I've never trusted him, mostly because I find that — in all walks of life — the people sitting atop a pile of billions of other people most likely had to cheat in pretty heinous ways in order to get there.
You can succeed at that level while staying a moral person, but it’s a much tighter rope to walk. The ones wise enough to be able to walk such a tight line are also wise enough to recognize that the reward for all the effort is sour grapes.
Everyone who said they would leave w/ him apparently trust him & that was enough people at the company to make the board members who voted to oust him look like vindictive amateurs.
I do. He is responsible for one of the major breakthroughs in the world. He is as trustworthy as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Bill Gates is. Remember, they are playing the game of Business. The rules of the game are different than say rules of scientific breakthroughs.
CEOs are hired to run companies and make themselves, and their investors, wealthy. That is their prime directive and CEOs are the ultimate partisans.
If a CEO feels that bending the truth, or outright lying, will advance the prime directive – then that is what they will do. Applying adjectives like "honest" or "untrustworthy" to them is a category error. Altman will say whatever benefits OpenAI, full stop. Musk will say whatever benefits his interests, full stop.
CEOs can't be good or bad people in a moral sense, or have the best interests of society at heart. (Despite what they may try to convey.) Better to think of them as automatons carrying out well-defined, and ultimately simple, goals.
Look at it as Ecology and Phase Space. Ecology shows us there are lots of different creatures/behaviors around a watering hole or nutrient site. Through the life cycle of the site and changing nutrient levels, different behaviors rise and fall. Intially site is found by curiousity/explorers. There is enough to go around. Trust is not an issue. Nothing exists yet to destabilze the system. As more life starts getting drawn in we see growth of parasitic and opportunistic behaviors. There is no ecosystem on earth that doesnt have them. As numbers grow Stability alerts start slowing growing in volume. Alarmists/moralists behavior grows. This feeds into status and reputationally sensitive behavior growth that has Stability restoration capacity. Main point being at different Phases trust is not a requirement.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 37.4 ms ] threadIf a CEO feels that bending the truth, or outright lying, will advance the prime directive – then that is what they will do. Applying adjectives like "honest" or "untrustworthy" to them is a category error. Altman will say whatever benefits OpenAI, full stop. Musk will say whatever benefits his interests, full stop.
CEOs can't be good or bad people in a moral sense, or have the best interests of society at heart. (Despite what they may try to convey.) Better to think of them as automatons carrying out well-defined, and ultimately simple, goals.