Because I hope that more people listen to the audiobook series Strange Company:
Nick Cole:
Log Keeper's Note: Aftermath. In those dark years of the long crossing between the world we'd cut loose of the bad contract on, and the repair facility on Hardrock, the Strange Company slept and the galaxy caught fire as we dreamed for twenty-five years of sublight. The old order of the Monarchs, mighty yet petty gods determined to burn worlds and take humanity with them down into the deep dark graves of empire, began its final collapse. Worlds fell into shadowy chaos, overrun by the cackle of automatic weapons carried by the Simia Legions, while ring stations at Oberon and Circe burned like fiery jewels. Into this madness and maelstrom rode the Strange Company.
(That’s a slightly abridged excerpt from the second audiobook of the duology, Voodoo Warfare. I call them audiobooks rather than novels because in print form they are merely quite good but very derivative examples of their genre, but as narrated by Christopher Ryan Grant, they are among the most epic and inspiring stories I have ever heard come alive.)
Epigraph: Wherever in the universe one happens to find them, an old battlefield, a forgotten glade, buried deep in the rubble of a dead and beam-ravaged world, the graves of Strange Company are often marked such: “Strangers to the Universe, Brothers to the End.”
I think it is the case here, and I hope Elon Musk persists in his lawsuits about this. As a large donor to the nonprofit in its early days he’s one of the people with the strongest standing to sue / strongest claim for damages.
Obviously Elon is mostly doing this suit as a way to benefit Grok AI but honestly I don’t mind that; competitors are supposed to keep each other in check, and this is a good and proper way for companies to provide checks & balances to each others’ power and it’s one reason why monopolies are bad is the absence of competitor-enforced accountability.
Does that amount to making a false forward-looking financial statement? (Specifically his claim that he wasn’t interested in getting equity in the future.)
This claim he made was likely helpful in ensuring the OpenAI team’s willingness to bring him back after he was temporarily ousted by the board last year for alleged governance issues. (Basically: “don’t worry about me guys, I’m in this for the mission, not personal enrichment”)
Since his claim likely helped him get re-hired, he can’t claim it was immaterial.
I really hope someone from the SEC scrutinizes him someday. The Singularity is too important to let it be run by someone with questionable ethics.
My unprofessional take: The SEC is concerned primarily with protecting investors. If anything, changing to a normal for-profit structure and removing the cap on returns would be viewed as more investor/market-friendly than their current structure, which is partly to blame for what unfolded last year.
Thank you dalant979 for finding a previous pattern of behavior also by Sam with a similar structure to what we have seen unfolding on the board of OpenAI.
With 144 points, this story suddenly went from being ~#12 on the front page to now being #70, on page 3. If any journalists or regulators are reading this I recommend that possible astroturfing behavior (collusive downvoting (flagging)) be investigated, and I'm happy to cooperate with any investigation if contacted.
As it happens with every discussion touching on sufficiently sensitive skin ("offending" some people, countries, etc.). One can't imagine that an article trashing a former president of Y Combinator will survive well especially on HN where burying any discussion in the "flagged" category is absolutely trivial.
It doesn't mean the information in any of these articles is true or false, just that the mere existence of the discussion offends, so it's promptly pushed under the table through a voting system that is exceptionally ripe for abuse.
Nearly simultaneously, the comment in this thread which explains what Yishan was saying suddenly dropped from being the #1 comment to being below a bunch of other comments, which makes this whole thread harder to understand unless you scroll down. This is despite the comment having 17 points and high engagement.
The fact that these two things which both benefit Sam happened simultaneously (the story dropping from the front page and the explanatory comment dropping from the top of the comments) is suggestive of collusive downvoting/flagging and once again I want to state that I have screenshots showing this playing out minute by minute and I am happy to collaborate with journalists or regulators.
Yishan Wong describes a series of actions by Yishan and Sam Altman as a "con", and Sam jumps in to brag that it was "child's play for me" with a smiley face. :)
I never read that as a brag, but as a sarcastic dismissal. That’s why it started with “cool story bro” and “except I could never have predicted”. I see the tone as “this story is convoluted” not as “I’ll admit to my plan now that you can’t do anything about it”.
That’s not to say Sam isn’t a scammer. He is. It just doesn’t seem like that particular post is proof of it. But Worldcoin is.
If I understand the history correctly, Yishan (the former Reddit CEO) is talking about himself when he talks about a CEO in this story, and so Yishan's post is a brag, with a thin denial tacked on at the end. That's why I believe that Sam (Yishan's friend) is also engaging in thinly-veiled bragging about these events.
Here is Yishan's comment with his name spelled out for clarity instead of just saying "CEO":
In 2006, reddit was sold to Conde Nast. It was soon obvious to many that the sale had been premature, the site was unmanaged and under-resourced under the old-media giant who simply didn't understand it and could never realize its full potential, so the founders and their allies in Y-Combinator (where reddit had been born) hatched an audacious plan to re-extract reddit from the clutches of the 100-year-old media conglomerate.
