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Comment by paulddraper | Hacker News Reader

Maybe.

But Altman has a great track record as CEO.

Hard to imagine he suddenly became a bad CEO. Possible. But unlikely.

Where is this coming from? Sam does not have a "great" record as a CEO. In fact, he barely has any records. His fame came from working in YC and then the sky-rocketing of open AI. He is great at fundraising though.

wat

the guy founded and was CEO of a company at 19 that sold for $43m

> As CEO, Altman raised more than $30 million in venture capital for the company; however, Loopt failed to gain traction with enough users.

It is easy to sell a company for $43 if you raised at least $43. Granted, we don't know the total amount raised but it certainly it's not the big success you are describing. That and I already mentioned that he is good in corporate sales.

According to Crunchbase, Loopt raised $39.1M.

How many years did it take to go from 39 million to 43 million in value? Would've been better off in bonds, perhaps.

This isn't a success story, it's a redistribution of wealth from investors to the founders.

Ah, the much-sought-after 1.1X return that VCs really salivate over.

> he is good in corporate sales

Which is a big part of being a great CEO

It is a big part of start-up culture and getting seed liquidity. It doesn't make you a great long-term CEO, however.

A CEO should lead a company not sell it.

> It is easy to sell a company for $43 if you raised at least $43

I'm curious - how is this easy?

Ah yes the legendary social networking giant loopt

Loopt was not a successful company, it sold for more or less the same capital it raised.

or alternatively: altman has the ability to leverage his network to fail upwards

let's see if he can pull it off again or goes all-in on his data privacy nightmare / shitcoin double-wammy

Train a LLM exclusively on HN and make it into a serial killer app generator.

This. I would like my serial killer to say some profound shit before he kills me.

"should have rewritten it in rust" bang

Worldcoin is a great success for sure…!

The dude is quite good at selling dystopian ideas as a path to utopia.

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