Sam Altman got $75M from the University of Michigan for a new VC fund

https://fortune.com/2023/12/19/sam-altman-university-michigan-venture-fund/

by jadbox • 3 years ago

59 45 3 years ago

protortyp• 3 years ago

Can someone explain how Sam is able to run so many things at once? I am working on my startup and I barely find time to scroll HN during my toilet breaks.

xenospn• 3 years ago

Most likely just delegates everything. It’s not possible to actually “run” large operations without effective delegation.

lumost• 3 years ago

like having a very visible/active chairman of the board.

whatshisface• 3 years ago

Your jobs are to found the company and Be The Founder, just imagine how many more companies you could found if you had people to do the former. (See also: Elon Musk.)

ldjkfkdsjnv• 3 years ago

he makes a few high level decisions a week/maybe less. hes never actually on the grind

csomar• 3 years ago

He is just the face. He gets paid for bringing attention and creating a forward momentum to the companies. He has access to highly placed individuals too and that’s more important than you building an actual product in our economy.

LarsDu882• 3 years ago

Lets go back to the beginning of YC. You can find a photo of the very first class. In that very first class, you'll see the AirBnb guys, the Twitch guys, the Reddit founders, and Sam frickin Altman. When you have 18 years of connections with virtually every successful YC startup, and happen to run the most disruptive company of the past 15 years, money and influence seeks you out.

jakderrida• 3 years ago

Good answer. He basically fostered a reputation for having access to the connections you need. Same time, that don't mean he'll entertain any old idea. I thought he was lunatic for taking over at OpenAI and thought their idea was crazy. But he knew better than me.

chaostheory2• 3 years ago

Agree and you have a very reasonable comment, and I’m not sure why others don’t agree.

Just one possible correction: the AirBnB guys were about 4 years later than the 1st batch. I don’t think any of them were in the 1st batch with a different startup like the Twitch crew.

stodor89• 3 years ago

Also Aaron Swartz, if we're thinking of the same photo. The world would no doubt be a better place if the powers that be hadn't suicided him.

panic• 3 years ago

You’re doing it wrong. You need to get other people to do the actual work while you go out and get yourself involved in more things.

behnamoh2• 3 years ago

From "48 Laws of Power":

Law 7: Get Others to Do the Work for You, but Always Take the Credit: Get others to do your work for you. Use their skill, time, and energy to further your ambitions while taking full credit. You’ll be admired for your efficiency.

musicale• 3 years ago

Can someone explain why a public university is giving money to Sam Altman rather than the other way around?

Or is this the primary/hedge-fund part of the university rather than the professional sports organization or the vestigial academic departments?

tetrazine• 3 years ago

Because they believe they will turn a profit on the investment (in expectation). Next question

alephnerd• 3 years ago

Universities don't generate their operating budget on tuition alone. They need to use a mix of grantmaking, IP commercialization, investments, Federal tuition support, broadcast licenses, and (in UMich's case) some state government support to keep the lights on.

In UMich's case, the State of Michigan only covers 3% of the entire funding for UMich. The university needs to foot the bill for the remaining 97% on their own [0].

That's where endowments come in. By trying to be savvy with the rate of return on your endowment, you can create a self sustaining budget for your institution.

Also, UMich Ann Arbor's yearly budget is $10 Billion, but their endowment (aka their piggybank) is only $17 Billion. If they raided their piggybank, they could only keep the lights on for 2 years at most.

professional sports organization or the vestigial academic departments

Professional Sports is self funded by the athletics department.

What's a "vestigial academic departments". For example, Computer Science was "vestigial" in most universities until the 1970s, often being a wonky major in the Math or Physics department. What makes you an arbitrator for what field is more important than others?

[0] https://publicaffairs.vpcomm.umich.edu/key-issues/tuition/ge...

itemize• 3 years ago

basically, univ can run a fund of funds with their endowment

colechristensen• 3 years ago

Do you have the money, connections, trust to hire someone to delegate 90% of the work you’re doing on your startup?

unsupp0rted• 3 years ago

Probably a work number closer to 100% than to 90%

vitorgrs• 3 years ago

For OpenAI, I'm pretty sure Greg that is really managing it most of the times?

