
Greg - sama
http://blog.samaltman.com/greg
======
6stringmerc
This nice summation really reminds me of a quote from _Shawshank Redemption_
which is, I must admit, not the most flattering in a business context:

> _I 'm a convicted felon who provides sound financial advice - it's a nice
> pet to have._

The best takeaway for Technical / SV minded folks in this posting is quite
clear: The odds of success are greatly enhanced when you have a Top Flight
Communicator at your disposal. An ability to "walk amongst the tribes" is very
important. It's a lot like getting various human systems into harmony / unison
(nerves and cardiovascular for instance).

I can state from first-hand experience with Bids/RFPs for projects worth tens
of thousands to billions that the most important person in the room is the
Proposal Coordinator and they get the least respect and compensation out of
the gate. It's realistically a horribly stressful job that is only rewarding
to a very select group of people, one of which happens to be me. I've learned
how to herd cats.

If I wanted to be, uh, less generous in my perspective, the Machiavellian
perspective is much more clear: "Manipulating people is a profitable
enterprise."

That's why I have a photo of Winston Wolf in my peripheral vision every day at
work, because his motto makes the most sense in a world plagued by Murphy's
Laws...

> _My name is Winston Wolf. I solve problems._

------
capocannoniere
> Greg is a world-class recruiter (he plans every detail of interviews,
> heavily researches candidate’s backgrounds, sends thoughtful and persistent
> followups, and so on), and I now believe even more strongly that someone on
> the founding team has to be an amazing recruiter.

The early openAI team is clearly superb. What's even more impressive to me, is
that the quality of the team has remained incredibly strong as the team grew
to 45+ people: IMO/IOI medalists, startup founders and key contributors,
world-class Phd's who could easily get tenure-track positions at top
universities, etc. [1] [2]

It's not uncommon for a startup to have a strong founding team. It's almost
unheard of that just about every single individual of a 45+ person team is
objectively exceptional.[3]

Not sure how much Greg is still involved in recruiting, but either way,
congrats.

(No affiliation to OpenAI, besides knowing a few people there)

[1] [https://openai.com/blog/team-update-
january/](https://openai.com/blog/team-update-january/) [2]
[https://openai.com/blog/team-update-august/](https://openai.com/blog/team-
update-august/) [3] I don't know any startups in which all of the first 50
employees were truly exceptional prior to them joining the company. I guess
Google, for example, might have had an incredibly strong early team, but I'm
not sure they were as strong prior to them joining Google.

------
dzink
Greg is humble, resourceful, and smart. That combination alone is enough to
move mountains. However, what Sam's piece is missing is the "Why?". Why would
someone who can do anything do YOUR thing and take any crud task it takes to
finish the job, especially after they've made their fortune? Greg should give
his own "Why?" about OpenAI. From what I know if 100 years from now someone
looks back at this fork in the road of History, they would see two scenarios:
Either a couple of big players will own the most powerful instrument in the
hands of mankind, to use at their (or their highest bidder's) discretion, or
mankind will jointly get to ensure the instrument has a safety handle to
protect life and all things most important.

For the latter, I'd bet many of the smartest people here would want to do the
crud work, even if they're not cofounders. The job of the ideal co-founder is
to spread a mission that matters this much to everyone who would be fit to
achieve it, inspiring all employees to be as committed. Well, OpenAI powered
relentlessly by Greg, has inspired thousands of volunteers and open-source
contributors in addition to it's top-notch staff.

~~~
dilemma
I've heard OpenAI isn't actually open source. Is it?

~~~
gavanwoolery
They do have open source projects, but their mission is not to necessarily be
an open source company. They want to equalize the footing in AI for everyone,
and this might require some degree of secrecy so that commercial AI companies
do not get an edge. At least, that is my perception, feel free to correct me.

~~~
angersock
> They want to equalize the footing in AI for everyone

Equal opportunity to _pay_ , or actually democratizing it so that anybody who
wants to use it can reap the benefits?

I'm willing to bet it's not the latter, given the reliance of AI on large
training corpuses and machine time.

