His feet which people
| stepped on were _constantly_ connected to his ass which they had
| to kiss tomorrow. His executive collaborators _also_ were people
| whose feet were stepped on and whose ass now gets kissed. Satya
| Nadella - the CEO of a far more successful and influential
| company - has to kiss these asses!
|
| He even got fired from OpenAI - of course the science PhDs were
| right, he had to go, what's wrong with you people, you should
| always be on Team PhD - and yet _again_ you must kiss his ass
| after stepping on his toes. The OpenAI board got mocked in the
| media, implications of being unqualified, with all the associated
| sexism, for doing their jobs correctly! Sounds like a certain
| toxic politician.
|
| Truthfully, all of his antagonists should stop wasting their time
| worrying about this guy. Anthropic is likely to be very
| successful. Work for them! There are alternatives. It took only a
| year for competition to force OpenAI to make its core offering
| free. All the Thrive ass kissers may yet have bought billions of
| dollars of units of OpenAI that will turn out to be worth far
| less than they bargained for. Time will tell.
| Aloha wrote:
| I think we're about to see yet another AI winter, and the
| people who did not invest in AI will look smart in 2-3 years. I
| think we're a long way off from a general purpose AI - its not
| that AI isn't useful as a tool, it is - but its an additive
| tool to leverage human creativity.
| burnished wrote:
| I'm curious how that read as blame to you? Because it read like
| a good and reasonable decision that he attributed to an
| important person at YC.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Always, in all the limited history of the world of corporate
| communications, attribution of a statement or a decision is
| meant to assign blame and infamy. This is corporate speech!
| It plays by different rules than the kids gloves stuff the 22
| year old engineer hears from his 30 year old engineering
| manager.
|
| I mean, it's called `git blame` for a reason. For every 1
| person clicking "Annotate" to see who wrote some excellent
| code, there are 99 people clicking it to see whom to blame.
| burnished wrote:
| Your comment about git blame pierces me, but I still think
| you are off base about this thing specifically - Paul Grahm
| is talking about someone he respects, that he feels does
| not get seen as occupying an important role/decision maker
| due to eschewing credit.
|
| It may pattern match as blame (and I think that heuristic
| about corporate speech is probably a good one), but I don't
| think that tracks in this context. Partially because it
| doesn't make sense on the personal and emotional level, and
| partially because it doesn't read as blame at all.
| bookaway wrote:
| >For starters, it features a guy blaming his wife for a
| decision. Sounds like a certain Supreme Court justice. It is
| inherently bullshit.
|
| As he happens to be a guy who frequently compliments his wife
| publicly on her contribution to YC, as well as on her being a
| good judge of character, it seems more likely it was meant as a
| compliment. As in, "it was her decision and I think it was the
| right one."[0] But this interpretation hilariously makes the
| statement less generous to Altman than it would have been.
|
| [0] He also uses "We" even though he is technically retired
| from YC (?), thereby taking some responsibility for the
| decision and acknowledging that he wasn't a complete bystander.
| khazhoux wrote:
| > For starters, it features a guy blaming his wife for a
| decision
|
| No. Jessica's role here was a founding partner of YC, not as
| "his wife." His tweet says that Jessica (not Paul himself, or
| both together) was the person who communicated with Sam that he
| needed to choose (and possibly also handled the matter
| overall).
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| I don't have a twitter account and generally avoid links to it
| unless I really care what apparently is on there. Is it normal
| that people will post an image of text of what they want to say
| vs just typing it directly into twitter?
| paxys wrote:
| It used to be a lot more prevalent when Tweets had a 160
| character limit, but yes people still do it now.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| The weirdest part for me in how this is worded is that Paul G
| learned about OpenAI's for-profit arm through an announcement and
| wasn't something that Sam sought his or Jessica's advice on. For
| what it's worth that alines pretty closely with Helen Toner's
| narrative that he kept the board in the dark and they (or she)
| learned about things through announcements.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| Also strange that PG didn't know that Sam had invested in
| OpenAI through YC until today.
