John Gruber highlights a notable omission in The New Yorker's investigative piece on Sam Altman: Y Combinator owns approximately 0.6% of OpenAI, worth over $5 billion at current valuations. When the article quoted YC co-founder Paul Graham as a character reference for Altman's trustworthiness, this massive financial stake was never disclosed. Gruber argues that while Graham's opinion isn't automatically invalid, the conflict of interest is significant enough to warrant disclosure — a billion-dollar stake could reasonably influence someone's public statements about a person's character.
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