~~~
gavanwoolery
I think its more about making the same research available to everyone, or
other things that are relatively free to distribute (like code, even though,
as hinted, it does not mean that everything will be open-sourced as its
written).

Although, you do make a good point. If only the most powerful companies can
afford meaningful machine time, how democratized can AI be?

~~~
angersock
> If only the most powerful companies can afford meaningful machine time, how
> democratized can AI be?

That's the big trick that nobody seems to give a shit about, as they scramble
around to make a buck.

Having the research or even the code _doesn 't really give you an advantage_.
We're just trading one set of overlords for another.

------
rl3
> _Greg is a world-class recruiter (he plans every detail of interviews,
> heavily researches candidate’s backgrounds, sends thoughtful and persistent
> followups, and so on), and I now believe even more strongly that someone on
> the founding team has to be an amazing recruiter._

I maintain a version-controlled text file of people I want to hire for my
startup, should hell ever freeze over and I secure funding some day.

The nice part is that doing so usually goes hand-in-hand with the
product/market/technology research you conduct anyways, so the practice has a
very low time investment attached to it. For the most part, you simply stumble
upon desirable people during the course of seemingly unrelated research, dig
into their background, and then add them to the list.

On a humorous note, quite a few people on my list later ended up being hired
by YC HARC. Hey Sam, what are the finer points of YC companies* trying to hire
talent attached to YC projects? Can you offer any pointers? :)

* _Not a YC company (yet)._

~~~
jimmykennedy
"should hell ever freeze over and I secure funding some day"

Your low self-esteem is sabotaging you.

~~~
rl3
Ah, it was intended as half tongue-in-cheek. Making light of tough situations
is usually for the best.

Sorry for not making that more clear. My smiley face budget had already been
reached by the latter portion of that post. Anything exceeding one smiley and
you end up looking like you're on something, especially on HN. Heck, even just
one can be suspect!

~~~
jessaustin
Yes it's better to be misunderstood, than to use too many smileys.

~~~
rl3
Case in point: I'm not sure if your comment was genuine snark, or if you
simply refrained from adding a smiley.

It's turtles all the way down. :)

------
CPLX
The moral of the story here, clearly, is that when you're one of a pair of
billionaires collectively responsible for some of the most successful
entrepreneurship successes in recent history, and you decide to have someone
handle logistics for a new venture, make sure they're enthusiastic.

~~~
zt
This is reductionist and offensive.

(1) On a practical level, although I don't know Greg's personal financial
situation, he was the CTO of Stripe for five years. He's rich enough not to
work. He works exactly because he's enthusiastic.

(2) Secondly, to say that Greg merely handles logistics for OpenAI is to
willfully ignore the post as written, and the reality on the ground.

Also, I'm not sure Sam is a billionaire, although well on his way.

~~~
CPLX
I don't think it's offensive to point out that recruiting an enthusiastic,
engaged, and talented cofounder is different for Elon Musk and Sam Altman than
it is for the fledgling startup founder that is the standard reader of YC blog
posts.

It would have been fine if he was just telling a story about his own life, but
when he said "make sure you also have someone like Greg" it became fair to
point out that he seems a little bit oblivious as to context.

~~~
zt
I misinterpreted your first post as being a lot more snarky than this second
comment suggests, sorry about that.

------
metaphorm
I disliked the article. I think sama is simultaneously over-personalizing and
also losing context and perspective.

Sure, maybe it is a generalizable description of virtuous qualities but it
also strikes me as something different and much worse. Here's another
interpretation "I sure am fortunate that I know this wealthy, well-connected
person who helps me with my businesses that require knowing wealthy, well-
connected people."

------
fourstar
> with an average email response time of about 5 minutes to anything

Why is this being praised?

