One of the more interesting strategic questions: of the current leading foundation model labs, which of them is run by leaders who (as far as we can tell from their publicly known actions and opinions) are clearly not a psychopath, narcissist, pathological liar, political extremist, or otherwise have very concerning psychological tendencies or instabilities? This seems like a very important consideration for anyone considering working at any of these companies, and could turn out to be pivotal rather soon.
(Personally, I’m not aware of any significant concerns about Dario Amodei or Sundar Pichai — but I definitely wish that list was longer.)
Having known and met quite a number of Silicon Valley founders, almost all of them tend to be mentally peculiar in some way or another: successfully founding a start-up is not something that “normal people” often do — it requires a lot more willingness to take risks and determination than most people have. This observation doesn’t apply to executives (like Sundar Pichai) who were appointed after the company was already prominent — they tend to be a lot more mentally normal for a manager. However, successfully performing a pivotal act seems likely to also require willingness to take risks and determination.
One of the more interesting strategic questions: of the current leading foundation model labs, which of them is run by leaders who (as far as we can tell from their publicly known actions and opinions) are clearly not a psychopath, narcissist, pathological liar, political extremist, or otherwise have very concerning psychological tendencies or instabilities? This seems like a very important consideration for anyone considering working at any of these companies, and could turn out to be pivotal rather soon.
(Personally, I’m not aware of any significant concerns about Dario Amodei or Sundar Pichai — but I definitely wish that list was longer.)
Having known and met quite a number of Silicon Valley founders, almost all of them tend to be mentally peculiar in some way or another: successfully founding a start-up is not something that “normal people” often do — it requires a lot more willingness to take risks and determination than most people have. This observation doesn’t apply to executives (like Sundar Pichai) who were appointed after the company was already prominent — they tend to be a lot more mentally normal for a manager. However, successfully performing a pivotal act seems likely to also require willingness to take risks and determination.