| blast wrote:
| I didn't see that in the OP, are you referencing some other
| information?
| gitfan86 wrote:
| https://x.com/paulg/status/1796174494026879040
| blast wrote:
| Oh right, the twitfuckers don't display threads anymore.
| Thanks.
| mindslight wrote:
| If you're using a secure browser, Xitter doesn't even
| display single tweets any more. Just:
|
| > _Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection (Strict Mode)
| is known to cause issues on x.com_
|
| (lovely inversion of responsibility gaslighting, too)
| loceng wrote:
| Can you elaborate on what 'twitfuckers' means in some
| nuance?
|
| If you're signed in you'd see threads, right?
|
| Do you think it's bad or unreasonable they try to fight
| against at least unsophisticated bots and mass scraping
| attempts?
| varjag wrote:
| Somehow the bot problem got much worse since Elon took
| the helm.
| austhrow743 wrote:
| It's bad and unreasonable to link to deep web content on
| a different site.
| jjulius wrote:
| >And obviously it wasn't influencing me, since I found
| out about it 5 minutes ago.
|
| "Obviously".
| kbenson wrote:
| Is it? They state they've funded 5000 companies since
| 2005[1], and if that was evenly spread per year, that's about
| a company a day. Maybe pg only pays attention to the ones
| that other people bring to his attention given that amount,
| and maybe he "knew" about OpenAI in that it was in some
| report he skimmed or was mentioned but maybe it was seen as
| entirely handled since it was a project for someone else
| there. It could entirely have been out of mind within a week
| or two of him "knowing" it and then it's quickly forgotten,
| and may seem like new information when it comes up years
| later.
|
| 1: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| >Is it?
|
| Yes.
| ohashi wrote:
| Weird that he wouldn't know about a company YC invested in
| that has an 80B valuation? Yeah... that does seem weird.
| santoshalper wrote:
| It's not weird that he didn't know about it the day (or
| week) that it happened. It IS weird that nobody at YC was
| talking about OpenAI when it was exploding.
| josu wrote:
| I don't think this investment is like the rest, there was a
| clear conflict of interest in the OpenAI investment given
| that the CEO of YC was also the founder and one of the
| directors (?) of OpeanAI. And not only Sam, Jessica
| Livingston is also one of the founders of OpenAI.
|
| This is not a comment on whether PG should have been
| informed or not, I don't know how YC operates.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > that's about a company a day.
|
| That doesn't really seem too hard to stay on top of. Might
| not be able to rattle them off later, but even spending 10
| minutes looking into the investment of the day should be
| able to expose really obvious conflicts of interest.
| encoderer wrote:
| Yes! I think Sam was always Paul and Jessica's goodest boy and
| if they found this out by announcement it was likely quite
| hurtful and explains how rumors spread that he was fired for
| it.
| slg wrote:
| > and explains how rumors spread that he was fired for it.
|
| And maybe why PG apparently put no effort into dispelling
| those rumors for months despite being asked to comment on
| them by places like the Washington Post and there being
| plenty of discussion about them here and on Twitter.
|
| He obviously knew about the rumors and he had plenty of time
| and opportunity to clarify things previously. But it wasn't
| until some other external party starts criticizing Altman in
| the press and we seemingly get an "only I can pick on my
| little brother" type response.
|
| Because that timing is the weirdest thing to me. If PG really
| cares and respects Altman as much as he always seems to
| claim, why allow these rumors to persist for so long and
| suddenly choose this moment to dispute them?
| choppaface wrote:
| Perhaps because some things a out how sama did the Apple
| deal rattled even Microsoft
|
| https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-ceo-
| cements-c...
|
| https://mas.to/@carnage4life/112530015885532391
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why PG apparently put no effort into dispelling those
| rumors_
|
| $100bn is a good motivator!
| wnevets wrote:
| why did he post an image of text instead of just text, very
| confusing.
