
Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny - flylib
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-manifest-destiny
======
johnwheeler
The brilliance of YCombinator, IMO, is HackerNews. It's turned YC into a self-
perpetuating machine by getting smart people to congregate and talk about news
YC itself partially generates.

I heard about YC, PG, and sama all through this outlet.

~~~
muse900
Makes sense. I personally read some of the comments before jumping into an
article, mainly because comments most of the time loop me in on something that
I am completely clueless or have little aware of. Also to see if the article
is worth reading into because obviously if you read 20 people saying "The
author of the article doesn't know what he is talking about" then its more
possible that indeed the author has written about something he doesn't know or
understand.

Also a lot of the times the solutions given or explanations are amazingly good
and entertaining. Thanks to YC I've become a better person I'd say.

~~~
pault
> Also a lot of the times the solutions given or explanations are amazingly
> good and entertaining. Thanks to YC I've become a better person I'd say.

I couldn't agree more, on both counts. It's such a thrill seeing a link to a
research paper or exceptionally well written essay, and have the author
answering questions in the comments. I can't even estimate how much general
science, history, and literary education I've received this way, almost by
accident. No doubt I am a much more well rounded person as a result.

I rarely read TFA. I'm here for the discussion, and if the discussion is
extraordinarily interesting, I'll read the article for clarification. To me,
HN is the "guild" that teaches fundamentals, and keeps me abreast of the state
of the industry (and many, many unrelated topics that are equally
interesting!). Normally this level of access to illuminating dialog would be
restricted to universities, but I can get it here for free, in my underwear.
I've spent a good part of my life geographically isolated from centers of
learning and industry, and being able to remain in the loop is priceless. I
doubt my personal and professional growth over the last 10 years would be a
fraction of what it is if I hadn't had this resource. Yes, I am a fanboy.

~~~
throwaway6497
Amen to that!

------
vonnik
There are great insights in this piece into how Sam thinks about AI and the
future of YC.

But getting profiled in The New Yorker bears a risk, and the risk is that
other media organizations try to tell the "down" story, because the down story
is the only new thing to say after a subject is painted with such grandiose
brush strokes.

Example: Marc Andreessen gets profiled in The New Yorker and a year later the
WSJ publishes a hit piece on Andreessen Horowitz's returns. That's how
journalists think: "what can I say that's different?" The whole industry plays
a kind of ping pong, with one reporter telling an up story so the next can
tell the opposite. It's a strange form of job security in an insecure
profession. In a sense, you know you made it when they're publishing hit
pieces about you.

A New Yorker profile is as good as it gets, and in a sense represents peak
exposure, at least for someone in tech. (The Kardashians have other
benchmarks...) It's doubly risky because at peak exposure, you get journalists
who a) don't know much about tech because they don't specialize in it and
therefore b) don't care if they get little things wrong, or subtly damage
their source, in the telling of their story. They will move on to other
profiles.

This comes out in small ways:

1) These sentences about Google and Facebook show that the reporter has
misunderstood something fundamental about Google's history as it relates to
the rest of the industry: "In the nineties, before the accelerator era,
startups were usually launched by mid-career engineers or repeat
entrepreneurs, who sought millions in venture capital and then labored in
secret on something complicated that took years to launch. As the price of Web
hosting plummeted and PCs and cell phones proliferated, college and grad-
school dropouts like Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page and Sergey Brin could
suddenly conjure unicorns on their laptops." Google was building its own racks
in the 1990s. And for that matter, Facebook didn't need an accelerator.

2) This passage will alienate most readers, because they simply can't relate
to a world where a cushion like this somehow equates with a sacrifice: "Leery
of tech’s culture of Golcondan wealth, in which a billion dollars is dismissed
as “a buck,” he decided to rid himself of all but a comfortable cushion: his
four-bedroom house in San Francisco’s Mission district, his cars, his Big Sur
property, and a reserve of ten million dollars, whose annual interest would
cover his living expenses. The rest would go to improving humanity."

3) And this will piss off the DOD: "He added, “A friend of mine says, ‘The
thing that saves us from the Department of Defense is that, though they have a
ton of money, they’re not very competent.’ "

Obviously there are positive passages in the profile, but a reporter like Tad
Friend will report the negative passages with a straight face knowing that
they will spark controversy, outrage or derision. He will tell a larger story
of mad scientists and investors creating technology beyond their ken that
spells doom for humanity. He will let his subjects hang themselves, subtly,
because he can afford to do that kind of damage and pretend he had no part in
it. Drop some little bombs, move on.

~~~
idlewords
You're suggesting the reporter is doing something perfidious. Quoting a
subject making a fool of himself to you on the record is not "dropping bombs",
it's good journalism.

~~~
brhsiao
His motives could still be perfidious.

------
nathan_f77
My favorite part of the article (so far):

> “My problem is that when my friends get drunk they talk about the ways the
> world will end. After a Dutch lab modified the H5N1 bird-flu virus, five
> years ago, making it super contagious, the chance of a lethal synthetic
> virus being released in the next twenty years became, well, nonzero. The
> other most popular scenarios would be A.I. that attacks us and nations
> fighting with nukes over scarce resources.” The Shypmates looked grave. “I
> try not to think about it too much,” Altman said. “But I have guns, gold,
> potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli
> Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to.”

Hahaha, that's so awesome.

~~~
paulcole
> "I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas
> masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I
> can fly to.”

Imagine this coming from an ultra rightwing prepper nutball. Do you still love
that quote?

~~~
sremani
I love that quote even it comes from a lunatic mule. Being prepared and being
able to see the alternative endings is not a disability, but being completely
obsessed and held hostage by that thought is. There is a difference.

I am not predicting impending doom, but when it hits the fan, better to have a
plan than not.

------
Artoemius
> two tech billionaires have gone so far as to secretly engage scientists to
> work on breaking us out of the simulation

I'm very curious who these two billionaires are and what exactly are they
planning to do regarding this likely hopeless project.

