Yeah discussing honesty seems pointless in real life considering a much lower bar… avoiding writing provable factual lies on the record… is often not even satisfied by large swathes on the population. Who often get away without any noticeable punishment too.
In comparison even a deceiver that says a dozen half truths an hour, without any outright factual lies, seems like a paragon of virtue.
I think that's true of most marketing. The bigger the lie the more shouting has to be done. Peter Thiel mentions that monopoly companies often have the most 'sales' in order to seem competitive. And conversely small competitive companies want to seem large and stable. A bag of lettuce won't have 'healthy' all over the packaging because that's self evident but a bottle or can sugary drink will have all sorts of claims about vitamins there is even a brand called Vitamin Water.
To briefly summarize (and sanitize), just because someone puts a guarantee on the box doesn't mean they'll stand by it. The guarantee on the box makes you feel warm and toasty, and that's what you bought -- the warm feelings. But if you have a quality product, you don't need to advertise the guarantee... the product is good enough on it's own.
Similarly the -refund, no questions asked- even if its honored by merchants plays on a psychological effect where most people wont ask for a refund (even if they dont use the product) unless its really broken/whatever
In general, one's own words are the cheapest, and thus least reliable, form of signaling. If you call yourself "Honest Ed", it's pretty suspicious; if others unironically give you a moniker "Honest Ed", it's high praise.
Understatement is something only the renowned can afford; those who suck (or swindle) have to resort to overstatement and seek gullible audience.
> I’m suspicious whenever someone says, “I’m an (adjective) (noun).” Why did you need to say, “I’m a great tennis player,” “I’m a deep thinker,” or “I’m a generous person”? Instead, why not simply play tennis, regardless of how great you are? Or think as deeply as you want? Or be generous?
Which is why the whole "identification" fad is bullshit. Why bother identifying as a singer if you cannot sing?
Just a continuation of this postmodern delusion that puts the cart before the horse and elevates language and symbols about reality over reality itself.
Most of the time, you don't have to walk the walk though. With the sports example, you can drop being great at it while talking to people at a bar or dinner party or online as you can't be asked to prove it right then and there. If you claim to be a good singer, you can pretty much do that at any time so that's a bit harder.
I think most people get taken advantage of at a car dealership because they don't understand that they must do their homework on what the value is of the vehicle they're interested in, understand the financing, knowing what the extended warranty is worth and always walk away from pressure salesmanship.
If something is confusing, have them print out an offer on the vehicle and take it to someone for help. If they don't want to do that, walk! If the buyer remembers the dealership wants to make as much money as they can, then it's you against them. Since this is a given, what's on paper counts.
They do, seriously it is very common with male interactions. I have seen it first hand with tennis, golf, chess, and bowling. With golf easily being the most common
I've noticed this with movies. If a movie is being advertised a lot, it's usually a bad movie. Why else are they trying so hard?
The opposite happened with the Matrix. I think I saw 1 bus stop poster for it, and didn't know what it was until multiple people at work said, "you have to see it!" Too bad they never made a sequel.
You might just not like big-budget movies - there's definitely a correlation between the size of the budget and a lack of novelty. Take a look at Wikipedia's list of most expensive films, almost every single one on there is a big franchise film - often late in the franchise too. I think the first one on there that isn't based on previous material is Avatar at #41 and I think the only other is Tenet at #62.
This makes sense - if you're funding a movie you want a return on your investment. You could make 20 risky $10m movies or one that's $200m which has to succeed or else. When you put your money into the $200m movie you want to make sure it's as inoffensive as possible and appeals to as wide an audience as possible, so you want a franchise that's proven to pump out hits in the past (or a director who does the same, like Cameron for Avatar and Nolan for Tenet).
I guess it depends on your definition of a lot. There are plenty of 100 million+ net worth people that have a good moral compass in my experience. Typically these are family business owners or what we'd call owner-operators.
Edit: I'd even argue the general idea of capitalism is virtuous by default.
1) I provide something others find useful
2) I invest (providing capital for others to do 1)
> I'd even argue the general idea of capitalism is virtuous by default.
I wouldn't, in my opinion:
Capitalism incentivizes selfishness at the detriment of others that are "playing the [capitalism] game" or anti-competitive practices. It also pushes people to hoard resources - think Tragedy of the Commons or anti-competitive practices in general. The incentive is to reduce the amount of resources available to competition while increasing your holdings, allowing you to repeat the loop but with higher chances of success.
Providing something others find useful seems like a lucky side effect that often isn't even true, there's a lot of industries who have no intention of providing something useful (like stock trading, short trading especially). Most companies are trying to reduce costs as much as possible, reducing the usefulness of their product/service to the lowest point that people will still pay for.
But I agree with your other points - just because capitalism breeds selfishness it doesn't mean all parties are going to the extremes.
I knew a tech founder once who spent an hour lecturing us (his employees) on business ethics. He'd even written a little red book (like Mao) to codify his thoughts on how we should all behave.
Fast forward a few years and the guy flees the US after being charged with securities fraud. Spends the rest of his life living on his millions in a foreign country with no US extradition treaty.
Not to be that guy but this just isn’t a helpful heuristic and I think the author fundamentally misunderstands introductions. The point of self identifying with some operating principle (value-add) isn’t about guaranteeing it to be true, it’s a social contract that A: indicates your priorities and B: offers a short-circuit to credibility.
Just because you state yourself as value-add doesn’t mean I am going to believe you are a value-add, it indicates that being value-add is your priority, so if I need to call on my investors for something I might go to you first, and if you fail to be a value add then you discredit literally your entire existence in my professional network.
