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Although I dislike him now glazing Trump, I understand why he's doing it. Trump runs a racket and this is part of the game.

One of my most contrarian positions is I still like and support Altman, despite most of the internet now hating him almost as much as they (justifiably) hate Elon. Was a fan of Sam pre-YC presidency and still am now.

(I also am a big fan of DeepSeek and its CEO.)




In the interest of helping avoid an echo chamber, would you mind giving some of the things you like about current Altman?


For me, it’s the technical results. Same as for Musk.

Tesla accelerated us forward into the electric car age. SpaceX revolutionized launches.

OpenAI added some real startup oomph to the AI arms race which was dominated by megacorps with entrenched products that they would have disrupted only slowly.

So these guys are doing useful things, however you feel about their other conduct. Personally I find the gross political flip-flops hard to stomach.


I'd love to hear something positive about the current Altman, too. Anything would be good.


Why would you support someone you said was part of a racket in the sentence before? We're talking about real life, where actions have consequences, not a TV show where we're expected to identifiy with Tony Soprano.


I do not support the runner of the racket (Trump). The victims of the racket who are forced to comply are who I'm sympathizing with.

I don't support the mafia, but I sympathize with the local store that pays the mafia its racket dues to avoid being ransacked.


In your model, the underboss is a victim of the don?


It's just the cost of doing business. Sam Altman isn't Trump's underboss. In this scenario that would be David Sacks or Elon Musk or something.




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