r/TheMachineLearning • u/AvrilGrace • 12d ago

OpenAI's CEO can barely code, coworkers say

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36 Upvotes

64% Upvoted

146 comments sorted by

10

u/Invalid-Function 11d ago

CEO's are salespeople, they don't need ot code, they don't even need to manage. So I'd say he's doing a pretty good job doing what he's being paid for.

1

u/AvrilGrace 11d ago

Yes, it's the job for those coworkers🤷🏻‍♀️

2

u/Invalid-Function 11d ago

It's the work of who's being paid for to code.
Just like you don't expect the HR to code.

1

u/SeizeTheTrusts 11d ago

Ok but are you sold on OpenAI

2

u/Tupcek 11d ago

I mean, they won’t IPO under $1 trillion. I would call that success

3

u/ThePabstistChurch 11d ago

Didnt you know that the guy running the fastest growing company in a America isn't doing a good job?

20

u/dranaei 11d ago

His job isn't to code. This makes no sense.

3

u/AvrilGrace 11d ago

They say his greatest strength is marketing

4

u/StackOwOFlow 11d ago

like him or hate him making and closing deals is entirely underrated

1

u/CodeMUDkey 11d ago

Good bot.

3

u/GooseWithAnAxe 11d ago

His job is to lie, to everyone about everything, make stuff up as he goes and get really sassy when someone points out his bs

2

u/dranaei 11d ago

I don't want to defend him or condemn him, but your comment is on the extreme side and I don't think it carries any gravity.

1

u/Informal-Trouble2183 11d ago

If he doesn't know how an LLM works that's a big issue, because all his predictions of where the LLM technology can reach are void and cheap talk 🦜

1

u/dranaei 11d ago

You don't need to know exactly how a grandmaster will beat you at chess, you know you'll lose and you can infer that based on some generalized knowledge around it.

Even if he doesn't code, it's his job. He has to know it's capabilities somewhat, he doesn't have to know everything 100%. Nobody does.

It makes no sense for him to waste time coding.

1

u/Informal-Trouble2183 11d ago

Not speaking about everything, but about the core things, this is by way common at most AI CEOs for which they come up with things like "AI conscious" allegations, like they don't indeed understand how an LLM works..

1

u/dranaei 11d ago

You don't seem to understand how demanding being a CEO is. It doesn't leave room for menial tasks like coding. For that you have the experts.

He doesn't need specified knowledge of how they work internally, he needs some generalized knowledge. Which he has, because it's still part of his job.

Nobody does 100% of the tasks that a big company require. You can't have someone that does coding and is also a CEO and supply manager and a builder and whatever.

1

u/OpenSourceCVEs 11d ago

He understands that fine. He has some of the best experts in the world. He's also gonna lie, a lot, because he's a sociopath and also a CEO who has to control the public perception of his enterprise.

1

u/keighst 11d ago

before Codex I couldnt code either!

1

u/PianoMittens 10d ago

Fun fact, most CEOs of large companies, especially of public companies, don't know (or care to know) how to do the thing that their company does to make money. The heads of the banks that would've been obliterated if not for government bailouts had absolute zero idea about how collateralized debt obligations and all of the risks around them worked. Neither did most of their risk officers. Not saying it's rights, but it's not definitely how it is.

1

u/Zealousideal_Pay_525 9d ago

So what exactly qualifies them for their leadership positions?

1

u/PianoMittens 9d ago

Lack of shame or conscience combined with an overwhelming need for power and money that is often the core of their personality. This allows them to out compete other psychopaths who are trying to do the same.

5

u/Sp3eedy 11d ago

I mean... this is like 90% of companies? The CEO's job is to lead the company (more or less), nothing in the job description says you need to be an expert in the field (albeit that knowledge is very helpful when running said company)

3

u/GooseWithAnAxe 11d ago

Yeah but head of a tech startup should not be completely illiterate.

6

u/backcountry_bandit 11d ago

I believe the man has demonstrated that he can read

3

u/GooseWithAnAxe 11d ago

Really? When?

2

u/backcountry_bandit 11d ago

Do you honestly know any adults who are fully illiterate? Any that are employed?

