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• Image source: https://x.com/anniealtman108/status/1640418558927863808 [AA23f]

• ➡️ Annie Altman (43:07): It is what's so that too of like and in my experience with different things of like starting only fans and going into sex therapy for myself and unpacking all of that of that's creative too. And people's we were all, we're all here because two people did a creative
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• ➡️ Annie Altman (43:44): connected to the part about programming and also creativity in general because again, in my experience, if I am berating myself, and Talking down to myself and all of that negative. Self-talk, then I'm not. What art? Am I making right? Sometimes I'll make art from that feeling or from learning from it. The rest certain amount of Needing needing to believe in yourself enough to pick up the brush or the whatever the thing is that I feel like when like we're talking about with people being like, no, I'm not an artist is like well are you not or are you not giving yourself the chance even to try new recipe or to?

• "To spend time with Mr. Altman is to understand that Silicon Valley will push this technology forward even though it is not quite sure what the implications will be. At one point during our dinner in 2019, he paraphrased Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan Project, who believed the atomic bomb was an inevitability of scientific progress. “Technology happens because it is possible,” he said. (Mr. Altman pointed out that, as fate would have it, he and Oppenheimer share a birthday.)"
• ...
• "His longtime mentor, Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, explained Mr. Altman’s motivation like this:"
• "'Why is he working on something that won’t make him richer? One answer is that lots of people do that once they have enough money, which Sam probably does. The other is that he likes power.'"
• ...
• "In the late 1990s, the John Burroughs School, a private prep school named for the 19th-century American naturalist and philosopher, invited an independent consultant to observe and critique daily life on its campus in the suburbs of St. Louis."
• "The consultant’s review included one significant criticism: The student body was rife with homophobia."
• "In the early 2000s, Mr. Altman, a 17-year-old student at John Burroughs, set out to change the school’s culture, individually persuading teachers to post “Safe Space” signs on their classroom doors as a statement in support of gay students like him. He came out during his senior year and said the St. Louis of his teenage years was not an easy place to be gay."
• ...
• "'He has a natural ability to talk people into things,' Mr. Graham said. 'If it isn’t inborn, it was at least fully developed before he was 20. I first met Sam when he was 19, and I remember thinking at the time: ‘So this is what Bill Gates must have been like.''”
• "He {Sam} now says that during his short stay at Stanford, he learned more from the many nights he spent playing poker than he did from most of his other college activities. After his freshman year, he worked in the artificial intelligence and robotics lab overseen by Prof. Andrew Ng, who would go on to found the flagship A.I. lab at Google. But poker taught Mr. Altman how to read people and evaluate risk."
• "It showed him 'how to notice patterns in people over time, how to make decisions with very imperfect information, how to decide when it was worth pain, in a sense, to get more information,' he told me while strolling across his ranch in Napa. 'It’s a great game.'"
• ...
• "He also began working on several projects outside the investment firm, including OpenAI, which he founded as a nonprofit in 2015 alongside a group that included Elon Musk. By Mr. Altman’s own admission, YC grew increasingly concerned he was spreading himself too thin."
• ...
• "In the mid-2010s, Mr. Altman shared a three-bedroom, three-bath San Francisco apartment with his boyfriend at the time, his two brothers and their girlfriends. The brothers went their separate ways in 2016 but remained on a group chat, where they spent a lot of time giving one another guff, as only siblings can, his brother Max remembers. Then, one day, Mr. Altman sent a text saying he planned to raise $1 billion for his company’s research."
• ...
• "Mr. Brockman, OpenAI’s president, said Mr. Altman’s talent lies in understanding what people want. 'He really tries to find the thing that matters most to a person — and then figure out how to give it to them,' Mr. Brockman told me. 'That is the algorithm he uses over and over.'"

• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:44): For any sequential listeners. Thank you for being patient with the 🟠🟠long, pause. I was houseless and unsettled🟠🟠 and the podcast had to be put down and now we are back and I'm super honored to get to Usher the podcast back in with Ernie. Who does all sorts of cool creative projects including several one human shows, one called heavy, like the weight of a flame that has toured nationally and internationally. He is a musician. He is a kinship and impersonator creator. Connector. Lots of words with the one and only Jimi Hendricks and I'm excited to get into that too. And generally a very creative. Flowy and structured kind of a kind of a human.
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• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:04:23): well, I have two versions that I thought of like a more surface level, one of the Experience I had in college with. the dean of students when I attempted to graduate early and had to like go through this whole process of Applying. And then I was thinking about my relatives and going no contact, because of, various forms of abuse and things related to my art and my deciding to Teach yoga and music and podcasts and then. for survival, get into sex work and then choose to stay in that and all the ways that impacted and how I went into that and then what that showed me about the connection I had with my relatives and once you see that when you said the word, when you said hate, once you see that, jealous grabbing Sucking out energy kind of thing. You can't when you feel it, there's There's no. unfeeling it Definitely the in my experience, the accepting it of like oh this is What's happening or like you and you're talking about being in the room with the professor and being like, okay. This. Wow, like this is this is the reality of the situation here. Like this is This. Yeah, truth of it because my, my mini story of that is the attempted to graduate early as a very anal pre-med student. I did all the classes for my biopsychology major and all the two of the pre-med classes 🟡and my mental health was rough and I had just had, I had actually just been for the first time in a walking boot for my achilles, the year before and my body and mind were just done.🟡 They were like, this is We're good here. Like something about the college environment for me. I love being around people and people who wanted to all learn. And there were a lot of things I really loved show on the whole the bubble of only being with people in a small age range and of a certain privilege. And Other specific factors felt. Felt really weird for me in a, in an unfun, weird way. And I went to Tufts outside of Boston. East Coast. So I get some of the and I only I pretty much only applied to East Coast Schools and I people thought I was a New York Jew and I was like I'm a Midwestern Jew. 🟡And I was really miserable at the end of it and attempted. to graduate early and Wrote a very honest, letter of like, hey my, you know, my mental health is not good. Like I don't want to be here and I'd finished all the requirements.🟡 Like I did everything except for the pre-med things which I didn't need to graduate, but I did all the like, schools requirements to graduate. And the loophole, the reason I could not graduate the year early was that they had a residency requirement because schools are businesses and institutions for money. And so you have to be a resident of the school so they were like you can go study abroad for a year. You know, like you could ask to go study and I was like I could go travel on my own for a year. Like what
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:07:47): It was. Yeah, it was just yeah, so much. Monetarily energetically all the things they went through this whole process of applying writing different letters to the dean, and some potentially made, it's all fucking like, some Committee of mysterious Deans, who read and decide. If somebody can graduate early or change certain rules or whatever things were I remember this one really specific conversation with The dean of students. And I remember sitting in her office and just like being really real with her and I'd written these appeal letters that were really on us of like, look, you know, I have here's all of the classes. I did to finish my major to finish the distribution requirements. Here's, you know, I was a dance. I was dancing almost every semester. And I was part of a group called years for peers, that was an anonymous student hotline and some other volunteer groups. And I was like, you know, I have done the college experience. I've been part of various things like I've done these classes, 🟡I'm not sure. I want to go into medical, like, go into medicine. I'm having a whole crisis of identity like life and identity and my health and This isn't the place for me to still be.🟡 And like I don't get why I would be helped, you know it seems if this is a institution of growth like I didn't use that word exactly. Like if there's a place that is supporting my growth why would I stay if it is not and I've done all things like yeah give me my fucking paper. Let me go. and, I remember a very specific conversation with the dean where she just kind of kept giving these like very like, well, you know, that's not our policy or the process or I know you wrote that or I know, well, maybe you need to take a mental health leave and I was like going to take a mental healthy, even though I've done all the things to graduate, like, what,
• Ernie Silva (1:09:33): right?
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:09:34): This is silly.
• Ernie Silva (1:09:36): Wow.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:09:37): And I remember her saying to me, it's burned in my brain where I said something to her along the lines of this, you know, just being like, look at, you know, I've done the school things. I'm being real with you, human to human, the sounds really bureaucratic.
• Ernie Silva (1:09:51): Hmm.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:09:52): And this lady looks at me with like, like Dolores Umbridge kind of the vibe.
• Ernie Silva (1:09:57): Wow.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:09:59): Well Ann, life's a bureaucracy. I was like, whoa. It's just like solidified. So much of wow is to this day of like if it feels like that then go in a different direction. Amy this is not This is not where to be and the fact that she called me Ann which is my legal name. And we had done several meetings, and I had introduced myself as Annie and we had talked and, you know, she had I'm sure she had lots of students, she had her own life stresses like there's obviously way more to the picture here and also that I was like, you don't even remember, you're you're calling me by this. Legal name that I have repeatedly. Tell told you I don't go by like, you're not even, you're just like, sitting in this meeting to tell me no because you have to sit in the meeting because like legally, I have the ability to object to the, it was just like such a goofy thing of energy that all of that stuff. Put me on a This doesn't need to be this hard know, like, even stepping off of the pre-med path which I still didn't step off. I did other classes that it I was like, this doesn't need to be. this level of challenging, the challenges I'm going to choose are the understanding myself and the world more deeply challenges, not the paperwork key challenges, seems Interesting work. I was just like this is. Yeah. And it really solidified a lot for me it took definitely took some years to sink in or like to transition into like as I still attempted, I worked for two different, UCSF Labs before I officially noped off and did yoga teacher training and was like, fuck it to Academia, I still don't know. How can I make this work? Because I love science, and I love learning and
• Ernie Silva (1:11:43): Still. Until I was like, oh this is all bureaucracy. Like I
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:11:46): just kept coming I really honestly, I just kept coming up against that same. Thing and the art world has its bureaucracy. Every there is bureaucracy in life. There's In everywhere there's definitely different flavors of it or there's different places where people maybe it's more they'll talk about it, more openly or not learn more willing to say this is bullshit versus like well this is just what we do here.
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• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:13:40): Yep. I'm just wrote through all the letters. And her whole job was just to be like, I know you've written three appeal letters or saying, no, to all of them.
• Ernie Silva (1:13:47): Wow, did you actually end up getting out early?
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:13:51): I graduated a semester early with two summers of summer classes. So yes and no it was honestly like the most first world Pains of first world pains kind of my like private institution. I was going to I had to take more classes at. I took like, I took feminist philosophy and writing classes and a one other science class that I've been wanting to take and didn't have time for, for the last, like, the fall, senior year semester. And then the other thing that was amazing, was that I got to do my dance minor. And because I started like one more class for that. And so I was like, well, if I'm gonna be staying around, then now I get a I'll do my senior dance thesis piece and Get to do this. And honestly, that's what got me through all the science classes and all the other part of it was having now that world as well.
• Ernie Silva (1:14:47): Wow, and
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:14:48): the last that spring semester, I actually stayed around. I lived in the same place. How soft campus and I danced in other people's dance minor thesis. So I was like still on campus a little bit, just only in the dance studio which was amazing. And I worked as a personal care attendant for this really funny and badass woman who lived in Arlington, Massachusetts and was non-verbal, and in a wheelchair and signed and sign language with only one hand because she couldn't use her other arm.
• Ernie Silva (1:15:17): Wow,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:15:17): and kicked butt with words on Words With Friends on The Daily, like a master literal World. We're just friends best.
• Ernie Silva (1:15:24): Wow.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:15:26): And yeah, it was amazing. I got to work for her and that was a really cool experience and a cool way to kind of transition from college to real world things and get to do a little bit of both. So total first world pains in total. all the things working out, and I have that story now to whatever future stand-up bit of the bureaucracy. Definitely. Yeah, similar thing of the Opposition. That clarified more of where I actually wanted to go.
• Ernie Silva (1:16:00): Write everything in his right place, right? Yeah,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:16:08): amen. If I can man.
• Ernie Silva (1:16:10): All right. Wow, that that's that's a pretty virulent, example of needing to throw elbows in life.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:16:23): yeah, and that one's much more surface than the stuff with relatives and some of that stuff that I'm honestly still in or that still playing out with all the things with AI and open AI right now and things I posted publicly and people reaching out to me about things I posted publicly and Just the whole. The whole lessons of. That one feels less like throwing elbows and more. Like, when you hold your elbows in a certain way, walking through a crowd of drunk people, so that you don't get hit in the face by a beer.
• Ernie Silva (1:16:57): Brilliant analogy.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:16:58): Thank you being like, this is my bubble and you cannot smack me in the face with your drink just because I am short and at your drink height.
• Ernie Silva (1:17:09): Yeah, okay. Yeah. That's that's a, that's a pretty brilliant analogy. I imagine you have found just so literally in that situation, but he definitely have a visceral. Metaphors. So
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:17:25): I really do.
• Ernie Silva (1:17:27): I know that I.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:17:29): Yeah, I haven't said that metaphor out before. It's a, it's a very useful one. Yes, very visceral. Walking through and Know, you know, people's and I guess in that extended metaphor like, a lot of times people are just drunk and being in their own bubble and not realizing it. Like there's definitely people who were like coming at, you know, want to like, come after you and like that Professor like tracking you down, or 🟡I definitely have stuff with my relatives of Very direct attacks of literal metaphorical. Withholding my dad's will with holding money from my dad.🟡 Like her. Very Like dumping a beer over your head literal things.
• Ernie Silva (1:18:10): Yeah,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:18:11): metaphorical things like, literally in that kind of energy of like, I had very wealthy people with whole money from my dead Dad. When I was really sick and not able to work and well, yeah, really fucked where I was like, okay. 🔴🔴🔴Here's the gynecologist telling you about my ovarian cysts, okay? Here's the podiatrist with the CAT scan about my achilles and other tendons. Okay. Here's like, you know how many things I have to prove that I need help and then my dead dad is attempting to help me and then that's getting blocked by people🔴🔴🔴 and that's like pouring a lot of beers over your head or like pelting beer cans at your at you.
• Ernie Silva (1:18:51): Or what
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:18:52): do you? What are? What are we what are we doing here,
• Ernie Silva (1:18:54): right? When did your dad pass with you? Don't mind me asking.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:18:59): He died in 2018.
• Ernie Silva (1:19:01): Oh, that's fairly new still even.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:19:04): 🟡Yeah, it's definitely still still pretty recent. I was actually flying back to Saint, Louis to visit him the day he died. we were super tight and we still are and it was A lot of eerie things in that🟡 and a lot of all. So, 🟡he was on the other end of my dad was the biggest supporter of Any project or any new thing I got into like soccer rowing? Whatever art thing. He was he was all in or he was like, you know, how can I help you or what do you need or that? So cool or you know, wanting to learn more about it.🟡
• Ernie Silva (1:19:36): Well,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:19:37): yeah, and yeah. So I really got an interesting extremes of the spectrum of 🔴🔴🔴an older sibling, who would say, mean, things about my YouTube videos and like to other members of Of the family. And yeah, just like talk down🔴🔴🔴 and, you know, some of the similar stuff you're saying with that professor of like 🔴🔴🔴going to other people to be like that's that their art is so bad. Can you believe that they did that🔴🔴🔴
• Ernie Silva (1:20:03): right? Right. Begin these Crusades. And in the dark about, you know, about you.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:20:13): Totally, it's very like tween girl Vibes to me like it's very much like 12 year old girly. Like I'm gonna start shit cuz I don't know how to I don't I don't know what else to do. I feel powerless
• Ernie Silva (1:20:26): Right. What was that together either? Really Huh. This is all fairly new to like, when did you graduate from Tufts?
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:20:35): Yeah, it is, this is all and that's been part of the pause or, you know, 🟠🟠I meant very literally about the podcast being on pause for houseless and some of the stuff money being withheld and health things.🟠🟠 And I graduated in 2016 technically 2015, I walked with 2016,
• Ernie Silva (1:20:52): okay?
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:20:53): And then I lived in the Bay area for a year and worked for labs until I went to the island for yoga teacher training in 2017.
• Ernie Silva (1:21:03): Wow. So this is, wow, that's five years ago. That's not a lot of time.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:21:07): Yeah. Yes, six, it'll be, I did. It was May 2017 was Big Island, 2018 teacher, Big Island, teacher training, and that was kind of my official like noping off of the pre-med and working in labs and That route was like, all right, I'm gonna do the stuff that makes me happy that I like doing. And,
• Ernie Silva (1:21:27): Wow,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:21:31):  And here I am within the podcast game, I lived in La for two years actually, that's where the podcast started.
• Ernie Silva (1:21:37): Okay,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:21:37): I was on -- after teacher training. I moved back to Big Island. And I lived there for a little under a year. And worked on my one human show, which was a book at the time. And taught yoga, which was really cool. I loved in a car by choice for a period of time.
• Ernie Silva (1:21:54): Wow.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:21:55): And then my dad died while I was living there. And he actually came to visit me a few months before, like he knew. Subconsciously. And yeah, he came to stay with me. It was really, it was really cool. I have this really distinct memory. Actually, just now. Thank you for giving me the space and now I'm gonna share a little story.
• Ernie Silva (1:22:14): Yes, please.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:22:16): There was one morning we were making breakfast and we made pancakes and we made a tofu scramble and he had gone plant-based for me, with me. He had a lot of cholesterol things, he died of a heart attack. and, I'm no longer vegan, I definitely. Was then and he got into it at the time and just had an experiment, you know, like he ate. Meatloaf was his favorite meal for a really long time. and, Wanted to experiment. So he came and we experimented with all this different vegan cooking and stuff that he liked, then sent me pictures of him learning to make new things when he went back. He got really smoothie bowls anyways. Hi Dad. There's this really distinctive memory where he was DJing and music while we were making breakfast and he had amazing music taste and a really like a collective, you know, he just loved things that felt good and he liked and all these new stuff he loved TI. Like he liked liked learning about the history, like he'd like go research about people's histories or He just really appreciated music and so he was DJing we were making music and had a really wide variety of things. It also like a lot of more recent things or wrap things or stuff that maybe someone wouldn't expect from a 67 year old man. Someone I lived with at the time, her and her girlfriend. we're hanging out in the house, they were there and they were hearing some of the stuff he was playing and they were into it, they were kind of confused and a little bit later they asked me. They were like hey is that like is that his music or You know, was he just like playing stuff? He thought that we'd like since we were like hanging out in the house too. Like, was that, was that his stuff was he just wanting to, you know, play stuff. He thought the three of us here would like That was. All. That was. He was playing the stuff that he likes.
• Ernie Silva (1:24:16): Wow.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:24:17): Just playing it. Yeah, thanks. I've never gotten to that story on the podcast and expect to go into that.
• Ernie Silva (1:24:26): Well that he expects anything with me. Any old man
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:24:29): I appreciate you keeping me on my toes.
• Ernie Silva (1:24:32): A big fan of that.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:24:35): Yeah me too and and really special to have Someone in my life like that, who appreciates art. Appreciated still appreciates from a different place art in such a deep way.
• Ernie Silva (1:24:49): Yeah,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:24:49): of all kinds and and so was so excited to appreciative of me in the art, I wanted to make or, you know, share with him about getting a share, a different music or different things. But 🟡me saying, I want to do this thing and him saying cool like go go do it. He was the only person. He was the only relative supportive of yoga teacher training, for example,🟡
• Ernie Silva (1:25:10): wow. Wow.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:25:14): For example, yeah, it is it's it's all still. 🟠🟠I'm still in and honestly, like I'm just at the end of a lot of Health. a lot of the health things and just getting settled🟠🟠 and and learning that there's that person like your professor attempting, a lot of ways attempting to scare you and you so rightly pointing out if you hadn't had that Real World experience, it could have crushed you and crumbled. You
• Ernie Silva (1:25:38): no doubt.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:25:40): I really relate to that stuff. Learning them to. stand on your own feet, even more solidly and
• Ernie Silva (1:25:51): Well, you doing your thing still with the podcast and stuff here. So, you know, obviously you have found You have found creativity as a way to be like, you know what? I think I'm just gonna kind of float above all of this nonsense.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:26:12): Exactly,
• Ernie Silva (1:26:13): you know what I mean? It's seems like you not found that through creativity as well, so that that's dope. All right, saves lives people.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:26:22): It does. 🟠🟠Oh yeah it saved my I mean I wouldn't be here without art. My life would have been self-taken.🟠🟠