Can't stand the "always on" economy. It's OK to not immediately to respond to
things.

~~~
wsinks
Especially after he says that he didn't reply back quickly (living in a high-
latency environment)

------
graycat
From about 20,000 feet higher than the OP, one of the issues about PG, Sam,
and YC is the combination of (1) lots of warnings about the dangers of
disputes among startup co-founders and, thus, the extreme need for yet another
startup co-founder, this one to play _den mother_ , peace maker, mother hen,
group psychologist, Chief Cat Herder, etc. versus (2) extreme negativity about
a solo founder.

From another 10,000 feet up, here is a simple observation: All across the US,
from the largest cities to the smallest crossroad communities, there are solo
founders of successful auto repair shops, auto body shops, dentist practices,
CPA practices, rental property ownership and management, pizza carryout shops,
Chinese carry out shops, _Mobil Travel Guide_ five star restaurants,
pediatrician practices, manufacturer representative practices, big-truck,
little-truck businesses of wide variety, etc. where commonly the cash to start
the business is higher than that of servers, domain name, and Internet
connection of a Web site.

So, solo founders do relatively well in _main street_ startups. Since co-
founders are not crucial for main street business and since a Web site startup
should be in most ways easier, why are co-founders crucial for Web site
startups? Since co-founder disputes are so common and potentially destructive,
why be so eager to have co-founders and so down on solo founders?

With the above, to me, hiring a co-founder as a recruiter, office peace maker,
general evangelist, smiling face, optimistic, good hand shake, meeter and
greeter who knows a lot of people is a big slice of cash and equity for the
usual thin budget of a startup.

Or, as we often hear, the crucial work of a startup is to keep the _burn rate_
as low as possible and ASAP please the customers/users and get to earnings. In
this case, an office peace maker, etc. is at best a nice to have if for free,
otherwise not a must have for free, and likely too expensive if have to pay
much.

------
brilliantcode
Greg sounds like me. Usually gets taken advantage of by people writing
articles like this.

~~~
kelvin0
That's exactly the thoughts that came to my mind. Article is big on
complimenting Greg about his qualities being able to follow others, and drive
a given vision handed down to him.

Hopefully, this article is simply not doing the Person justice and is simply
poorly thought out and comes out as a superficial 'fluff' piece.

~~~
sokoloff
Different people are skilled at and like doing different things. I'm not the
"big, original vision" guy. I'm the guy who pairs with the big vision guy and
figures out the myriad details required to make that big vision come to
fruition, figures out how to reign in the unrealistic, unachievable, or merely
"sometime later" parts of the vision, so we can deliver in the near-term on
the parts that are achievable.

That means I often get (and win at) the second-in-command role, but I don't
see that as being taken advantage of at all. I've made quite a good career of
it and honestly and earnestly enjoy it.

~~~
brilliantcode
The guy who made me work on an MVP for the next 3 month while he was on a
vacation told me the same thing.

Apparently, if you have a big enough vision, it's along the lines of "why
aren't you working for my awesome ideas for free? I even gave you teeny amount
of equity"

~~~
kelvin0
I think I might use that quote and print it on T-shirts.

------
Kevin_S
YC at this moment is able to recruit the absolute top talent for any position
they can envision. Damn that is a lot of power they wield, especially in
starting these projects like Open AI and the Basic Income. I'd love to be able
to invest in YC, as I think a good return at this point is one of the best
bets an investor could make.

~~~
gist
> YC at this moment is able to recruit the absolute top talent for any
> position they can envision.

Absolute top talent? I think you are blinded by the light of YC. Not everyone
thinks that or even close to it. [1] [2] By way of example I am reminded when
I told a young person that I was helping to look on the page of a vc/angel
investor that I do work for and know (among many). I said 'look at what they
are doing I can get you an easy interview at any of those companies even if
they don't have an opening'. They looked (was a woman iim) and said 'no thanks
looks like they are all doing strange weird stuff'. This particular person
preferred a traditional and solid company I am guessing, not a shot at the
moon. And there are plenty of people like that. Plenty of smart capable people
in the world and not all would die to work for a YC company or YC affiliated
venture.

[1] Note I make money off the shot at the moon company so don't take this as
some kind of sour grapes..

