The alternative was ceding it to the people that are True Belivers iirc? Say what you will about Sammy boi, I’m pretty sure at least he doesn’t fucking believe in the lies he says, something that cannot be said about Ilya or some other (former) high profile people there.
Point well made. Engineers, however quantitative they may be, are not often finance people. If the true believers were left in charge, they’d probably bankrupt promises much more rapidly, and auger the whole enterprise into the ground that much quicker. I can’t see that Altman is actually that great a finance guy either, at least in stewardship of other people’s money, but he has cultivated the ability to manipulate cash out of people and institutions during this grift-dominant era of Silicon Valley.