• ➡️ Annie Altman (0:01): Hello and welcome to the all humans are human podcast. Formerly known as the Annie Altman show formerly known as true shit. Formerly Shadow banned. And now we're here. Welcome to the 8th episode. Oh my gosh, you is an eight, dude, I forgot. Oh my God. Okay, out of the 10 creation, sea episodes with a eight and eight fanatic lover, fanatic maybe like a little extreme. We're here, I'm here today with Zach, Dr. Duck And we're gonna talk about creation, Zach does all sorts of creative projects. He works as a social worker. He is a musician. He has worked as a tennis coach as a national park ranger and I'm sure like 10 other things that I have not yet heard about and,We're gonna talk about creation and we're going to go right into mental health and we're going to talk about suicide. So warning about if you're open for Content that goes into, Into the Depths in a light way.
• Zack Lane (1:01): Yes. We're
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:03): gonna sing some songs to. We actually wrote a song. Zach, I can't say we just kind of did a little background singing, Zach wrote a song. In the pre Podcast chat about overthinking. And we're going to go into that too. I found Dr. Duck came up on my tiktok with a beautiful song called pining. That's out everywhere on Spotify. Go check it out. 🔴🔴🔴And I started sobbing immediately🔴🔴🔴 and I was, I was just so overwhelmed by the courageously, and the vulnerability, and The Bravery, which is awesome. Courage of you. 🔴🔴🔴Putting out there, your realness in the song and talking about suicide one. And also talking about suicide at a young age. and, I have experienced that as well and I just started sobbing on the floor and felt such a relief that somebody was talking about it. Publicly.🔴🔴🔴 And now, I'm so honored to get to talk about it. More publicly with you, on the podcast.
• Zack Lane (2:04): Yes, let's do it. I'm pumped, and I, Andy, I have me, I love stuff like this. I love having openness conversations. I tried to do that with my music. I try to do that with pretty much everything I do in life because I feel like Honestly, like one of the biggest motivators for me in life is to like open those doors. Be like there is, there's a lot of Shame behind closed doors and just like forget it, there's literally no point. So I love it. I love what you're doing. I appreciate being on here. Let's have an absolute hootin holler.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (2:34): Hootin holler talking about shame and suicide and music and Creations. It can be done, it can it totally can and I I love that, what a great start of Shame is behind closed doors and is in those things where we're like, wait but we can't talk about suicide and it's like really because everyone has felt that at some point on some thought about death.
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• Annie Altman (4:47): Like it or not. That like you said of like that driving home, or that intrusive thought that is most likely going to pop up at some point in some way for people that whether you like it or not. That pushing it down is just it's just going to keep Just going to keep resurfacing.
• Zack Lane (5:08): Absolutely. And I think like anybody who has ever thought like I hate where I am in my life right now. You know, like I'm not I I'm either dating somebody that I don't want to be dating anymore. I'm working at a job that is just sucking the life out of me. My friends are all, they don't get me or understand me, I feel alone. I feel terrible. I'm like you know I just don't feel good in my body you know there's there's so there's so there's so much and I feel like At the end of that somewhere is always going to be those thoughts, or can I fix this? And so I think that's completely normal thing. And yeah, I think showing away from it it's just like I don't Point list. So
• ➡️ Annie Altman (5:44): totally and totally, what totally pointless and And in that, when this is counterproductive because that feeling is coming up for a reason, like in all of those cases that feeling is a really helpful guide to say, break up with that person. Quit your job change, this like move somewhere, change this habit. Do this other thing that even if it has some kind of shitty, low Vibe feeling it's really cool guidance to tell you. How to listen to yourself?
•  
• ➡️ Annie Altman (10:16): Be as long-winded as you want or need or jump around or whatever, whatever works that expression is so real. And I feel like so much of any kind of mental, health or physical disease or any of these disease as as people say that a lack of ease because you're repressing and you're pushing something down and you're like, oh, I can't express this, and I can't let it out or it's gonna be You know, it's gonna isolate me from Community or I'm going to be shame or whatever story that says, don't share your feelings. Don't share your feelings and we all know how that ends up that feels at a certain point.
• Zack Lane (10:55): Yeah.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (10:56): How do you feel when you first like releasing your first song had that feel
• Zack Lane (11:03): I think the hardest bubble to get over was just my own but the hurdle rather, my heart is hurdle was my own. I I'm somebody who has really been a people pleaser in the past. And it's something that I've been working on for years. I love making people happy. It's how I feel happy and that is you know, great for certain degree and also very harmful if you let it completely take over. Yeah. You're he's not in her head. I
• ➡️ Annie Altman (11:29): know. I mean I yeah, I relate to that exact story. I like to say altruism selfish because it feels so good to help other people, feel good, and you said it so well, that there it reaches a point where then it it backtracks and it maybe because it connects to that thing where at a certain point, if you were repressing your own creativity and your own needs and your own things that then You lose you like it's just like shell of a service vehicle for someone else and of course, that's not going to feel good. Long term.
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• Zack Lane (12:50): Okay, a real piece of work but you have that you have to find a way to live within your values and your thing and I I think I was in a period in my life where I was Coming to terms with the fact that I didn't really have any, and I've just kind of bounced from person to person and try to, you know, make them as happy as I could. And that would make me feel better for a time. But, you know, I think allowing myself to just to do that and put out that first song and be like, okay, people are some people are not going to like this. Probably most people aren't going to like this. And guess what? That's fine because I'm sitting here bumping along to it and it I try as best. I can not to make music for anybody else. But me For Better, or For Worse because the end of the day, really, the biggest lesson that I've learned in the last couple years, is no one really gives a crap everyone is so busy, doing their own thing, worrying about their own insecurities and then, you know, looking for that and everybody else that It doesn't really matter. It really does really matter. So just rip it. And that was the first song, nothing really matters. So rip, it was kind of about like confronting nihilism and more so that angle but she's just being in the sense that, like, you know, we just have such a short time here. It's fine. I, you know, let make something of it. Have fun if nothing matters, go do something that you really enjoy, you don't make somebody smile. Makes somebody laugh. Make yourself smile and laugh. You know, do take that cooking class, do your thing, find a way to make it work. And if you don't have a thing, There's so much hop on that YouTube, my friend, you know. It's hard to do it super you know, bogged down by everything. But there I feel like they're totally is like a way. There is a way out and around, and it's waiting for you.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (14:43): It is and it's yeah. It's heartwarming to hear that you. got to the nihilism part and then you kept going rather than like, oh well you know like nothing matters about like oh you know like that but nothing matters and how freeing is that then that oh nobody gives a fuck and they're all just caught in their insecurities and their things that Why not express? And for all the people that are going to not resonate with it or gonna whatever reaction you're going to have people. I mean we're here now because 🔴🔴🔴I watched your video and I resonated so deeply and was crying on the floor being like I experienced this too🔴🔴🔴 and he's talking about it, it's all going to guide you in putting that out. I really,
• Zack Lane (15:32): yeah,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (15:33): I resonated with that two of the expression and in art and music where its Getting over that self hurdle. Where it's I don't care stand-up comedy too is a big one of that of like I don't give a fuk what people, you know, like their opinions are their business and I'm gonna put out I'm gonna put out my stuff because Because life is finite. And I'm here for now and it feels good to express and create and and accept those parts of yourself that are wanting to come out. That? Yeah, they're just being like, where do we? Where do we go? Where do we go? Where do we go?
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• ➡️ Annie Altman (17:36): totally and figuring out what all those creative Outlets are and how to How to allow them and accept them and give space for them. That's a really interesting question. I, I there's a really distinct difference in its it's cool for you to notice and to ask about the difference of, if it's coming from fear or love essentially of In The Duality of what is the motivation behind this like, oh, I'm running out of time? Or is it a like? Oh, this feels good to create this. And I've definitely I've definitely approached creative projects from both perspectives, and I feel like for me, the evolution of it has been Shifting to like you're saying of because it feels good in the moment and doing it because it feels good. and, Letting go of the. Almost like borderline manic or like OCD driven like obsessive compulsive. Like I have to do this now. Kind of like this clap motion. Yeah.
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• ➡️ Annie Altman (20:38): wild it gets and it's it feels great to get a say it and hear someone else saying it too. Because I think in like you saying of Shame live behind closed doors that those voices can be so much in the shadows in a back room in a like to use a duct metaphor, like the duck is like,
• Zack Lane (21:01): Can I tell you? That's why I picked the name Dr. Duck
• ➡️ Annie Altman (21:05): Know,
• Zack Lane (21:05): that's literally why I picked the name that's hysterical and you're killing it. Yeah, I like, I wish I had this big deeper metaphorical meaning, for why I picked Dr. Duck, I just, I just thought it was a funny name, to be honest, which is interesting because my music saw like kind of deep and double meanings and stuff. But honestly, I was like, I was working as a park ranger and I was working the duck ponds and I was like drunk. Yep but I used that metaphor is like, literally like they're smooth and composed on top and they're working like hell underneath the swimming their little pants off. So um that's a riot you This has been a series of funny Discovery today.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (21:42): Very funny to discoveries.
• Zack Lane (21:44): Oh my God. Hey that's awesome. No, I just
• ➡️ Annie Altman (21:49): Go ahead.
• Zack Lane (21:49): No I was just that totally agree with you about the about what you're saying before. Oh God. I love conversations like these so much. It's fun. I'm just over here.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (22:00): Cool, me too. I'm just it is, it's such a good getting to Those conversations where it's like, let's talk about this Shadow thing or like let's just shine a light on whatever. All all things are welcome here. I totally get beaming from those two words and then those are how you get to those moments of like oh is that duck thing on that or the synchronicities of finding out. We're both born on the 8th or differently, whatever things that come up where because there's the freedom to express and to create and to go wherever
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• ➡️ Annie Altman (29:37): Nah, that's what the OCD side of the ADHD. Oh, that's got OCD. Add Can I will work at here?
• Zack Lane (29:44): I got you back.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (29:45): I forget I mean, I forget shit. Don't don't get me wrong, don't get me wrong. I really appreciate you being so honest and vulnerable about that is that really powerful too? To be so real of so much of that and there's so many directions in that that I'd love to hear more about and Honestly to take it to pining specifically and little Zach and this journey of the feeling. So hopeless and hopeless and unsure and unheard and reaching out for attention and love and support and connection and all the real human things that It's I'm hearing almost the that part come up again, where it's like, now you're being heard and people are listening and people are responding probably how little you would have loved people to respond of like me too. You're not alone. Like it's like all of these.
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• Annie Altman (41:08): just as, like, boxed in on like, and, and yeah, pressive, repressive. Like, yeah, you can only express your feelings in this way. Kind of, like, I'm even like yoga classes where it's like you have to do this kind of a structure or it's like only like this, Creative expression is allowed that can feel really stapling and can again be really counterproductive towards expression. Creativity. The whole, the whole existence, and I totally agree about comedy as a big in and a big Medicine of Shifting the perspective in such a big way where it's like taking these really dark things and giving a place to look at it and to Say we can we can laugh at this or we can at the very least talk about it on a, in a mic under a light.
