HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ orthoganol

I appreciate his comments about SV being special because it's actually acceptable to be ambitious, you're allowed to be someone who in most circles would be considered tedious because you only think and talk about your serious projects, probably sometimes met with yawns and "isn't that nice."

SV is special in this regards. I'm now realizing that's one of the main reasons I'll probably never move back home. Family, old friends, the culture of other cities will, in reality, put a bunch of shitty social pressure on you unless you're already rich and successful.

As a side note, I still bet most of this forum is against this ambitious personality, affirming at the end of the day that "there is more to life than your projects, go out and live, meet someone, fill out your social schedule, etc." That's certainly all wonderful, but it's the same social fabric that exists everywhere that's not Silicon Valley. Sam put his finger on something that is uniquely SV, and I think it's something to protect and cherish.

As another side note, I think it's kind of a shame SV is migrating to SF, because SF doesn't afford that protection. There are locals everywhere who despise the ambitious entrepreneur techie type. It's a bit of a struggle in subtle and sometimes unsubtle ways. It's obviously a face of the real world with class tension undertones and what not, but outside of maybe a few bubbles in the city which seem to me to all be in SoMa, it's just not a great environment if you are one of these ambitious personalities IMO. That and there are no late night hacker friendly cafes... why?

⬐ norswap

Seems to me, most of these entrepreneurs could do with a bit more of yawning in their faces in order to come back down to earth.

Don't get me wrong, many good things come out of silicon valley, and it's sometimes hard to judge the worth of an idea. But there's undeniably a lot of half-hearted bullcrap whose sole purpose is to make a quick buck.

And on a personal level, the ideas are not the only things that are full of hot air.

⬐ dogecoinbase

That and there are no late night hacker friendly cafes... why?

Because you can't pay rent in SF by hosting a bunch of people who take up tables but don't buy much?

⬐ tim333

I'm not sure that the issue is that it's not acceptable to be ambitious in non SV places. It just that people look at the local track record and figure things on that basis. I'm sure in cities with hardly any successful startups there are ambitious people but those chatting to them are likely to think they won't make it because of the lack of others doing so. In the valley however there are a lot who've made it.

⬐ cholantesh

>As a side note, I still bet most of this forum is against this ambitious personality, affirming at the end of the day that "there is more to life than your projects, go out and live, meet someone, fill out your social schedule, etc."

Sounds like you are conflating being ambitious with being entrepreneurial. It's possible to have a meaningful career without starting your own business, not to mention building something of value without it. And all of this is possible outside of the valley. There is a particular trajectory for a business that the valley is amenable to systemically and culturally, but that means very little.

⬐ GuiA

It's uniquely SV only for those who spend all their life in SV. Go to NYC, go to LA, go to London, go to Tokyo, and you will find very ambitious and driven people working hard on their acting/band/fashion label/non profit/etc. Those people also tend to be way more open about the forms creativity other than their own takes, whereas the SV techie entrepreneurs tend to think that anything other than changing the world with a billion dollar startup is a waste of time.

Which is why on a personal level, after about a decade in SV, I'm very much looking forward to leaving soon, having realized that ambition, fulfilment, and impact can be realized in ways other than yet another iOS or rails app, and am getting tired of the monoculture.

⬐ orthoganol

> having realized that ambition, fulfilment, and impact can be realized in ways other than yet another iOS or rails app.

If you think that's SV you're probably not the ambitious personality type I was referring to, while also being unaware of what's getting the focus these days in SV (which is most certainly AI/ deep learning).

I've lived in more cities (3 months+) than most in this forum being a perennial digital nomad (And I don't know why people keep citing Tokyo - the culture is not pro entrepreneurship for young people at all, there is no real concept of a coworking spaces, etc. I did however meet a lot of white techies from SF so maybe that's why people are getting that impression!). It's a certain type of ambition/ personality that's encouraged here, for better or worse.

⬐ 59nadir

"3+ months" is a pretty vague timeframe (or not a time_frame_ at all, actually). Unless you already know the language and integrate extremely well into the culture of a country, spending less than a few years there won't mean that you know much about the country and its opportunities.

