There was a time when Sam Altman, CEO of Titanic technology company OpenAI, was the darling of Silicon Valley. However, the days of the executive’s impeccable reputation may be fading.a new one Report Sources from Insider suggest that some in the tech and financial world aren’t thrilled with Ultraman’s messianic antics.
Insider’s report cited numerous anonymous venture capitalists and startup executives about what Altman was doing. Reportedly involved in a $100 billion financing round. The money will be used to create artificial general intelligence (AGI). For many of the interviewees who had interacted with or worked with Altman, the technology guru’s combination of high-pitched rhetoric and cult of personality had become tiresome.
“He likes to appear altruistic, but I’d rather he just tell me his true intentions,” said one venture capital partner.
“He’s a megalomaniac,” said another. “For the same reasons I don’t trust Elon, I just don’t trust anyone who is so clear about their ambitions.” The venture capitalist also said: “He is one of the most intellectually dishonest people in tech. One…I had a lot of meetings with him and he said something that I thought, it couldn’t possibly be true, but he could kind of get away with it.
“People were worried about not being part of what he was doing,” said one angel investor who knows Altman.
Another source interviewed said Altman was building “Sam’s platform,” which seemed to imply that the OpenAI CEO was more interested in his own reputation than helping humanity, as he has previously said.
Still, if all these venture capitalists were willing to talk shit about Altman to reporters, they were too afraid of him or his influence in the industry to put their comments on the record. Nearly everyone interviewed for Insider’s article remained anonymous.
Ali Ghodsi, CEO of Databricks, an ostensibly OpenAI competitor, did speak out on the matter. Godsey said he believed Altman was overselling the technology his company relied on. “If your view of the world is that you have general artificial intelligence, which is basically superhuman, and these are like gods, and we invented God, yeah, then maybe you should turn the whole planet upside down. I don’t think that’s what’s happening ,” Godsey said.
Gizmodo reached out to OpenAI for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
Insider take note dutifully Given that Altman is currently one of the most powerful executives in the world, there may be an element of sour grapes here. Of course, this isn’t the first time someone has spoken ill of Ultraman. In the weeks following OpenAI “Removal” failed miserably Last year, rumors surfaced that Ultraman was “manipulative,” a liar, and Usually a bad boss.Earlier this month, an article in the New York Times circulated Similar accusations mostly come from Mira Murati, one of OpenAI’s executives.
It’s worth pointing out that there’s nothing extraordinary about these accusations. After all, there are millions of jerks in the world who roughly fit Ultraman’s description. That said, not every asshole gets the chance to lead an incredibly powerful company hell-bent on reshaping our world through technological disruption. That kind of asshole might be worth paying attention to.