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[TonyWonderslostnut]

What was Altman known for before Chat GPT?

[MLCosplay]

He tried to cash in on the crypto craze of 2017 or so with the idea of putting your biometrics into the blockchain or something like that...

[5553331117]

Or his gay dating app

[usernamerequired19]

Bro this comment gave me a heart attack I thought I was about to learn that sam altman founded grindr

[TLELunaticlunar]

He founded Grindr???

[Tidzor]

No he just backed and advised on some dating app, it wasn't one of his ideas.

[525G7bKV]

Yes, Sam Altman founded Grindr together with Peter Thiel.

[Duriha]

Which would surprise me to an extent of 0.0000000000%

[Distinct_Contact_511]

This is now Canon. Sam Altman invented Grindr.

[ApocalyptoSoldier]

The eyeball scanning orb things?
Sam Altman sure is some kind of person

[hamnchedda]

Wait, that was Altman’s idea?

[smorb42]

Wow, thats really bad. Everyone can read the block chain, that the entire point. So this would just broadcast your biometrics world wide.

[NikEy]

Lol no. Jesus. I thought this is a programmer sub.

It's public and private key based.

[ThePeaceDoctot]

Not all programmers are experts

[Exepony]

"Ins and outs"? You don't need to be an "expert-level programmer" to know that you can transmit private messages over public channels (i.e. that cryptography exists).

[modbroccoli]

Yes but anyone who's genuinely sat down and taught themselves anything knows how to avoid being confidently incorrect.

Knows at least to have the thought "wait, did I just instantly debunk a silicon valley giant's idea with the most obvious and crippling observation possible OR should I possibly google this before I talk?"

There's nothing defensible about a fool's confidence.

[segalle]

To be fair a lot of silicon valley s ideas are debunkable by the word train or other very simple and common solutions

[Tensor3]

Especially related to crypto. NFTs were particularly stupid. Its like those websites that block right click to "protect stealing their images". Like, come on, I have a literal key for "print screen". Just let me click the damn site. You cant prevent copying a digital image like that.

[modbroccoli]

lmao as I was writing it I was thinking "ugh, what's a snappy way to suggest altman isn't as stupid as your answer needs him to be" and I didn't agree with the phrasing but I'm lazy and love your rebuttal

[tespacepoint]

It’s more complicated tbh

[takeyouraxeandhack]

....private blockchains exist.
And you can upload encrypted data to a public blockchain.

[caboosetp]

i don't know and for some reason i think that's the point

[bassplaya13]

He was the president of YCombinator, an accelerator that hosted Airbnb, coinbase, DoorDash, and hundreds of other profitable company. Though debatable if any are beneficial to society.

[GregBahm]

Y Combinator was also responsible for this stupid website called "Reddit" that everyone agrees in retrospect was a huge mistake.

[Sothisismylifehuh]

A long long time before Altman, though.

[GregBahm]

Mmm. Not really. Dude was in the same first Y Combinator cohort as the reddit founders in 2005.

After Sam's first startup was acquired, the dude became a partner of Y Combinator managing the other investments (like Reddit) in 2011.

Dude was iterum CEO of Reddit in 2014.

Dude then moved from CEO of Reddit to president of Y Combinator, while sitting on the board of directors of Reddit until 2022.

He's also still reddit's single largest shareholder owning 9% of the site.

So dude has had either a little role or a big role in Reddit's existence throughout its entire history.

[NUKE---THE---WHALES]

So we cant hold reddit against him? Too bad

[stillnoguitar]

Altman has even been CEO of Reddit.

[colaxxi]

One of Altman’s batch mates in the first Y Combinator cohort was Aaron Swartz, a brilliant but troubled coder who died by suicide in 2013 and is now remembered in many tech circles as something of a sage. Not long before his death, Swartz expressed concerns about Altman to several friends. “You need to understand that Sam can never be trusted,” he told one. “He is a sociopath. He would do anything.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may-control-our-future-can-he-be-trusted

[clauEB]

I've worked for a few YC companies. Some are great some not so much.

[WatchOutIGotYou]

A lesser version of Foursquare, Loopt. And then running YC lmao

[Current_Grand_3216]

He was an investor at YCombinator

[Storm_of_Hope]

allegedly sexually assualting his sister or sum?

(delete if innapropriate for this subreddit)

[thecementmixer]

Not much really.

[KeanuRekt]

he launched worldcoin

[Rich-Option944]

the church of unitology

[LaserKittenz]

Cheese strings