A look at the decadelong feud between Sam Altman and Dario Amodei; sources say Amodei likened Altman's legal fight with Musk to Hitler's fight with Stalin
Personal wounds and power struggles between the leaders of OpenAI and Anthropic are defining how the world encounters the technology
Wall Street Journal Keach Hagey
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Discussion
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@ashleymayer
Ashley Mayer
on x
Anthropic is the greatest spite store ever created.
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@leahlibresco
Leah Libresco Sargeant
on x
“Not consistently candid”
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@kylebrussell
Kyle Russell
on x
no human could script this God is jestergooning through the most important people alive
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@selkis_2028
Ryan Selkis
on x
Jewish AI exec battles are like the Grandmaster Championships of gaslighting.
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@tekbog
@tekbog
on x
had no idea sama has BPD
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@bigmeaninternet
Malcolm Harris
on x
Making this guy the face of the whole tech helps explain why people distrust it so much
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@palmyrpar
@palmyrpar
on x
God, Altman is such a fucking weasel.
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@chazakieldoremi
@chazakieldoremi
on x
This is such a bog standard abuse/gaslighting technique. Back when I was manager at a large art store behaving like this to our employees was literally part of the handbook
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@lokijulianus
@lokijulianus
on x
Sam was probably right and the other exec was just lying when put on the spot.
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@i_zzzzzz
Brooks Otterlake
on x
There is something really funny to me about fighting with a brother and sister at work
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@keachhagey
@keachhagey
on x
It's never been entirely clear why Dario and the other Anthropic co-founders left OpenAI. I set out to find out. [image]
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@ns123abc
Nik
on x
Dario Amodei's sister loved stuffed animals so much that her fiancé proposed via a movie of her dolls coming to life Dario wore a panda suit to their wedding Their clique at openai then became “the pandas” [image]
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@menhguin
Minh Nhat Nguyen
on x
Dario Arc's flashback episode which reveals him to be a sympathetic and misunderstood character seeking revenge on Season's 1 protagonist Sama-Sama
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@aakashgupta
Aakash Gupta
on x
The person who wrote Sam Altman's biography just published a 13-minute investigation into why his former VP of Research left to start the company that's now eating his lunch. Keach Hagey had more access to OpenAI's internal dynamics than any other journalist. She already
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@aliama
@aliama
on x
the most surprising thing about this narrative is that Greg Brockman was the real thorn between Dario and Sam; and yet, I guess it shouldn't be that surprising: Brockman is the one actively aligning with the Trump administration and a16z. Sam gets all the flack though.
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@katiemiller
Katie Miller
on x
Dario has a gross savior complex as this White Knight, where he can sit high in a castle and rain down judgment onto others. He dubbed a $25 million donation by OpenAI President Greg Brockman to a pro-Trump super PAC “evil.”
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@rahll
Reid Southen
on x
Is Sam Altman a Michael Scott or a Dwight Schrute?
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@keachhagey
@keachhagey
on x
When Sam took over, he promised Dario that Greg and Ilya would not be in charge. Then Dario got wind of a handshake deal that Sam had made with Greg and Ilya that they could fire him if they thought he was doing a bad job
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@keachhagey
@keachhagey
on x
After Alec Radford made his LLM breakthrough, Greg wanted in on this research direction, but Dario wanted him nowhere near it. After declaring at a staff meeting that Radford didn't want to work with Greg, he got his way.
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@keachhagey
@keachhagey
on x
At the end, Dario said he would only stay if he could report directly to the board, and if he didn't have to work with Brockman. Both were nonstarters
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@keachhagey
@keachhagey
on x
Dario did not always feel like he got the credit he deserved. After he requested a promotion in late 2019, an email to the board said he would get the same PR treatment as Greg and Ilya and stop denigrating projects he didn't believe in
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@keachhagey
@keachhagey
on x
The beef goes back to conversations in the SF group house where Dario, Holden and Daniela lived in the early days of OpenAI. Greck Brockman hung out there and got into debates with Dario and Holden about how urgent it was to tell the public about the pace of AI progress. He
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@keachhagey
@keachhagey
on x
Sam Altman called Dario and Daniela into a conference room in 2020 and accused them of plotting against him by encouraging others to write negative feedback against him to the board. It ended in an angry shouting match
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@keachhagey
@keachhagey
on x
Anthropic has built its whole brand - and burned major cash on a Super Bowl ad - on showing how different it is from OpenAI
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@teortaxestex
@teortaxestex
on x
it was then and there that Amodeis developed terminal Sama Fatique
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@megabasedchad
@megabasedchad
on x
Sam Altman is going to end up in future DSMs under “Sociopathy”
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@livgorton
Liv
on x
this seems like an all round bizarre interaction? [image]
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@keachhagey
@keachhagey
on x
At OpenAI, Dario began to turn against Greg because of the early layoffs that Elon requested. Things got worse after Dario balked at an early fundraising plan that Greg had floated to sell AGI to other countries, including rivals like Russia and China. Dario thought it was
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@keachhagey
@keachhagey
on x
Dario has been ramping up attacks on OpenAI internally lately, comparing the fight between Elon and Sam to the fight between Hitler and Stalin, calling Greg Brockman's donation to a MAGA super PAC “evil,” comparing OpenAI to a cigarette company
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@shiraovide
Shira Ovide
on bluesky
A useful reminder that humans have feelings, and petty grievances shape the world. — www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-... [image]
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r/singularity
r
on reddit
Dario Amodei: OpenAI President Brockman's $25 Million Dollar Donation To Pro-Trump Super PAC Is Evil, Also Compares Altman And Elon To Hitler And Stalin
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@yacinemtb
Kache
on x
completely normal behaviour
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@elonmusk
Elon Musk
on x
😂
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@firstadopter
Tae Kim
on x
Reading this piece from @keachhagey makes me wonder if Sam and Dario would have been able to work together without Greg in the equation. “Altman went over to Dario's house to ask him to stay. Dario said he would accept nothing less than reporting directly to the board. He also…