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• ➡️ Annie Altman (45:01): 🟡just like you're talking about the energy to repress and to like hide and keep your secrets and how exhausting that is to put all that energy into not expressing.🟡
• Zack Lane (45:09): Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. Yeah, that yeah, we talked about this before too. Like I I guess personally for me, like I just, I was so easy. It was so easy for me to hide in other people. And like, let go of my own things and like, kind of check out up until a certain point. And then I felt like I couldn't breathe because I had no idea who I was. I feel like I don't even know what I like. What I don't like or even like what I'm feeling. I know that sounds crazy but like I could be like I don't know how I'm feeling because I'm so invested in how you're feeling and trying to work that up so that I can feel good about myself. Like I don't I and once I realized that what I talked about it in finding actually and that was like one of the first moments where I was like, I don't want to be here anymore and it was when like I was literally on a mission trip. Through my youth group. Like helping people out in Washington DC. And I realized like, how fucking pathetic am I? That I can. I'm literally out here in a trip helping other people and I don't even know the first thing about trying to help myself and like that, that That wrecked me.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (46:19): Well, then the second Arrow of calling yourself pathetic on top of that and like, judging and shaming and all. Yeah.
• Zack Lane (46:24): You
• ➡️ Annie Altman (46:25): is, of course that's gonna react someone. Yeah,
• Zack Lane (46:28): yeah.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (46:29): 🟠🟠I really that all that. So hard of losing yourself in someone that can feel like a quick fix and can feel helpful and then Then at a certain point something wakes up or some light bulb comes on or enough anger resentment sadness whatever builds where you're like hold on. I I am completely denying my own existence here. and I know for, To share in darkness as well.🟠🟠 🔴🔴🔴That was part of my being suicidal really young was that and was caretaking for my birth mother and oldest sibling to older two of the three older siblings. Like really just pouring all of this emotional labor, time, labor, physical labor, Non-consensual, sexual labor, like all of these things that I was empty. I was totally emptied out that then. Honestly suicide is a really natural. And I would go as far as to say a healthy response to that when you're like, well I'm not here.🔴🔴🔴 Anyways, like
• Zack Lane (47:30): right? What would be easier for me? Not to. Because, like, I'm so out to outright now, like I'm literally out, I'm completely empty because I'm giving it all to other people, I'm never gonna be full. So what's the point? Yeah. Oh man, I can connect to that so hard. Yeah. I mean, if you feel like literally those, you know, the metaphor, like giving little way of yourself and so you realize that you're going, who are you? Where are you? What are you doing? You're you're in everybody else and It sounds like, you know, you know, I don't want to presume or anything like that, but it sounds like all those relationships that wasn't doesn't sound very reciprocal in a lot of ways. It sounds like a lot of giving and not a lot of giving. and I think a lot of people, A lot of people myself included, in many ways, I'm working on it or have relationships like that in their life, whether it's with their family, their even their partner friends. I can't even tell you, like, I'm getting better at, but I still have relationships with my life where it's like, This is a loose relationship. You know. Yeah
• ➡️ Annie Altman (48:34): and
• Zack Lane (48:35): a lot and I feel guilty if I don't or what, you know what I mean?
• ➡️ Annie Altman (48:38): 🟠🟠Yeah like it's just but then at a certain point you're suck dryer to certain point. You're you're like, we don't want to, why would I be giving this kind of goes back to like creating out of love or fear? I'm giving out of guilt to me when I do that. That's giving out of fear of, like if I don't give, I'm going to lose this person or I'm not valuable or all of these things and then at a certain point, I'm like 🔴🔴🔴Annie or recreating the relationship with your older sibling again and you're recreating the relationship with your birth mother again.🔴🔴🔴 Like how you really see this continuing that you're just going to keep pouring out of yourself and not it goes back again to that self shame and all those things. Where When you've been conditioned in a certain way, or when you're used to a certain thing to go back to habits, too, and that if that is your habit that you built, if you're falling to the level of, that's your system and I'm preaching this to myself right now too. This is🟠🟠
• Zack Lane (49:29): here no to listeners. We probably don't have any of this figured out. It's no fun on our journey too. I guess for myself I sure as hell. Don't, I'm working on this shit every fucking day.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (49:44): Every day. every every day, because Because it feels good to give. And it that part is fun. And then all so teasing apart like And I wonder if you relate to this too that when you when your habits are your system, is that Baseline of over giving that? It takes time and practice to train your nervous system. To receive like you're talking about receiving people listening to your song and receiving such beautiful, kind messages and such heartwarming vulnerability back from like a dude. You wouldn't have expected to say that to you that that it's your system is having to recalibrate learning that, and I relate to that a lot too of But it's safe to receive but it's safe for things to feel reciprocal that you're not a selfish piece of shit for receiving because I have definitely worked through and I'm still every day. Working through those stories of I'm allowed to receive that. It is safe that it is. Okay that Andy, was there a moment that that
• Zack Lane (50:50): like that you kind of realized that was over time or
• ➡️ Annie Altman (50:54): whoa? Okay. Well really real talk and this is a good segue because I wanted to bring up the when you were like oh I don't want to sound like a men's rights activist and I didn't feel like you sounded that way at all.
• Zack Lane (51:04): That's
• ➡️ Annie Altman (51:05): 🟡honestly sex work has been one of the biggest therapies of that for me in a way that surprised the hell out of me. And I've always been like sexual and very into Tantra and then getting into yoga teacher training and 🟠🟠Healing a lot of my own. Sexual traumas🟠🟠 through. Yeah. Mantra and through those practices🟡
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• ➡️ Annie Altman (53:00): Yeah. And to me also Tantra something and I'm specifically tantric sex. There's practices which are finding the pleasure in it. You could like tantric podcast of feeling present and flowy and enjoying the process of it. Yeah and it to me it's one of those things that everyone has practiced whether or not they're going to label it or not like I'm wait if you've had the moment well and again like sex related to talk about that therapy of it for your original question of having a moment where you're having sex with someone, and you both take a breath at the same time. That's a tantric practice. That's Both being in the moment, both sharing that moment sharing. That breath is something that a lot of people have experienced whether or not they would label it with the term.
• Zack Lane (53:47): Yeah.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (53:48): Where in that moment, nobody gives a fuck about if somebody orgasms or nobody gives a fuck has someone's body looks or nobody gives a fuck about what happened yesterday or like where is this going 10 years from now or
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• ➡️ Annie Altman (57:05): what word, this is fun because I love this I'm learning how much of me loves sex therapy in this too, from my own practices of it, where it can be fun. And if you can find a way to make it fun and to say, The purpose of this is to enjoy and connect, and maybe we just lay naked together. Maybe like, that's all that's going to happen. Here is that Like this is, this is what's going on, whatever takes off the creative pressure, kind of like you're saying with like you're getting this attention back from the song and then it feels like this pressure of like do I need to capitalize on this and put out videos or whatever? That that pressure feels like shit. That pressure
• ➡️ Annie Altman (57:57): So but also maybe again like you need the pause or things. You know, we're gonna go in their waves of Of what it is that. There's a difference of that creative inspiration where you're like, I'm making a video because I want to in this feels good rather than like frantic. Like I need to do this that to sex too. Like if one person frantic energy the other person feels it. Yes. You're connecting intimately. So then of course you're going to
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• ➡️ Annie Altman (59:45): Totally, I love that unarmored. Calling it of, that is real. And it is literally vulnerable like, I am here. I'm naked. We are sharing all sorts of physical emotional, spiritual energy, and Figuring out how to do that,
• Zack Lane (59:59): right?
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:00:00): And so, to go to the thing about men's rights stuff for your talk, like men's suicide, I have learned since starting various forms of sex work, the term naked therapist. Here,
• Zack Lane (1:00:12): make
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:00:13): a therapist is a kind of a term people in that world will use Of. because sex is so intimate and vulnerable and it's bringing up all of these things that I haven't worked in strip clubs I like because of I mean I got into sex work because I couldn't walk and I was like I could there were I was not at a dancing on pole place at the moment.
• Zack Lane (1:00:37): Right?
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:00:38): And yeah well that's separate story. I have heard from people who have worked in strip clubs before about men, who will pay for the private back rooms and use it as a therapy session very frequently. Way more frequently than people want to talk about or open to talk about a lot of times that men will stop for the whole hour or they will just be asking this woman about their ex-girlfriend or their wife or someone that They are really looking for emotional support and guidance and because of all these stigmas about men and feeling, they don't have other places they feel safe. There it
• Zack Lane (1:01:16): And
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:01:17): then because of the vulnerability that can come from sex and feeling like, oh, she's naked so we're already more vulnerable already.
• Zack Lane (1:01:23): Oh my God. Yeah,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:01:24): and I've had so I haven't had that experience. I haven't worked in strip clubs. I have done in person work and had I had this. I had a man once show me a video of him and his daughter in the car. And just talking like he was dealing with learning how to co-parent and his love
• Zack Lane (1:01:43): for his daughter, men want that connection. They don't know how to ask for it or need it until until you're both. Like until the vulnerability is, I feel like even on both sides, that is really something else. Oh my God. That how did you feel about that experience? Was that just like a Is that when you realize like oh my God. Men are
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:02:01): in trouble. Oh yeah, it was the big eyes. You did was definitely a big part of the feeling and I just, I remember sitting there I can like really distinctly pictures and we had it. We'd like made out of that point. He wanted to, like, kind of have a two-person party. I need to know the party. He was safe and fun and I remember sitting on the couch and him being so excited to show me this video and I remember watching this video of this man and his daughter and The depth of the voner ability of it. And then also seeing The little boy and him that wanted to be seen and heard and, and the hurt human and him, that was loving his daughter so much and loving his daughter's mother and figuring out how to navigate this new relationship, and how to co-parent, and all these things and just wanting a safe outside person to. Yes, pair it with and to know that he wasn't
• Zack Lane (1:02:56): alone in it. And
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:02:58): also, at the same time, all of that was happening. I had all of these stigmas about sex work that judging in person sex work virtual sex work. All of the things that yeah, because I started very much for survival and then stayed in by choice because of the Sex Therapy, I've gotten and the part of me that's like, oh, I really like Sex Therapy.
• Zack Lane (1:03:16): Yeah. And I
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:03:17): remember having that moment in it too where I was like, wow, this is just breaking all of the the stigmas that I had about sex work and like how I viewed, what in person sex work would look like or be and I'm like, I'm sitting here watching a video of this. Man and his daughter. And this is like that just totally shattered all of the perceptions,
• Zack Lane (1:03:39): they were helping him healed.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:03:43): I I appreciate it. It definitely was healing for both of us. It was a lot of good, it was a lot of good learning and I have shifted. I focus on Virtual stuff more now because for a lot of different reasons. The similar some of the stuff you're talking about about social work and the burnout of it eventually and the just the different kinds of emotional Labour. I guess that It's all different for, you know. It's still emotional labor to like, put out videos or to respond to people or camping, or
• Zack Lane (1:04:10): yeah. Oh