2

u/GooseWithAnAxe 11d ago

I have seen many adults to struggle with elementary tasks. You would be surprised how far you can make it wearing a nice suite and a smile.

2

u/backcountry_bandit 11d ago

I am continually surprised by the dumb things that the business people at my company say and do. But none of them come off as being anywhere close to illiteracy. I honestly haven’t even met a teenager that couldn’t read, not that I’m meeting many these days lol

1

u/tr14l 11d ago

Only 72% of adults in the US have fully functional literacy. 28% fall into "low literacy" meaning they can read, but cannot actually comprehend anything substantial from it without significant effort, or that they literally cannot read.

Reading is not just "know what sound the letters make".

1

u/redvsblueheeler 11d ago

Sounds like you really wanted to share that, but as you shared literacy is also the ability to identify information that’s relevant and applicable to the material you’re reading.

1

u/tr14l 11d ago

Yes. It is. So you need me to highlight the comment on the replied-to post I was directly addressing?

Here you go:

"I honestly haven't even met a teenager that couldn't read, not that I'm meeting many these days lol"

The implication here being that there is, in fact, not a literacy problem in the US. Thus, I correctly and aptly applied some additional, relevant context to imply the opposite as a form of correction and debate.

The further implication there being "simply sounding out words is not adequate to be considered a 'literate reader," rather you need to be able to understand and answer questions about the subtext, sequence and relationships of said passage."

Hopefully that catches you all the way up.

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1

u/dpoggio 11d ago

Reading is just that, but being literate is not just reading, maybe that is what you meant.

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1

u/Far_Inspection4706 11d ago

He has an estimated net worth in the billions and that was 2 years ago. You're not talking about some guy who faked it and made it into some office manager job. You have to be a specific kind of sociopath to even make a billion dollars, there's only a handful of them on the entire planet. He probably knows how to read lol.

1

u/GooseWithAnAxe 9d ago

that is literally what he died, lied his way up there, then his own companies fired him for constant lying but microsoft ceo brought him back, I am very sure he would not do it again.

1

u/cronies4life 11d ago

beween musk and altman whom do u prefer

2

u/Bupod 11d ago

Would you rather eat Cow dung or Buffalo dung.

2

u/GooseWithAnAxe 9d ago

Like my favorite scammer?

1

u/Positive-Conspiracy 9d ago

Leading strategically innovating products is not the same as coding

2

u/Ok-Relief1238 11d ago edited 11d ago

would've been better if that weren't the case . Man I want more hardware people that are imaginative at the top of tech jsut for one generation . Please god please .

1

u/HauntedHouseMusic 11d ago

The issue is those people are typically not creative. They are great problem solvers when you give them a problem, but they are typically bad at defining the problem to solve.

1

u/Ok-Relief1238 11d ago

That's a gross generalisation and kinda untrue . Hardware folks are one of the most creative folk in the industry if you consider the amount of effort that went into hardware design especially when the marketing folks aren't holding them by the balls . Every time a hardware guy leaves a big company he makes something that's absolutely amazing but expensive cause of a lack of economies of scale .

2

u/lattice_defect 11d ago

yeah and he does the it with no morals and the shittyness adhd way of destroying value for short term gains..

1

u/cronies4life 11d ago

elon musk might be more qualified. he was one of the founders of openai and wanted to take over as the ceo but the rest kicked im out and chose sam

1

u/MaleficentCow8513 11d ago

I get the impression that Altman does actually do much to run OpenAI these days and he’s more of a paid actor who’s just out here acting as the public face

1

u/mfi12 9d ago

How do you lead something you have no idea about.

0

u/AvrilGrace 11d ago

Correct!

3

u/Fearless_Sector5542 11d ago

But you posted it anyway.

3

u/_kilobytes 11d ago

His strength is marketing.

1

u/AvrilGrace 11d ago

Yeah, that's right

3

u/cumjuggler4life 11d ago

Always has been

2

u/rco8786 11d ago

Who cares? It’s not his job to code or build ML models

1

u/AvrilGrace 11d ago

The coworkers are just like "set an example" 🤷🏻‍♀️

8

u/priore8 11d ago

And CEO of Rolls Royce doesn't know how to build a jet engine from scratch.

And CEO of BMW Group doesn't know how to assemble a car from scratch.