~~~
superplussed
One of them is obviously Musk. I could guess on the other, but it would only
be based on the "wildness" of the other billionaire's imagination.

~~~
Artoemius
Musk strikes me as an imaginative but a very rational person who deeply thinks
about stuff, so this is confusing to me.

His argument that our world is most likely a simulation does seem logical
given our current knowledge. However, _breaking out_ of the simulation is
completely another matter, more in line with Hollywood thinking than with
anything that _scientists_ can be engaged to do, at least currently.

~~~
jonnathanson
It's completely wacky, but if you've got a few mil to drop on wacky ideas, it
starts to seem a bit less wacky in the grand scheme of things. It's basically
a wager: "There's a small, but perhaps nonzero chance I'm living in a
simulation. I've got the throwaway cash to fund an escape attempt. This
investment has a massive chance of being completely wasted, even if this is a
simulation. But if there is even a tiny chance of figuring something out, I
might as well take it."

~~~
wyldfire
What would it even mean to 'escape' a simulation? In my mind I'm imagining
when I write code to model a real process and even at some super high-fidelity
simulation I can't imagine an 'escape'. Maybe if the simulation were so self-
aware it could conduct local privilege-escalation attacks and replicate itself
like a worm/virus?

EDIT: aside -- "Microcosmic God" [1] was a great short story along these lines

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcosmic_God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcosmic_God)

~~~
stale2002
Assume a non omnipotent being, with non-infinite resources is creating a
universe simulation. What decisions would we expect a person like this to
make, when designing this simulation? Since they do not have infinite
resources, they would likely take shortcuts, and make compromises and tradeoff
when designing the simulation

For example, if light did not have a speed limit, and interacted with the
entire universe instantly, this would be very hard to simulate. You would save
resources by giving light a speed limit.

We also expect that they might abstract out the nitty gritty details of how
things work at the atomic level. If you don't really care that much about how
very small particles interact with each other, you might have these numerous
calculations evaluated lazily, when they are "observed" by the higher level
entities.

Things get really interesting when you start thinking about what kind of bugs
a god programmer might be likely to make when designing their simulation.

Are there any weird natural processes, that would be much more elegant if our
equations modeling them were changed very slightly, almost as if the equation
was a mistake in the first place? Another attack avenue is to combine two
natural processes in unexpected ways, to try and find "edge cases".

~~~
sudoscript
How do you know your own thought processes aren't a part of the simulation?
Logic is a great tool to analyze the simulation unless it's been baked on
purpose by our overlords.

On a different note, does simulation hypothesis strike anyone else as the idea
God just explained in pseudo scientific/computing terms?

~~~
stale2002
The difference is that God is an unfalsifiable claim.

The simulation argument is one that can be supported or argued against using
evidence.

For example, if scientists find some new nature process that would be very
difficult to simulate, (infinite speed of light is one such example) then that
is strong evidence that we aren't in a simultion.

Of course, even if we keep observing things about the universe that would make
it easier to simulate, that doesn't mean we actually are. It could just all be
a coincidence. Or maybe it doesn't make any sense for a universe to be
difficult to simulate.

The basic idea is to ask the question "Assume someone lives in a simulation.
What would that person be likely/unlikely to observe?". and "Assume someone
does NOT live in a simulation. What would they be likely/unlikely to observe?"
And see how much this stuff matches up with reality.

------
apsec112
I continue to be impressed by the quality of The New Yorker's reporting. This
is so far above and beyond most media coverage about Altman and YC.

~~~
camillomiller
Golden quote:

"Launching a startup in 2016 is akin to assembling an alt-rock band in 1996 or
protesting the Vietnam War in 1971—an act of youthful rebellion gone
conformist."

~~~
athesyn
Anyone who was aware of startups before 2010 already knew this.

~~~
matthewowen
Lots of people weren't aware of startups before 2010. This article isn't aimed
at you.

------
dave_sullivan
> Only twenty per cent of the Inc. 500, the five hundred fastest-growing
> private companies, raised outside funding.

I thought this was an interesting statistic. "80% of the fastest growing
private companies did not need to raise capital to become one of the fastest
growing companies."

~~~
n72
...which makes this statement seem awfully silly:

"Democracy only works in a growing economy. Without a return to economic
growth, the democratic experiment will fail. And I have to think that YC is
hugely important to that growth."

~~~
mrep
> "Democracy only works in a growing economy. Without a return to economic
> growth, the democratic experiment will fail.

Someone care to explain that because I don't see economic growth as a
dependency to democracy.

~~~
_andromeda_
In this video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Tf8RN3uiM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Tf8RN3uiM)
Milton Friedman does a great job of explaining how capitalism is a necessary
condition for democracy to thrive but not a sufficient one for the same.

------
n72
"Altman, who will personally oversee this initiative, believes [Startup
School] is the fastest, easiest way to bring ten thousand new founders a year
into the network."

In the YC scenario, once its network hits a certain size it ceases to become a
useful network and is just the world.

------
cushychicken
Thinking democracy's success is tied to economic growth is a pretty dim
worldview. I hope he's wrong about that.

~~~
wturner
"Economic growth" can exist on a computer screen completely decoupled from the
"real world" and independent of a strong middle class.

IMHO An economically strong middle class is needed to maintain social order.
This mitigates the public from hunting and and killing the rich and keeps the
public from displacing their social frustrations on to each other and creating
riots. Generally its a better existence for everyone.

~~~
aetherson
Historically speaking, I don't feel like the basic way that society fails is
by "hunting and killing the rich." I mean, you can MAYBE gloss the communist
revolutions of the early 20th Century that way. What else?

~~~
snark42
What if you view riches in the form of power instead of just money?

------
moron4hire

        Altman worked so incessantly that summer that he got scurvy.
    

You have got to be kidding. So much food has enough vitamin C in it to avoid
scurvy that you _have_ to be eating pretty much nothing but ramen noodles to
get it.

I don't need to be rich that badly.

