
Sam Altman Considering Run for CA Governor - rkaplan
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/williesworld/article/The-man-President-Trump-fears-most-11144034.php
======
tareqak
I linked the Recode article that also links to the SF chronicle column.

SF Chronicle article:
[http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/williesworld/article/The-...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/williesworld/article/The-
man-President-Trump-fears-most-11144034.php)

Recode article that links the to the SF Chronicle article:
[https://www.recode.net/2017/5/14/15638046/willie-brown-
colum...](https://www.recode.net/2017/5/14/15638046/willie-brown-column-sam-
altman-might-run-governor-california-2018) with the title 'Sam Altman for
governor?'

My submission (now flagged):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14337211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14337211)

I originally found the Recode article from
[http://techmeme.com/river](http://techmeme.com/river) . Here is a screenshot
as of 5:20 PM EDT: [https://imgur.com/a/xJFcS](https://imgur.com/a/xJFcS)

In hindsight, I should have used Techmeme's description as the title of my
submission, but I did not think of that at all at the time. I feel as though
that users should be able to post the original title and a possibly
editorialized version in cases where the original title is suspect, but the
article itself has some newsworthy merit.

~~~
fapjacks
Bizarre. I wonder why users are flagging these posts?

------
icpmacdo
I am indifferent to this except for the possible negative effects it might
have on HN.

I hope it does not cause any significant changes to the community here, either
from signs of censoring criticism or the topic consistently derailing threads.
Every single online community I am apart of is getting wrapped up more and
more into American politics it seems.

~~~
Mz
As I understand it, Sam Altman is not involved in moderating HN. That is Dan
Gackle's responsibility. So, I don't have any reason to believe that it would
in any way impact moderation of HN.

~~~
jacques_chester
The concern may be discussion on the topic crowding other things out.

------
cjbarber
I'm very excited about this.

Skills that would be useful as governor:

* Learning new things quickly

* Running and improving existing organizations

* Hiring great people and building teams

* Identifying the most important and undervalued things to work on or invest in

Sam:

* Learning new things - e.g. with nuclear power, see comments by nuclear power founder [https://blog.ycombinator.com/jacob-dewitte-oklo-interview/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/jacob-dewitte-oklo-interview/)

* Running and improving existing organizations - see YC since 2014

* Hiring great people and building teams - YC since 2014, [https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-hire](https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-hire), YC Research organizations like OpenAI

* Identifying the most important and undervalued things to work on or invest in - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman#Angel_Investing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman#Angel_Investing)

I'd certainly like these attributes in my governor!

------
gotothedoctor
Wow. I’m so confused by this. Sure, it makes sense that Altman would seek
advice from Willie L. Brown Jr.—but why would Altman allow Brown to announce
this in his newspaper column? And, even more bizarre-- why would Brown suggest
that Altman’s candidacy is so threatening that it’d make Gavin Newsom
suicidal? Seriously?

Sam Altman is obviously an impressive, wealthy & ambitious guy. However, he is
32 & has literally zero experience in CA state government & politics. Sure,
Altman has raised money for Hillary, but, no one knows better than Willie how
far a distance it is from a Hillary fundraiser at his home to a pancake
breakfast at a labor union in Sacramento. Brown even acknowledges that it’s
been an unsuccessful pattern for wealthy tech guys. Why would anyone who knows
anything about California politics (let alone Willie Brown) recommend that a
virtually unknown wealthy 32 year old with no relevant experience run for
governor of any state, let alone California? Has Brown signed on to be a paid
advisor for Altman’s campaign?

Gavin Newsom, on the other hand, is also wealthy & young(ish) but has decades
of experience. As Brown well knows, Newsom could face actual competition from
Kamala Harris, Antonio Villaraigosa or even Tom Steyer--none of whom are
political novices.

That said, its fantastic that Altman has political aspirations. And I hope
many people do encourage him to pursue public service. But why wouldn't Altman
start out by running for State Assembly or Congress?

I hope Altman asks himself why Willie Brown didn't say exactly this to him--&
that actually, thankfully, in his experience, California is beyond unlikely to
elect a 32 year old with no experience as its governor.

Frankly, deciding to run for governor as a wealthy 32 year old with no
experience in government or politics, suggests that Altman, at least
presently, lacks the judgment being governor of CA requires. Its concerning
that Altman himself would not know as much --let alone think that in the age
of Trump, that such a campaign could be successful in CA--and even more so
that he'd surround himself with folks that wouldn't tell him as much.

To be clear, my criticism is not cynicism or hate. I am critical because I
admire Altman (& separately, differently, Brown) & think he can do better.
But, it'll take surrounding himself with folks who challenge him, not those
who benefit from agreeing with him. Maybe this'll help him learn as much?

------
jacobolus
I doubt he’d have much chance of winning, but if he did it would be unlikely
to work well for state residents. You want someone with decades of experience
in state politics to be governor. Jerry Brown (on the second go-around) has
been by far a better governor than at least the previous 6 were, including his
younger self.

(Admittedly Pete Wilson and Gray Davis were both career politicians with
plenty of CA experience, and both terrible – we might say that decades of
experience is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a great
governor.)

If Altman is serious, he should try running for state legislature first.

------
oisino
Curious how Sam would overcome his lack of relative charisma vs people in
politics to win. Paul graham essay on this is more than ever true in the world
of social media
[http://www.paulgraham.com/pow.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/pow.html)

------
loteck
If the act of running as an outsider for high office is mostly an exercise in
building name recognition to bolster future races, this may be an OK idea.

If this is a play to get younger people to pay attention to government, also
an OK idea.

Seems like an OK idea.

