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Comment by cma

6 months ago

> I just saw Sam Altman speak at YCNYC and I was impressed. I have never actually met him or heard him speak before Monday, but one of his stories really stuck out and went something like this:

> "We were trying to get a big client for weeks, and they said no and went with a competitor. The competitor already had a terms sheet from the company were we trying to sign up. It was real serious.

> We were devastated, but we decided to fly down and sit in their lobby until they would meet with us. So they finally let us talk to them after most of the day.

> We then had a few more meetings, and the company wanted to come visit our offices so they could make sure we were a 'real' company. At that time, we were only 5 guys. So we hired a bunch of our college friends to 'work' for us for the day so we could look larger than we actually were. It worked, and we got the contract."

> I think the reason why PG respects Sam so much is he is charismatic, resourceful, and just overall seems like a genuine person.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3048944

3 comments

cma

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aithrowawaycomm  6 months ago

Man, the real ugliness is the comments hooting and hollering for this amoral cynicism:

  Honesty is often overrated by geeks and it is very contextual

  He didn't misrepresent anything. They were actually working there, just only for one day.

  The effectiveness of deception is not mitigated by your opinions of its likability.

Gross.

renegade-otter  6 months ago

This sort of "adjusting the truth" is widespread in business. It's not OK, but people should not be shocked by this.

Also, if marks want to be so gullible, it's on them. It's your money and YOUR due diligence.