Top
Best
New

Posted by koolba 11/19/2025

Larry Summers resigns from OpenAI board(www.cnbc.com)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/technology/larry-summers-..., https://archive.ph/ASfq6
334 points | 377 commentspage 2
seydor 11/19/2025|
This guy Epstein modus operandi of cozying up and becoming wingman to powerful people confirms that he was some kind of spy. But it's still weird to see a well known professor of 61 years texting about gurlz to his middle aged wingman. Who does that and is this really what millionaires do, reliving high school?
gtowey 11/19/2025||
Money and power have been seen as corrupting influences since the dawn of humanity.

Those who seek those things -- money for money's sake, power for power's sake -- often tend to see their success as somehow making them "above" others. They derive perverse pleasure in seeing just how much they can flaunt society's rules. 'The rules don't apply to me' is like a drug in itself.

jeffwask 11/19/2025|||
I think it depends on how they got rich. From the outside to me it looks like the ones who sacrifice their 20's to the grind and getting rich never get that shit out of their system like the rest of us do and end up as emotionally stunted adults trying to recapture their lost youth.
fakedang 11/19/2025||
What the actual fuck logic is this?

I grinded fairly well enough in my 20s, just as many other people I know who did. We're much better off than 99.99% of the world. That doesn't make us think of sexually abusing children and adolescents one bit because we need to "flush that shit out of our system" and "recapture our lost youth". I have better ways of recapturing my lost youth, by computer games, more time for hobbies and fucking closer to my age like rabbits.

PS:- being in the upper echelon does mean you have a somewhat easier access to the circles that engage in these vile activities, and yes you'll be completely excluded if you say no to them. Many are okay with that, while those who aren't are the ones in the files.

ben_w 11/19/2025|||
I read that as being more a claim about the "professor of 61 years texting about gurlz to his middle aged wingman" rather than how old the girls were.
agobineau 11/20/2025|||
there is a perverse logic to it

people who miss out on life experiences often try to overcompensate them or live vicariously, or never find out how to do it naturally. people who have much leisure time in college and 20s come to understand their demons, discover their true character... as opposed to silitron vale or wall st types

guy who never made football team bullies his kid into football

guy who never dated in his 20s makes tonnes of money by working 100 hours a week and in 30s fumbles into bad relationships created from status flexing with no depth, never experienced adolescent loves with womans his own age

woman who grew up poor gorges herself on mcdonalds binge once a month due to repressed trauma of always missing out on mcd as a child

you see this with extravagant childrens birthdays a lot too

watwut 11/20/2025||
I mean, that is made up psychology, not even a real one.

> guy who never made football team bullies his kid into football

That is much less of a think you are making it to be. A guy who values football, was good at it is significantly more likely to force kids into football.

> guy who never dated in his 20s makes tonnes of money by working 100 hours a week and in 30s fumbles into bad relationships created from status flexing with no depth, never experienced adolescent loves with womans his own age

You made up that guy!

> woman who grew up poor gorges herself on mcdonalds binge once a month due to repressed trauma of always missing out on mcd as a child

Not a thing either.

> you see this with extravagant childrens birthdays a lot too

Those are status competition among adults.

fakedang 11/21/2025||
Guy basically projected his entire character in a single comment lol.
aborsy 11/19/2025|||
He was killed in maximum security custody, so an Intel operation.
kenjackson 11/19/2025|||
I really think there is so much variance to how people live. Looking at some of the Epstein emails I'm floored by the behavior. It really seems like middle schoolers. And the racist chats that came out from the Young Republican group earlier this year -- I can't imagine ever being a part of a chat group like that. I would literally think I was being pranked or they were genuinely crazy racists, but they were actual early leaders of one of our two major political parties.

The thing that perplexes me is that these people aren't in poverty or victims of some violent trauma. They are among the elites of the country -- and yet this is still how they behave -- are these people a niche group or am I?

reverius42 11/19/2025|||
> they were genuinely crazy racists, but they were actual early leaders of one of our two major political parties

Why not both?

UniverseHacker 11/20/2025||||
Unfortunately, the racist worldview on display in those chats is extremely widespread- and you are in a uniquely small privileged group if you’re neither on the receiving or delivering end.