| piyuv wrote:
| Maybe he doesn't want LLM bots training on his data /s
| fairity wrote:
| Most of the conversation in this thread consists of people
| talking past each other bc they aren't aligned on the definition
| of the word: fired.
|
| Yes, there's a way to define the word "fired" such that PG did
| fire Sam.
|
| But, that definition is not the colloquial definition of the word
| "fired".
|
| Just go outside on the street, and ask someone: "My boss just
| told me that I need to stop working on my side project to keep
| working at his company. Would you say I just got fired?"
|
| The answer 95%+ of the time will be no.
|
| So, while I can understand why you might argue that PG fired Sam,
| if you can't understand why PG claims that he did not fire Sam,
| you simply have your head buried in the sand.
| tptacek wrote:
| 100% of the time the answer will be no+. He simply wasn't
| fired.
|
| + _Note key proviso: "going outside"_
| bradlys wrote:
| > The answer 95%+ of the time will be no.
|
| This is where I think everyone will disagree with you. I don't
| know anyone who would agree with your statement. Most people I
| know would agree that you're being fired when your terms of
| continued employment change drastically in such an unfavorable
| way. If my boss told me, "Hey, you can keep working here as
| long as you work for free" then that's being fired but by your
| definition - it's not.
| thomastraum wrote:
| Man says "Just to clarify, rain is wet" Intelligent people on the
| internet "very suspicious, that must imply he was wearing no
| clothes or something fishy, I knew it"
| m3kw9 wrote:
| It was a smear campaign
| barbazoo wrote:
| Unrelated but I'm curious. Why do people often post pictures of
| text instead of the actual text on twitter?
| esafak wrote:
| The practice came about when Twitter had a brief length limit,
| and persisted.
| nostrademons wrote:
| This isn't really incompatible with the rumor mill of "Sam got
| fired for putting his interest above YC's." The situation
| described - where you are CEO of two different for-profit
| companies and one may have investments (and inside knowledge and
| advice) into firms that potentially compete with or buy from the
| other - is a textbook conflict of interest. It's reasonable for
| the board of one enterprise to ask the CEO to pick one or the
| other, and fire him if he refuses. Same situation that led to
| Eric Schmidt stepping down off the Apple board c. 2010.
|
| The white-glove treatment that PG describes is probably much
| closer to the rumors that PG flew back from London to fire Sam on
| the spot. At the exec level, things are usually done civilly,
| because you know that you'll have to deal with these people
| again. But the CEO knows that the board and shareholders are his
| boss, the law is on their side, and so if they want him gone, he
| will be gone. That motivates the CEO to amicably part ways rather
| than force the issue.
| roflyear wrote:
| He was essentially fired. Like, imagine I'm parking in the CEO's
| parking spot each day. I would probably be told "stop doing that,
| or you're getting fired" and if I was like "nah I'll just leave"
| - it's basically me being fired, though with good communication.
|
| He was doing something that did not align with YC and he was told
| to stop doing that, and he said no, and left. Basically pushed
| out of YC. Not "fired for cause" but pushed out, absolutely.
| pierrebai wrote:
| Was it firing was it not? It's all semantics, people on both
| sides of the fence have legitimate reasons to choose one over the
| other. Get over it.
|
| The real interesting bit, is that Paul Graham somehow thought it
| was worthwhile to stick his neck out and improve Sam Altman
| public image by clarifying he was ever fired from YC.
| tptacek wrote:
| It was, obviously, not a firing.
| ahahahahah wrote:
| A: Hey B, you must stop doing this thing or we'll need to
| replace you.
|
| B: Ok, I can't do that. You can replace me
|
| B proceeds to be replaced and no longer works there
|
| Some time later...
|
| T: obviously, B was not fired.
| ahahahahah wrote:
| Like if "this thing" had been "doing drugs during the
| workday", would you have considered the scenario a firing?
