Comment by apples_oranges
9 hours ago
Idk about Altman, I missed that he’s a bad guy now apparently, but people also still listen to certain politicians that routinely lie every day and don’t even bother to make the lies fit the other ones they said before, so..
Has there been a single positive post about Altman?
I don't know, but I also think people are easy to jump into popular rhetorics about internet personalities in the tech space without due diligence. It used to not be such a problem on hn but it seems like its bled here too. Sam Altman might be a bad guy, might be good, but after everyone misrepresented the military contract argument its tough for me to buy into the hate.
The funny thing is that a lot of Altman's reputation has come from other VCs and Valley-types taking about him in a way they consider positive. Every quote about Altman from another VC is like, "Altman, what a great leader. He's absolutely ruthless, he'll do anything to win: lie, cheat, steal, kill. He has what it takes to succeed in this business."
They say this because in their circles it's a compliment, and nobody ever stopped to consider how the general public might react to it, especially if you claim you'll shortly be the one in charge of world-reshaping technology.
I wonder what that says about Altman.
That he’s a liability to OpenAI, which is slowly coming around to the realization that it would be worth more without him.
To be clear, I don’t think OpenAI could have raised what it raised as quickly as it did without him. But with the benefit of hindsight, Microsoft should have let the safety board fire him.
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Altman's early public class at YC is worth watching, though I can't speak to his character.
You missed literally every single post/article about the guy?
More likely that confirmation bias acted as a filter.
Altman played no small part in the current price of RAM. He told everyone he would buy 40% of all the RAM, causing shortages and a huge increase in price, just to take it back a few months later. So yeah, he is a bad guy now.
People don't become bad guys just because they lie. The consequences of their actions (and their lies) matter more. Take Elon Musk for instance, he has always been a recognized liar, even when he was a good guy. What changed? Before, he was famous for making the electric car people actually wanted to drive, and cool rockets. Then came the politics: supporting the party most of his fans disliked, being responsible for many government job losses, in particular in the field of environmental preservation (ironic for a supporter of "green" energy), etc...
That's far from the only reason why he's "a bad guy" now.