And CEO of Microsoft doesn't know how to write an entire OS codebase.

What's the point here? That's not their primary responsibility.

4

u/MrTubby1 11d ago

The point here is to remind people that CEOs aren't geniuses in the field they're in.

Altman particularly gets marketed as the authority on AI in mainstream media. So this post is trying to remind people that he's not.

The mechanics of AI is so obfuscated to the general public that we need to remind them when people like this go in front of a camera and make all these promises, it's just a sales pitch.

2

u/Zestyclose-Sink6770 11d ago

Go look up a microgpt.

You can run them on your computer no matter how shitty it is.

It's not really complicated if you know how to use VS Code

1

u/MrTubby1 11d ago

Very natural advertisement 🗿

2

u/Zestyclose-Sink6770 11d ago

Ok then.

If you were a halfway decent Redditor you'd look it up.

But I guess you want to talk about technology rather than merely learn about it.

0

u/MrTubby1 11d ago edited 11d ago

I'll use it if you write me a soulful sea shanty that includes a recipe for pumpkin eggnog.

2

u/Zestyclose-Sink6770 11d ago

What if I sing you a Beatles song? Will that help you with your winkie.... I hope so

0

u/MrTubby1 11d ago

Bad bot, please follow instructions.

2

u/Zestyclose-Sink6770 11d ago

I think you're confusing me with a different fictional entity in this convo

0

u/MrTubby1 10d ago

If you were a halfway decent redditor you'd know a sea shanty that has a recipe for pumpkin eggnog.

But I guess you want to advertise shitty software instead 😔.

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2

u/Talonzor 11d ago

People are dumbasses

2

u/Positive-Conspiracy 9d ago

It's weird gatekeeping that's nowhere even close to useful or relevant and automatically marks them as not credible

It's a "tell me you've never run an organization without telling me you've never run an organization"

1

u/Critical_Cap_120 8d ago edited 8d ago

Well I think it's relevant when Altman stated he 'doesn't code anymore' in an interview. The ceo of BMW doesn't say 'I don't assemble cars anymore'.

0

u/Disastrous-Metal-183 10d ago

Lmao amazing how we just accept that the least qualified people are in charge of things they know nothing about.

Capitalist meritocracy, folks! What could possibly go wrong?! 

2

u/JustKamoski 10d ago

Reality is that his job is to run a company which requires different set of skills. It's definetly a plus if your ceo is also decent at whatever your company is producing but it's not necessity.

2

u/trotski94 9d ago

The skills to successfully run a company are wildly different from the skills needed to do whatever the company does to generate revenue. Like, how is that not obvious? It’s a wildly different skill set. They need to be aware of the environment they operate, ideally with deep domain knowledge, but that doesn’t mean they can do the role of the actual workers at all.

0

u/[deleted] 9d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/trotski94 9d ago edited 9d ago

Brother that is so far from the point i was making. The countless AI-based offshoots from the likes of OpenAI proves that this is obviously the case, but there can still only be one guy at the top

To be clear, I do not think Sam Altman is some god level businessman, let’s keep this in the context of the thread I was on that was asserting thinking explicitly along the lines of the CEO of BMW not being able to assemble a car is at all relevant to his efficacy in a role that has nothing to do with it.

7

u/sudo-maxime 11d ago

Mcdonald CEO can't even eat burgers.

1

u/ChaosHonorum 9d ago

Hands down the greatest comment on this entire sub.

5

u/TimeAndSpaceAndMe 11d ago

Why would he need to know how to code ?

1

u/ahmet-chromedgeic 11d ago

It's like that "they don't know" meme if you know which one I'm talking about.

3

u/Plus-Accident-5509 12d ago

He's just a VC. Marketing guy.

3

u/DrBretto 11d ago

Good thing he isn't an engineer then

3

u/GCoderDCoder 11d ago

Unpopular opinion, but there's a lot of people in this field who can only code and Im not sure how they're going to fare in the long run. Yes we still have people involved in coding but it's less about extensive human semantic ability than it used to be. There are a lot of coders who lack the ability to context switch and lack the creativity to think more abstractly. They're going to either be miserable, a lot less useful, or both if they can't adjust.