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:04:11): yeah. But it's it's a very different kind then. Yeah, that level of vulnerability of of someone who is wanting to be. seen and heard, and That it's okay. And that it is okay for them. So talking about again, like you were like, oh is this men's right stuff? And I'm like, no, this like Men part of where that stuff comes from, or part of the like patriarchy harming everyone. Things are, that then men are suppressing and then frankly like and also in just getting to be unfiltered or less filtered about dark things, so much of rape culture comes back to that same thing too. Where then men are like oh I'm not allowed to talk about this. But I need to get laid and now what do I do or how do I go about this or like all of these? Yeah. Needs an expression and creative impulses that. And they have not been taught how to, or they've been shamed in how it comes out, that then harms men and women and thems and non-binary and everyone ends up getting fucked by
• Zack Lane (1:05:14): yeah,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:05:14): that same system.
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  ➡️ Annie Altman (1:07:54): you know as a guy you want to be like you're ruining this for the rest of us. So, Like now other men are afraid to approach women like the part of the me too movement. That made men not want to approach women at all, because they're like, I don't want to do that, too. I don't want to be that statistic or
• Zack Lane (1:08:08): yeah, I, I've competing like that doesn't matter as much compared to like, women are being raped. A lot, not great. But that also like I feel like eventually like this, this should be focused on and that's not good. But the problem is here, Like the problem is men that don't know how to do this. So like at the same token as we can respect that, like we need to be there for women and set up supports for women. If we just keep telling them you have to do better. Obviously, they don't know how. And that's a big problem, and I feel like You know, that there's gonna be, there's gonna have to be more resources provided for that because just telling people to do better doesn't work. And even if it's wrong, even if it's disgusting and vile and even if you hate it fair enough, I I do too, like I hate that it doesn't make the problem go away. It is still going on. So you need to do like I'm not saying you have to, you know, be like come here. Oh, you rapists. But like you have to be. Yeah, that's a good sound bit to you. I can't wait to that comes up but like you have to, you have to be willing to work with these people so that they don't, you see the humanity in them because the end of the day, even if they're disgusting people that are doing this, They're human beings.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:09:28): Yeah.
• Zack Lane (1:09:30): Which is,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:09:31): you know. I'm with you on all of this, I'm on all this. And I appreciate you bringing up her side of Everyone's experience a bit and try it's real. It has to be talked about and not without going to all the details. 🔴🔴🔴I experienced two, sexual assaults and adult hood, neither related to sex work, both men from Bumble. And one of them the more hurtful part from The Assault was actually that he wasn't able to talk with me about it. and, They're not like face to face or like give me a real. A real. Talking with it. And it interestingly, that part ended up hurting hurting more that he he, you know, sent very, he it impacted him a lot. He sent very thoughtful text messages and told me about like, talking with his therapist about sex. Sex addiction and impulsivity. And like, he, he did go into a lot of his own humanity and his own things from it. And he was not ever able to look me in the eye. And acknowledge what happened? He was over the phone. He was on the call and he was over Texas. He wasn't he wasn't able to face to face acknowledge and interestingly that part of it. ended up being so much more harmful and processing for me of Like, how to sit with that and like, still see his humanity and all. So mine just sitting.🔴🔴🔴
• Zack Lane (1:11:00): Yeah,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:11:01): sadness of this whole system in this whole like, Realizing both of us coming to this date and this interaction Desiring to connect and desire, you know, wanting and needing similar human things. And and just sitting with the ick and the sad of How stuff is set up that then
• Zack Lane (1:11:24): what the fuck?
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:11:26): The what
• Zack Lane (1:11:26): like how did it get so fucked.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:11:28): Yeah, that like strip clubs are a therapy place. It makes me think two of like public libraries and end up being a big. Resource for people that like that's not their job to be the internet for people
• Zack Lane (1:11:40): who
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:11:40): are homeless, or houseless and like, needing to compute like that's not.
• Zack Lane (1:11:45): Yeah. I notice you differentiate between houseless and homelessness. I think that's like a, I've heard, like I've heard both and I feel like it's, you know, um, and I just want to know that you're just thinking. I heard you switch that.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:11:59): Thank
• Zack Lane (1:12:00): you for
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:12:00): that. I'm surprised. I said I almost never say homeless and in my experience of houseless. I very much of Kind of have. I was surprised. It came out of my mouth there.
• Zack Lane (1:12:11): Yeah. What are you so? Like what so you you experience houseless and you say houseless for a reason, why do you differentiate the two? Because I actually like, you know, there's one thing to be told this by some 60 year old well off white woman who's, you know, husband's a doctor. And she does social work to feel better about herself, not judging, if you're doing that good for you. But, you know, we're all in different spots in her life. But for some for, you know, for somehow I will, I'm more interested to see what you have to say about it. Comparatively why, why did you see between the two? If you don't mind.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:12:47): Oh, it's a great question. To me the word house and home are entirely different.
• Zack Lane (1:12:52): And
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:12:57): in the spiritual and emotional side of things. Home is your body, is my my body, my mind, my soul
• Zack Lane (1:13:05): that
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:13:08): Well, don't get me wrong, there can be a part of that they can go into spiritual bypassing. You are always home. I am always home. I am home right here in my body, as much as I forget it or I much, I can forget it at moments or neglected or avoided or whatever. I'm always home. It's always Home home is their home, is a state of mind home is the people you connect with. Home is your habits, potentially? I haven't thought of that before, but I feel like home is your system.
• Zack Lane (1:13:36): Yes, yes.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:13:37): Is a place
• Zack Lane (1:13:39): physical, okay? Or just
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:13:41): a physical thing that you have that place or you don't have that place?
• Zack Lane (1:13:45): Okay. And
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:13:46): 🟠🟠in my couch, surfing and various moving around that Was like okay I have my home in that, that emotional spiritual sense of home. What I'm missing is a house, a physical place where all of my groceries are and all of my toiletries and I know that I get to sleep there and I don't have to scramble for where I'm going to go next.🟠🟠
•  
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:16:12): That's such a good point. I love that. I really and I love you. Brought the carbon bit, too that To be. Yeah for me to be honest and vulnerable about it. There's definitely some level of Switching, the wording for me, that was a self-protective softening it to get through it and to, and to be able to shift my own perspective. When, when there's that intense of a fight or flight happening from, and I wonder too maybe because maybe maybe it was a purposeful, slip of saying homelessness and helplessness and The. I I really appreciate the the underscoring that if you're sucking out the humanity of it or, you know, there can be a safe day and a protection and a use and a helpfulness of Shifting your perspective on something based on how you label it
• Zack Lane (1:17:05): and
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:17:06): it can neglect or override or discount. The real experience of not having a home of not having a physical location to call home and
• Zack Lane (1:17:16): wow.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:17:17): Yes it is helpful to intellectualize and to distinguish house and home and all. So it is still homelessness, I was homeless and I yeah frankly a big part of me that it's Feels more challenging more vulnerable to admit that to say that to sit with that. Then Then to say, well I was unhoused and they're both true. It's like a that's a goofy part of it, too that they both feel right and different.
• Zack Lane (1:17:44): In different. Yeah
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:17:46): yeah,
• Zack Lane (1:17:47): okay different yeah different fragments of it. Wow
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:17:50): the Carlin thing is such a good fucking reference that and I love that bit of his where where it's And to use comedies that example two there's benefits of you know if you call it PTSD and you Clinic Collies it
• Zack Lane (1:18:03): oh started like oh have that separation. Oh I want to get you started on
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:18:09): the time because we're already well over an hour.
• Zack Lane (1:18:12): Oh my God help you to separate you know to be able to have
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:18:16): some distance from something can be a really useful tool to say. Okay, post-traumatic stress disorder. What was the trauma? What is the disorder like?
• Zack Lane (1:18:24): Yep.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:18:24): Having that space is also really useful and for people who have PTSD from combat, I'm guessing those people also really like the term shell shock or like the other things that are like, no, I was hit by a bomb. I am in shock, it's real.
•  
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:26:34): there's a there's a song in there somewhere and the crab metaphor of you know, that can, you know, The crab was protecting itself, it had its perspective in that oh I think as well. And ability to pinch to wake up. I love it. Oh yeah. I mean crabs. People, people are like, The Stereotype of astrology. Wise of like cancer, just cry, The Cry Babies. Cancels will fuck you up Cancer's have two pins. Like the foot, like they have a shell and they have two plots. I wish I could speak to anything with that. I have no idea about anything astrology related. I'm so sorry. People always like that. You're really into astrology. I'm like, no. Sorry to let you know. all good, you do not need to be like we were talking about before like I used to totally Write it off and not be into it and I like it for the metaphors and the ways to talk about feelings or different things. That that's right, different, different Frameworks,
• Zack Lane (1:27:31): that's how I look at it. Now, I don't judge it and I go, okay, it's the same thing as anything else. It's a vehicle a way to get in it. And if I'm allowed to use my humor as a vehicle, or anything else in the vehicle, who might just say that it's stupid that people use. This is a vehicle, we're all on a journey to get somewhere and that's the point. So I'm trying not to judge much anymore. That's my big thing with religion, too, to be honest, I'm coming around to it. I'm coming around to it, or at least spirituality and religion, too. But I
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:27:57): relate to that, too. You're talking about clams, and, and religion that the first I used to hate anything with the word God in it. People would say that. And I would say, is astrology, I would just be like, kind of fish Posh about it, and then I heard the sentence we make plans and God laughs.
• Zack Lane (1:28:12): Oh, I love that.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:28:13): Okay, I can. I
• Zack Lane (1:28:15): mean oh,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:28:19): and the vehicle I mean music as well as a vehicle to Express and share and put out and
• Zack Lane (1:28:24): yes.
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:28:27): How do you feel about ending on a song?
• Zack Lane (1:28:29): I love it. Can I pause? Okay, go to the
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:28:32): totally.
• Zack Lane (1:28:33): Okay,
• ➡️ Annie Altman (1:28:34): we're gonna be here. Check out Dr. Duck, I'll plug while he pees on Spotify. Got his singles out there and you can also check out Dr. Duck on tiktok for All the tiktok videos and promotions and some things that are pointing out or sharing. Different people who've reached out to him. It's fun to get to Kind of see the behind the scenes of what people have said and how it's impacted them. Also, for people who are watching, I'm sorry I'll give you a little cat. Hello. Angelo from a sleeping cat. Something you can see. hard isn't a fib, then in Indian. if you're sticking around for the music, you can pretend that this is like the part at a concert while you're anticipating and waiting for the artist to come out and you're like, Knowing that it's going to happen. The creation will be here or not quite at the concert start time yet. But I have a feeling, we will be very soon. We might even get an encore, we might get two songs. We're gonna find out. We're gonna find out. I would love to I will use this as a time to say that. I would love to hear from people who have experienced. feeling suicidal feeling suicidal is a child at any time or any if any of the things that we've talked about here resonate with you, or you feel like You want to share about. I would love to get to hear about it to the concert has begun lover of crabs,