[2] And while most people know who Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos are (what I
will call 'the aunt' test) most people have never heard of Sam, PG or YC for
that matter.

~~~
lkbm
> [2] And while most people know who Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos are (what I
> will call 'the aunt' test) most people have never heard of Sam, PG or YC for
> that matter.

Sure, but most software engineers probably have. While companies need a _lot_
more than just engineers, having a leg up on engineering recruitment
(especially as a very early-stage startup) seems extremely valuable.

~~~
gedrap
Highly doubt it :) HN crowd is a small subset of all professional engineers.

------
zt
I'm sure that many others could write much better informed or detailed
additions to Sama's post.

All I will say is that I worked at Stripe very briefly -- for about three
months -- when the company was about thirty people (before I went on to go
through YC). Greg was incredibly generous with his time in explaining and
working with me as a non-engineer.

I don't think he had been named CTO yet (Stripe was quite title phobic at the
start) but it was clear that he was both a technical and non-technical leader
of the company. He spent time to explain code and architecture to me, while
also chatting through cultural norms and various organizational tensions
Stripe was experiencing as it grew.

I think the acculturation to Stripe that he very deliberately supported in me
was critical for what (little) success I had with Standard Treasury.

This is all to say that Sama’s post is spot on in my experience. Greg
exhibited every one of the mentioned characteristics (except recruiting, I
didn’t interacting with him on that) even when working with someone with which
he didn’t have to be so generous.

------
gavanwoolery
I only worked at OpenAI for a short period, but what was written here seems to
mirror what I saw, FWIW. I would add in that Greg struck me as one of the
sharpest people in the company, and one of the hardest working (he would often
stay there late into the night, even on weekends).

------
CptJamesCook
Greg Brockman:

Went to MIT

Went to Harvard

Was CTO of a 10 billion dollar company for 5 years, starting the year it was
founded

Yeah, I'd take a cofounder like that.

------
pgroves
But why does Greg need a cofounder?

~~~
gdb
(I am Greg.)

Starting something new is incredibly hard. The default is that your company
never even forms, and it's on you to overcome the activation energy. I don't
think I'd have the mental fortitude to stick that out alone.

In contrast, there's nothing more motivating than working with great people
(and it's hard to do better than Ilya, Sam, and Elon). Everyone brings their
own core strengths to the table, and if you've picked well your own efforts
will be multiplied.

~~~
loteck
Thanks for chiming in. Would you mind giving your thoughts on an important
question here?

Which of your qualities specifically do you feel are actually under discussion
here, and how would you recommend others build, enhance or foster those
qualities if they wanted to do so?

In other words, assuming someone wanted to, how would they become more "Greg?"

------
rihegher
Greg remind me of Jared in the Silicon Valley TV show

------
gcheong
If all startups need a Greg and there are only so many Gregs to go around, can
new Gregs be deliberately created?

~~~
birken
I've only worked at one startup, which was quite successful, and nobody there
fit the description of Greg (unless you permute it to be so vague that
everybody is Greg). Therefore, you don't need a Greg character for your
startup to be successful.

Clearly he is a very impressive person with very impressive results and I'm
sure I'd enjoy working at a company with him, or people like him.

I don't like this myth though. Startups are chaos, and pretending that as long
as you have this magical person there solving all your problems that your
chaos is somehow incorrect. The startup I worked for was full of normal
imperfect humans who got offended, had trouble figuring out the direction of
the company, were not world-class recruiters, were not always thoughtful and
ran into problems big and small all the time. The company didn't die because
there was a group of dedicated, imperfect people, who didn't want the company
to die, not because there was one "Chief Optimist" holding it all together. If
there was a "Chief Optimist" role, it was a very mobile position based on who
was feeling best at that particular moment.

This isn't to say you can't and shouldn't actively try to make yourself better
[1], you should. But you don't need a perfectly formed person working at your
startup for it to succeed. And I want to note, I'm not disputing the existence
of superhuman individuals, they exist and I'm sure power a lot of amazing
achievements. You just don't _need_ them to succeed, a bunch of normal people
can do it too.

1: For whatever definition of better you want, in this context it would
probably mean being a better startup founder

------
Diederich
> Elon and I were both busy with day jobs ...

Epic, lovely understatement there!

------
gormo2
What was the inspiration for the dinner that kicked off OpenAI? What made you
invite Greg to it?

