[arionhardison]

Hi @ronanfarrow — I have only had one interaction with Sam Altman in person, and I was advised to keep it to myself. I know this crowd may not care, but Altman is absolutely terrified of Black people — not in any contextual sense, but in a visceral, instinctive way. For someone who, as you put it, "controls our future," this should matter.

FYI: I am by far not the only one to have experienced this and it 100% impacts hiring and other decisions at OpenAI.

[edbaskerville]

Can you give more details?

It wouldn't particularly surprise me if Sam Altman were racist, but I'm curious what the specific incident you observed was.

[arionhardison]

Yes, but first I want to be very clear on some things.

1. I could have hidden my identify behind a throwaway. I did not feel that would be appropriate when making this calim.

2. I am not looking for anything, literally at all. Any follow ups for blogs; anything that would benefit I will not answer.

3. This is NOT a new account, I am very easy to find; I am 6'1 140lbs

I was working for a company called NationBuilder and I had the opportunity to go on a work trip. Outside of a talk he had just given I was waiting for my ride and I looked over like...damn thats the speaker. I wanted to say Hi; he damn near flagged down the police. I apologized and just decided to move on.

Note: It was in Reno, and no I don't want to go into details; the others are not hard to find because I happened upon them via blog posts so i'm sure if someone with the accumen of RF wants to know, he will find.

I have heard similar stores from several people in the years since. I AM NOT CALLING THIS PERSON RACIST. I am saying; he is observably scared of black people and that is not someone I want making descions about how the world moves foward.

[profdevloper]

Maybe just Occam's Razor -- any time I've seen Sam talk in public he just seems to be a neurotic, anxious individual that would have a hard time interacting with people in any normal context. In a world of infinite variables it's hard to say that his aversion was due to your race -- there's really not much to go on here.

[MattGrommes]

Why would you think Occam's Razor would not determine that racism is the reason? It's just as simple of an explanation as anxiety.

I'm not sure some people understand how "normal" racism is.

[9rx]

Racism is a social bias that isn't "hardwired". It does not trigger the "fight or flight" response like was described in the earlier tale. Anxiety, of course, describes a "fight or flight" system that is malfunctioning. It is the most likely explanation because that is what was originally described. Mind you, the story could have been misrepresented. We do have to put our faith into what was written.

Another comment suggested that Altman was once beat up by a black man. If true, it is possible Sam has developed a conditioned response that associates black men with danger and his reaction stemmed from that. However, that isn't the same thing as racism and to try and categorize it as such would be quite disingenuous.

[pesus]

Thank you for sharing this. I 100% believe it, and it lines up with my experience with other people who came from similar backgrounds as Sam Altman - i.e. white, rich, privileged, and attending elite universities.

I will disagree with one part - I do believe it is racism. Most will never admit it publicly, but if they think you're one of them, it often comes out rather quickly, especially when alcohol is involved.

[portender]

It's sad to me that "racism" is such a divisive word to many, and is met with defensiveness rather than introspection and communication. Trying to not be racist takes work, and communication, and is a process, not a state.

I appreciate OP's sharing as well. Also, racism isn't peddled only by rich white elite university attendees, it reaches into all the corners.

[mememememememo]

An extranordinary claim needs a bit more evidence than one datapoint where in his defense maybe he is scared of anyone he doesn't know trying to talk on the street.

[interstice]

Also mentioned was that more evidence is not hard to find

[profdevloper]

If this is noteworthy, the burden of proof should be on the poster, not the reader to substantiate these claims.

[interstice]

I don't really like this take, as it tries to make being informed somehow not the readers responsibility.

[upmind]

Agreed, his two posts read really weirdly. He made a deliberately vague(?) initial post to get a response and I'm not sure how I feel about his story as you've said, if I was Sam Altman I'd be wary of anyone coming up to me too.

[slibhb]

I wonder if this stems from Sam getting beat up by a black guy. From the article:

> When Altman was sixteen or seventeen, he said, he was out late in a predominantly gay neighborhood in St. Louis and was subjected to a brutal physical attack and homophobic slurs. Altman did not report the incident, and he was reluctant to give us more details on the record, saying that a fuller telling would “make me look like I’m manipulative or playing for sympathy.”