• "Aww you’re nervous I’m defending myself? Refusing to die with your secrets, refusing to allow you to harm more people? If only there was little sister with a bed you could uninvited crawl in, or sick 20-something sister you could withhold your dead dad’s money from, to cope." [AA23b]
• "This tweet endorsed to come out of my drafts by our Dad He also said it was “poor foresight” for you to believe I would off myself before ~justice is served~" [AA23e]

• From here on the Internet Archive (I just searched for the URL, "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman", in the WayBack Machine on the Internet Archive):

  • 

  • 

    • As of 14:50:52 (military time, I assume) on October 5, 2023: the Sam Altman Wikipedia article does not contain any details about Annie's allegations that Sam sexually abused her:

      • 

    • Then: As of 22:50:05, the Sam Altman Wikipedia article does contain details about Annie's allegations that Sam sexually abused her:

      • 

  • 

    • Then: As of 12:09:09 on October 6, 2023, the Sam Altman Wikipedia article DOES NOT contain details about Annie's allegations that Sam sexually abused her

      • 

• From the Revision history of the Sam Altman Wikipedia article:

  • 

    • It seems various people repeatedly tried to edit Sam's Wikipedia page to include details about Annie's allegations that Sam sexually abused her, but that, within literal minutes of each edit being made, Wikipedia users - primarily Wikipedia user "Panamitsu", among others - removed the edits.
    • It also seems that all information about what those edits actually were has also been removed.
      • That is -- from what I can tell, usually, when someone makes an edit to a Wikipedia article, you can go into the Revision history page for that Wikipedia article, and see what edits were made.
      • But with these edits, the links you could normally click on to see the edit details have been removed - they've got strikethroughs (i.e. like this) applied to them, and you can't click on them, and there's a note that says, "edit summary removed" next to all of them:

        • 

          • 

        • 

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        • 

          • 

        • 

          • 

        • 

          • 

        • 

          • 

        • 

          • 

        • 

          • 

        • 

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        • 

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    • Wikipedia user "Panamitsu" (primarily), along with the other Wikipedia users who repeatedly removed the details, seem to have provided the following explanations for their removals:
      • "possible BLP issue or vandalism"
      • "Undid revision 1178799350 by 2A00:23EE:19D8:4A3:D9A4:325D:C151:C18F (talk) It is a WP:BLP violation. Twitter is not a reliable source and people make false accusations all the time"
      • "Undid revision 1178799655 by 2A00:23EE:1828:A9A0:E292:E724:64E0:FC4A (talk) vandalism"
      • "twitter isn't a reliable source for gossipsheet content.,, reverted"
      • "Take it to talk page, I don't think it should be here, it seems like a WP:BLP violation. I can't even verify if that is his siter"
        • {I think there is a typo here, i.e. I think "siter" was supposed to say "sister"}
      • "Protected "Sam Altman": Violations of the biographies of living persons policy: WP:EXTRAORDINARY WP:BURDEN ([Edit=Require autoconfirmed or confirmed access] (expires 01:26, 16 October 2023 (UTC)) [Move=Require autoconfirmed or confirmed access] (expires 01:26, 16 October 2023 (UTC)))"
  • The version history of the Sam Altman Wikipedia indicates that that the Wikipedia users who made the removals wanted people to "Take it to {the} talk page". That is, they instructed anyone who might want to add details about Annie's allegations to the Sam Altman Wikipedia article to first discuss their intent to do so on the Talk page of the Sam Altman Wikipedia article.

    • 

  • It seems that, on 01:26 on October 6, 2023, Wikipedia user "EI C" "protected" the Sam Altman Wikipedia article:

    • 

    • To be clear: I don't understand exactly what "Protected" means in this context. I don't know what Wikipedia user "EI C" did to make the article "Protected." (I'm not an expert in Wikipedia article revisions.) It seems that Wikipedia user "EI C" made it such that people couldn't add details about Annie's allegations unless they had "autoconfirmed or confirmed access". (I have no clue what that means either.) It also seems that this status was set to expire 10 days from the date & time it was instated (i.e. expire on 01;26, 16 October 2023.)
• October 9, 2023:
  • 09:08 on Oct 9, 2023 -- Wikipedia user "Allbirdy" edits the Sam Altman Wikipedia article, adding details about Annie's allegations:

    • 

    • 

  • Just 25 minutes later: 09:33  on Oct 9, 2023 -- Wikipedia user "Panamitsu", once again, removes these edits:

    • 

    • 

• November 20, 2023:
  • 08:36 on Nov 20, 2023 -- Wikipedia user "Rei" edits the Sam Altman Wikipedia article, adding details about Annie's allegations:

    • 

    • 

  • Just 14 minutes later: 08:50 on Nov 20, 2023 -- Wikipedia user "Panamitsu", once again, removes these edits:

    • 

    • 

  • 09:05 on Nov 20, 2023: Wikipedia user "Rei" re-makes their edit with the details about Annie's allegations, stating, "{My previous edit was} Very much NOT a BLP violation. Matches tone reqs, credits statements to specific individuals, cites secondary sources, etc. If you want to accuse a BLP violation, you need to cite the part of the BLP policy violated. Talk created."

    • 

    • 

  • Over the next hour (primarily), i.e. 09:05-10:50 -- "Rei" argues back and forth with other Wikipeditor editors about including their edits. Ultimately, Rei's edits are removed by Wikipedia editor "Isabelle Belato", with a note that says "Protected "Sam Altman": Edit warring / content dispute;WP:BLP issues. ([Edit=Require administrator access] (expires 10:30, 4 December 2023 (UTC)))"

    • 

• May 23, 2024: Wikipedia user "Somewordswrittendown" adds details about Annie's allegations of abuse, incorporating "guidelines across the various discussion pages that have opened up around this topic; namely, this doesn't source from twitter (stupid rule that needs to be updated) and only includes direct quotes from noted publications."

  • 

• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37790899
  • Post before it was flagged & removed: https://web.archive.org/web/20231006140717/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37790899
• https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37785072
• https://x.com/JOSourcing/status/1710390512455401888

• Removal of Sam Altman from OpenAI - Wikipedia
• OpenAI #12: Battle of the Board Redux - Zvi, LessWrong [LW · GW]
• Sam Altman’s Knack for Dodging Bullets—With a Little Help From Bigshot Friends - by Deepa Seetharaman, The Wall Street Journal
  • See [WSJ23b] for details.

• Starting at 5:02:
  • Trevor Noah: "{You're} a CEO who many people have termed, like, the 'Steve Jobs of this generation, and the future.' And - you don't say that about youself."
  • Sam Altman: "Certainly not."
  • Trevor Noah: "No, I think a lot of people say that about you, you know, because -- I mean, I was thinking about this, and I was going, 'I think calling you the Steve Jobs of this generation is unfair.' In my opinion, I think you're the Prometheus of this generation."
    • Note: my old username on X (formerly Twitter) and LessWrong was "prometheus5015." This LessWrong post was first published on October 7, 2023, two months before this podcast with Trevor Noah was published on Spotify.
  • Sam Altman [turning away]: "Wooouughh."
    • Note: as I've noted previously in these posts, it's a bit hard to describe/compress visual information like body language, tone, facial expressions, etc., purely into text. (Or, at least, I am not a good enough writer to do so.) I recommend watching 5:02 - 5:50 in the video yourself.
  • Trevor Noah: "No, you really are. You really are. It seems like to me, you have stolen fire from the gods --"
  • Sam Altman: [laughs]
  • Trevor Noah: "--and you are the forefront of this movement, and this time, that we are now living through. Where once AI was only the stuff of sci-fi and legend. You know, you are now the face - at the forefront - of what could change civilization forever."

The reason I note on this is because it increases my probability (which is already quite high) that Sam Altman is aware of & has read this post. As I mentioned above, my old username on X (formerly Twitter) and LessWrong, at the time that this podcast with Trevor Noah was first published (on December 7, 2023, on Spotify), was "prometheus5015."

• Starting at 32:28:
  • Sam: "AGI and my family are the two main things I care about, so losing one of those is like...so yeah I mean it was just like unbelievably painful. The only comparable set of life experience that I had, and that one was of course much worse, was when my dad died. And that was like a very sudden thing. But the sense of like confusion and loss...in that case, I felt like I had a little bit of time to just like feel it all. But then there was so much to do. Like it was like so unexpected that I had to pick up the pieces of his life for a little while. And it wasn't until, like, a week after that I really got a moment to just, like, catch my breath and be like, holy shit, like, I can't believe this happened. So yeah, that was much worse."

