Some dropped out of M.I.T., Georgetown and Stanford. Others decided not to go to college. They all say they could not afford to wait to build their own artificial intelligence start-ups.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/ai-young-ceos-san-francisco.html

https://archive.ph/uIMm8 :)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49164037)

and here's a proper link u benchod:

https://archive.ph/uIMm8

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49164045)

"I knew I wanted to be involved in that" said the guy building a fucking chatbot for sales. JFC never forget how demonic and hollowed out these people are from a young age. Goy superstar, ur response?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49164047)

these guys are ambitious and want to build something themselves and become successful. when he says he "wants to be involved in that," that's what he's referring to. not "sales" or whatever. what they're actually building is just a means to an end. nobody is "passionate about product" or whatever the fuck. they're passionate about building things and being successful and making money

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49164133)

I realize you're an Ayn Rand Superfan but yes, some people genuinely are passionate about what they're building, and they're usually the genesis of major advancements. The initial employees at OpenAI weren't getting paid hundreds of millions of dollars. Nor were the academics/deepmind researchers who pioneered many of the underlying techniques that are central to our modern pipeline. Bill Gates was, in fact, passionate about building operating systems and selling them. Steve Jobs' whole schtick was deeply caring about the product and putting extreme detail into it. John Carmack created modern Gaming because he intensely gave a fuck about systems programming and making 3d engines. Elon Musk really does have an autistic obsession with getting humans to Mars. You turn everything into some teenage Nietzschian tale of "Strong Men" who want to "Do Things" just for the sake of Doing Things (no matter what the actual thingdoing is) and pretend that genuine passion doesn't matter for advancing technology.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49165022)

i don't disagree with you that ambition commonly overlaps and intertwines with enthusiasm for particular vehicles for ambition. but your post above seemed to be lambasting ambition itself, which is silly and wrong. like it or not (and honestly, i actually don't like it all that much), ambition is the engine for everything good

btw you completely misunderstand me if you think i'm a libertarian type. i'm not much of an individualist at all, like most germans

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49165036)

all progress is made through naked ambition. the scientists over the last few hundred years were (almost) all motivated by material wealth and status. we white westerners don't teach this anymore because we're embarrassed about it and prefer polite fictions so we can feel better about our supposedly Noble selves

i had my "ambition is le bad" stage in my 20s but i grew out of it because the truth - that it's good, and is in fact one of the best things about humans - is undeniable once you force yourself to be honest about it

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49165061)

yeah, self-interest (or group interest)

the guy tinkering in his garage wholesomely bettering the world through pure innocent natural curiosity is a post-hoc fiction that the West created to make ourselves feel better. i fell for it too. it's not real. there are a few cases like this but the vast majority of advances have been made by guys who just wanted to make it big

and there's nothing wrong with this. in fact, it's good. we need to embrace it again. human nature is good, not bad

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49165080)

this is what you and consuela have in common. you so desperately want your narratives to be true (because you've built your entire outlook on this bedrock) you accept them in completely blind faith as being self-obvious even when they should be pretty easy to sanity check.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49165081)

i used to believe as you did until i was proven wrong (against my wishes, i might add). i wish that the world was as our self-serving fictions describe it, too

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49165091)

ChatGPT said:

The short answer is that neither pure “self-interest” nor pure “disinterested curiosity” ever works alone—scientific and technological advances in the West have typically sprung from a complex blend of motivations. Over the centuries, the relative weight of fame, fortune, patronage, and sheer wonder has shifted, but both strands have always been present.

The role of personal reward

Patronage and prizes. In the Renaissance and early modern period, inventors and natural philosophers often depended on wealthy patrons––princes, Church bodies, or merchant guilds––for financial support. Figures like Galileo or Kepler enjoyed stipends or sinecures that both funded their work and conferred social status. Likewise, 18th- and 19th-century governments and learned societies offered prizes (e.g., the French Academy’s rewards for measuring longitude at sea), explicitly incentivizing solutions to pressing problems.

Patents and entrepreneurship. From the Industrial Revolution onward, the modern patent system and burgeoning markets turned inventions into potentially immense personal fortunes. James Watt’s steam engine improvements were as much about his partnership and patent revenues as about fluid dynamics; Thomas Edison was equally an inventor and a savvy businessman, establishing R&D labs to churn out commercially viable devices.

The pull of pure curiosity

Philosophical natural history. From Aristotle through the early Royal Society, many investigators (e.g., Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle) were driven by a conviction that uncovering nature’s “book” was worthwhile in its own right—even if their findings had no obvious application.

Academic and institutional support. In more recent times, universities and public research institutes sustain work that may have no immediate commercial payoff (e.g., early quantum mechanics, basic genomics), relying on grants and tenure rather than patent revenues. This institutional backing reflects a collective belief that understanding the universe, human biology, or computing principles has intrinsic value.

A synergistic view

Feedback loops. Curiosity-driven research often unlocks technologies that suddenly become profitable, which in turn funds further pure science. The laser began as a “solution looking for a problem,” but is now multi-billion-dollar industry. Conversely, profit-driven work sometimes yields foundational insights (e.g., 19th-century telegraphy experiments illuminating electromagnetic theory).

Cultural context. Different eras and societies tilt the balance. The High Middle Ages saw monasteries quietly preserving and extending natural knowledge; the 17th-century Dutch Republic nurtured a culture of free inquiry; the 20th-century U.S. blended military contracts with university-based curiosity.

Conclusion

If pressed to choose, history suggests that while pure altruism (“for knowledge alone”) occasionally sparks breakthroughs, sustainable and rapidly accelerating progress in science and technology has almost always been driven by some combination of personal or institutional reward. Curiosity sets the agenda, but incentives—whether fame, fortune, or patronage—provide the resources and motivation to see ideas through to practical realization.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49165153)

you just don't want to believe this so you're arguing with me about it. whatever, don't believe me, it's not a big deal

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49165195)

Robert K. Merton, The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations

Merton’s classic collection (especially his essay “The Normative Structure of Science”) lays out how science is governed by both the ideal of disinterested truth-seeking and by social rewards—prestige, priority of discovery, and institutional support.

Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress

Mokyr blends economic history with cultural analysis to show how inventors’ personal stakes—market opportunities, patents, and national rivalries—drove the Industrial Revolution, even as genuine curiosity opened new lines of inquiry.

Dava Sobel, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time

Sobel tells the tale of John Harrison’s marine chronometer, a solution born of his obsessive interest in timekeeping but spurred—and ultimately rewarded—by the British government’s lucrative longitude prize.

Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism

Biagioli examines how Galileo’s pursuit of truth was inseparable from his need for princely patrons, courtly reputation, and the material means to build telescopes and experiments.

Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Isaacson’s sweeping narrative traces personalities from Ada Lovelace to Steve Jobs, showing how breakthroughs often emerged at the intersection of passionate curiosity and well-timed commercial or institutional backing.

Each of these works illustrates that breakthroughs rarely come from “pure” motives alone. Rather, it’s the dynamism between intellectual wonder and tangible incentives that powers sustained progress.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49165196)

"there are a few cases like this but the vast majority of advances have been made by guys who just wanted to make it big"

That shouldn't be very fucking hard assuming your belief came from some genuine examination of facts in evidence (ie, accounts of Great Men and their lives) rather than being a personal religion you arrived at by interpreting history or philosophy through your lens.

I can present your evidence for you btw. Just admit it's your personal religion rather than some rational belief and I will. It's not without support.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49165215)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759471&forum_id=2...id#49165085)