Sam Altman is a CROOK
Getting so tilted that I started writing on substack just because a LinkedIn post alone couldn't contain my outrage
I wrote two Linkedin posts about the $7T Altman scam already, but this third one got so long that it WOULDN’T FIT (like about 1000 characters short) so here I am, writing a Twitlonger-esq post that links from LinkedIn. Maybe I’ll just use this as a Twitlonger-esq companion of LinkedIn, along with whatever else that happens to bug me. Enjoy the fun-bucket.
I do find it "interesting" how Sam is going to a foundry now, complete with a Government wig who's tagging along:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/events/ifs-direct-connect.html
Now think about this for half a minute. He's not even building anything ground up- There's been zero indications of that. Every indication he's given so far points to "ready made" sources, either buying hardware outright (the GPU kits he tweeted about) or going to a foundry to procure silicon.
It would be doubly puzzling/"interesting" why that he's asking $7 TRILLION for this endeavor. Since NOT going ground-up costs SIGNIFICANTLY less than supplying yourself from your own fabs AND your own process tech R&D (such reasons is why Samsung, Intel, and IBM are basically the ONLY semiconductor verticals left in the whole world after AMD jettisoned theirs a while back)
Question remains that what in the world is the Samster gonna do with even ONE trillion (#1 Samsung is only about a third of that trillion...) let alone SEVEN trillion.
For reference, TSMC is "only" spending 40 Billion in Arizona, and that's spread across TWO FABS, a project that's already huge in every way (21k construction jobs, world's biggest cranes that couldn't fit on a 2-lane, etc.):
Between the two fabs, TSMC is sinking $40 billion into the projects. The company likely will qualify for federal grants under the CHIPS & Science Act when funding guidelines are announced early next year.
The fabs are expected to generate 21,000 construction jobs. They’re also going up with the help of one of the world’s largest cranes, a behemoth that workers must take apart and reassemble every time it moves to different job sites because it wouldn’t comfortably fit on even a two-lane highway.
I'm going to be extremely generous in this following comparison:
Ignore that Samsung has its own fabs already i.e. just ignore all those manufacturing plants, okay?
Ignore the fact that Samsung does/make a whole load of other silicon stuff than just processors
Ignore everything Samsung has built up over the decades, outside of investor valuation
Instead of adding anything to OpenAI, just do separate new stuff, no creating verticals or anything despite any advantages of it and waste/opportunity costs of not doing it
Open AI / Samster going to create a whole new R&D company that's about 20X times the size of Samsung (despite what he said about the uselessness of scaling up LLMs... guess he just did a huge 180 and double/triple/quadruple-down on the opposite) and farm out the results of that design to existing foundries.
Some world-devouring design it must be... Why doesn't he work on a quantum computer instead? Why doesn't he invest in exotic materials research? Current foundries are more interested in refining processes. Sure, they work with universities and all but that's hardly the same thing as pouring the entire company's process research resources into it!
Massively, massively, FRAUDULENT, "developmental posture." The Samster said he's focused on raising funds from UAE (United Arab Emirates...) so he's counting on the desert oil barons and UAE royal family members there to fall for his money-draining scheme?
Let's give him the benefit of a sliver of doubt that he's actually going to build this "20X Samsung Uber Designhouse" that's going to eventually pump out silicon from the likes of Intel. What actual good is this going to do, in general?
Gary Marcus wrote an open letter to Sam Altman regarding this question:
Uh, I'd say that Altman care about exactly none of those things Gary asked. He's trying to raise trillions and pay himself billions.