• "Altman’s firing and swift reversal of fortune followed a pattern in his career, which began when he dropped out of Stanford University in 2005 and gained the reputation as a Silicon Valley visionary. Over the past two decades, Altman has lost the confidence of several top leaders in the three organizations he has directed. At every crisis point, Altman, 38 years old, not only rebounded but climbed to more powerful roles with the help of an expanding network of powerful allies."
• "A group of senior employees at Altman’s first startup, Loopt—a location-based social-media network started in the flip-phone era—twice urged board members to fire him as CEO over what they described as deceptive and chaotic behavior, said people familiar with the matter. But the board, with support from investors at venture-capital firm Sequoia, kept Altman until Loopt was sold in 2012."
• "In 2019, Altman was asked to resign from Y Combinator after partners alleged he had put personal projects, including OpenAI, ahead of his duties as president, said people familiar with the matter."
• "This fall, Altman also faced a crisis of trust at OpenAI, the company he navigated to the front of the artificial-intelligence field. In early October {2023}, OpenAI’s chief scientist {Ilya Sutskever} approached some fellow board members to recommend Altman be fired, citing roughly 20 examples of when he believed Altman misled OpenAI executives over the years. That set off weeks of closed-door talks, ending with Altman’s surprise ouster days before Thanksgiving."
• "This article is based on interviews with dozens of executives, engineers, current and former employees and friends of Altman’s, as well as investors."
• "A few years after {Loopt's} launch, some Loopt executives voiced frustration with Altman’s management. There were complaints about Altman pursuing side projects, at one point diverting engineers to work on a gay dating app, which they felt came at the expense of the company’s main work."
• "Senior executives approached the board with concerns that Altman at times failed to tell the truth—sometimes about matters so insignificant one person described them as paper cuts. At one point, they threatened to leave the company if he wasn’t removed as CEO, according to people familiar with the matter. The board backed Altman."
• "“If he imagines something to be true, it sort of becomes true in his head,” said Mark Jacobstein, co-founder of Jimini Health who served as Loopt’s chief operating officer. “That is an extraordinary trait for entrepreneurs who want to do super ambitious things. It may or may not lead one to stretch, and that can make people uncomfortable.”"
• "Altman doesn’t recall employee complaints beyond the normal annual CEO review process, according to people familiar with his thinking."
• "Michael Moritz, who led Sequoia, personally advised Altman. When Loopt struggled to find buyers, Moritz helped engineer an acquisition by another Sequoia-backed company, the financial technology firm Green Dot."
• "Altman turned Y Combinator into an investing powerhouse. While serving as the president, he kept his own venture-capital firm, Hydrazine, which he launched in 2012. He caused tensions after barring other partners at Y Combinator from running their own funds, including the current chief executive, Garry Tan, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Tan and Ohanian didn’t respond to requests for comment."
• "Altman also expanded Y Combinator through a nonprofit he created called YC Research, which served as an incubator for Altman’s own projects, including OpenAI. From its founding in 2015, YC Research operated without the involvement of the firm’s longtime partners, fueling their concern that Altman was straying too far from running the firm’s core business."
• "By early 2018, Altman was barely present at Y Combinator’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., spending more time at OpenAI, at the time a small research nonprofit, according to people familiar with the matter."
• "The increasing amount of time Altman spent at OpenAI riled longtime partners at Y Combinator, who began losing faith in him as a leader. The firm’s leaders asked him to resign, and he left as president in March 2019."
• "Graham said it was his wife’s doing. “If anyone ‘fired’ Sam, it was Jessica, not me,” he said. “But it would be wrong to use the word ‘fired’ because he agreed immediately.”
• "Jessica Livingston said her husband was correct."
• "To smooth his exit, Altman proposed he move from president to chairman. He pre-emptively published a blog post on the firm’s website announcing the change. But the firm’s partnership had never agreed, and the announcement was later scrubbed from the post."
• "For years, even some of Altman’s closest associates—including Peter Thiel, Altman’s first backer for Hydrazine—didn’t know the circumstances behind Altman’s departure."
• "As the company grew, management complaints about Altman surfaced."
• "In early fall this year, Sutskever, also a board member, was upset because Altman had elevated another AI researcher, Jakub Pachocki, to director of research, according to people familiar with the matter."
• "Sutskever told his board colleagues that the episode reflected a long-running pattern of Altman’s tendency to pit employees against one another or promise resources and responsibilities to two different executives at the same time, yielding conflicts, according to people familiar with the matter."
• "Other board members already had concerns about Altman’s management. Tasha McCauley, an adjunct senior management scientist at Rand Corp., tried to cultivate relationships with employees as a board member. Past board members chatted regularly with OpenAI executives without informing Altman. Yet during the pandemic, Altman told McCauley he needed to be told if the board spoke to employees, a request that some on the board viewed as Altman limiting the board’s power, people familiar with the matter said."
• "Around the time Sutskever aired his complaints, the independent board members heard similar concerns from some senior OpenAI executives, people familiar with the discussions said. Some considered leaving the company over Altman’s leadership, the people said."
• "Altman also misled board members, leaving the impression with one board member that another wanted board member Helen Toner removed, even though it wasn’t true, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported."
• "Altman also misled board members, leaving the impression with one board member that another wanted board member Helen Toner removed, even though it wasn’t true, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported."

• Note: in the link I provided, there's a transcript. The transcript has this feature where it highlights the current word being spoken, with the idea being that you can "follow along" reading the transcript while you're listening to the podcast. Unfortunately, the feature is broken. I think this is due to the inclusion of some ads/commercials at various points throughout the podcast, which create a mismatch between the transcript and the audio.) Specifically, the word highlighted in the transcript is usually a few minutes later than the actual audio.
  • Example from OpenAI Part 1: The Most Silicon Valley Man Alive:

  • 

• Ellen Huet (host of the podcast): "Today, we're going to start on a drive in Hawaii."
• Annie Altman: "We're on north Shore, going deeper into the jungle on the north shore, so we're passing twin falls right now.
• Ellen Huet: "I'm driving through the lush green forests of Maui. Annie Altman, Sam Altman's little sister is sitting in the passenger seat. You heard from her briefly in the first episode."
• ...
• Ellen Huet: "We're taking a tour of the different places Annie has moved around in the last couple of years, driving down dirt roads to look at cabins and houses hidden behind enormous tropical plants."
• ..,
• Ellen Huet: "For much of the past two years, Annie hasn't been able to afford a stable place to live."
• Annie Altman: "The place you just passed is one of the places I stayed at longer-term in all of the houselessness...{I spent} two months on a newly-built, {with} no running water or no electricity, house, at the far end, back, of the property."
• Ellen Huet: "And I think she's an important part of Sam's story."
• Annie Altman: "And at the time I had nowhere to stay and no rent money, certainly no deposit money, and barely enough room, barely enough money for rent."
• Ellen Huet: "Recently, over the course of just a year, she moved twenty two times, and that's on average about twice a month. Sometimes she has stayed places for a week at a time, or even just a night or two. Some of them have been illegal rentals without running water. She says she's slept on floors and friends' houses. She stayed with strangers when she didn't have another option."
• ...
• Annie Altman: "The man who lived in the front house messaged me on Instagram, and I stayed in his kids' room the week that they weren't there, and then slept on the floor in the common room the week that the kids were there.
• Annie Altman: "I was houseless. I didn't have somewhere to go."
• Annie Altman: "I stayed in this cabin with the slanty roof right there for three months."
• {A podcast host}: "How many different places have you lived in that didn't have running water?"
• Annie: "Maybe five-ish? Five or six? I don't know."
• Ellen Huet: "Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in San Francisco, her brother Sam was having a spectacular year in 2023. The success of ChatGPT had launched OpenAI into the stratosphere. Sam was named CEO of the Year by Time magazine. He spent months flying around the globe talking to world leaders about AI."
• ...
• Ellen Huet: "On stage, on podcasts and interviews, people kept turning to Sam for answers. They were asking him what our AI future would hold. In May of that year, he confidently suggested a future where no one is poor. It's an idea he's talked about for years, and the remarks show that his tune hasn't changed despite growing renown and wealth.
• Sam Altman: "One thing I think we all could agree on is that we just shouldn't have poverty in the world."
• ...
• Ellen Huet: "It sounds wonderful, almost utopian. But Sam was saying on stage that everyone should have enough money, enough food, everyone should have a place to live, while his own sister was struggling with homelessness. I want to believe Sam's promises about abundance, but Annie's story complicates a lot of the things Sam has projected about the future."
• ...
• Ellen Huet: "Sam is a savvy guy. As his profile has gotten bigger after he helped build the world's leading AI company, he has stopped saying things like AI will kill us all. Instead, he talks about how society will be profoundly changed, but overall it will be for the better. Since his newfound chat GPT fame, he has shifted toward presenting himself and by extension, open AI, as more middle of the road. Sam is allowed to change his views, but people have also so complain to me in private that Sam has a tendency to talk out of both sides of his mouth. He's good at telling people what they want to hear in that moment, so it's not surprising that if it's advantageous for him to seem more moderate, that he would start to sound that way."