Superficially, spending a few months in a place sounds like you'll probably "get it", but I don't believe for a second that you learned much of value from each country with this lifestyle. You seem to have seen a lot of places, but you haven't lived them.

⬐ danhak

Thank you for putting this so well, my eyes were rolling so hard at the parent comment, which reads like a parody of SV self-importance--as if SV is the only place in the world where people work hard on things they are passionate about.

My writer and filmmaker friends here in L.A. are every bit as ambitious as my entrepreneur friends up in the Bay Area. And their ambition is not only "acceptable" but celebrated.

It is precisely this ultra-narrow conception of worthwhile human endeavors that has kept me from moving up north. I love working in tech in a city where people are pursuing a huge diversity of interests and careers.

⬐ dorianm

Today this coffee shop in SoMa closed at 6:30... Seems like most people are going for either coworking spaces (like WeWork and workshop cafe) or Noisebridge for instance

⬐ eiliant

Don't agree at all, I find the same attitude in many major cities in the world ex. Sao Paulo, Shanghai, NYC, Tokyo and others - it also strongly depends on who you talk to.

⬐ orthoganol

Yeah I've lived in a lot of places and I could see NYC (and I could see Hong Kong too; most definitely not Tokyo, nor Shanghai nor Sao Paulo unless you're just talking about wealthy neighborhood ex-pat communities). I think it's an env that's hard to find, at its scale anyways.

⬐ alphonsegaston

That's an odd thing to say about Tokyo, considering it's something like a mixture of LA and NYC. Anyone who wants to make it in the arts or entertainment (both large industries in Japan), moves to Tokyo.

Yes, they don't (and maybe never will) have the same kind of tech entrepreneurship as the valley, but there's no shortage of ambitious people there.

⬐ horsecaptin

Must be nice to not have to do things that you find boring. I don't think most founders are in that position.

I know founders who try to be in that position by unloading the boring tasks to other people. If it is boring for you, chances are pretty good that it is boring for someone else (unless it's their chosen profession). Of course, it's a great way to gauge power - delegate something that you think is boring to see if someone will just do it without complaining. If they do it, great! You're more powerful than they are. They'll also resent you and stab you in the back when they get a chance.

⬐ erichurkman

Delegate the fun work. Delegate the stuff _you_ want to do.

It's harder than it sounds.

⬐ educar

You are thinking CEO and not founder

⬐ johnomarkid

Most founders aren't in that position, and Sama said that. Startups are mostly about doing the same thing over and over.

⬐ _kyran

This was a really refreshing event to attend and the open Q & A resulted in a lot of different questions than were typically seem to get asked when a talk only has a chance for a few questions at the end.

On a related note, can someone explain France's obsession with chatbots to me?

⬐ pinouchon

I wonder the same. My best guess is that it's because of the movie Her... Although, if I recall correctly, Rus Salakhutdinov said in a recent talk at the Simon's Institute that chatbots are nowhere near ready. (https://simons.berkeley.edu/talks/russ-salakhutdinov-2017-3-...)

⬐ gamechangr

Surprising to hear Sam say that SV has no advantages. Just because it's nice to tell an international crowd, doesn't make it true.

⬐ bambax

He really didn't say that. He sees two advantages to SV:

- American optimism on steroids; people will take you seriously when you say you're going to change the world with [some kind of unproven tech or business model]

- availability of capital.

He also said talent is evenly distributed the world over, and that over 50% of startups founded by YC come from non-US founders. But that's not the same thing as saying SV has no advantages.

⬐ 59nadir

While the length of your comment and the lack of real content in it probably makes sense on Twitter, here you have no character limit, so would you mind actually expounding on it? There's no sense in not adding what it is that you actually think.

⬐ gamechangr

Sure...

"lack of real content"....It's hard to say things without it sounding negative. I think many countries have talented engineers, but I will try.