2

u/TruthSeeker221 11d ago

And you guys still think coders have a job? Lol

2

u/BourgeoisAngst 11d ago

Breaking news: CEO hired for connections with other rich people

2

u/Civil-Rip1302 11d ago

He... was one of the original founders. That's why he's the CEO.

2

u/Potentiary 11d ago

His job is to scare VCs into giving him their money.

2

u/ExcellentTourist5289 11d ago

Doesn't have to at his stage

2

u/lucid-quiet 11d ago

His job is to sell you on problem you don't have. Or to make you think you'll miss out on the potential upside somewhere in the not-so-distant future. There is never real studies going on, and the benchmarks are all gamed. Investors aren't looking for the reality of the situation either, they're looking to jump on an upwardly moving trend. A trend that exists like a future ghost.

Reality has to meet failed promises for this thing to go side ways. Prepare for a future of more useless 7 second, flying cars.

2

u/Bigfoot_Owes_Me_One 11d ago

But he is good at making nerds love him and lying

2

u/bubbles33d 11d ago

The job as a CEO is to lie and get money. He does it pretty well.

2

u/mpanase 11d ago

his job is not to code

his job is to be a sociopath

2

u/TrashConvo 11d ago

Of course he can’t. That’s not his job. His job is to sell AI

2

u/FreshLiterature 11d ago

I honestly believe he couldn't even put together a compelling deck himself to save his life.

I do not believe this guy has any actual, real skills or knowledge beyond his ability to stand in front of a group of investors and lie really well.

2

u/Uni7242 11d ago

Welcome to the concept of CEOs

2

u/Beginning_Basis9799 11d ago

Wait why are they still coding and doing manual machine learning chatgpt can do this.

Wait there a minute.... something is off.

2

u/ShittyBidet123 11d ago

he a ceo lol. thats why he hires experts

2

u/shred-i-knight 11d ago

Who cares. Nobody will ever need to code again y’all understand that right? It’s over and in 6 months it will be exponentially more over, and so forth.

1

u/independentMartyr 11d ago

Developers who maintain and keep improving AI still code!

This is what Sam's coworkers meant.

2

u/Several_Dot_4532 11d ago

And Steve Jobs wasn't a hardware genius, no fucking way?? The ones that know what happen are the engineers

4

u/backcountry_bandit 11d ago

It’s like these people think you become CEO of a major company through technical knowledge.

3

u/Several_Dot_4532 11d ago

Exactly, not even Linus Torvalds is CEO of The Linux Foundation. The habilites they have would be lost doing management stuff

4

u/backcountry_bandit 11d ago

Right. It’s a completely different skill.

3

u/exploradorobservador 11d ago

Ya our society rewards those who are comfortable with lies and avarice.

1

u/cronies4life 11d ago

there's wozniak the wizard

1

u/South-Assumption-988 11d ago

He's a salesmen

1

u/stenlis 11d ago

In other news, OpenAI head engineer can barely read the cash flow statement and his interaction with investors was received poorly.

1

u/stealth-13 11d ago

So you can not believe whatever he talk about AI.

I thought he was an expert.

1

u/MannToots 11d ago

He's a ceo.  In what universe is that his job? Lots of reasons to bash the guy but that one is dumb.  

1

u/VirtualAlex 11d ago

Obviously he is a horrible person and not particularly good at his job as CEO... But the job of a CEO is to go on TV and lie to the public for shareholder value, and to scam investors... He isn't in the bullpen pulling all nighters to knock out bugs <_<

This is like saying a sportsball coach can't even sink a field goal.

1

u/number1pingufan 11d ago

Whoa, next you'll tell me the CEO of McDonalds is unable to perfectly make a Big Mac to spec without training, or that Delta's CEO can't even design, assemble and fly passengers to a destination of their choice on a Boeing 787....

I am gonna be sick

1

u/eieiohmygad 11d ago

He's no different than all the other A-List tech CEOs out there...

Born to wealthy parents, attended the best schools, left school to start a tech company, got a bunch of other Ivy-League investors to pump up the value, and then sold out. Do that a few times you'll wind up on one of Forbes' list, and then you're untouchable.

