Sam Altman Is the Biggest 'Personality Hire.' AI Is Full of Them ...
Of all the world-altering things possible in our new AI era, one decidedly old-fashioned thing is not going anywhere: the personality hire.
A "personality hire" is someone who contributes to a team with soft skills like their dazzling charm. There's a connotation that personality hires might not actually be good at their jobs, that they're just fun to have around the office. But they arguably serve an incredibly important function in the health of an organization.
The Rise of Sam Altman in the Field of AI
In the field of AI, it's useful to lightly stretch the definition of "personality hire" to include someone who is really, really good at selling themselves, a product, or simply the idea of AI as this all-powerful entity that will completely change everything about life as we know it, for better or worse (hopefully, for the better if you heed their advice).
They're hype men (or women), you might say. This is because a lot of what's going on with AI right now is hype.
The greatest of all these, of course, is Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. This week, Bloomberg Businessweek reported on Altman's rise within Silicon Valley, starting from founding a mediocre social networking app at age 19 to becoming the head of the most exciting company in tech.
Altman founded Loopt, a pre-smartphone social location app in 2007. He charmed and networked with important tech and venture-capital power players, and was personally tapped to be Paul Graham's successor at Y Combinator at age 29. He was a savvy and successful investor (even still, he has personal investments in more than 400 companies, some of which do business with OpenAI, according to The Wall Street Journal, which has raised some eyebrows about conflict of interest) and convinced deep-pocketed friends Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk (now a frenemy) to fund OpenAI as a nonprofit.
Altman's Charisma and Influence
By many accounts, Altman is charismatic, good with people, and even better at getting his way. "Altman's biggest strength is figuring out who can help him the most, then dazzling them," someone who worked with Altman told Bloomberg on the Foundering podcast.
The Significance of Personality Hires in Tech
Altman is perhaps the most successful personality hire of all time. Being a successful CEO or a tech founder requires a certain personality type. This doesn't necessarily mean being fun at cocktail parties: Mark Zuckerberg is a ruthless businessperson but, until recently, seemed to have the charisma of a shingles outbreak.
It takes Big Personality Hire Energy to muster the straight-faced ambition to say that you need to raise $7 trillion (yes, trillion) dollars.
The Controversies and Challenges
Altman's talents as an operator also nearly cost him his job. This past November, when Altman was temporarily fired by the board of OpenAI, it was because some board members found him too smooth an operator and distrusted him. That Altman returned as CEO with a new board speaks to his ability to rally powerful allies like Satya Nadella of Microsoft, although he still has rough waters ahead internally.
The Rise of Leopold Aschenbrenner in AI Doomerism
And then there's Leopold Aschenbrenner, a newly emerged hypeman of AI doomerism. Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI employee, published a 165-page manifesto warning about the dangers of unchecked AI.
Max Read on Substack has a very astute assessment of the manifesto and how the hyperbole of AI doomerism might be, in some cases, self-serving hype.
The Story of Humane AI Pin
Tragically, there is the sad tale of the Humane AI Pin. Humane's founders were former Apple employees, incredibly stylish dressers, and produced incredibly cool demo videos that made the product seem amazing. They raised $240 million from investors, including Sam Altman.
At this moment, in June of 2024, everyone knows AI is a "big deal," but most people don't know exactly what that will really mean or look like. This leaves the door wide open for hype purveyors to sell people on its magic and power — or play to their worst fears.
This isn't necessarily bad — hype can be useful just like personality hires in a workplace are useful. And the most beautiful part of all of this? A personality hire is the most human thing — something AI could never replace.