When the whole world asks if they can compete with SV, they ask it for a reason. SV is in fact - exceptional. There is no other SV. That is why the world asks "Can we compete?".

Can you imagine the reverse? There are no groups of people attending a talk in SV asking "can we compete with Paris?".

That doesn't mean that Paris, or any other city, doesn't have smart people at work on great things. I am sure they do.

But to imply there are no advantages in SV is a bit hard to believe. After all, the people in the video gathered to hear the SV expert :)

⬐ 59nadir

When I asked for your real opinion on this I thought it was obvious that I asked what it was that made SV special... Not for you to again state that you think it's special.

⬐ gamechangr

no - you were not clear at all. No worries :)

Maybe this will help.

This is Paul Graham (Y combinator) writing "How to be Silicon Valley" http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html

⬐ vmarsy

not the parent, but I can think of the major research labs originally in SV, now major tech companies, and the big universities such as Stanford with great technical talent. Those are big factors in what makes SV technically strong.

There's also many country-related advantages not specific to SV but to the U.S. in general: How easy it is to create your company and work from your garage compared to other countries. This makes SV business friendly

The international crowd in SV: People from every continent share and mix their ideas, this usually leads to great results since the people who immigrate to SV for the purpose of entrepreneurship usually all share that great ambition and can bring the best of their home countries cultures and know-how.

⬐ ericd

There is a critical mass of technical talent, companies, and financing. Those attract more of each to locate there. I say this as someone who wishes that other US cities had a tech scene a quarter as strong as SV.

⬐ caminante

Around ~38m, Altman says SV has (imitable) advantages including ambition and capital.

⬐ gamechangr

great point - I upvoted you

⬐ wuschel

The Family & Co. is a friendly bunch. Like other actors in Paris, they make a good contribution to the ecosystem. Nice to see them get this kind of attention.

⬐ s3nnyy

Sam refers to the advances in ML in the last two years that will truly change jobs / work and everything.

Which particular advancement in AI / ML is he referring to?

⬐ gamechangr

Anyone have good resources on the future of internet security???

I do think it's about to get crazy if (like Sam mentions) individuals use superior AI to attack systems.

⬐ mkagenius

I don't really want to talk about projects when it's not yet finished. But we are gathering[1][2] training data as of now everyday on how a pentester uses a proxy such as mitmproxy by recording keystrokes and marks a API vulnerable. With enough data it will be a matter of choosing an ML model to train on it.

For an analogy, its like gathering data for self driving car.

1. https://github.com/mkagenius/mitmproxy/commit/fa706a479aeecf... 2. https://github.com/mkagenius/mitmproxy/commit/407f636b4fe1bc...

⬐ None

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⬐ dorianm

Anybody knows if there is a transcript?

⬐ snorrah

I'm sure it'll get delegated to someone soon! :)

⬐ thesmallestcat

You're literally a Rails developer, so I think parent nailed it.

⬐ dang

That crosses into personal attack. Please don't do that here.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14129541 and marked it off-topic.

⬐ peterwwillis

"I think repetitive work jobs will be replaced by machines in 10 years"

OK, George Jetson, make sure and let me know when all the repetitive work in the world is replaced by an algorithm, because I don't want to miss it.

Also, he talks about the idea of a single corporation controlling the "infinite intelligence" of AI - buddy, they won't, the government will, and another government will go to war with our government for it, and it'll start WWIII. So I really wouldn't worry about who owns AI in the future. More like, invest in SpaceX to catch the first pod to Mars.

⬐ tim333

He said repetitive jobs will be done better by machines in the next 10 years. Which is slightly different to your quote.

⬐ personlurking

I think it was, to paraphrase, "the repetetive part of jobs", which is, according to him, "75-80% of what most of us do".

Just a slight distinction, between all jobs, "repetitive jobs" and what I mention, "repetitive part of jobs".