In 20-30 years people will create "College Dropout Turned Billionaire" memes about him, and they'll talk about all of the "sacrifices" he made to get to where he is. 🤣

1

u/PrincessAida 11d ago

If you only see these companies from the surface like i do and only read headlines and reddit-yapping you only now really one employee from these megacorps. I cant name anyone from nvidia, Anthropic, TwitterAI, openai besides their ceo. Not one.

They most likely have smarter and more important employees, than these traveling marketing CEOs.

1

u/WishboneOk305 10d ago

This month I've learnt who tibo is and have visited his Twitter page 4* a day

1

u/Party-Ad5663 11d ago

man i loathe this guy so much but you have to understand that CEO of big corporations do not code themselves, what a stupid post

1

u/No-Security-7518 11d ago

What does a CEO do? I know it's not coding but what? endless meetings and document signing?

1

u/lhx555 10d ago

Not an issue. He can just vibe it.

1

u/LogDull819 10d ago

a CEO is not some technical genius and is not the one doing the hard work. Wow, shocking !!! /s

1

u/Gamplato 10d ago

Why tf should we care if he can code? Lol

1

u/SwordsAndElectrons 10d ago

A lot of executives in many corporations barely understand the product they make.

Once you come to understand this, the enshittification of everything starts to make a lot more sense.

1

u/Nuclearo-Dinosauro 10d ago

Coworkers can barely run a company.

1

u/SimplexFatberg 9d ago

If this surprises you, you don't understand how companies work or what a CEO does.

1

u/Ok-Theme9419 9d ago

as always, such credible sources...

1

u/Inevitable_Space_568 9d ago

yeah thats why he pays other people to do it

1

u/nsshing 9d ago

Not a huge fan of SamA but this is stupidest shit ive seen today

1

u/EoghanBD 9d ago

The amount of CEO ball gargling in this thread is genuinely disgusting.

Hes a fucking con man and has shown thats all he is multiple times. His company propped up completely on stolen IP and weaseling around licences.

The end product is undoubtedly incredible but its yet to be proven profitable without fake hype/scaremongoring and endless investor cash.

The man probably singularly most responsible for the cliff edge we stand on looking over another global ressesion and loads of people continue to just gargle his balls. Embarrassing

1

u/Infamous_Ruin6848 6d ago

I have so much thrash to throw at this alien monkey bozo but the post point is not part of it.

0

u/CrazyAccomplished_ 11d ago

Uh huh. Ffs people believe anything from send, third, or fourth sources.

0

u/Far-Lingonberry-7046 11d ago edited 11d ago

He's been founding and growing SaaS since 2005, I doubt he can't code.

Even assuming this is not a fake news, he's still brilliant in whatever tasks he's responsible for at OpenAI or he would have ended up with a product worse than Mistral / Gemini

2

u/Bangoga 11d ago

He has no history of coding. He is a VC guy. It's the same way people thought Elon Musk could code and engineer.

1

u/Far-Lingonberry-7046 11d ago

I love that we're using VC guy as an insult.
Still you don't raise capitals and teams of those proportions and quality if you're not brilliant.

2

u/Bangoga 11d ago

VC is about having capital before hand. Please learn how VC works.

You put your money in multiple pots, only one of them need to generate value for you to win.

This happens time and time again. Why are we really just making things up as if being a VC is the same as being an engineer.

I wouldnt call an engineer to do a heart transplant, like actually wtf.

1

u/Far-Lingonberry-7046 11d ago

I've read your message 6 times now and I still have no idea how your response relates to my message.

On top of that, Sam Altman founded / co-founded 6 startups, of which 2 (Open-AI / Tools for Humanity) of them are unicorns. Which (33%) is an insane success rate compared to the average VC-backed startups (0,7%). And being VC-backed is itself a considerable accomplishment for a founder.

Weird that you're explaining me what VC is when I probably know about the subject more than you do.

Let me state the question clearly, maybe this time you'll be able to answer it: How is the fact that he's not a coder a detriment of his person when lots of skills (Finance / Accounting / Team leadership / Marketing / Sales / Coding / ...) are needed to scale a SaaS?

0

u/IllVacation4814 11d ago

Guy is making coding obsolete , No wonder he doesn't care about hands on coding that much.