~~~
tim333
Seemed to have happened. I guess diet's not something you think about when
otherwise distracted.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314804](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314804)

------
kordless
> "Most people want to be accepted, so they won't take risks that could make
> them look crazy."

This is a highly dissonant statement, so it's not surprising it's coming from
a VC.

Innovation _is_ exploring the crazy and coming back with something that can be
shoehorned into reality without upsetting reality's tea cart too much. The
problem with VCs is that their jobs consist of spending time investing in
crazy things that have far reaching drawbacks that nobody sees until everyone
is using the product and the founders and investors have already exited their
position.

------
contingencies
I found the most interesting point in the whole article the publicly stated
consideration of establishing a China presence.

It would appear to make a lot of sense given current capital availability in
China, world-leading mobile payment penetration, and US/SF issues with visas,
overheads, component sourcing. Get over here!

~~~
l33tbro
How is China with 'innovation' though? The portrait we seem to get so often in
the West is that China excels at imitation and fails at original thinking.
Maybe innovation isn't needed for domestic success, but it is for creating
things that penetrate the rest of the world (and, these days, dare I say
universe?).

~~~
contingencies
Well we have perfect mobile payment penetration, the only significant
electrical vehicle fleet in the world, and the world's most successful social
networking platform. None of these things are copies.

What's stopping these things penetrating the west? For payments, mostly
incumbents. For e-vehicles, mostly protectionist levels of government
regulation that make small vehicles too expensive to approve as roadworthy or
illegal to drive, and foreign SNS platforms have outright announced they are
planning on emulating WeChat.

------
intended
Wth, the no asshole rule is the only way to keep out posers and assholes.

The expansion plans don't work because if you build a community which includes
a few assholes they eventually overpower the system and being an asshole
becomes the norm.

The last 3 paras of that article are worrisome.

------
thpalmear
It's all about real AI today (not based on words and rules - lookup CTM - the
real bots have this and its based on vector space). Get the companies and
groups that are making very small breakthroughs in this area. The days of
regurgitated cut-n-pasted text entry boxes and js (geocities, friendster,
myspace, facebook) are over. Time for the new Googles of the world that will
solve things bigger than SpaceX like extending human lifespan which is a
requirement for space travel.

~~~
rohan_
+1 on the CTM stuff. I recommend Jeff Hawkin's book "On Intelligence" if
you're looking for a quick read.

~~~
bbctol
Hawkins' memory-prediction concept is quite more specific than general CTM,
and not borne out by evidence.

------
benjaminwootton
I never realised that Dotcloud/Docker was a YC project. That will be another
home run for YCombinator.

~~~
gragas
They also have at least part of CoreOS (S13).

------
plan6
Congrats, Sam! That's a really nice article.

Now, please ignore it, and go about your business. The worst thing to happen
to a person's acceleration would be belief in having success. The only person
you race in life is yourself, and you always need to catch up.

------
_andromeda_
I'm not convinced Sam Altman is as brilliant as claimed to be. I've not seen
anything particularly outstanding that he's done. Not hating. Facts only. I
think this is simply hype and it reminds me of Elizabeth Holmes.

~~~
sireat
I too am wary of too much gushing praise onto someone still rather young with
a limited track record.

The difference from Holmes is that Altman does not have to be particularly
brilliant at something specifically, he just has to be the soul of the YC, ie
life of the party.

From all accounts he is very good at that and that is of huge value to YC.
Being a big ideas guy is an important and valuable position for an
organization such as YC.

Holmes couldn't be such a generalist and life of party. She had to execute on
a specific niche and failed very very late(I'd say about 10 years late).
Holmes epitomizes the "fake it until you make it" taken to the extreme.

If Holmes had admitted defeat earlier maybe she could have been such a life of
a party person at Draper's firm.

------
hyperknot
Can someone explain what is referred as "Golcondan wealth"?

~~~
hobo_mark
> By the 1880s, "Golkonda" was being used generically by English speakers to
> refer to any particularly rich mine, and later to any source of great
> wealth.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golkonda#Diamonds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golkonda#Diamonds)

------
n72
"The missing circuit in my brain, the circuit that would make me care what
people think about me, is a real gift."

I think that circuit exists and is functioning quite well. It seems to me
there's a lot of glory embedded in YC's plans.

~~~
kristianc
"The missing circuit in my brain, the circuit that would make me care what
people think about me, is a real gift."

... opined Altman in his New Yorker PR piece.

~~~
OpenDrapery
Attention everyone! Attention! I just wanted to make sure that you all know
that I don't care what you think of me. As you were.

------
yrahmed
I love Sam and just wish they would have used a different metaphor than
"Manifest Destiny". Isn't manifest destiny what led to the genocide of native
american populations?

~~~
MarkMc
That's iteresting. I was not aware of such a connotation - to me the term
manifest destiny just meant "a destiny that can be clearly seen and that
cannot be changed" [1]. Maybe the article's sub-editor was equally ignorant of
19th century US history.

[1] [http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/manifest%20destiny](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/manifest%20destiny)

~~~
pesenti
No way. That's a deliberate choice of words and the parallel is actually
pretty striking. From Wikipedia:

> In the 19th century, manifest destiny was a widely held belief in the United
> States that its settlers were destined to expand across North America. There
> are three basic themes to manifest destiny:

The special virtues of the American people and their institutions

The mission of the United States to redeem and remake the west in the image of
agrarian America

An irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty

~~~
genmon
And just to add to this, Manifest Destiny had some very concrete related
beliefs. Such as "the rain follows the plow", the belief that if you settle
and farm somewhere, the climate will magically change to make this workable

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_follows_the_plow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_follows_the_plow)