[blackswanman18]

Another black guy here, and I have to say man, if you're going to accuse someone of being racist( which you clearly are you despite the lame ass disclaimer, if his feelings towards black people is influencing hiring at OAI how is he not racist?) why don't you actually say specifically what he did?

"He damn near flagged down the police" tells us nothing about what actually happened. Did he back away? Did he look panicked? Did he say something dismissive? Did he literally call for police or security? You give all these pointless details like where you work and your height, and retreat to vagueness when coming to the actual behavior you're indicting him for.

A rich gay Jewish kid from St.Louis being weary, or even scared of black people is quite believable, a public figure screaming for police because a black guy he was next to said hi just beggars belief, especially when layered in emotionally charged nonspecific language.

And you don't even have the balls to admit you clearly think the guy who calls the cops on black people for saying hi to him, is racist, which you clearly do.

[WarmWash]

Just to clarify, because I am not sure I am reading this correctly:

Your statement that he is terrified of black people is based on you (presumably a black person) running into him outside an event, and him reacting with fear/extreme caution when you approached him?

Not defending Sam, but if that is the case, then it's the kind of thing that Sam can hold up and say "Do you really think my critics are intellectually honest?"

Rock solid evidence is what brings people down. Stretched truths, assumptions, and careful half-truth wording, are all ammo the accused will use to strengthen their side.

[snozolli]

Not defending Sam, but if that is the case, then it's the kind of thing that Sam can hold up and say "Do you really think my critics are intellectually honest?"

Why? It sounds like they were in an environment with many people and Sam reacted negatively to the black guy. It's not like the story was, "so I followed him down a deserted alley and he got scared, so he must be racist."

[WarmWash]

It sounds like Sam was approached on the street by a stranger, and he had a negative reaction. Which is fairly common for high profile people, especially people with a following of haters (let's not deny AI/data center general unrest).

I cannot see any legitimacy to the claim besides the commentor's own interpretation of the situation. They posit this like the authors would want to know, but here I am doing the first thing the authors of the article would do, and I'm getting downvotes for it. The author(s) won't touch it anyway.

[ethbr1]

It's a little weird to be scared of random strangers, famous or not.

If this happened when Altman was already so well-known so as to make this a problem, maybe he shouldn't have been traveling on his own?

Private security is a thing he can afford (now, at least).

[arionhardison]

Note: To all the downvotes; I did this publicly and not anon for a reason, if you will do the same I am more than willing to provide evidence for all of these claims as long as its done publicly and in the open.

[arionhardison]

PG said something along the lines of: "There should be no truth that is increasingly unpopular to speak."

If you don't believe what I shared is true, address that directly. But seeing my post sitting at 1 point and [flagged] after 2 hours is not OK. Just as DJT can't flag away his issues, you shouldn't be able to do so on HN.

One of the things I've loved most about HN is that it was real — grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings. I really hope that what happened to my post is not the beginning or a continuance of the end for that ethos.

[latexr]

> One of the things I've loved most about HN is that it was real — grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings.

That has never been the case, because HN is frequented by humans and humans are biased. Someone who claims to be unaffected by feelings is someone you cannot trust, as it means they are blind to their own shortcomings. Being robotic about the world is no way to live—that’s how you get people who are so concerned with nitpicks and “ackshually” that they completely lose sight of what’s important. They become easy to manipulate because they are more concerned with the letter of the law than its spirit or true justice.

Objectivity and empiricism are positive traits but should be employed selectively. Emotions aren’t a weakness, they are what drives us to change and improve. Understanding your own emotions equips you better to understand the world. But they too can be used to manipulate you. To truly grow, you have to employ your emotional and rational sides together. Focusing on just the rational will get you far but not all the way.

HN is primarily about curiosity—it’s in the guidelines four times—and you can’t have that without emotion.

[palmotea]

>> One of the things I've loved most about HN is that it was real — grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings.

