Link to the article <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/11/the-inside-story-of-microsofts-partnership-with-openai" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/11/the-inside-sto...</a><p>Also discussed in this thread <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38486394">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38486394</a>
If Altman was dismissed from YC for similar reasons this would be an excellent time for YC to speak up about it. I understand that for professional courtesy reasons they've been very "smile and say nothing" about Altman's departure but IMO that's increasingly untenable as these stakes go higher.
Nothing even slightly surprising here to anyone who can read between the lines. Guy's obviously very succesful in building "consensus" out of nowhere.
I'm broadly not that supportive of these kind of character assessments or psychological evaluations from afar. They're at best salacious clickbait. I despise Trump and I was even uncomfortable with all the same things around him.<p>But, I think we might need to start reckoning with the fact that the people who amass a lot of power in our society almost never do it because of their moral fortitude, but rather because they have less than most. If we actually think you should have to be a bona fide good person to be president or run OpenAI, we should probably figure out wtf that means, how we would assess that, and how we'd develop that in potential leaders. Thinkpieces and tweets about it after the fact are frankly pathetic. Maybe come out swinging a little earlier.
Still curious how much EA people pulling the strings behind the scenes and jockeying for power played part into the recent drama. Toner and CSET being bankrolled by EA and all.