This led to people settling in unwise places. And you know what, even though
the Wikipedia page says that climatologists now regard this as mere
superstition, these areas of the US are now well-populated: A critical mass
_did_ settle, so in a way it's all worked out.

~~~
newjersey
> This led to people settling in unwise places. And you know what, even though
> the Wikipedia page says that climatologists now regard this as mere
> superstition, these areas of the US are now well-populated: A critical mass
> did settle, so in a way it's all worked out.

Sounds like a classic case of survivor bias though? Where would Chicago be
today if it wasn't for the trains? What would be the state of Phoenix Arizona
if not for things like CAP?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project)

You mentioned this but I wanted to spell it out.

------
qwrusz
I have no connection to YC (except for reading HN daily) and I don't know Sam
personally.

These longer profiles invite assumptions, praise and critique based on a
sentence or two and they are often way off base.

My takeaway and you may disagree, without getting too heavy: Sam Altman is one
of a very small handful of people in the history of the world who has the
resources, the awareness, the intelligence and maybe the motivation to do
important, mankind-changing things. Sound exciting? Actually to most people
who get what that really means, that is very very scary and a bit sad.

This group of people is not limited to SV, but for comparison: Elon and Zuck
are also in this handful of people with Sam. Musk has chosen his "inter-
planetary species on planet Mars" and he has a plan. Zuck (and his wife LLC)
seem to have chosen eradicating all diseases ASAP - his plan is starting now.

I don't think Sam has found his "Planet Mars" yet and that can be really hard
on someone. He knows the odds of finding it and the odds of success even if he
does find it.

I also think the YC startup thing that pg and Jessica started is of secondary
importance here. Sam has the skills to run YC of course, but I'm not sure
that's why pg handed it to him...

Sam might have office hours and can spit off advice like "talk to your paying
customers more" or "understand the problem being fixed" which new, lost
founders always seem to need to be told. This stuff is so easy for someone
like Sam and most natural entrepreneurs it's almost laughable and might even
get annoying after a while...

I think pg handed YC to Sam not for YC's sake. Many people could have taken
over YC. I think one reason that pg did it was to give Sam something else to
work on so Sam's search for meaning, for his "Planet Mars", didn't consume him
to the point that it broke him and the promise he has. He did it to save Sam's
life.

These are all assumptions and personal opinions. As someone familiar with
earning a relatively large amount of money at a young age and then wanting to
do something more important to me than just make more money, but not knowing
what to do, Sam is among those I look to and I am following his career.

I wish him a lot of success and happiness.

------
DrNuke
The most, we are here to understand where to put our technological hands in
order to succeed, this because SV (and Y Combinator as one of its coveted
stars) still has the gist, the money and the ability to deliver. If we in
Western Europe could have something similar in Berlin or Amsterdam, now that
London is going, I would be even happier.

~~~
sharpshoot
YC alumni are in all those cities and YC only requires relocation for the 3
months of the program. So YC is already global.

------
te_chris
This is a strange profile of the sort of hero and status/wealth worship that
only seems to have currency in the USA. The more I read the article the less I
came away thinking of Altman as a genius and more of a babysitter and teacher.

I'm not really looking to attack Altman's character or competence, he seems to
have both in spades, but the whole thing was just...creepy. And cultish.

~~~
grandalf
Totally agree. I had to stop reading as the cult worship stuff started to get
thicker and thicker.

~~~
lkozma
Are you sure that you are in disagreement with the article's author? I think
both you and te_chris may have missed some of the irony in the article.

~~~
grandalf
This is a thought provoking question. I didn't miss it, but I didn't read it
as irony, I read it as a sort of awe-struck breathlessness on the part of the
author... or at least, the slightly emotionally distant (aloof, not really
ironic) version of that that the New Yorker is very good at.

The idea of writing this sort of piece about someone whose grand ambitions
have not yet been realized is both to make the reader aware of the grandeur of
the ambitions, and also to draw a line in the sand so that his accomplishments
can be judged later, aided by the glimpse into his unfettered idealism.

This is not a criticism of the New Yorker (I love it). Just a phenomenon of
the unique genre of personal profiles that the magazine produces. The same
tone would also work if writing about an artisanal butcher in Maine, for
example.

~~~
lkozma
I think you describe the tone quite precisely -- it is the same tone the
author may have used to describe someone who built an Eiffel tower out of
matchsticks -- the premise being that we get an objective description of a
subculture (SV technologists) somewhat alien to the main readership of the
magazine. But I do think that this objective tone is somewhat fake, because by
the choice of examples and their juxtaposition the author does seem to
occasionally take sides and actively (and subtly) parody certain attitudes. It
is telling how many in this forum seem to have missed this and saw the article
as unilaterally flattering.

------
rl3
I hope the _Silicon Valley_ writers are paying attention, there's some really
good material in this article.

~~~
paulcole
The scurvy thing stands out to me.

------
Denzel
I've been trying to put my finger on what bothers me about Sam Altman ever
since he was named President of YC in 2014. Now I know. It's less to do with
him; more to do with this narrative of Sam Altman as some visionary, world-
saving, future-builder. The story just doesn't fit the character. There's no
comparison between him and true visionaries like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Jeff
Bezos, etc.

Unlike Sam, these guys can dive deep into whatever industry they choose with a
very obvious clarity of thought. Watch any of their interviews for examples.
Even though Steve Jobs wasn't "technical" he was able to speak about the
technical aspects in detail. On the other hand, Sam seems to stand at a very
high, superficial level. I have yet to see him dive deep into any of the
frontiers he's focused upon: AI, energy, biotech, etc.

But it's not just that, these visionaries let their track record speak for
itself. I don't seem to understand Sam's track record. A Stanford dropout
whose claim to fame is selling Loopt for $43M (at a loss to investors) after
raising $30M in total at a $175M valuation, and pocketing $5M for himself?
Then goes on to tout YC's runaway success as due, in part, to his leadership
when >60% of YC's portfolio value is due to ~15 companies from pre-2014 YC
batches.

To top it off, as proof of his ambition, a silly comparison between YC's
portfolio value being 14% of Alphabet's market cap is made. That's apples-to-
oranges.

Bottom line, the results we see today are largely due to PG & friends. I wish
people would stop forcing this narrative of Sam Altman as a visionary. Right
now, he's more Tim Cook, less Steve Jobs. There's nothing wrong with being an
operational genius. YC, the company, has a manifest destiny.

