Sam Altman (Loopt) is talking right now at WWDC

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=212952

by plusbryan • 18 years ago

40 23 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Congrats Sam and team!

johns2• 18 years ago

I'm assuming this confirms GPS is a go for iPhone2.

cstejerean• 18 years ago

would loopt need more than the current location support of the iPhone?

j2d2• 18 years ago

Current location support says I'm somewhere in manhattan, west brooklyn or east jersey when I'm in midtown. I don't think it's accurate enough to be useful.

johns2• 18 years ago

And it was just confirmed

plusbryan• 18 years ago

Sam: "Loopt will be FREE on the iPhone!" by the way, reliable live audio stream at: http://www.ustream.tv/

RyanGWU82• 18 years ago

Saw that on Engadget. He's giving a demo during the Steve Jobs keynote. Very, very cool.

tlrobinson2• 18 years ago

http://s3.media.macrumorslive.com/p/f1213033038.jpg

maxklein3• 18 years ago

What's so cool about Sam Altman, and what does PG like so much about him? That's the real trick to learn - how to be so people friendly that people with money fall in love with you. Think about it - pg sends his essay to the 21 year old Sam Altman to be corrected. What's so great about that boy?

maxklein3• 18 years ago

To answer my own question, look here: http://tusb.stanford.edu/2007/05/sam_altman_founder_of_loopt...

Sam comes across as intelligent and trustworthy. Compare him to the facebook guy, who comes across as very nerdy. Or to Matt Maroon, who comes across as arrogant. Sam looks like he gets girls, which frankly, is the best quality a person looking for startup money can have.

So I answer my own question - I now see what's cool about Sam Altman.

startupobsessed• 18 years ago

I don't actually think he gets that many _girls_...

russ• 18 years ago

lol, if this was the case, then all those jocks from high school would be raising big rounds.

aston• 18 years ago

He also has the balls to rock double polo shirts on stage at WWDC. In lime and pink at that...

axod• 18 years ago

And now the question "What is so cool about loopt?"

Perhaps it's just I don't have any need for it. It seems like it might appeal to twitter lovers though, though even then it seems like it is a feature rather than a product to me. Is Loopt popular in the US?

ALee• 18 years ago

Well, there are a lot of reasons: the simple ones being he understands the importance of technical skills in startups, he's mature beyond his age, and he is smart and articulate in a focused way.

I think these resources help you understand why he's so cool:

http://tusb.stanford.edu/2007/05/sam_altman_founder_of_loopt...

http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/sam-altman-at-startup...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=95857

projectileboy• 18 years ago

Just go watch his SS08 presentation at Omnisio. I'm 36, and if I had a tenth of the intelligence and drive as that dude at his age, by now I'd have my own kingdom protected by a robot army.

pg• 18 years ago

That's the real trick to learn - how to be so people friendly that people with money fall in love with you.

Boy is that not the trick to learn. Sam is a nice guy, but what makes him Sam Altman is that he is extremely effective. That's what got him onto the stage at WWDC, not being "people friendly."

maxklein3• 18 years ago

What exactly does effective mean? I have the book "7 habits of effective people", and I read parts of it, but this book does not answer the core question - what does 'effective' mean?

For example, say I have an idea for a great product. I work on it effectively by spending time on the important features and ignoring the unimportant features. I release the software and my site rises to Alexa Rank 600.000, the slowly fades away. I was an effective programmer, but did not have any idea about marketing or sales or post sales or customer acquiring or viral growth or any of that stuff. That's not a lack of effectiveness, that's a lack of information.

I may have the ability to complete a task effectively, but if I do not have enough information about what tasks need to be done to be successful, I cannot apply my 'effective' skills on those tasks.

Do you get what I'm saying? Sam may be effective, but he's also knowledgeable about a wide range of topics, and so is able to know where to apply his methods towards. He knows about these topics because he is likely more intelligent and widely read than the average other startup founder. He is more widely read because he is more intelligent and it is easier for him to absorb more information.

What you call effectiveness is actually just applied intelligence. What you're actually saying is this: become more intelligent and learn how to gather a wide range of information, and then apply this information as effectively as possible, given the constraints you have to work with.

What I'm saying is this: this 'effectiveness' you say Sam has, it's not replicable, because it's made up of intelligence and a talent for applying this intelligence. And those are not available to everyone, unfortunately.

gustaf• 18 years ago

Congrats to Sam and Loopt from Heysan! This is great news! Is Loopt going to be free cross-platform from now on?

jl• 18 years ago

Congrats Sam and Loopt - I am bursting with excitement!

dpapathanasiou• 18 years ago

I am bursting with excitement!

Don't take this the wrong way, but for whatever reason, I immediately thought of Monty Python's "My nipples explode with delight" sketch (http://youtube.com/watch?v=04S03wDrtSo).

sama• 18 years ago

thanks everyone!

Sam Altman (Loopt) is talking right now at WWDC

Related Stories