
Becoming CTO at OpenAI (2017) - jxub
https://blog.gregbrockman.com/define-cto-openai
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jgh
Just casually having dinner with Elon Musk and Sam Altman, as one does.

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withdavidli
CTO of well known tech company (Stripe) speak with their investor and a person
looking to poach him.

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jgh
Am I supposed to be collecting the baseball cards of Silicon Valley's elite?

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minimaxir
That context is extremely relevant in this case.

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jgh
Yes I understand the relevance but I am not a person reading that blog post
with that context. The context I have is this:

Here I am, some guy browsing hacker news. Oh look, some other guy wrote a blog
post on becoming a CTO. I will click on that. Oh, he had dinner with Elon Musk
and Sam Altman and came up with his idea with them. Sounds like something I
will never do in my life. Next.

I hope HN can get over the sleight of me not showing proper deference to the
masters of the universe.

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projectramo
Don’t you think in some ways it’s the opposite of what you’re describing?

I mean to me they’re “just” people. Successful people but just people. I may
or may not have lunch with them.

You passing on because you would “never” do that in your life seems to be the
deification. And not sure why you think you wouldn’t. Seems like it could
happen easily if there was a reason for it.

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AndrewKemendo
Are they "just" people? I'm not sure.

I've worked with or been around some of these top people before and, with few
exceptions, they seem to have some kind of aura or something. I can't explain
it exactly but it's disquieting.

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yesimahuman
The aura comes from other people putting them on a pedestal. The tech world is
surprisingly small and you don't have to be an SV elite to meet folks at this
level.

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jonathangrahl
This post is incredibly motivating! I really long back to the days of working
in start-up with the smartest people around. Maybe time for that again...

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fuddle
It's nice to hear some of the back story behind OpenAI, especially since they
seem to be making so much progress lately. It would make a nice documentary
some day.

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jedberg
I love the way you solicit applicants for the various jobs! I think I'm going
to borrow that for my own company. No silly questions, just a couple of
focused paragraphs about yourself that relates to the work you'll be doing.

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gdb
Thanks!

Probably about time to write an update. Things have progressed quite a bit
since this post :).