~~~
feelix
I find it odd that you'd criticize Sam Altman in this way then go on to call
Steve Jobs a "true visionary". I see Jobs as being more a managerial type that
managed to get a few things very right. He wasn't able to dive deep into
technical things and grok them as you said. I have read comments on hacker
news from people that worked directly under him, talking about how he forbid
using object orientation in programming. So programmers had to hide it from
them that they were actually using it, which was easy because he could not
read the code.

Additionally, Sam Altman is now in a position to achieve greatness and he
probably will do so whether or not he has already. Someone in that position
would not even have to be particularly exceptional (once again, whether he is
or not) to do so. So whether he has or not so far is a moot point. I'm just
pleased he has ambition and apparently isn't focused on the lime light.
Compare that to how most billionaires use their funds (ie, big yachts etc) and
you should just be pleased that anything is happening.

Anyway, my main point is that I guess that an appreciation of "genius" is a
highly subjective thing. And the instant someone would mention Jobs as such is
the same moment I'd intensely disagree with them. It can probably just be left
at that.

~~~
snowwrestler
> I have read comments on hacker news from people that worked directly under
> him, talking about how he forbid using object orientation in programming.

Steve Jobs talked incessantly about object-oriented programming after he left
Apple, and built an entire company (NeXT) and operating system (NeXTStep)
using a new object-oriented programming language (Objective-C). He didn't
write the code himself but he funded and led these efforts.

~~~
feelix
This was probably before NeXT

------
loeber
This was a pretty good article -- certainly one of the better portraits I've
read of SA.

However, I usually see better writing in the New Yorker. Take "as a result,
the once nerdy Y Combinator is now aggressively geeky." What the hell does
that mean? (Nothing.)

OTOH, a few memorable quotes:

> Growth masks all problems. (Steve Huffman)

> Despite having raised a robust $1.6 million after Demo Day, the founders
> were ridden with angst. Fredrik Thomassen said that they wanted to make
> their war chest last forever, and Sondre Rasch mentioned that he’d frugally
> chosen to live in a twelve-entrepreneur collective in a nearby forest.

~~~
n72
and "upload"?

"what intrigues him is their potential effect on the world. To determine that,
he’ll upload all he needs to know about, say, urban planning or nuclear
fusion."

~~~
ealexhudson
I read it as somewhere between "skim" and "learn" \- it's probably a term sama
used himself in the interview. If you think of yourself as a machine it's
probably a term than makes sense; it doesn't feel particularly aspirational to
me :)

~~~
n72
Even so, wouldn't you use download?

------
sanj
Has anyone identified the Rickover quote that is alluded to at the end of the
article?

"At the end of his life, when he may have been somewhat senile, he did also
say that it should all be sunk to the bottom of the ocean."

~~~
hmsln
> I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation.
> Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a
> necessary evil. I would sink them all. I am not proud of the part I played
> in it. I did it because it was necessary for the safety of this country.
> That's why I am such a great exponent of stopping this whole nonsense of
> war.

From
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Willingness_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Willingness_to_.22sink_them_all.22)

------
ScottBurson
_“We’re good at screening out assholes,” Graham told me. “In fact, we’re
better at screening out assholes than losers. All of them start off as
losers—and some evolve.”_

I find this oddly reassuring.

------
_andromeda_
>Launching a startup in 2016 is akin to assembling an alt-rock band in 1996 or
protesting the Vietnam War in 1971—an act of youthful rebellion gone
conformist.

This right here amounts to false equivalence. Suffice it to say that it is
relatively easier to launch a start-up today, this doesn't change the fact
that it is just as hard to keep one alive. The risks associated with launching
a startup are all too real and I think they will continue to be so for the
foreseeable future. Call it conformist, I call it hard and as such, not for
everyone.

------
n72
I do admire all the ambition. But does it really have to be mixed in with
views such as "Democracy only works in a growing economy. Without a return to
economic growth, the democratic experiment will fail. And I have to think that
YC is hugely important to that growth." I'm sure Sam (and other SV types) is
well aware of the complexity of reality and that YC, as one company, cannot be
hugely important to that growth. In other words, if YC simply stopped
functioning tomorrow, I can't imagine the GDP growth of the United States
would be at all affected. Guys, what you're doing is very, very impressive,
but, c'mon, let's get off the idea that you're instrumental in saving
democracy for all of us (and all the other delusions of grandeur).

~~~
smoyer
And if you think about it, most of these disruptive companies are not offering
real growth. Both Über and Air BNB, for instance are diverting dollars from
the legacy provider. And they're doing this by offering better service and/or
lower prices. There is no value creation to see here.

~~~
patrickk
Well they are funding very ambitious stuff like nuclear power startups and AI
initiatives, which most others usually shy away from. This is potentially
extremely disruptive and a massive boon to the economy.

And your assessment of Airbnb of just "diverting dollars from the legacy
provider" is wrong in my opinion, it turns an unused space into cash (creating
a new market/enabling an underserved market), just like early-eBay turned
unwanted stuff in your house into cash. I'm not fully sure where I stand on
Uber, but they're certainly offering a much better customer experience than
traditional taxis.

~~~
smoyer
AirBNB turns my unused space into cash but also keeps me from staying at a
hotel. These businesses are certainly adding value for their shareholders and
customers. They are not generally expanding the economy. I should also admit
that many existing business models should be disrupted.