Together with Sam Altman, they recruited a young up-and-coming technology manager [named Yishan Wong] with social media credentials. Alexis, who was on the interview panel for the new reddit CEO, would reject all other candidates except this one. The manager was to insist as a condition of taking the job that Conde Nast would have to give up significant ownership of the company, first to employees by justifying the need for equity to be able to hire top talent, bringing in Silicon Valley insiders to help run the company. After continuing to grow the company, [Yishan Wong] would then further dilute Conde Nast's ownership by raising money from a syndicate of Silicon Valley investors led by Sam Altman, now the President of Y-Combinator itself, who in the process would take a seat on the board.
Once this was done, [Yishan Wong] and his team would manufacture a series of otherwise-improbable leadership crises, forcing the new board to scramble to find a new CEO, allowing Altman to use his position on the board to advocate for the re-introduction of the old founders, installing them on the board and as CEO, thus returning the company to their control and relegating Conde Nast to a position as minority shareholder.
JUST KIDDING. There's no way that could happen.
-- yishanwong
My understanding of what Sam meant by "I could never have predicted the part where you resigned on the spot" was that he was conveying respect for Yishan essentially out-playing Sam at the end (the two of them are friends) by distancing himself (Yishan) from the situation and any potential liability in order to leave Sam "holding the bag" of possible liability.
If I understand the history correctly, Yishan (the former Reddit CEO) is talking about himself when he talks about a CEO in this story, and so Yishan's post is a brag, with a thin denial tacked on at the end. That's why I believe that Sam (Yishan's friend) is also engaging in thinly-veiled bragging about these events.
Here is Yishan's comment with his name spelled out for clarity instead of just saying "CEO":
In 2006, reddit was sold to Conde Nast. It was soon obvious to many that the sale had been premature, the site was unmanaged and under-resourced under the old-media giant who simply didn't understand it and could never realize its full potential, so the founders and their allies in Y-Combinator (where reddit had been born) hatched an audacious plan to re-extract reddit from the clutches of the 100-year-old media conglomerate.
Together with Sam Altman, they recruited a young up-and-coming technology manager [named Yishan Wong] with social media credentials. Alexis, who was on the interview panel for the new reddit CEO, would reject all other candidates except this one. The manager was to insist as a condition of taking the job that Conde Nast would have to give up significant ownership of the company, first to employees by justifying the need for equity to be able to hire top talent, bringing in Silicon Valley insiders to help run the company. After continuing to grow the company, [Yishan Wong] would then further dilute Conde Nast's ownership by raising money from a syndicate of Silicon Valley investors led by Sam Altman, now the President of Y-Combinator itself, who in the process would take a seat on the board.
Once this was done, [Yishan Wong] and his team would manufacture a series of otherwise-improbable leadership crises, forcing the new board to scramble to find a new CEO, allowing Altman to use his position on the board to advocate for the re-introduction of the old founders, installing them on the board and as CEO, thus returning the company to their control and relegating Conde Nast to a position as minority shareholder.
JUST KIDDING. There's no way that could happen.
-- yishanwong
My understanding of what Sam meant by "I could never have predicted the part where you resigned on the spot" was that he was conveying respect for Yishan essentially out-playing Sam at the end (the two of them are friends) by distancing himself (Yishan) from the situation and any potential liability in order to leave Sam "holding the bag" of possible liability.
What a great con! They conned Conde Nast into turning Conde Nast's (reported) $20 million investment into billions of dollars for Conde Nast. Sam Altman is a genius, Conde Nast are such fools!
Depriving any party of any portion of their free will & their right to voluntarily consent is still a con, even if it's for (ostensibly) their own benefit.
There's a reason that informed consent is required for medical procedures, even lifesaving ones.
Informed consent is the process in which a health care provider educates a patient about the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a given procedure or intervention. The patient must be competent to make a voluntary decision about whether to undergo the procedure or intervention. Informed consent is both an ethical and legal obligation of medical practitioners in the US and originates from the patient's right to direct what happens to their body.
I know that it's a stretch to apply medical ethics to business deals but I believe the principle of informed consent is still a moral requirement. An example of how this is the intent in many legal systems is the concept of a "meeting of the minds" being a mandatory part any legally valid contract. "Meeting of the minds" is similar to the idea of informed consent:
You're accepting that the "con" was a con. For the con to be a con (consensual or otherwise) we have to believe that Conde Nast were willing to give up their majority stake without knowing that it would lead to the company being worth billions. If they didn't think giving up their majority stake would benefit them, why did they do it? The entire premise of the con is that Conde Nast were simultaneously too stupid to realise that there was a path to success for reddit but also willing to give up their majority stake based on the need to hire some people?
