False prophet?


"I realize that this sounds a little dramatic, and a little inflammatory, but the air around Altman has, for years, been that he’s somehow a magical, special creature — a man 'wise beyond his years' at the tender age of 19 — who, to quote startup incubator Y Combinator’s Paul Graham, 'could be parachuted into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and be king.' 

"The Sam Altman myth is one of a person gifted with immense talent and ability, but without any demonstrations of where said talents and abilities have been employed.  

"In a stunning, in-depth piece by Ellen Huet of Bloomberg, Sam Altman is repeatedly framed by contemporaries as some sort of genius without anyone ever actually explaining why, other than this vague sense of intellectual superiority, with Y Combinator founder John Coogan claiming that Altman 'had an uncanny ability to listen intently and diagnose problems…' and that he was 'the Michael Jordan of listening.' 

"Altman is a monument to the rot at the core of the valley, and a product of the growing distance between the tech industry and actually creating things of value." 


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