• Ellen Huet: "What really strikes me is that Sam positions himself as the visionary behind this AI that might put us all out of work, and the visionary behind systems that will save us from that chaos. He's offering fixes to the problems that his own technology will create. Imagine a future where Sam Altman's company has invented AI so powerful that it upends the entire labor economy. We no longer work for money. Instead, we get monthly checks from Sam Altman's income distribution system. I can imagine that his intentions might be good, and that he wants to make a difference here. But what Sam's proposing is ending poverty through systems overseen by him, basically, and that's asking us to put a huge amount of trust in him. Remember, Sam is really good at gaining power. He has a deep drive to be in charge. His company has made promises about adhering to certain principles and then moved away from them. It brings me back to this question we asked in episode one, what I think is the key question of this series. Should we trust this person?"
• Ellen Huet: "Like we said earlier, there's a part of Sam's life that really complicates this image of him. It's the story of his little sister Annie. She says she lives in poverty. Sometimes she struggles with homelessness. She says she survives by doing sex work. Sam is pitching this dream future in which universal basic income will protect everyone who needs it. That sounds lovely in theory, but when it's held up next to Annie's messy, everyday reality, that promise starts to sound a bit hollow. Housing insecurity has defined Annie's life for the past few years. This is a complex and sensitive situation, so I wanted to hear from her myself."
• Annie Altman: "In my experience, it's not only hard to do anything when you are housing insecure, it is impossible. I haven't had a typical day in four years because of how much energy both physically like looking for places or doing things, or looking for jobs and emotionally goes into housing insecurity. It has been the single biggest energy output of my past year."
• Ellen Huet: "In person, Annie is upbeat and smiley. She has good suggestions for health food stores on Maui. She has the word love tattooed across her knuckles. She makes a podcast, Hello and Welcome to the Annie Altman Show All Humans or Human Podcast, and posts videos of her singing on YouTube."
• ...
• Ellen Huet: "Sometimes, I and to better understand her story, I want to rewind to her childhood. When we heard from Annie briefly in the first episode, she talked about Sam's domineering attitude within their family, how he dictated they wouldn't have Christmas trees and put himself in charge of how long each sibling could speak at their dad's funeral. Their family has three boys. Sam's the oldest, then Max, then Jack. Annie is the youngest, nine years younger than Sam and the only girl. Her brothers loved science, math, games, nerdy stuff. She was always the artistic, sensitive one. Even when they were children, she sometimes felt like the odd one out, and as they became adults, the bonds between the brothers tightened both personally and professionally. While Sam was running YC, Jack founded a software company that was funded by YC. Jack and Max also both worked with Sam, helping run his investment fund with money from Peter Teel. Then all three started another investment fund together in which they used Sam's personal wealth. The three brothers lived together in San Francisco, brothers, coworkers, roommates, a tight, messy knot of family, business and money. Annie, on the other hand, was not part of the Altman family brand. With each new step in her life, she seemed to veer farther away from the path she felt was expected of her. She completed pre med requirements, but decided not to pursue that further. She did improv classes, stand up comedy, yoga, teacher training. She said her dad was supportive of this turn away from a more traditional path. Her mom, who was a physician, was less excited."
• Annie Altman: "My siblings and mother were very judgmental about the shift and also very "This is just a phase." I was an am at total daddy's girl. With my mother, there was closeness only when I was doing what she wanted me to do, which is a story {that} sadly, I feel like a lot of people can relate to."
• Ellen Huet: "Just a note. We reached out to Sam, his siblings, and his mom for comment in this episode. His mom, Connie Gibstine, responded with this statement:"
• Connie Gibstine: "We love Annie and are very concerned about her well being. Over the years, we have offered her financial support and help and continue to offer it today. Navigating the balance between providing support without enabling self-destructive behavior for a family member with mental health struggles is extraordinarily difficult. We only want the best for Annie and hope everyone will treat her with compassion."
• Ellen Huet: "In 2018, Annie's father died suddenly of a heart attack, and the grief hit her {Annie} hard. Meanwhile, she also started dealing with some chronic health issues, including tendonitis in her ankle that made it difficult to do work that required standing. She quit her job. She was still mourning her dad. She had gotten some life insurance money after he died, but when that ran out a year later, she still found herself in a desperate financial situation. In order to pay rent, she started selling her furniture. She says she asked her family directly for money to pay rent and cover groceries."
• Annie Altman: "I asked my mother for help and she said no, And then {I} asked Sam and he was told to say no because of her {Connie} wanting him to say no, and he's a grown man in his thirties, {worth} millions of dollars."
• Ellen Huet: "Now, Sam and his family have given Annie money at times, but she says it always came with heavy conditions that made her nervous. At one point, Sam wanted her to get back on Zoloft, an antidepressant, which she had started as a teen but had stopped later on. She {Annie} forwarded me an email from Sam where he asked her to share her bank statements and to allow him and his mom to sit in on some of her therapy sessions in exchange for her rent and medical expenses being covered. She felt like it was his way of exerting leverage or power over her. Of course, Sam can spend his money as he pleases, but again, he's on stage espousing the virtues of universal basic income -- giving money away for free, unconditionally, -- and Annie says he didn't do the same here for her. There were times when I'd gone back and forth about what to include from Annie's story. It's a very personal, messy family situation, and I'll confess that on occasion I've doubted some unrelated things she's told me. But also, I've looked through corroborating emails and documents. We drove to a lot of places Annie lived, and I met people she lived with. So in late 2019, when she asked for help and says she was told no, she turned to something she considered a last resort. To make money, she started sex work. She made an account on a sugar daddy dating website where people trade money for companionship and often sex."
• Annie: "I was just...I was in a desperate place. I mean...people who have been in a position like this ever know that when you're in a place of selling furniture, you're in a desperate position of "I'm out options." This is a 'plan Z' I would not be doing this if plans 'A' through 'I' had worked out in any capacity."
• Ellen Huet: "The first thing she tried was video chatting with a middle-aged man. She flashed him on camera and he sent her money over Zelle. She posted videos on OnlyFans and PornHub. She also did in-person sex work for two years. She says she didn't want to, but it was the work that she was able to fit into her unpredictable schedule of dealing with her health issues. Her lack of stable income, led to a long period of housing insecurity. At times, she lived with sex work clients, or even with strangers from the internet. Her sex work contributed to her precarious housing. She didn't have pay stubs or regular income, which limited the kind of leases she could get. It felt like this interconnected web, exactly the kind of vicious cycle that something like universal basic income tries to break."
• Annie Altman: "If I had a security deposit in my bank account - {I} never would have lived with this man, not, not even a little bit of a chance, would I have lived with this man. There's some unhealthy sex work experiences, and I've also had very traumatizing experiences from in-person work that would not have happened if I had secure housing. I'm still in and, have been so long in, survival mode that it really shifts everything. It really shifts everything. Times when it's been really like...places...like staying just for a week and a half {somewhere} and then the floor for a week, and then someone's place for a night, and then a floor for a week - in those places of really moving that much in a short period of time, there's no - I had no energy for anything else. Really feeling a sense of helplessness and powerlessness that I have never experienced, ever."
• Ellen Huet: "It's not a clean cut situation. In twenty twenty two, Sam offered to buy Annie a house, but she says it wasn't going to be in her name, and the conditions made her uncomfortable."
• Annie Altman: "It became clear to me that it was not an offer for my house. It was an offer for a house of Sam's - or a lawyer of his - that I would be allowed to live in."
• Ellen Huet: "She felt like it was a throwback to Sam's attempts to get her on Zoloft and to peer into her bank statements, so she said no. I do want to pause on this because I know it may sound illogical. After all, it would have been a place to live. But from her point of view, Sam had exerted control over her throughout their lives, and this seemed like one more attempt to control her. During those conversations, she was clear with Sam about the hardships she had endured in the past couple of years."
• Annie Altman: "I told him over the series of those phone calls too, that I had started sex work, and distinctly remember when I first told him about doing sex work and he said, quote, 'Good.'"
• Ellen Huet: "Annie was stung, because she remembers that he didn't ask anything more about it. Like she was sharing something that was painful for her and he was blowing past it."
• Annie Altman: "To hear your little sister tell you she's doing something she doesn't want to do related to sex, and for the response to be 'Good.' So I was like, 'Oh, you're glad that I'm starting to post on OnlyFans. It sounds 'good' to you because I'm supporting myself, even if I'm telling you I'm doing this as a plan Z because I don't know what else to do.'"
• Ellen Huet: "A person close to Sam says that Sam remembers the conversation differently. Annie and Sam are mostly estranged. After that conversation, she kept living in Hawaii, struggling in obscurity. Meanwhile, Sam was ascendant. He was doing world tours. {He was} CEO of the year {in Time Magazine.} He officially became a billionaire. Most of the world had no idea Annie Altman existed, let alone that she was depending on OnlyFans for survival. But last fall, New York Magazine published a profile of Sam, and the journalist, Elizabeth Weil, interviewed Annie. The article was the first time a lot of people found out Sam even had a sister, myself included."
• Annie Altman: "Some of the trippiest messages I got from reporters, when that article first came out, were reporters who have watched every interview Sam has ever done, saying 'He's never mentioned a sister.'"
• Ellen Huet: "Annie worries that because she's basically invisible in Sam's public life life, especially compared to his tight relationship with his brothers, reporters won't take her story seriously."
• Annie Altman: "That they will then question my validity, or {be like} 'Oh, well, she's crazy. Maybe...he's just not talking about her because she's so mentally unstable, and so now let's recycle the 'Annie's crazy' narrative and 'This is why she can't be trusted', or 'We should just ignore her.'"
• Ellen Huet: "In the days leading up to the article coming out, New York Magazine reached out to Sam and his family and OpenAI for fact-checking and to confirm details. So Sam knew the story was going to mention Annie. And then the day before the article ran, something spurred Sam to make an unexpected move. He emailed Annie."
• Annie Altman: "And the night before it {the Elizabeth Weil article} came out was Yom Kippur --
• Ellen Huet: "-- the Jewish day of forgiveness --"
• Annie Altman: "Sam emailed me, 'no subject' and in all lowercase, and said, 'hi annie. in the spirit of it almost being yom kippur, i wanted to apologize and ask for forgiveness for something. i should have kept sending you money without conditions even though our family had concerns; i was in a tough position of wanting to let mom drive decisions as the parent and seeing how much stress you were causing her (and also agreeing it would be better for everyone if you were  able to support yourself, and thinking that you needed medical help) and it being clear you just weren't really able to function very well. still, i made the wrong call and should just have just kept supporting you; i sincerely apologize. i hope you find peace.' There's no mention of this article that's coming out tomorrow, and there's no mention of the fact checking that he just went through."
• Ellen Huet: "Annie felt that the timing of this email was really telling. That for all this time, while Annie was staying in the background, Sam didn't feel any need to apologize. Then, just as she's about to exert a little bit of power over him, by complicating his image, he reaches out, and invokes their shared Jewish heritage to ask for forgiveness. I asked Annie how she felt about Sam speaking publicly about universal basic income and ending poverty when he hasn't done the same for her."
• Annie Altman: "It was a very big slap in the face. It feels embarrassing to be related to him. It's beyond depressing and heartbreaking and disappointing that someone who I thought had a different moral compass, or who I thought would be there for me when I needed someone and was really sick, wasn't...in the same way I'm gonna be grieving my dad for the rest of my life, I'm gonna be grieving Sam for the rest of my life. And the sadness of...of someone who saw me in a walking boot and didn't say, 'How can I help you.' It's why I use the term 'sibling' and not 'brother.'"
• Ellen Huet: "Even though Annie's story is really complicated, I think it's relevant to all of us. Because when Sam is going around talking about our AI future, he acknowledges that AI could take our jobs and upend society and money as we know it. And he says he'll come up with a solution for us: universal basic income. But, when he's faced with the messy reality of his own sister, suddenly it's not so simple. In public, he is literally saying that there shouldn't be poverty. {That} money will be given away to everyone. In private, when Annie asked for help, he didn't come through for her in the way she needed."

• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69520118/altman-v-altman/
  • See especially the 6-page legal complaint, filed on January 6, 2025, which provides Annie's reasons for filling the lawsuit, and details about the sexual abuse Annie alleges she experienced from Sam -- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69520118/1/altman-v-altman/
• Alternate/backup links:
  • https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.moed.217171/gov.uscourts.moed.217171.1.0_1.pdf
    • Alternate link (to the same legal document): https://ia600609.us.archive.org/8/items/gov.uscourts.moed.217171/gov.uscourts.moed.217171.1.0.pdf
  • https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/56412238/Altman_v_Altman
  • https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69520118/1/altman-v-altman/

• See:
  • https://x.com/sama/status/1876780763653263770
  • https://x.com/sama/status/1876867051215585542

• ➡️ Annie Altman (20:12): I love that. I love to. I'm definitely a big. Proponent of giving people options. Like, I took a pharmaceutical for a decade starting, pretty young and decided not to and I still feel like people need the option to do it if they want because only, that person knows their body and their needs and their whatever having stuff where one people have to go to a farm or somewhere in nature to get, whatever they're choosing to help with their own personal regeneration. And that, then there's the whole eastern western all of the options. That isn't a not demonizing anything, that's just putting it all out there for people. I definitely at this point have a More natural medicine, and Eastern medicine preference, because that's been so much more effective for me. And also, Pharmaceuticals very much, kept me alive as well, and you were taught 🔴🔴🔴when you were talking about Suicidal kids. I was I was one of them, I relate to that and I definitely and I went vegetarian really young because I was just so hurt about seeing and knowing that animals were dying and all. So nobody wanted to talk to a little five-year-old about.🔴🔴🔴 Like, here's, let's take you to a farm like what if we just show you the stuff for and I wonder sometimes, or I think about, In the what ifs of Life of like what? If I gotten to go see a farm and see what it was like or not have yeah. What if so what if so many little kids were able to not have all of the vegetables and eggs and things that They see not be so removed from their life starting from a young age. And then for adults, too, because we're all big toddlers. What, what impact does that have? I know my mental health is definitely been really improved being close to Nature and Touching grass and planting things. Like being a whole part of planting and composting. And and even just small ways such different