A lot of middle class and wealthy people are victims of trauma. If you grow up in a house with violently racist and hateful authoritarian parents you will be deeply traumatized, and likely end up just like your parents. Wealth does not protect people from emotional trauma.

braebo 11/19/2025|||
Most people are followers whose belief systems are spoon fed to them by the largest village willing to accept them. Understanding cult psychology and the agendas of the people driving the bus is typically enough to understand their worldviews and subsequent behavior. That’s just my gut read on it..
EasyMark 11/20/2025|||
It opens up the possibility but hardly confirms it. I would be happy to see some convincing evidence to the contrary though. He seems more like a plain old con man and pervert to me, Occam's razor.
freejazz 11/19/2025|||
I think you mean forever trying to be cooler than he was(n't) in high school.
frmersdog 11/19/2025|||
High school never ends.
tclancy 11/19/2025|||
>This guy Epstein modus operandi of cozying up and becoming wingman to powerful people confirms that he was some kind of spy

Ah yes, no one else has ever tried to ingratiate themselves into the world of the rich and famous. It's spies all the way down!

renewiltord 11/19/2025||
A thing to remember is that Chamath Palihapitiya is a billionaire but spends his time on Twitter trying to convince people he has a big dick[0].

> i'll bet your entire net worth x 10. the anaconda is the worst kept secret of silicon valley...

I think the truth is probably that insecurity does not prevent success. Some argue that it might be the source of it. But probably the truth is there are secure billionaires and insecure billionaires and the latter are very obviously insecure because despite their success they do things like this.

0: https://x.com/chamath/status/1931039584672186651?s=20

legitster 11/19/2025||
So far, what has been revealed in the documents is embarrassing, but not necessarily implicating: https://searchepsteinfiles.com/person/163

For the most part, the threads are a mix of:

- Really cringe dating advice

- Epstein connecting Summers with other important people

- Dishing on Trump and his inner circle

Given there were many more prominently featured people with more dirt in here, I wonder if Summers is worried there's a lot more that's about to be revealed.

hapless 11/19/2025||
really cringe dating advice about pursuing an affair with a student almost 40 years younger than he is

it's way beyond cringe

lupire 11/20/2025|||
27 years younger.

She is approximately 43 (college grad '04) and he is 70.

The text messages were 6 years ago.

legitster 11/19/2025|||
Has the name of the woman come out? She's not directly named in their communications.
jjcc 11/20/2025|||
Actually she is really smart. Lex had an episode with her.
PaulDavisThe1st 11/19/2025||||
Yes, it has.
IG_Semmelweiss 11/20/2025||||
her name was front page news in several US tabloids today
aerostable_slug 11/20/2025||
And in the Harvard Crimson.
Rzor 11/20/2025|||
Keyu Jin.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/11/17/summers-epstei...

hintymad 11/19/2025|||
Epstein seemed to be a power broker and a political fixer. If so, naturally many high-profile people would have interacted with him and even have confided in him. It does not mean everyone associated with him knew or participated in his criminal activities, right?
noitpmeder 11/19/2025|||
Agreed, but continued communication after he was found guilty of sex crimes is definitely a bright red flag.
hapless 11/19/2025|||
hang loose, young lady, i have to ask this sex criminal how best to respond to your latest message
hintymad 11/19/2025|||
absolutely
legitster 11/19/2025||||
An example of one of the typical meetings Epstein was able to finagle with Summers:

> this week, thiel, summers,bill burns, gordon brown, jagland, ( council of europe and nobel chairman ). mongolia pres , hardeep puree ( india), boris ( gates). jabor ( qatar). sultan ( dubai, ), kosslyn ( harvard), leon black, woody. you are a welcome guest at any.....also if you >think there are interesting people in town, everyone here for climate summit, clinton ,security council, holy shit im on for next 30 minutes

https://searchepsteinfiles.com/file/text/HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028...

He also regularly provided research funding for universities.

hapless 11/19/2025||||
he didn't have any power or ability to fix anything that didn't involve trafficking young girls

he can "fix" you up with a teenager who will give you a private "massage"

legitster 11/19/2025|||
Not sure where you are getting this from. He regularly connected people with each other. The sex trafficking was just a small part of his nefarious power network
octoberfranklin 11/19/2025||||
he can "fix" you up with a teenager who will give you a private "massage"

... while being videotaped. Those recordings provide him an immense amount of power and ability.

hintymad 11/19/2025|||
Not to defend Epstein, of course, but just to comment on the power brokering side. My understanding is that a power broker gets power by staying close to the power and by connecting people. I don't understand why powerful people need such broker, even though history shows other wise.
lupire 11/20/2025||
Same as any broker of stocks, houses, spouses, jobs, airline tickets.