You’re missing my point. I’m suggesting there was no con. The “manufacture[d] leadership crises” were not manufactured. Reddit was sold to Conde Nast, it struggled due to lack of investment, a plan was put forward to rescue it, Conde Nast consented to the plan. If Reddit was struggling due to underinvestment why would crises need to be manufactured? Everyone on Reddit back then recognised that it was a shit show due to underinvestment. Reddit continued to struggle for years after the “con” because it takes a long time to fix underlying issues, if the crises were manufactured, then a post-“con” reddit would have been wonderful and stable but it wasn’t.
Altman and co. benefit from reframing the history of reddit as a grand genius conspiracy.
This is bordering on fraud no? SBF is in prison despite making good investments with his ill gotten funds. That does not make him less culpable. Sam Altman and his cadre are the distillation of everything wrong with the Valley. It would seem you need to be spineless to work with these people.
That tracks. It could also explain why Ellen Pao was next in line, had a fairly brief stay before another "leadership crisis", and was subsequently replaced by Reddit cofounder Steve Huffman.
I don't quite understand the last paragraph. Why would Yishan the CEO manufacture crises and outed himself? Was he (at this point) an ally in Sam's con or victim?
Has anyone posted a deep dive yet on pinning down which exact waveguide design is being used and which exact projector (based on past papers, M&A activity, key hires, etc.)? I'm surprised Karl Guttag hasn't published anything yet about either Orion or Spectacles 24. https://kguttag.com/ His blog is normally the definitive source for reverse-engineering AR optics systems from public information. Maybe someone posted a deep dive on Reddit or something ?
I'll post links here that could serve as a starting point:
- The waveguides are likely being produced "directly" by a contract manufacturer working under the direction of Meta's in-house team, and reporting appears to confirm that Meta is procuring the raw materials directly: "The silicon carbide waveguides are also proving challenging to procure. The material can deliver a wider field of view than the glass waveguides used in current transparent AR headsets, but it is also incredibly expensive. Further, Ma's report explained that because the material is used in military radars and sensors, the US government imposes strict export controls on it. That means glasses using it will have to be assembled inside the US, significantly raising the production cost, despite most of the manufacturing and components coming from China and Taiwan." https://www.uploadvr.com/meta-ar-glasses-lead-claims-as-mind...
One thing I don't understand is whether the current Orion announcement is actually a new announcement or is re-announcing an already publicized project. This article from 2023 talks about Orion and its 70 deg FOV in the past tense as a line of development which Meta considered but then decided to abandon after Orion in its plans for the 2027 consumer version to be called Artemis: https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/19/23800228/meta-ar-glasses-... "Meta’s Artemis glasses will reportedly use a glass waveguide, a component that allows light to travel through the glasses and into your eyes, potentially limiting its field of view to 50 degrees. According to The Information, Meta had originally planned to use silicon carbide, which allowed for a 70-degree field of view. The downgrade could make it harder for Meta’s consumer-focused glasses to stand out among the competition, as both Microsoft’s second-gen HoloLens and the Magic Leap One sport a 50-degree field of view."
Maybe the hope is that with the Orion test devices, Meta can see whether people care about 70 deg vs 50 deg FOV enough to justify the costs of US-based waveguide manufacturing for the generation after Artemis?
Disclaimer: I worked extensively on Snap Spectacles for a number of years so I'm highly biased, but credit where credit is due: I believe both Meta and Snap have done incredible work in their AR glasses and I am excited to see the competition heating up. I also hope that both company's efforts here can motivate Apple and Google to get in the game instead of sitting around doing more or less nothing really interesting or adventurous while cautiously sitting on piles of cash, while life passes us by and we get closer every day to old age. For heck's sake, either one of those tech giants could privately fund a LITERAL moon base, and they choose not to. Why should we have to live in a boring world? Life is short and I'd rather we get to see some very magical tech soon, in our lifetimes, instead of the tech companies conservatively waiting around for more of Moore's Law to happen first or something. Even Magic Leap, though a colossal failure, pursued a wonderful vision - to create innocent, whimsical literal magic in people's lives - like the world of Harry Potter - in our real world.
Nick Cole:
Log Keeper's Note: Aftermath. In those dark years of the long crossing between the world we'd cut loose of the bad contract on, and the repair facility on Hardrock, the Strange Company slept and the galaxy caught fire as we dreamed for twenty-five years of sublight. The old order of the Monarchs, mighty yet petty gods determined to burn worlds and take humanity with them down into the deep dark graves of empire, began its final collapse. Worlds fell into shadowy chaos, overrun by the cackle of automatic weapons carried by the Simia Legions, while ring stations at Oberon and Circe burned like fiery jewels. Into this madness and maelstrom rode the Strange Company.
(That’s a slightly abridged excerpt from the second audiobook of the duology, Voodoo Warfare. I call them audiobooks rather than novels because in print form they are merely quite good but very derivative examples of their genre, but as narrated by Christopher Ryan Grant, they are among the most epic and inspiring stories I have ever heard come alive.)