~~~
patrickk
It doesn't keep you from staying at a hotel, that's a choice you make. Also,
I've stayed at AirBnb locations where there was no other accommodations
options, so it's difficult to argue it's taking business from a hotel in these
scenarios. Additionally, I wouldn't be surprised if bigger hotel chains
legally evade loads of tax like virtually all large multinational companies
do, which isn't an option for most AirBnb hosts, who must pay full tax on
everything (or face the consequences, e.g. the situation in New York).

~~~
smoyer
"keeps" was a poor word choice. I've never stayed at an AirBNB (or VRBO, etc)
on the same night I also stayed at a hotel, so if I choose one, then the other
(in general) isn't getting my business.

Reading the rest of your comment, I don't really think we disagree except that
you seem to think AirBNB is driving additional revenue into the economy
("Also, I've stayed at AirBnb locations where there was no other
accommodations options") - before AirBNB was there, what would you have done?
You would have either stayed at a hotel that was further away than you'd like,
or stayed home.

The consumer is definitely winning though.

------
n72
So, Sam's been at this for 2 years, inherited an extremely well oiled machine,
and hasn't, as far as I know, accomplished anything extraordinary. Not sure
why there's an entire New Yorker piece on him, instead of, say, I dunno, a few
paragraphs in the Talk of the Town section.

Has there been a New Yorker piece on PG? I googled and didn't find anything.
He's the one that put all this together and seems far more deserving of such a
thing.

~~~
anondon
> So, Sam's been at this for 2 years, inherited an extremely well oiled
> machine, and hasn't, as far as I know, accomplished anything extraordinary.

What accomplishments did you expect in 2 years?

Working towards OpenAI, YC Research, the upcoming MOOC, basic income project,
the private city project seem very impressive to say the least.

After he has taken over, YC is expanding into new areas, mentioned above,
whereas earlier they were focussed on getting the startup program right and
expanding to accomodate larger batches.

~~~
n72
The things you list are plans, not accomplishments. And I certainly didn't
expect extraordinary accomplishments. I just don't understand what in Sam's
history warrants a New Yorker article over, say, that of CEOs who have
competently run their business for the last 2 years.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
You'll probably have an easier time understanding it if you get rid of the
idea that publicity/press/attention/investment/anything is based on merit.

------
lvs
Radiation hormesis is one of those junk science topics that persists in the
literature despite many thorough efforts to debunk it.

~~~
apsec112
Could you support that with references?

~~~
consz
Isn't the null hypothesis sufficient?

~~~
JabavuAdams
What about the building with the recycled radioactive girders showing a
decrease in resident cancer incidence?

------
JabavuAdams
How do we avoid becoming McNamaras and Rumsfeldts in our hubris?

------
tptacek
Why two McLarens?

~~~
lisper
Because he can.

~~~
tptacek
He can do lots of things. Why that thing?

~~~
lisper
Oh. I thought you meant: why _two_ MacLarens. But you meant: why two
_McLarens_.

The answer to _that_ is: because McLarens are awesome. :-)

------
SandersAK
Go get em' Ahab!

~~~
jayjay71
Now _that_ is an interesting parallel.

------
untilHellbanned
Reid Hoffman makes clear like I suspected that SV power players are skeptical
about Sam Altman. YC is becoming Jack of all trades master of none. Jury is
still out on YC under Sam's leadership. By 2020 I think we'll start to see the
wheels fall off.

~~~
n72
It does seem there's a lot of flailing around. As someone mentioned, this
[http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/) went from 6
under Graham to 21 under Altman. Altman mentions laser like focus at time when
referring to how startups should function. The same doesn't go for YC?

It's really easy to get fame and plaudits by associating yourself with a
cornucopia of big ideas, it's a lot harder to actually follow through.

~~~
snarf
While I respect that they claim not to be about accumulating wealth (and it
does feel as if this is genuinely true compared to more traditional VCs), this
looks a bit like the Google X of VC. I suspect that they have generated enough
returns from their seed investments that they no longer have outside LPs for a
lot of the stuff they do, allowing them to freely pursue off the wall ideas
(the exception here is probably their continuity fund). I'm not sure how
sustainable this is in the long term. They would have to keep churning out
Airbnbs, which is not guaranteed.

------
pesenti
This quote from a YC Partner:

> It’s all about founders. Facebook had Mark Zuckerberg, and MySpace had a
> bunch of monkeys.

The kind of ubermensch/Ayn Rand rhetoric that makes me cringe.

~~~
lincolnq
Do you think it's wrong?

~~~
pesenti
To call people monkeys because they didn't accomplish as much as Mark
Zuckerberg? Yes it's very wrong! And ironic given that MySpace had a much
better exit and impact than FriendFeed (the company created by the partner
quoted)

~~~
uola
It's particularly unfitting when you're asking people to run startups with an
uncertain future. It might boost moral in the short run, but doing so on other
peoples expense always comes back to haunt you. To quote the article:

> _Graham wrote an essay, “Mean People Fail,” in which [...] he declared that
> “being mean makes you stupid” and discourages good people from working for
> you._

------
pdog
_> Nothing came of Paul Graham’s plan for tech to stop Donald Trump, but
Altman, after brooding about Trump for months, recently announced a
nonpartisan project, called VotePlz, aimed at getting out the youth vote.
Looking at the election as a tech problem—what’s the least code with the most
payoff?—Altman and his three co-founders concentrated on helping young people
in nine swing states to register, by providing them with registration forms
and stamps._

Doesn't this confirm that VotePlz is mostly just a smokescreen to "get-out-
the-vote" for a favored candidate?

~~~
jedberg
Get out the vote campaigns are always in favor of Democrats, because the young
and poor tend to be the ones who don't vote and tend to vote Democrat. Back in
the 90s MTV had "Rock the Vote" (actually it was a progressive non-profit who
partnered with MTV) and their goal was the same.

~~~
nostrademons
Interestingly, 538 ran a piece recently that implies that that's _not_ the
case this election, and that Trump actually has far more upside from
unregistered voters than Clinton does:

[http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/missing-white-voters-
cou...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/missing-white-voters-could-elect-
trump-but-first-they-need-to-register/)

The summary is that by far the largest unregistered cohort is those who are
young, poor, and _uneducated_. And this election, the poor and uneducated
group is largely in Trump's camp, while in past elections they may have split
roughly evenly between Republicans and Democrats depending on other issues.

The other interesting thing is that the Trump campaign has done fairly little
with voter registration drives, perhaps because of this image of it largely
helping Democrats. Would be an interesting example of how hewing to common
wisdom rather than data can end up hurting a candidate, if 538's analysis is
true.