The broker connects people, especially in the pre-Internet / young Internet days . The clients at ebsuy doing their main activity.

worik 11/19/2025||||
> Epstein seemed to be a power broker and a political fixer. If so...

If so we are getting a window into a world we rarely see. For some of us this is confirming our priors, for others this will be profoundly shocking.

FridayoLeary 11/20/2025||
It's a pity he hung himself. Otherwise he might have been induced into giving over a lot of secrets about lots of rich and powerful people....
huflungdung 11/19/2025|||
[dead]
dylan604 11/19/2025||
> - Dishing on Trump and his inner circle

At this moment in time, this is the most serious crime to those in charge

lvl155 11/19/2025||
[flagged]
tptacek 11/19/2025||
Why? He was one of the most prominent economists of his era. This is in the news because it's newsworthy, not because he's been radioactive this whole time.
handwarmers 11/19/2025|||
Why not? He was a part of a pretty radioactive network of people. I doubt that he just happened to hang with Epstein by mere coincidence, and it does raise some questions about how much Sheryl knew about it.
tptacek 11/19/2025||
I think it's very silly to suggest that Sandberg would have known anything at all about Summers personal life a decade before he had dealings with Epstein, simply because he was an undergraduate adviser to her. He was already one of the most famous economists in the country in the late 1980s, when that happened.
nobankai 11/20/2025|||
[dead]
turbonegrofa 11/19/2025|||
[dead]
0xcafefood 11/19/2025|||
[flagged]
game_the0ry 11/19/2025|||
[flagged]
alpb 11/19/2025|||
[flagged]
zapataband2 11/19/2025||
[dead]
carabiner 11/19/2025||
[flagged]
Metacelsus 11/20/2025||
Why was he even on the board to begin with?
joshuaheard 11/20/2025||
He is a economist who served as the Secretary of Treasury, as the president of Harvard University, and as director of the National Economic Council. Seems like he would be able to give them some good advice.
tedd4u 11/20/2025|||
Pretty helpful person to have on your board if you are aiming (as Sarah Friar, OpenAI CFO, mentioned) to get the government to guarantee $100B - $1T in infrastructure loans.
femiagbabiaka 11/20/2025|||
He was terrible at 2 out of three of those jobs. He ruined many people's lives. He was corrupt as hell. He shouldn't be welcome in polite society.. well I guess Epstein's inner circle isn't exactly polite society.
NewJazz 11/20/2025|||
Neither should people who shoot over eager puppies, but hey what're you gonna do? Not shoot puppies?
quanto 11/20/2025|||
Could you elaborate? Which two was he bad at? How did he ruin people's lives? Honestly asking.
femiagbabiaka 11/20/2025||
I was referring to his stints as treasury secretary and on the NEC, during which he championed a worldview that saw economics as being science, with immutable laws, that inevitably led to policy outcomes that caused the explosion in income inequality that we've seen since 2008 especially. The U.S. would be in a better place if he was never in the Obama or Clinton admins.

But now that I think about it, the email leaks show that he was sexually harassing women while he was at Harvard too. So he was terrible at all three jobs.

tcbawo 11/20/2025||
Which policies contributed to income inequality?
Rebelgecko 11/20/2025|||
In general he was not a fan of regulating banks, although he walked back some of his beliefs after 2008. Although iirc he still supports combining investment and commercial banks. Various shenanigans involving privatization of Russian industry. Pushing for tax cuts at the expense of infrastructure spending. He didn't like that the US capped exec pay at banks that received bailouts (banks that gave him millions in speaking fees, which seems a lil bit sketch)
femiagbabiaka 11/20/2025||
God I forgot about shock therapy! The Russian oligarchs owe their fortunes to Mr. Summers.
femiagbabiaka 11/20/2025|||
All of them lol. Summers pushed aggressively for the free trade agreements (including allowing China into the WTO) that, in practice, shuttered American manufacturing, he pushed for cuts to capital gains tax, he lobbied aggressively against regulating derivatives and in favor of repealing glass-stegall, both of which directly led to the 2008 crisis, and then after the crisis he caused, he architected a recovery package that prioritized bailing out banks (but not enough to dig the economy out of recession quickly). He's one of the most damaging American figures of all time, he basically got us Trump if you ask me.
barakm 11/20/2025|||
How quickly we forget. He was a compromise in resolving the board coup.
femiagbabiaka 11/20/2025|||
One big club, etc. etc.
doctorpangloss 11/20/2025|||
Helen Toner was doing her job.

