My post yesterday about Sam Altman has been pretty well received. Not everyone agrees, which is totally fine! We’ll see how the post ages in a year. I tried to put significant thought into it, though, not just fire off another hot take into the “love AI / hate AI” debate chaos.
@manton I appreciate the thought you put into that post. My personal issue with it is that the lens through which you are looking at the issue is too narrow. I might suggest you put the same amount of thought into adjacent issues such as how AI is affecting data privacy, education, creativity, copyright, the environment, and the simple fact that it is being thrust into every aspect of technology we mere mortals use every day without our knowledge or consent. Google, Meta, Microsoft, and most large tech companies have already shown us the consequences technology can have on the larger culture. Sam Altman is following the same playbook IMO.
@manton I sort of feel like your judging Sam by a different set of criteria than the important critiques– which are “Is he actually any good at product?”
That’s not clear to me. He’s good at raising money, amassing power, talking a huge game, and living and breathing Silicon Valley thinking (but not cartoonishly). But I’m not convinced that translate to the kind of product leadership required to not make the Rabbit R1.
@jsonbecker It’s a good question. And it’s hard to tell with OpenAI because their approach seems to be: let a bunch of small teams just work on their own things and then ship it. There is not exactly the cohesive vision we’re used to from other companies.
@apoorplayer Thanks for your thoughts. Covering privacy and education would be a whole different post. I’m definitely thinking about it, although I don’t know if I have anything to add right now.
@manton Thanks for writing and sharing. I found this really interesting. I have thought about this for a while and I think if Apple, were not such a huge company, they would have already announced a merger of Open AI to fast track it back to the top of innovation and not just the bank balance. Imagine Sam ( Similar to Jobs) and Jonny inspiring the future of tech.
@Munish Thanks! Yeah, OpenAI is now too big to acquire. They could still potentially get Anthropic, but that would cost a small fortune too, and might not help in the same way.