~~~
bryanlarsen
If this is a ploy to get more mainstream candidates to steal ideas from your
platform, also an OK idea.

------
d--b
I thought that in terms of numbers, a majority of people in CA disliked the
startup guys... am I wrong?

~~~
skym
I personally can't stand them, however I'm moving myself and my company out of
CA so I won't be able to vote against him.

------
EternalData
There's an interesting inflection point when it comes to age and politics
nowadays. Ossoff is 30 and is now the best hope the Dems have at picking up a
seat in suburban Hillary country. Macron, at 39, is the youngest French leader
ever elected (emphasis on elected) and the youngest head of state.

Granted, both had deep experience in politics before cutting their skin in the
game and staking themselves out in a major way. But I no longer see age and
perceived experience as a major obstacle to policy-making and electability --
especially in an age where most people are yearning for a different kind of
politics.

------
bdrool
Reminder that this is the same person who attempted to publicly shame[1]
Jeremy Guillory out of fighting for his fair share during GM's acquisition of
Cruise. This attempt failed, and Cruise ended up having to publicly
acknowledge the opposite:

"As part of the settlement, Cruise and its founder Kyle Vogt now acknowledge
that Guillory was a cofounder of the company."[2]

On top of that, Sam's post originally included the statement "it’s important
to the way Silicon Valley works that such behavior not be tolerated" in
reference to Guillory fighting for his recognition, which he later removed.[3]

This is not someone I would support for any sort of public office.

EDIT: He's not above criticism, folks. If you disagree with me, how about
replying and explaining instead of down-voting?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11490188](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11490188)

[2] [http://www.businessinsider.com/car-startup-cruise-settles-
le...](http://www.businessinsider.com/car-startup-cruise-settles-legal-case-
involving-cofounder-2016-5?op=1)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11491011](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11491011)

~~~
narrowrail
Not only is this submission flagged, it is also almost a day old (kinda old by
HN standards), but you still felt the need to show up and link to what the
public sources say. You have no insider knowledge, and the chances of the
publicly known story being accurate are pretty slim. Seems pretty low to me. I
almost DV'd you until I saw someone else already did, so I figured I would try
providing feedback (I hate drive-by DVs).

~~~
bdrool
The facts are very clear-cut and I provided sources.

> the chances of the publicly known story being accurate are pretty slim

That's empty speculation. If that's the only defense for his actions then
there isn't any.

It's going to take a lot more than that to convince people to vote for him.

------
redahs
> tech investor and app innovator who believes that if used right, technology
> can bring an end to income inequality and a hosts of other social and
> economic problems.

If this implies using technology to deliver greater public services more
efficiently, it is unlikely to solve structural inequality.

If you deliver public services more effectively and make California a more
attractive place to live, then land values will rise, and landowners and
mortgage investors can charge even higher rent.

The primary driver of inequality is housing costs and the only combination
which would allow for high public spending on services and low rent paid to
landholders and banks is switching state revenue from income, sales, and
personal property taxes to a land value tax.

You can incentivize an incremental switch to land value taxation by sponsoring
legislation which would allow residents to obtain an exemption from all state
taxes if they lived in a county which made quarterly payments to the state on
their behalf.

If a county can figure out how to get around Proposition 13 and raise local
revenues from quarterly assessed unimproved land values sufficient to pay for
both local and state services, it should be allowed to forward a portion of
the money to the state in exchange for exemptions from state taxes for
residents.

From a technical standpoint, it would be great if there was a public map of a
single land value tax rate for every parcel of land in the state. However
private developers could build this using data published by the county
governments.

------
rdl
I'd be sad to lose him from YC, although he would probably do enough good for
the state overall to make up for it.

If he were at all effective, I'd consider ending my California boycott. I'm
concerned that unless the rest of state government is fixed, including Prop 13
and the voter initiative system in general, California is just too fucked to
be fixed even by a great Governor, though.