> That has never been the case, because HN is frequented by humans and humans are biased. Someone who claims to be unaffected by feelings is someone you cannot trust, as it means they are blind to their own shortcomings.

Yes, and HN is full of people like that: simultaneously arrogant and stupid software engineers whose arrogance is founded on their own ignorance and self-regard. "Grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings" actually sounds like a smokescreen to obscure one's bias and feelings from oneself.

> Being robotic about the world is no way to live—that’s how you get people who are so concerned with nitpicks and “ackshually” that they completely lose sight of what’s important. They become easy to manipulate because they are more concerned with the letter of the law than its spirit or true justice.

They're also easy to manipulate, because their emotions can be appealed to without them having enough awareness to be on guard. For instance: you can manipulate many software engineers by working your position into the form of a technical "system" (e.g. Econ 101) then praise them for being smart little boys for understanding and believing it.

[odshoifsdhfs]

I don't know if he is a racist or not, but forget HN. Last couple years it has gone on the deep end, not sure if delusion or $ interests, but it is impossible to have a decent conversation here. I think the only reason this article stayed up is because OAI is starting to be a bit 'toxic' now, but if this was published a year ago, it would have been flagged to oblivion.

So just ignore those points and flags. HN *used* to be a nice place for intelectual conversations, even if you disagreed with each other. Now is nothing more than bots, people with financial interests in this bubble or sycophants.

[tastyface]

I tried to respond to your comment with some personal observations on racist currents in this community, but my comment immediately got flagged. So yeah! This site ain't what it used to be. Best for the good folks to seek community elsewhere, I reckon. I miss the old days as well, but I don't think they're coming back.

[hnbad]

If this site ever was anti-racist, that must have been a long time ago. I threw away my old account many years ago only to come back with this one (because it's difficult to completely ignore HN if you work in tech) and the reason I threw that one away was in part the overwhelming reactionary bias in this community.

The "progressives" were at best silent "don't rock the boat" types more inclined to insist on civility than to challange reactionary sentiments while the reactionaries ranged from dog-whistling to outspoken, across the entire range of white supremacism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, zionism and so on. The only comments that would ever get flagged or downvoted were those that were explicit enough to be seen as "impolite" because they happened to spell out calls for genocide or violence rather than merely gesturing at it with the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability.

[rendall]

> One of the things I've loved most about HN is that it was real — grounded in observability, empirical evidence, not bias or feelings.

Alas, this is not my experience of HN. About neutral topics, sure. Not a lot of flaming and irrationality about e.g. C# Union Types or audio reactive LED strips or whatever.

But assert something that a large fraction of people do not want to be true and you'll get, not just downvoted, but flagged and condescension.

I for one appreciated your perspective.

[sharmi]

Just came to say, I appreciate your emotionally intelligent and balanced take on your experience, where it would have been very easy to react and let emotions take over (understandably).

[kombookcha]

Thank you for sharing this.

[interstice]

It's disappointing to me that a completely factual personal experience can be relayed with zero spin – and yet some of the replies act as if it's 100% spin without any factual evidence. Some people seem to prefer to respond to an imaginary version of a conversation rather than the one that's actually happening in front of them.

[reassess_blind]

What about your interaction makes you think he’s scared of black people, specifically?

[ahf8Aithaex7Nai]

Thank you for sharing this experience with us. Don't worry about the downvotes. That's just how it is here sometimes. I don't think it reflects the views of most readers.

[baq]

The longer I live, the more secrets coming out I see, the less surprised I am with every next one.

[rkozik1989]

Career ladders have a tendency to hoist up those among us with the worst personality traits.

[MetaWhirledPeas]

> Altman is absolutely terrified of Black

Can you share more about how this manifested?

[elschneider]

I really hope @ronanfarrow addresses this. Thanks for sharing

[4k93n2]

well, just based off that group photo of the openclaw developer and the staff at openai, i wouldnt be surprised if there was some truth to this

[a456463]

Frankly this is why all these big tech companies need to be broken down to pieces.

[OrangeMusic]

> I know this crowd may not care

What?