“Sam Altman Is No Different Than Most of the Talented Ones, Which Is to Say, Aggressive, Sometimes Imperious and Yes, Self-Serving”, 2023-11-22 (; backlinks):
[compare Tan, Achiam, Irving] Soft disagree with this pearl clutching tone [of WaPo article on firing Sam Altman from YC]. And since I know every one of these tech leaders well, I have to say that Sam is no different than most of the talented ones, which is to say, aggressive, sometimes imperious and, yes, self-serving. Wot?
This line was silly since every CEO does this: “[It was] evidenced by his unwillingness to entertain any board makeup that wasn’t heavily skewed in his favor.” You’re f—king kidding said no one ever.
Also I cannot believe this article forced me to agree with Keith Rabois [Thiel, Founders Fund]: “Insofar as he is polarizing, it’s because he is young, successful and ambitious, and people are envious.” Oh man.
Like almost everyone I have covered, he is sometimes arrogant, sometime fibs and freelances and so do they all. He’s also one of the more thoughtful ones and his employees said a lot by their loyalty. End of rant as I hate defending these (always) men, but I also need to be fair.
What he is not is toxic and cruel like some…BTW nearly every player in this OpenAI drama was self interested and manipulative on some fashion. I’ll give props to the employees who as a group were pretty steady. And, yes, they want the $ but I think are more mission driven than most. Let’s hope it stays that way.
…Many many faults. But not very different than the rest of the more reasonable ones.
[Expands her initial comments: “The board members who voted against Altman felt he was manipulative and headstrong and wanted to do what he wanted to do. That sounds like a typical SV CEO to me, but this might not be a typical SV company.”]