Interesting to compare this idea with last week's Ask HN (How much of your time at work do you spend not working?)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14082599

⬐ bambax

Regarding universal basic income, Sam says we need to study what happens when people have no jobs:

> no matter how much people complain about their jobs, they like having somewhere to go everyday, they like having colleagues, like having a sense of mission in their lives

(As an aside, this statement, oft repeated, always struck me as weird because the one thing I've always not wanted to do was "having somewhere to go everyday".)

But there are a lot of people who don't have a job, have revenue, and seem extremely happy and fulfilled: the retirees. In developed countries people retire around 60, and then go on to live 25 more years on average [1].

The least we could do if we want to study what happens when people have no jobs, would be to study them?

[1] http://www.helpage.org/global-agewatch/population-ageing-dat...

⬐ louithethrid

To be honest retirees make for a bad example. They have unpaid jobs, usually engaging with other retirees in a hobby, a community service or endless doctor visits. And those who dont - die really fast from bad lifestyle choices resulting from doing nothing.

So bad example.

⬐ bambax

How is it a bad example? A bad example of what?

We're looking for examples of people not having to work for money and see how they cope / thrive; instead of trying to create those conditions from scratch we can start by studying people who are already in that situation.

⬐ ck425

I think that's a really good example of what Sam was talking about. This is becoming more of an issue as more of our communities move to being primarily online.

⬐ inimino

It's pretty telling that you can only express "they find things to do with their time" as "they have unpaid jobs".

Yes, people find things to do with their time besides vegetate in front of the television. No, those things are not "unpaid jobs". Talk about question begging!

⬐ paganel

> they like having colleagues

Even though there's nothing stopping me from telecommuting instead of going to the office almost every day the thought of being alone in the house almost all day, 5 days per week, working, scares the s*it out of me. Having someone to whom you can talk during coffee breaks or whom you can see just in front of you while you're working is extremely valuable for my mental well-being. And no, SO and family don't count, I don't like mixing work with private life. We are social beings.

⬐ borplk

I'm 100% the opposite. Have been working alone from home and couldn't be happier. I don't want to chit chat or have anyone in front of me.

⬐ factsaresacred

> we need to study what happens when people have no jobs.

Take a look at Europe, with it's high youth unemployment and generous social system. Without a job people are the same, they just have more time in the day.

Much of this time is spent consuming, socializing, raising a family and creating.

The idea that a person needs (outside of financial necessity) a job is absurd. A sense of mission is attractive, but the best missions in life certainly don't involve commuting to a cubicle each day.

⬐ None

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⬐ None

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⬐ bbctol

Yeah, this concept that people like having a "sense of mission in their lives" that only a job can fill is such insidious nonsense I lose respect for anyone who repeats it. It's true that people prefer jobs to handouts, and that retirees are different from people collecting benefits. You know why people like having jobs? Because they want to have control over their lives.

It's not about the joy of work or finding a convenient way to meet people for actual ordinary people, it's about knowing that the money in your bank account came from something you did, and it isn't going to go away. People don't want to be at the mercy of some faraway bureaucracy, they want to be paid for their own labor and save their own money. If you implemented a UBI system and then forced everyone to head to the labor camps, this wouldn't make them any happier; it's not about the work, it's about who they perceive as in control.

Honestly, this is the reason (as much as certain parts of the SV or HN set recoil at the thought) that it's important to have diversity across class, culture, race, and gender at these sort of discussions about broad social policy. Of course Sam Altman can jet over to the Family and say "You know, people like having to go to work every day." It's such a hilariously out-of-touch thing to even suggest I can no longer take his ideas seriously. When the first things that come into your mind when you think of a job are "having a sense of mission in your life" and "going to the office to see your cool, fun colleagues" you are too far removed from the daily reality of everyone outside your bubble to make remotely reasonable suggestions on large economic reform.

⬐ toyg

SV tycoons are like late-1800s "enlightened" industrialists, proud of building model factory-towns for the masses. Sure, they are improving their workers' immediate wellbeing, but the philanthropic facade is a malicious play at worst, and a misguided effort at best.

Just pay all your goddamn taxes, redistribute your wealth unconditionally, and let people have freedom over their own lives.