The dirty truth is that the ideal Silicon Valley CEO is whomever can be a perfect sockpuppet for investors and still understand technical velocity.
The more ability you have to be kind of waterproof so to speak - like a duck - because of a mixture of positioning, ruthlessness, access, intelligence, perseverance, etc the better you are. Most importantly you have to regularly show allegiance to specifically investors over all other considerations, and boom you’re perfectly crafted.
Altman has brilliantly positioned himself as that perfect fulcrum between venture and technical skills such that he is (in his own mind and to a tiny subset of incredibly powerful people in SV) indispensable to the silicon valley crowd who doesn’t really know how to navigate the intersection between venture and technical skills.
The more ability you have to be kind of waterproof so to speak - like a duck - because of a mixture of positioning, ruthlessness, access, intelligence, perseverance, etc the better you are. Most importantly you have to regularly show allegiance to specifically investors over all other considerations, and boom you’re perfectly crafted.
Altman has brilliantly positioned himself as that perfect fulcrum between venture and technical skills such that he is (in his own mind and to a tiny subset of incredibly powerful people in SV) indispensable to the silicon valley crowd who doesn’t really know how to navigate the intersection between venture and technical skills.