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't know what any of this is paraphrasing. Here's what
| Graham actually said:
|
| _People have been claiming YC fired Sam Altman. That 's
| not true. Here's what actually happened. For several years
| he was running both YC and OpenAI, but when OpenAI
| announced that it was going to have a for-profit subsidiary
| and that Sam was going to be the CEO, we (specifically
| Jessica) told him that if he was going to work full-time on
| OpenAl, we should find someone else to run YC, and he
| agreed. If he'd said that he was going to find someone else
| to be CEO of OpenAI so that he could focus 100% on YC, we'd
| have been fine with that too. We didn't want him to leave,
| just to choose one or the other._
|
| He literally directly says they did not fire him and did
| not want him to leave.
| cpach wrote:
| This whole thread is so weird. It's like people _really_
| want to say "yeah, Sam Altman was fired from YC".
| varjag wrote:
| Oh come on, both pg and Jessica are way too intelligent
| to not know what the choice is going to be coming into
| that conversation.
| tptacek wrote:
| If you want to say Altman quit YC, I fully agree! That is
| clearly what he did.
| varjag wrote:
| Naturally. Same way samurai committed seppuku on their
| own volition too: it was clearly a way to part amicably,
| no need to call security.
| tptacek wrote:
| Obviously, no. The more apt comparison would be to a
| samurai choosing between continuing to serve his Daimyo,
| or eating the world's most delicious cinnamon roll. None
| of the options on the table were comparable to
| disembowelment. Reasonable people can disagree about
| which option was the cinnamon roll.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Just like Ilya wasn't fired from OpenAI right, he just left
| slowly, amicably, and very thankfully
|
| Of course all these people were fired, it's just in the world
| of very important VC and tech guys, just like in the world of
| politicians and bureaucrats you can't say that, because
| 'being fired' is for the desk clerks and floor moppers. Very
| important executive Bob of course wasn't fired, he choose to
| spend time with his family
| tptacek wrote:
| If tweets had titles, the title of this one would literally
| be "YC in no sense fired Sam Altman", so really this is
| just Message Board Calvinball.
| greentxt wrote:
| I suspect the truth is he was fired but Paul is afraid to say
| that so has come up with a counter narrative. Paul is very clever
| like that.
| baxtr wrote:
| It doesn't necessarily mean he is lying though. Our brains
| change our memories such that it fits our current narratives.
| loceng wrote:
| "Maybe it's better/a good time you leave" as part of a
| conversation is one such way to recommend someone leave
| rather than a likely alternative.
| baxtr wrote:
| I don't understand. Do you care to explain?
| loceng wrote:
| A talk with YC head like Paul or other, a "read the room"
| situation, the writing is on the wall, etc.
| kelnos wrote:
| That kind of phrasing often carries an undertone of "and
| if you don't leave voluntarily, we will fire you".
| baxtr wrote:
| I understand that. Thanks.
|
| I just don't know how this relates to what I wrote.
| nuz wrote:
| Yeah both their reputations are kind of screwed at this point
| so I don't really believe what they say based on just this
| loceng wrote:
| I wonder if he could be subpoenaed for Elon's lawsuit to
| testify under oath, with potential evidence gathered?
| akira2501 wrote:
| That's what offering someone an ultimatum is. "You either
| change your behavior or you stop working here." The encoded
| threat is that if you do not comply we will simply remove you.
|
| It's somewhat mealy mouthed. "We didn't fire him. We just
| reached the penultimate step before having to fire him."
| jdminhbg wrote:
| If I quit a job because they want everyone to return the
| office, was I fired?
| richbell wrote:
| Depending on the circumstances, it could be construed as
| constructive dismissal. Creating unfavorable ultimatums
| allows companies to 'lay off' people without having to pay
| severance.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_dismissal
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yes, and if you have a union you should talk to them about
| unemployment protection.
| remram wrote:
| If I quit a job because I am starting a full-time job
| somewhere else, was I fired?
| akira2501 wrote:
| If your boss has to come to you and explain to you that you
| can't actually work two full time jobs at once, then yes,
| you were fired very politely.
|
| If you understood the morals and knew enough to offer your
| resignation when you accepted the other job, then no, you
| just took a new job very ethically.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I don't get this speculation.
