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by latexr 747 days ago
> 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/worldcoi...

[2]: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/richardnieva/worldcoin-...
1 comments
ImaCake 747 days ago
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.

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latexr 747 days ago
> 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

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