The article talks about his "luck" in "surviving." Which is about all he has, apparently. No consideration for the future of the product, the company, or the industry. The triumphant conclusion of this article is "a bunch of CEOs pulled weight and Altman got his old job back, again."
The more of these I read, the more convinced I am that his company is going nowhere, as they seem more skilled at producing "internal drama" than "new product."
Don't you think most entrepreneurs would call Sam if they have a chance?
It amplifies you. Speeds up big moves, acquisition of resources, hiring key people, etc. These are not loner (atom), team (list), or even top-down (tree), type activities.
A network of powerful people is like a collection of other threads, each with their own resources, that you can call. Literally. And put any number of those threads and resources to work on your problems (your coroutines) concurrently.
Only if it’s a network fit for use and purpose though.
Most companies (are not, won’t be, shouldn’t be, can’t be, don’t want to be) [pick one] an SV behemoth. I once worked at a small organization that had direct connections with a certain former CEO that remains one of the planet’s wealthiest people, but it didn’t really do much either way for the organization.
Put another way focused on OpenAI: I would argue that despite Microsoft’s moves in support of Altman with OpenAI, it’s not like Satya Nadella needs Sam Altman because Sam Altman has something Nadella/MS doesn’t. Quite the opposite. In situations like that, the stability of the stock price and market perception are much more compelling drivers. Microsoft is only transactionally served by him. If he was more expensive to keep than the value derived from his ability to razzle-dazzle, they’d have simply kept quiet.
Edit: typo
My take on it is that they have an exceptionally skilled marketing department that's good at creating the impression that they've actually created an AGI, with stories trickling out to the press about ChatGPT 'getting lazy' or 'taking a break for the holidays' and other stuff that serves to humanise what is, at least for me, a product which routinely fails to accurately answer basic questions, the answers to which are contained in hundreds of blogs and forum postings.
If others are experiencing something different that's interesting. Personally I note that the 'I got this weird answer' posts are never accompanied by screenshots or any other evidence, they're just claims which all subsequent repliers appear to take as the unvarnished truth.
I congratulate their marketing team; I suspect that Mistral will ultimately present a far superior product.
CEO of Reddit, how'd that go? Project Covalence, how'd that go? Andrew Yang? Our next president, right? 2018, The year Sam Altman became the governor of California, no? And of course: "I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israel Defense Forces, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to." - that aged well.
But he's now in a position where all his failures will be forgotten and his successes amplified forevermore (unless he buys a social media company, but he seems too smart for that so far). It is clear he has reached Jeff Dean levels of ridiculous hagiography though, but I guess worshipping CEOs is a step up from worshipping invisible friends or stinky geriatric ex-presidents so there's that.
Just by probabilities alone it's happened hundreds of times. Probably the source for original prophet claims.
Let one man make one (50/50) prediction once a year from the time he is 20 until 50. One in a billion by chance, but by numbers its had to occured. Attach some mythology and tada.
What business has he aced?