|
| Lots of comments saying "it was still a firing", which makes no
| sense to me. Firing is not normally used to include situations
| where the outcome is totally under control of the person who is
| "fired".
|
| And you say "Paul is clever like that", which just comes off as
| ridiculous shade to me. Paul may be clever, but he outlined
| some factual info that, if not true, would just be outright
| lying, which I don't think he would do. He fundamentally said
| the decision was always Altman's to make.
|
| Also, I hate how this has become yet another case of using
| semantics disingenuously. Say what you will about the true
| meaning of "firing", but nearly everyone would interpret that
| as Altman got canned and YC didn't want him back. That's not
| what happened apparently. So all the people saying "it's still
| a firing" feels like the "I'm not touching you" game that
| 5-year-old siblings play.
| _obviously wrote:
| I think it's pretty clear from all Sam's interviews that I've
| seen that he is a sociopath. I wonder why Paul didn't see it.
| radres wrote:
| Everyone is trying to read the tweet but not talking about what
| it actually means. This tweet is yelling "Look Sam, if you have
| any problems, come the fuck back. We realize we loved you, even
| if we wanted you gone."
| fhub wrote:
| I'm sure everything in that tweet is true. But I feel it omits
| some details on why running both wasn't working out for YC. e.g.
| He allegedly was dropping the ball on important things - such as
| making sure YC had enough cash on hand (and reaching out to LPs
| for an embarrassingly urgent top-up).
| travisporter wrote:
| 10 MB of network activity to read maybe 2 kb of text which was
| screen captured. What's the web coming to... God I'm ancient
| yieldcrv wrote:
| it's X though, all social media and most news sites are like
| that
| yumraj wrote:
| Maybe the text came from legal/PR, or Sam himself, which he
| decided to just screen capture and post, instead of copy-paste.
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| Stated positively - 10mb loaded in 400ms
|
| That's ~10 minutes with ISDN.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| To me, the biggest thing here is that pg seems to be vouching for
| Sam, so this seems like an important rebuttal to Toner's attacks
| against Sam's character.
| warunsl wrote:
| Or that PG has a lot of money at stake which might suddenly
| become a lot less valuable if the public perception towards Sam
| were to lean towards Sam being unreliable as a CEO of OAI.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I don't know where you got that from. It seems easily possible
| that both of the following are true:
|
| 1. There was reporting and online discussion that sama was
| fired from YC. pg didn't believe this framing was correct and
| sent out his tweet to correct the record.
|
| 2. Toner made some very specific allegations about instances
| where sama was not truthful to the OpenAI board, especially
| with respect to instances of self-dealing.
|
| If #1 is true (and I see no reason to believe it's not), that
| in no way implies #2 is false.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| Toner has cast out a whole constellation of vague and non-
| specific incidents that motivated her to oust Sam. If the
| case was as open-and-shut as (2), why has Toner continued
| making vague and non-specific character attacks, and why did
| the board put out that bizarre "not consistently candid"
| line? Clearly, Microsoft didn't see much of a legal problem
| when Microsoft supported Sam's return to OpenAI and when
| Microsoft offered to hire Sam.
|
| If Toner has been telling the truth about all of the myriad
| things that she claims happened, where was she when she was
| responsible for oversight during recent years? Toner comes
| across as unprofessional and reckless in how she handled all
| of this, whether her claims are true or not.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I wholeheartedly agree that the board's communication and
| how they handled the firing was woefully naive and
| extremely poorly done.
|
| That said, you may have missed it but Toner alleged some
| very specific instances of lying and withholding
| information from the board:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40506582. That's very
| different from "vague and non-specific character attacks".
|
| And, importantly, 4 total board members agreed that was the
| right action to take.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| I believe that 2 things can be true:
|
| 1. Toner says some specific things.
|
| 2. Toner presents them alongside insinuations and plenty
| of vague and nonspecific things.
|
| Apparently (1) wasn't sufficient to justify her actions,
| so she's had to resort to (2).
