OpenAI Communications
Joined April 2009
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Before construction even begins, OpenAI’s data center in Effingham County, Georgia, is helping homeowners save about $1,000 on property taxes and families save $1,000 per child through free school meals. Real benefits for our future neighbors.
Aaron McLear retweeted
“Data centers are allegedly an unmitigated disaster: They guzzle water, strain electric grids, and raise prices ... But the data-center panic is overblown,” @EliasWachtel argues. In some contexts they can bring real benefits, he reports. theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0…
Aaron McLear retweeted
Infrastructure is how AI becomes more useful, more reliable, and more affordable over time.
But nothing gets built unless we do it the right way: paying for our own energy, using limited water, investing in the surrounding community, and helping more Michiganders build the AI skills this next era of infrastructure will require.
Michigan has the workforce, the industrial depth, and the building culture to play a major role in building what comes next.
We’re breaking ground on Stargate Michigan—a 1GW data center utilizing closed-loop cooling that uses water at the rate of a typical office building, creates thousands of union jobs, and brings over $40m in free Codex credits for all college, community college, and trade school students statewide. openai.com/index/stargate-mi…
Aaron McLear retweeted
"Ron discovered how to be the investor of the future by accident. He didn't foresee the future of startup investing, realize it would pay to be upstanding, and force himself to behave that way. It would feel unnatural to him to behave any other way."
paulgraham.com/ronco.html
Ron is the most selfless and tenacious person I know. If he fights half as hard for himself as he does for everyone else in his life, cancer doesn’t stand a chance.
I want to share some difficult news. I was recently diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and I want you to hear it directly from me.
Treatment is starting immediately and will include multiple strategies over the course of about a year. While I will be stepping back from some of my usual activities, I will continue to support SV Angel founders, who I love with a passion.
SV Angel remains unchanged. Topher has made all of our investment decisions for the better part of the last decade, and Ronny joined as Managing Partner in 2024. They bring experience from nearly every major technology cycle in Silicon Valley and are now focused on partnering with founders building the future of AI. SV Angel has a deep, experienced team that remains fully focused on supporting exceptional founders.
With a more focused and balanced schedule, I can prioritize treatments while helping SV Angel founders at inflection points like we always do!
I’ve chosen not to share the specific type of cancer since I don't want speculation about my prognosis. I appreciate your understanding and respect for this.
I am optimistic about my prognosis. I am fortunate to have the best/amazing team of UCSF doctors in San Francisco, and as you know, I never back down from a fight.
Thank you for your support, it means a great deal to me.
Aaron McLear retweeted
Really sorry this happened to you and your family. Strong post. I thought this was thoughtful, vulnerable, and responsible—especially your acknowledgment that anxiety about AI is justified, and that the answer has to be better dialogue, not escalation. Wishing you all safety
I wrote this early this morning and I wasn't sure if I would actually publish it, but here it is:
blog.samaltman.com/2279512
Aaron McLear retweeted
I wrote this early this morning and I wasn't sure if I would actually publish it, but here it is:
blog.samaltman.com/2279512
Aaron McLear retweeted
Congrats to the OAI Foundation team and @JacobTref for more than $100 million in grants across six research institutions just this month, as a first step to support and accelerate Alzheimer’s research!!
openaifoundation.org/news/ai…
Aaron McLear retweeted
I'm also tired of people misrepresenting that quote about parachuting him into an island full of cannibals. I didn't mean anything sinister by it, just that he's an example of someone with "toughness, adaptability, and determination". See for yourself:
paulgraham.com/fundraising.h…
Aaron McLear retweeted
Since there's yet another article claiming that we "removed" Sam because partners distrusted him, no, we didn't. It's not because I want to defend Sam that I keep insisting on this. It's because it's so annoying to read false accounts of my own actions.
Aaron McLear retweeted
i've never met him, but sam altman has had many positive impacts on me over the years. so, i would like to weigh in with some counterpoints that were ignored in ronan farrow's lengthy op-ed about how he is the devil:
- when SVB was collapsing, sam spent the weekend wiring personal cash to startups that feared they would miss payroll. no ratchet terms, no written terms at all, just money out the window and trust that it would work out
- when VCs tried to destroy parker conrad, sam stepped in and leveraged his influence to get them to leave him alone
- sam created a free course at stanford on entrepreneurship that has been watched by millions and helped inspire many thousands of entrepreneurs
- sam took YC from a small (albeit dominant) accelerator to a scaled machine that deploys hundreds of millions of dollars supporting an entire generation of founders, most of whom show up as outsiders
- when sam was fired, he had such deep loyalty among employees that 90%+ were going to walk out the door if he didn’t return. that is not the norm for an ousted leader, by a long shot
- ronan farrow would have you believe sam is a master manipulator who takes advantage of everyone around him. who exactly is he manipulating and taking advantage of? his employees who are on the ride of a lifetime building products loved by millions? his investors who universally boast openai first and foremost in their portfolios? his customers who happily pay billions of dollars for said products?
- sam literally helped brute force an industrial revolution into existence. without his perseverance you do not get chatgpt. what did that give us? an explosion of innovation, GDP growth, a domestic manufacturing and construction boom. a global reduction in friction to create things, build products, and get work done. the most promising path so far to curing cancer and solving climate change and countless other humanity-scale problems. ironically, without sam you do not get the essay Machines of Loving Grace, let alone the abundance that essay promises
so instead of dwelling on the fact that in 2011 some employees at sam’s company weren’t happy that he misrepresented his ping pong skills, i think i’ll bask in awe at the future we are living in, which sam helped pull forward
(🧵1/11) For the past year and a half, I've been investigating OpenAI and Sam Altman for @NewYorker. With my coauthor @andrewmarantz, I reviewed never-before-disclosed internal memos, obtained 200+ pages of documents related to a close colleague, including extensive private notes, and interviewed more than 100 people.
OpenAI was founded on the premise that A.I. could be the most dangerous invention in human history—and that its C.E.O. would need to be a person of uncommon integrity. We lay out the most detailed account yet of why Altman was ousted out by board members and executives who came to believe he lacked that integrity, and ask: were they right to allege that he couldn't be trusted?
A thread on some of of our findings:
OpenAI’s capabilities are wild. This non-technical Gen Xer built Maverick a baseball goal-tracking web app in Codex, generated a family caricature from memory in ImageGen, and ChatGPT diagnosed our dying ferns from photos. Still had to prune them myself tho.
Aaron McLear retweeted
Pitchers duel tonight! And it all started with the first pitch thrown out by Maverick of the MI Little League Reds!
0-0 score through 4...go MI!
Aaron McLear retweeted
I feel like we haven’t adequately reacted to the fact that driverless taxis are now fully available to the general public in multiple cities without incident
Aaron McLear retweeted
Great hosts, great discussion! Ethical dilemmas, human psychology, and gyms on wheels...
It's Hard Fork Friday! This week Kevin and I ride in one of San Francisco's new robo-taxis, and Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt stops by to pitch us on a self-driving future nytimes.com/2023/05/12/podca…
This week on Hard Fork:
• All the big AI developments from Google I/O
• We take a joyride in a self-driving car named Banana Slug
• a conversation with Cruise CEO @kvogt on driverless car regulations, safety and more
nytimes.com/2023/05/12/podca…