~~~
btkramer9
I was wondering the same thing. Found this article that sums it up pretty
nicely.

[https://blog.gregbrockman.com/my-path-to-
openai](https://blog.gregbrockman.com/my-path-to-openai)

------
codingdave
Every success DOES need a guy like Greg. But I really worry about the part
where Greg was working on the effort full-time, doing it all while the other
guys still worked. When it ends in success, it is a great story. When it ends
without success, Greg is the guy who put all his time into it, then ends up
with nothing. Greg becomes the warning story.

Greg is the guy you need. Not necessarily the guy you want to be.

~~~
smacktoward
There is a very, very fine line dividing "chief optimist" from "sucker."

~~~
ProAm
Sounds like we need a Co-founder basic income?

~~~
noonespecial
That's a fantastic idea. We could give it a special name to avoid confusion.
How about "salary"?

~~~
rl3
You often hear about founder salaries being set intentionally low by VCs to
keep founders hungry.

While I don't dispute the power of stress and pressure to light a fire under
someone's ass, I don't think it should come in the form of a person's
livelihood.

For example, it's not hard to imagine founder(s) that have been working for
years on something with no pay, putting them far behind their traditionally-
employed peers. They may even have family obligations on top of that.
Proceeding to then pay them low wages in the interest of motivation isn't
exactly the best idea.

Granted, I do tend to agree with the ethos of having the founder being the
lowest-paid employee in the company. Ideally that just ensures everyone else
is paid really, really well.

~~~
noonespecial
We've kind of had the hat-trick of weasely-ness going on recently. They get
overworked, underpaid, and then the promise of a big payout at the end is
diluted away by investors who were barely involved beyond sloshing a bunch of
other people's money in their general direction.

I don't like industries that institutionalize the consumption of individuals
enthusiasm or altruism. We've essentially lost medicine to the latter and it
sucks to see the startup scene consumed by the former.

------
satysin
This _kind of_ goes with something I said a while ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12761258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12761258)

A good project manager[0] to keep on top of everything and pick up all the
miscellaneous tasks can/will make or break a startup.

[0] Well the title doesn't matter but I used PM so I will stick to that title.

------
mwetzler
Nice and sweet love letter to Greg. Shared with our founders.

We have a slightly alternative model: There hasn't been a consistent Greg 5+
years, but there is always a founder willing to be Greg when the previous Greg
needs a break. Especially important once people start having children and go
through the various ups and downs of life.

------
mirceam
This might be besides the point of the post, but I'll ask anyway.

@Greg, perhaps you could talk a bit about what you think makes you a
productive engineer and problem-solver. What's your workflow like, how do you
approach a problem, or learning a new concept, what tools do you use, etc.

------
ilaksh
Cool but why doesn't he get a last name. I don't actually know who it is.

~~~
justinhensley
Greg Brockman. It's in the second sentence of the post.

~~~
forbiddenlake
It's still a nearly context-free headline, which is a pet peeve of mine at
Hacker News. The headline should contain actual information that tells me why
I care and should click. "Greg" is quite insufficient, with the only saving
grace being I can see the domain name and know who Sam Altman is.

------
ttam
@gdb: do you have anything to say about sama's post? and what have been the
activities that you found most valuable in your life?

------
27182818284
>high latency

I wonder if that's a typo.

~~~
jrowley
No, I think Sam is saying that it takes a while for Elon/Sam to reply to Greg,
and even given that, Greg responds quickly. Thats a good practice because it
shows you're eager/dedicated to moving forward.

------
tmaly
someone like Greg is going to be hard to come by.

------
linkmotif
Great piece thank you.

------
davidhariri
Damn. Wish I was Greg.