|
| As for four board members, that's a description of what
| the board did, not what Sam did. The board's actions do
| not justify the board's actions, however much Toner might
| wish that were the case. Just another insinuation in
| place of a reason.
| solidasparagus wrote:
| Terrible people have powerful people vouching for them all of
| the time (just look at the retinue of high-level politicians
| who showed up to support Trump at his trial). Sam is CEO of
| OpenAI, arguably the most important company on earth right now,
| and will be for the foreseeable future. A positive relationship
| with him is beneficial. I don't think you can infer anything
| about Sam's character from this tweet.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's a healthy attitude, I wish someone would have a come to
| jesus talk with Elon along those same lines. Pick something to
| lead, and do it well, do not try to split your loyalties a half
| dozen different ways.
| asveikau wrote:
| This is absolutely a firing.
|
| I think some people in that Twitter thread, pg included, have
| become so brainwashed by euphemistic phrases like "we agreed to
| part ways" to cover a firing, that they start to believe their
| own hype.
|
| A firing can have varying degrees of amicability. It can be a
| reluctant firing. You can literally say "we're sad to see you go"
| and mean it. But I think it's still a firing in this case. It is
| so weird to see people have trouble grasping this.
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| Not in a negative sense, it was an ultimatum of attention
| focus.
| jrflowers wrote:
| I remember when my neighbor's boss gave him an amicable
| ultimatum of attention focus when he was splitting his time
| between smoking weed and serving ice cream. He wasn't fired
| but simply given a set of choices about his future at Cold
| Stone
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| Surely, he could do both if he applied himself and limited
| intake of weed and ice cream.
|
| PS: It's not advertised, but YC participants smoke a lot of
| bowls.
| jrflowers wrote:
| At the end of the day he was simply more passionate about
| gravity bong rips and surf rock than he was about dairy
| and a parting of ways occurred. The fact that the
| conversation was instigated by his boss should in no way
| be construed as a firing, but simply a focus of attention
| ultimatum that led to an ideal outcome for all parties
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| Haha and sigh. Telle est la vie de l'herbe. Contrast this
| with my former hippie nudist neighbors and their
| hydroponic weed but made millions selling electronic
| arcade games. Moderation and priorities, or less
| productivity, employment, and/or more addiction.
| lucubratory wrote:
| Just want you to know that your comments have been seen,
| appreciated, and belly laughed at even if a lot of other
| people apparently struggle with the concept of "fired".
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| Semantics and context. The discriminant is effect on
| reputation if it was for cause or not. It wasn't, it was
| for focus.
| asveikau wrote:
| There's literally a Twitter reply saying that normies only
| understand firing to mean you lose a job against your will,
| and this is something so much more sophisticated than that.
| It reads as parody.
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| Poe's law happens. And the beauty and horror of English
| is that individual words have ambiguous, authoritative
| meanings while also often having additional personal,
| subjective meanings. I vote we replace English with
| German and are only allowed to write sentences
| constructed through a grammar construction UI. ;@)
| gwern wrote:
| I remember working a part-time job as a dishwasher where my
| manager demanded I stay until 1-2AM to get it right
| according to her and indefinitely 'fully focus' on my
| dishwashing duties instead of my other obligations, like to
| 'sleep'. I declined. Even though she and I both described
| it as being fired, as did everyone I ever described it to,
| I guess we were all just mistaken! Really, if we had been
| more sophisticated, we would have understood I wasn't
| _fired_ , I simply 'voluntarily resigned to spend more time
| with my family'.
| pantsforbirds wrote:
| It sounded more like they forced him to pick YC or OAI. I don't
| find that particularly unreasonable either.
| hi-v-rocknroll wrote:
| Sigh. I was already 99.999% sure that's what happened. @sama
| became a instavillian because of finding success with a giant
| bullseye painted on his rep.
| naveen99 wrote:
| Maybe PG feels like michael Jordan's high school coach kicking
| himself for cutting Mike. YC might have been better off with Sam
| still in charge, distracted or not.
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