Sam is more of an investor than anything else.

Jensson2• 3 years ago

In a statement to Fortune, an OpenAI spokeswoman said that Altman “is fully focused on his role as CEO of OpenAI and spends only a small fraction of his time investing. He maintains transparency with the board about his occasional investments and adheres to a process for managing potential conflicts of interest.”

I thought "is fully focused" meant all his attention was there? Also "He maintains transparency with the board", wasn't he just fired for not doing that very recently?

behnamoh2• 3 years ago

Turns out "Attention" is really all you need!

habosa• 3 years ago

I hesitate to ask on HN (given that this is an arm of YC) but can anyone explain the rise of Sam?

He had a startup that seemingly had an uninteresting exit (raised 30M sold for 43M). Then he’s somehow PG’s protege and the role of YC president is invented for him.

Next thing you know he’s attempting a replacement for traditional currencies (worldcoin) and running the most technologically significant startup in the world (OpenAI) funded by everyone from Elon Musk to Microsoft.

Meanwhile he’s got infinite side hustles like the one in this article.

Obviously a guy that people trust with their money but from my perspective (nowhere near his circles) there are some missing pieces in this meteoric rise.

Anyone know of a resource to help me fill in the gaps?

kaashif• 3 years ago

I think he's incredibly good with people or networking in some way. Paul Graham said “Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful.”

I don't have any resources to help and I'm also interested if anyone knows anything.

gyomu• 3 years ago

Paul Graham said “Sam is extremely good at becoming powerful.”

Are you paraphrasing, or did he say that verbatim? Not attacking your statement, just curious. I always am reminded of this part from a pg essay:

Sam Altman has it. You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king. If you're Sam Altman, you don't have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without them. (He wasn't, and he did.) Not everyone has Sam's deal-making ability. I myself don't. But if you don't, you can let the numbers speak for you.

http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html

jgord2• 3 years ago

Walter Isaacson bio in 3..2..1

Jensson2• 3 years ago

He seems to be very good at making people think he is competent and get people to trust him.

Not sure how he does that, but I've noticed he does a lot of interviews and becomes the face of things, many does that though so there is probably much more to it.

rdl• 3 years ago

Even before taking over as President at YC, he was incredibly helpful to a bunch of YC founders and others doing startups -- a combination of willingness to help, and knowing what to do/how to do it, plus being able to do it with high leverage. Mostly weird/unpleasant situations (like the OpenAI drama was, but at a much smaller scale). Doing that for several years before YC President, then presumably continuing to do so while YC President (I'd mostly drifted away from YC by then), goes a long way to explain everything.

throw1234651234• 3 years ago

As a pleb, the article linked below is his biggest accomplishment that I know of, and I am not being sarcastic:

https://blog.samaltman.com/productivity

I do think it's cool that he is investing in fusion and life extension, and it seems "reasonable". Obviously, as a pleb, it's very hard for me to know what's reasonable.

As a side note, the whole concept of going from pleb to someone is fascinating, though I do think it's myth most of the time (e.g. Musk, Bezos, Caesar, Alexander the Great, etc).

edit: Just skimmed his bio again. Kind of fascinating how one person grinds code and begs to be promoted to senior / architect and another is directing billions.

Sam, if you are here, drop some advice.

CPLX• 3 years ago

The ruling class can always find a great use for extremely ambitious and energetic leaders who are absolutely, fundamentally, and ruthlessly committed to the interests of the ruling class.

alienicecream• 3 years ago

Man, this guy is like the Godfather. It seems everybody knows him and everybody owes him, but noone really knows what he actually does. When he becomes more powerful than he is useful things will get interesting.

mikae1• 3 years ago

This headline reads like something straight outta The Onion. Very US and A.

isthatafact• 3 years ago

I find it genuinely puzzling. In my view, his involvement in "harvesting eyeball scans of poor people" (worldcoin) represents a risk of a public relations/media scandal that should put him on a blacklist for investment by universities, which are very sensitive to PR issues.

Sam Altman got $75M from the University of Michigan for a new VC fund

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