Here's another POV: why did Micro$oft $ide again$t the PhD$? Hmm, I gue$$ it make$ $en$e why they cho$e $ummer$.

arthurcolle 11/20/2025|||
He's part of the military industrial complex

FriendFeed shutdown same day Facebook was incorporated - these things are important for continuity

antonvs 11/20/2025||
[flagged]
hughesdang 11/20/2025||
[flagged]
add-sub-mul-div 11/19/2025||
Actual unedited title: "Larry Summers resigns from OpenAI board after release of emails with Epstein"
foobarian 11/19/2025||
Title as interpreted by me: "Larry Summers was on the OpenAI board this whole time"
pphysch 11/19/2025|||
Echoes of Kissinger on Theranos' board (and many other examples, no doubt).
hermitcrab 11/19/2025|||
I still haven't got over war criminal Kissinger getting a Nobel Peace Prize.
ben_w 11/19/2025|||
Such a weird history, that one.

Two of the committee resigned in protest, Kissinger almost turned it down because it was also being awarded to Lê Đức Thọ, Lê Đức Thọ actually turned it down because the peace it was supposed to be about hadn't happened yet, Kissinger accepted in absentia as he did not want to be targeted by anti-war protestors when getting the peace prize, then he later tried to return it only for the committee to say no.

lupire 11/20/2025||||
The Peace Prize is weird one. It is a political tool to pressure people toward peace. That's why Obama got one strictly for not being George W Bush.

It's one of the few Trump grievant that is legitimate.

antonvs 11/20/2025||
> It's one of the few Trump grievant that is legitimate.

Hardly. What does it have to do with Trump? The only reason it's a "grievance" is that Trump feels he should get the prize. While he supports a genocidal nation and tries to start wars.

FridayoLeary 11/20/2025|||
[flagged]
db48x 11/20/2025||
Haber invented the process for artificially creating ammonia. Since ammonia is a critical fertilizer, this invention has fed billions of people. On the other hand, it’s also critical for the manufacture of explosives. His work on chemical weapons was practically irrelevant by comparison. This was an astounding feat of chemistry, and well worth rewarding.

But fundamentally I don’t think we should make moral judgements over things like chemistry. A chemical process to create ammonia is a tool, and tools can always be used for good or evil. Even explosives are just tools that can be used for good or evil. Sometimes those explosives are even the same substance that is used for fertilizer. The morality of the use of the tool is provided by the user of the tool, not the creator of the tool.

We can celebrate the people who make the tools while saving our condemnation for the people who use tools for evil.

I agree about the Peace prize though, that one’s generally worthless.

wantlotsofcurry 11/19/2025|||
I had to look this up. That is absolutely insane…
chihuahua 11/20/2025|||
John Carreyrou's book "Bad blood" is extremely good. Full of suspense, amazing revelations. I highly recommend it. It explores a lot of Elizabeth Holmes' and Sunny Balwani's insanity.
dylan604 11/19/2025|||
If you don't have time for the book, there's a decent documentary available
pyuser583 11/20/2025|||
“This whole time” - didn’t the OpenAI board get cleaned out after they failed to fire Sam?
rchaud 11/19/2025|||
It might have gotten flagged as political content if the full title was used.
pton_xd 11/19/2025||
Reid Hoffman already resigned so I guess, kudos to him for getting ahead of the curve!
dylan604 11/19/2025||
Next up will be selling of shares to finance defense teams
zapataband2 11/19/2025||
[dead]
catlover76 11/20/2025||
[dead]
ceo_tim_crook 11/19/2025||
[dead]
black_13 11/19/2025||
[dead]
strathmeyer 11/19/2025|
[dead]
More comments...