~~~
jedberg
This is fascinating. And I definitely trust data more than common wisdom. Good
thing for the Democrats that Trump doesn't. :)

~~~
tomcam
Citation?

~~~
nostrademons
About the missing Trump voters or about the Trump campaign not paying
attention to data? I gave a citation for the former above - as for the latter,
well, the evidence is contradictory. Trump said in May that he considers big
data overrated [1][2], though he reversed himself in August [3].

The tricky part about using data is that it takes time to build an effective
data operation. It takes time to collect the data, it takes time to analyze
it, and then you need a large ground organizational effort to actually turn
that data into votes. The last day for voter registration in most swing states
is Oct 11, barely a week away. Even if he's recently had a change of heart,
it's likely too late to do anything effective.

[1] [http://elections.ap.org/content/ap-interview-trump-says-
big-...](http://elections.ap.org/content/ap-interview-trump-says-big-rallies-
his-key-campaign-weapon)

[2] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-big-data-
gamble-146939531...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-big-data-
gamble-1469395312)

[3] [https://www.wired.com/2016/08/trump-cambridge-
analytica/](https://www.wired.com/2016/08/trump-cambridge-analytica/)

------
zxcvvcxz
Interesting article giving more of an inside look to the organization and its
people. Some choice quotes and comments from a random dude on the internet:

> After conferring with the accelerator’s sixteen other partners, Altman
> launched an initiative to support startups even earlier in their life span,
> and a fund to continue investing in them as they grow.

> “Sam said, ‘Take all the “M”s and make them “B”s.’ ”

Badass. Reminded me of "Drop the 'The'".

> A 2012 study of North American accelerators found that almost half of them
> had failed to produce a single startup that went on to raise venture
> funding.

It's very much a "me-too" endeavor, almost political at the universities local
to where I live, aimed at appearing to "foster innovation" and justifying huge
continued government loans for their "customers".

> YC provides instant entrée to Silicon Valley—a community that, despite its
> meritocratic rhetoric, typically requires a “warm intro” from a colleague,
> who is usually a white man.

Yes the meritocratic aspect of networking is far overblown. Intros or bust in
my experience, unless someone gives you a lucky break. If they do, be grateful
and be damn sure to impress that person.

> All the early arrivals at the party were men; the batch’s female founders
> were attending a presentation on the challenges of being a female founder.

Anyone else find this kind of ironic and counterproductive?

> “But I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas
> masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I
> can fly to.”

This is funny, he almost sounds like one of those awful Trump supporters! :P

> In 2012, he and the other founders sold the company for forty-three million
> dollars—a negative return for their V.C.s.

This isn't as bad as it sounds. Losing a few million dollars vs. around $50M
is a huge difference. In fact I'd say it's harder to salvage a failing company
that exit a successful one.

> “you want to invest in messy, somewhat broken companies. You can treat the
> warts on top, and because of the warts the company will be hugely
> underpriced.”

Value investing, absolutely. I tend to apply this principle on a smaller
scale, to individual people. For example, I've had the opportunity to hire and
work with extremely intelligent and hardworking people who simply lacked some
basic English skills, and had shit cover letters. But who cares if they can
program a robotic system the way I need.

> “hard things are actually easier than easy things. Because people feel it’s
> interesting, they want to help. Another mobile app? You get an eye roll. A
> rocket company? Everyone wants to go to space.”

So incredibly true. I have a startup with very few resources but no problem
recruiting because the field is exciting hard tech.

> “Most people do too many things. Do a few things relentlessly.”

The best advice for life success, hands down.

> “What’s it looking for?” I asked Altman. “I have no idea,” he replied.
> “That’s the unsettling thing about neural networks—you have no idea what
> they’re doing, and they can’t tell you.”

Well I find this response - which someone in the domain would tell you isn't
even correct - to be unsettling. Yes, we can see what lots of neural networks
are doing, and understand it [but you often need a PhD].

> “Sam’s program for the world is anchored by ideas, not people,” Peter Thiel
> said. “And that’s what makes it powerful—because it doesn’t immediately get
> derailed by questions of popularity.”

But "Why do these fuckers get to decide what happens to me?"

> Paul Graham cheerfully acknowledged that, by instilling message discipline,
> “we help the bad founders look indistinguishable from the good ones.”

This would make me a little unsettled as an external investor but I understand
the incentives and dynamics at play.

> So we used accounts protected, a number that showed roughly thirty-per-cent
> growth through the course of YC—and about forty per cent of the accounts
> were YC companies. It was a perfect fairy-tale story.”

Yeah this never made too much sense to me. As an investor I'd be wary of a
startup using alumni connections to secure a large portion of their customers,
because that eventually runs out - meaning the acquistion strategy is still
essentially untested. As a founder though, I really like this strategy and
would readily replicate it.

> The truth is that rapid growth over a long period is rare, that the repeated
> innovation required to sustain it is nearly impossible, and that certain
> kinds of uncontrollable growth turn out to be cancers.

I forgot exactly where I learned this, but I like the story of "multiple S
curves" over a single "J" curve. Businesses innovate and attach new markets,
launch new product lines, secure new customer segments, etc.

> Peter Thiel, the forty-eight-year-old libertarian who co-founded PayPal and
> Palantir, secretly funded the lawsuit that drove Gawker Media into
> bankruptcy, and has sought to extend his life span by taking human growth
> hormone.

Damn so is Thiel gonna get jacked? This makes me feel less bad about wanting
to do a steroid cycle when I'm older.

> The fear is that YC will soon provide cradle-to-I.P.O. funding for so many
> top startups that it will put a lot of V.C.s out of business.

Well this is why I find them remarkably pro-founder: they are creating
competition at the VC level even if the later stages.

