[wslh]

After reading more articles about Sam it seems he is a genius in the game of power. Am I right? He is at the center of the stage and many powerful people and organizations trust on him beyond the "anecdotes". He will gain more power while he is an amplifier of capital and business opportunities. For an investor point of view he is a business ace and you just need to be careful about partnering with him because he will always be pursuing new opportunities, even ones that eat part of the company you invested in.

[akira2501]

You can literally just buy articles like this. The question that could be asked is the long term ROI here actually going to be worth it for Sam?

The article talks about his "luck" in "surviving." Which is about all he has, apparently. No consideration for the future of the product, the company, or the industry. The triumphant conclusion of this article is "a bunch of CEOs pulled weight and Altman got his old job back, again."

The more of these I read, the more convinced I am that his company is going nowhere, as they seem more skilled at producing "internal drama" than "new product."

[15457345234]

> they seem more skilled at producing "internal drama"

My take on it is that they have an exceptionally skilled marketing department that's good at creating the impression that they've actually created an AGI, with stories trickling out to the press about ChatGPT 'getting lazy' or 'taking a break for the holidays' and other stuff that serves to humanise what is, at least for me, a product which routinely fails to accurately answer basic questions, the answers to which are contained in hundreds of blogs and forum postings.

If others are experiencing something different that's interesting. Personally I note that the 'I got this weird answer' posts are never accompanied by screenshots or any other evidence, they're just claims which all subsequent repliers appear to take as the unvarnished truth.

I congratulate their marketing team; I suspect that Mistral will ultimately present a far superior product.

[wslh]

> The question that could be asked is the long term ROI here actually going to be worth it for Sam?

Don't you think most entrepreneurs would call Sam if they have a chance?

[akira2501]

I don't think being overly connected to the "silicon valley social graph" is particularly useful. I actually think it's probably going to be a negative drain on your time, or sacrificing that, a negative drain on your reputation.

[Nevermark]

At the level of corporate creation and management, your network (graph) doesn't drain you.

It amplifies you. Speeds up big moves, acquisition of resources, hiring key people, etc. These are not loner (atom), team (list), or even top-down (tree), type activities.

A network of powerful people is like a collection of other threads, each with their own resources, that you can call. Literally. And put any number of those threads and resources to work on your problems (your coroutines) concurrently.

[TheNewsIsHere]

> At the level of corporate creation and management, your network (graph) doesn't drain you. It amplifies you. Speeds up big moves, acquisition of resources, hiring key people, etc. These are not loner (atom), team (list), or even top-down (tree), type activities.

Only if it’s a network fit for use and purpose though.

Most companies (are not, won’t be, shouldn’t be, can’t be, don’t want to be) [pick one] an SV behemoth. I once worked at a small organization that had direct connections with a certain former CEO that remains one of the planet’s wealthiest people, but it didn’t really do much either way for the organization.

Put another way focused on OpenAI: I would argue that despite Microsoft’s moves in support of Altman with OpenAI, it’s not like Satya Nadella needs Sam Altman because Sam Altman has something Nadella/MS doesn’t. Quite the opposite. In situations like that, the stability of the stock price and market perception are much more compelling drivers. Microsoft is only transactionally served by him. If he was more expensive to keep than the value derived from his ability to razzle-dazzle, they’d have simply kept quiet.

Edit: typo

[layer8]

One would hope for most entrepreneurs to have better judgement and be less desperate.

[bmitc]

> business ace

What business has he aced?

[wslh]

He helps business ace, not saying that he is a successful entrepreneur. We cannot say that OpenAI is unsuccessful either. We don't know if they will be as successful in the future but he helped in moving the gears.

[BeefDinnerPurge]

A combination of real drive and a tremendous amount of dumb luck. Never forget the dumb luck part though. Life isn't fair, ask Trevor Moore who wrote a song about that, oh wait, you can't, life isn't fair...

[wslh]

If Sam continues to have "luck" it is not survivorship bias. As I said before he is at the center of the stage.

[BeefDinnerPurge]

Tell me you don't understand conditional probability without telling me you don't understand conditional probability.

CEO of Reddit, how'd that go? Project Covalence, how'd that go? Andrew Yang? Our next president, right? 2018, The year Sam Altman became the governor of California, no? And of course: "I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israel Defense Forces, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to." - that aged well.

But he's now in a position where all his failures will be forgotten and his successes amplified forevermore (unless he buys a social media company, but he seems too smart for that so far). It is clear he has reached Jeff Dean levels of ridiculous hagiography though, but I guess worshipping CEOs is a step up from worshipping invisible friends or stinky geriatric ex-presidents so there's that.

[Vecr]

Getting IDF gas masks is not a sign he really knows what he's doing, why not MSA or Avon Rubber?

[BeefDinnerPurge]

So that's totally on brand for sama, no? He runs with the herd because he has a great nose for where the herd is heading. But it's the crazy outliers who dig into stuff like this and find the best options. I suspect he doesn't have time for that nor would he make the time. Wonder what choices Zuck made for his $100M apocalypse man cave.

[stale2002]

The point being that a lot of people have connections, money, or whatever, but those people still don't end up with world changing successes.

[BeefDinnerPurge]

So many trust fund babies know how to just sit back and enjoy life instead, that's true.

[wslh]

Your answer is very rude. You don't differentiate power from business success.

[paulryanrogers]

Why don't you?

[pests]

Sorry, but someone lucky every single time in their life but still be wrong.

Just by probabilities alone it's happened hundreds of times. Probably the source for original prophet claims.

[BeefDinnerPurge]

Why be sorry, large sample sizes more or less guarantee the generation of outliers. But once someone attaches mythology to the event, you get another Sam Altman. Worldcoin alone should raise a lot of questions about his supposed one of a kind brilliance, but it didn't, so here we go again with another auteur too big to fail now.

[pests]

Yes thanks, very succinct wording.

Let one man make one (50/50) prediction once a year from the time he is 20 until 50. One in a billion by chance, but by numbers its had to occured. Attach some mythology and tada.