[pierrebai]

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]

It was, obviously, not a firing.

[Barrin92]

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]

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.

[ahahahahah]

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.

[tptacek]

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]

This whole thread is so weird. It’s like people really want to say “yeah, Sam Altman was fired from YC”.

[varjag]

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]

If you want to say Altman quit YC, I fully agree! That is clearly what he did.

[varjag]

Naturally. Same way samurai committed seppuku on their own volition too: it was clearly a way to part amicably, no need to call security.

[ahahahahah]

Like if "this thing" had been "doing drugs during the workday", would you have considered the scenario a firing?

[philwelch]

If an employee was caught doing drugs at work and was given the option of keeping his job if he could just quit the drugs and maybe go to rehab, that’s not a firing at all, that’s a second chance!

[ahahahahah]

I agree! I certainly don't think that making the offer is itself a firing. However, when the offer is declined and the person must leave the company as in the described scenario...

[_giorgio_]

What. Semantics. What.