~~~
idlewords
The governor is not a proconsul. To be effective, they have to work with the
state legislature.

~~~
rdl
In California you could probably have a popular governor who appealed directly
to the people (abusing the initiative system), even with a mostly-
dysfunctional legislature.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Schwarzenegger tried that.

~~~
CalChris
Yeah, Schwarzenegger tried that and failed because his 2005 ballot initiatives
(including his non partisan redistricting) were in an unnecessary special
election and attached with some hard right propositions. All 8 went down in
flames.

He then fired his chief of staff and replaced her with a Democrat and governed
from the center, even from the center left. I preferred him to Gray Davis
since Davis was so in bed with the prison guards union that he never used his
clemency powers for fear it would cost a prison guard job.

A few years later, in 2010 Schwarzenegger dusted off the redistricting
initiative and it passed.

------
Animats
Willie Brown is still a kingmaker? He's 83 and hasn't held office since 2004.

~~~
CalChris
Brown still basically runs San Francisco. He certainly ran it when Rose Pak
was still alive and Ed Lee is definitely his guy. Outside of SF he's certainly
knowledgable but I doubt he has any pull in Sacto. Not with Jerry, not with
Gavin.

Kingmaker, no. And Brown is definitely not a kingmaker if you want to run
statewide. I doubt he has any pull in LA or the Central Valley. Any at all.

Frankly, this bores me. If Altman wants to run for office, he should start a
little lower and get a little experience. At 32, I don't count a social
networking startup and an incubator for much of a resume especially with
respect to running the government of the 6th largest economy in the world.

~~~
Lordarminius
> At 32, I don't count a social networking startup and an incubator for much
> of a resume especially with respect to running the government of the 6th
> largest economy in the world.

I came here to say the same thing. I am not American but politics is pretty
much the same all over the world nowadays.

Effective leadership in political positions demands specialized knowledge and
skills developed over long periods of time. This is so often ignored. Socio-
economic problems do not succumb to neat textbook solutions. The real world is
messy

To add to my previous points.

Many people labor under the misconception that solutions are lacking to many
problems they face in their communities and the job of the politician is to
magically conjure them. This is false.

There are some issues with no clear way to solve them but these are the
minority. For the vast majority of problems(think teacher shortages,
healthcare costs, pollution, government corruption etc) solutions exist: it is
the political will and organization to implement them that is lacking.

~~~
jacques_chester
It is typical in these situations to cast the establishment as a stuffy force
for evil, a damp quilt blanket that muffles exciting possibilities.

And sometimes it is. Sometimes seniority beats sanity, sometimes self-interest
beats public interest.

But, taking the view from the other side, the establishment sees an endless
parade of bold, brilliant, I'm-the-exception types running up to knock it
down. In such a position they might be forgiven, after the dozenth encounter
with yet _another_ visionary, for rolling their eyes.

And I imagine that the California establishment has seen one or two techno-
utopians by now.

~~~
CalChris
Yes, but we've also seen more than our share of entertain-opians. Other than
being able to open at the box office they brought no ability to a hard
problem.

~~~
jacques_chester
Even they belonged to major parties.

------
prawn
So, do we sell or buy Alt-coin on the back of this news?

[https://twitter.com/sama/status/861825929034833920](https://twitter.com/sama/status/861825929034833920)

~~~
maxerickson
Buy popcorn.

------
powera
I'd rather see Paul Graham run for governor, and SamA stay at YCombinator.

------
jacques_chester
I was under the impression, based on the original submission, that this was
based on running as an independent. About which I'm skeptical.

There's a reason that rich folk who get elected are nominated by a major
party.

It's because in a voluntary voting system, a large "Get Out The Vote" machine
is necessary, even though it's not sufficient.

You don't get that machine with machine learning. You get it with thousands of
organised volunteers managed by experienced party hacks.

Afterwards, having seen where the money goes, I suspect Sam will decide to
invest in political consultancies.

(Copied here and modified since this submission has replaced the other
submission)

------
dang
Url changed from
[https://mobile.twitter.com/kimmaicutler/status/8636744308907...](https://mobile.twitter.com/kimmaicutler/status/863674430890717185),
which points to this.