> two tech billionaires have gone so far as to secretly engage scientists to
> work on breaking us out of the simulation.

Who knew, even billionaires get high and watch The Matrix.

> recently announced a nonpartisan project, called VotePlz, aimed at getting
> out the youth vote.

Encouraging youth voting will absolutely be partisan, let's not kid ourselves
here. Why not just pay people to vote, or give them deals at retail stores?
I'm sure these things will happen.

> As I considered this, he said that he’d sacrifice a hundred thousand. I told
> him that my own tally would be even larger. “It’s a bug,” he declared,
> unconsoled.

It's a feature.

> the cost of a great life comes way down. If we get fusion to work and
> electricity is free, then transportation is substantially cheaper, and the
> cost of electricity flows through to water and food.

Here's my controversial theory: a "great life" only exists relative to others.
Once all needs are provided for and people don't need each other (and here's
the real controversial idea: most women won't need most men, something that I
would understandably expect Altman to miss), they won't be incentivized to
create and maintain strong family units. We won't love like we used to. But
maybe they see this as a "bug" too.

Maybe I'm wrong and a few centuries of tech will solve the problems of human
nature created by a few million years of evolution.

> More generally, he observed, “The missing circuit in my brain, the circuit
> that would make me care what people think about me, is a real gift. Most
> people want to be accepted, so they won’t take risks that could make them
> look crazy—which actually makes them wildly miscalculate risk.”

A gift and a curse that I wrestle with constantly.

> “At the end of his life, when he may have been somewhat senile, he did also
> say that it should all be sunk to the bottom of the ocean. There’s something
> worth thinking about in there.”

This was a great read and it made me think a lot, it was a pleasure.

------
patatino
I had to change the font so I was able to read the article.

~~~
DanBC
I agree, and it's very frustrating that most articles are unreadable unless I
change their font or colour choices. I should have to have an extension
installed that makes text readable. And, unless people speak up the people who
create these broken designs will never know that they are choosing to say
"fuck you" to a sizeable proportion of their audience.

But: it's about the least interesting thing that can be said about this
article. And whoever is responsible at the New Yorker will never see these
comments.

I think dang has said these kind of comments are off-topic.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9236332#9238739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9236332#9238739)

I personally don't think "The choices you've made exclude part of your
audience, and may not be compatible with laws around accessibility" is bike-
shedding, but I have stopped commenting on design choices.

~~~
patatino
I can understand dang's comment. It was just my very first impression and it
annoyed me but I agree that it doesn't add any value.

How should the extension work? Maybe a simple blacklist of fonts so the
fallback font kicks in?

------
superbag
Not to mention it allows them to control negative comments/articles through
implicit threats/incentives and direct (and hidden) moderation/manipulation.

There's an annoying fakeness about YC/HN that gets old after a while. Lots of
founders willing to tell YC folks whatever they want to hear and YC folks
happily slurping it up like it's authentic. Genuinely gamed. And worse they
treat anyone who isn't a sycophant (people like @pinboard/idlewords) as crazy
assholes who they actively seek to filter out of YC/HN as possible.

It would be really good for the world if HN was replaced by a neutral
platform.

~~~
dang
Although we banned this account for abuse elsewhere in the thread, I'm
unkilling this comment because it's so patently untrue. It doesn't resemble
the Hacker News I look at, and I look at HN a lot.

It's also factually incorrect, both re idlewords (whose latest piece spent
most of the day at #1 on HN) and everyone else who uses this site in the
intended spirit.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12625852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12625852)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
n72
"It doesn't resemble the Hacker News I look at, and I look at HN a lot."

Given your position, do you think that you can look at HN objectively?

~~~
kefka
It would not be wise to argue with someone who can hellban you. Even if it is
purely logical and factual in nature.

Lobste.rs is also a good HN-alt. A bit more groupthink on common topics, and
less groupthink on VC stuff.

~~~
dang
No, we don't ban people for arguing with us.

~~~
idlewords
Not anymore. :-)

Whatever faults dang may have, he's not a capricious moderator, and he works
hard to be fair.

Since I got called out my name, let me say that no one has tried to "filter me
out" of HN since Paul Graham stopped moderating the site.

------
Artoemius
Other than being very interesting, this article provides one of the funniest
instances of the crazy humor generated by the Cloud To Butt Plus extension
([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cloud-to-butt-
plus...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cloud-to-butt-
plus/apmlngnhgbnjpajelfkmabhkfapgnoai?hl=en)):

> “The merge has begun—and a merge is our best scenario. Any version without a
> merge will have conflict: we enslave the A.I. or it enslaves us. The full-
> on-crazy version of the merge is we get our brains uploaded into my butt.
> I’d love that,” he said.

I had to disable the extension to verify that it was its work and not the
actual quote.

------
bambax
> _At Graham’s table, he [Altman] and others discussed how to stop Donald
> Trump_

> _If the pandemic does come, Altman’s backup plan is to fly with his friend
> Peter Thiel_

Is this true? How does it work?

Thiel is a very vocal supporter of Trump and yet he's Altman's friend, a
friend so close they would want to spend the rest of their life alone
together, in the event of a catastrophe.

Altman can certainly have all the friends he wants; but he shouldn't get to
pretend he opposes Trump at the same time.

~~~
dang
Friends can disagree. Pretty sure it's as simple as that.

~~~
camillomiller
Of course, but we're talking about opposite world views here.

I actually read a bit of an insinuation to the fact they're both gay, but
maybe I'm overreading into the article.

~~~
dang
You guys surprise me. Obviously friends can disagree, including about
important things. I'm trying to think of a sublime historical example but I'm
tired and all that comes to mind is Camille Paglia and Rush Limbaugh. Oh well.

~~~
bambax
If the article is to be believed, this is not just "some friend", it's someone
Altman would want to spend the rest of his life with in the event of a
catastrophe: it's his favorite human being on the planet.

And it's not just one's opinions or even party affiliation; Thiel is working
very hard and very publicly to get Trump elected.

