From the article:<p>> Two YC partners sat Altman down last year “and told him, ‘Slow down, chill out!’ ” another partner, Jonathan Levy, told me. “Sam said, ‘Yes, you’re right!’—and went off and did something else on the side that we didn’t know about for a while.”<p>Seems consistent with the original "leadership transition" announcement:<p>> Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board<p>Has any more detail surfaced since then about what specific information he (allegedly) withheld from the board?
I read this article perhaps two or three years ago and it's one of the reasons I always had a slightly negative view of Sam Altman because he comes off as just slightly insufferable (that whole Bronze Age sword sequence, for example).<p>I don't necessarily think that was absolutely without merit: one tires of CEOs and SV types who think too much of themselves and don't attribute enough of their success to simply being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people (not to entirely discount their undeniable talents and abilities, of course).<p>I wouldn't necessarily say the past few days have radically altered my view but I do find it striking that so many OpenAI employees broke cover to come out in support of him. It's certainly given me pause for further reflection and underscored that you just don't really know someone from simply reading about them, or reading interviews with them. So much of our understanding of individuals comes from spending time with them and from non-verbal cues.<p>Still, I've known others who have done things similar to the Bronze Age sword thing and, overall, I don't recommend these stunts: you inevitably come off as out of touch and a bit of a tool.
> 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.<p>He must have felt pretty vindicated about his prepper's stance when COVID happened five years after this statement.
The line about Asperger’s is hysterical. I can’t wait for this insanity to die down and go back to normal. During these frenzied moments we almost need a forked HN homepage where the trend of the month is cordoned off to prevent contagion.
Unfortunately for Sam Altman, an LLM will never produce anything half as funny as a bunch of rich VC guys calling a "politics expert" to tell them who to vote for. The human spirit prevails.