This is why “introduce yourself” is such a valuable question. It reveals how a person views themself in a context. Do they jump into titles? Achievements? Their operating principles? Their failures? Their insecurities?
> This is why “introduce yourself” is such a valuable question. It reveals how a person views themself in a context. Do they jump into titles? Achievements? Their operating principles? Their failures? Their insecurities?
An old standby I love that is familiar, warm, emphasizes respect and consent, and plays well with individuals or a group:
What was the point of this blog post? To re-use the shit metaphor, to the author of this blog post: Shit or get off the pot. I have a general disdain for these types of post where the author has to know that the very first thing every reader would do is google around to try to figure out exactly who he's talking about (in this case, the psychopathic VC). I.e. leave plenty of details where a determined searcher can figure out the subject of the post, but without naming names. IMO, if you're going to go that far, you should either name names or shut up.
Secondly, the only other takeaway I got from this post is "beware of narcissistic psychopaths, especially in the VC world." Yeah, and water is wet.
VC industry likes to mention that there are bad actors without actually mentioning the bad actors. It's a faux pas to actually name and shame. The industry happens to be small enough and super relationship-driven so, for better or worse, observing the faux pas matters.
I cannot think of a selfish upside to broadcasting who the alleged bad actors are.
But I can think of selfish downside to doing so. Retaliation and discrediting, by someone you already know is underhanded. Also, you don't want to be known as someone who might violate a confidence, or air industry dirty laundry. Also, when someone Web searches your name, you don't want some scandal headline to come up.
I can also think of selfish reason to say that there are bad actors, without naming them: "Of course, we're good ones, just warning you, because we're looking out for you."
Eh. I’m not really into “hard and fast” rules. In most cases, there’s no reason to mention personal assets, but sometimes, it’s useful. Same goes for personal weaknesses.
Whatever I say, I mean; whether making a commitment, giving a compliment, or telling someone that I may be good (or bad) at something, so they can make their own mind up.
I do feel that it’s important to back up what I say. That’s a big reason that I’m so open.
Isn't it the symptom of current time - you have to blatantly self promote yourself? Or is it still easier to let your work speak for you instead of noisy self promotion?
I hope you're joking. You can spend years developing ground-breaking shit in the dark and no one will ever know you exist. You might attract a miniscule following of people who recognize the value of what you're creating, but they won't evangelize for you.
This reminds me of the observation that you shouldn't buy a car from a dealer who calls himself Honest Ed.
Because honest people just go around being honest, they don't go around broadcasting honesty.
Honest Achmed, on the other hand—I hear he issues only the most legitimate of certificates from his Used Cars and Certificates Emporium!
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=647959
Yeah discussing honesty seems pointless in real life considering a much lower bar… avoiding writing provable factual lies on the record… is often not even satisfied by large swathes on the population. Who often get away without any noticeable punishment too.
In comparison even a deceiver that says a dozen half truths an hour, without any outright factual lies, seems like a paragon of virtue.
Or how countries with "democratic" in the name invariably are not.
And few countries are as split into two warring camps as the United States of America.
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I think that's true of most marketing. The bigger the lie the more shouting has to be done. Peter Thiel mentions that monopoly companies often have the most 'sales' in order to seem competitive. And conversely small competitive companies want to seem large and stable. A bag of lettuce won't have 'healthy' all over the packaging because that's self evident but a bottle or can sugary drink will have all sorts of claims about vitamins there is even a brand called Vitamin Water.
Honey Nut Cheerios Heart Healthy Breakfast Cereal. Vitamin Water. Green Hydrogen. Clean Diesel. Patriot Act.
Double Speak
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That reminds me of the Guarantee scene from the movie Tommy Boy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEB7WbTTlu4
To briefly summarize (and sanitize), just because someone puts a guarantee on the box doesn't mean they'll stand by it. The guarantee on the box makes you feel warm and toasty, and that's what you bought -- the warm feelings. But if you have a quality product, you don't need to advertise the guarantee... the product is good enough on it's own.
(or something like that...)
Similarly the -refund, no questions asked- even if its honored by merchants plays on a psychological effect where most people wont ask for a refund (even if they dont use the product) unless its really broken/whatever
marketing is the art of manipulation
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Sounds like people that claim to be religious or mention they are Christian to gain trust, I lived in the Bible Belt and saw that a lot
that's everywhere
In general, one's own words are the cheapest, and thus least reliable, form of signaling. If you call yourself "Honest Ed", it's pretty suspicious; if others unironically give you a moniker "Honest Ed", it's high praise.
Understatement is something only the renowned can afford; those who suck (or swindle) have to resort to overstatement and seek gullible audience.
Sometimes people give the names ironically like calling the NFL lineman Tiny
"Open" AI
> I’m suspicious whenever someone says, “I’m an (adjective) (noun).” Why did you need to say, “I’m a great tennis player,” “I’m a deep thinker,” or “I’m a generous person”? Instead, why not simply play tennis, regardless of how great you are? Or think as deeply as you want? Or be generous?
Which is why the whole "identification" fad is bullshit. Why bother identifying as a singer if you cannot sing?
Just a continuation of this postmodern delusion that puts the cart before the horse and elevates language and symbols about reality over reality itself.
Most of the time, you don't have to walk the walk though. With the sports example, you can drop being great at it while talking to people at a bar or dinner party or online as you can't be asked to prove it right then and there. If you claim to be a good singer, you can pretty much do that at any time so that's a bit harder.
When people talk about their own identity, they very rarely mean something like "great at singing".
I admire your confidence that reality is so easily measured and categorized though.
Personally, as I grow older, I find more and more exceptions to things I once thought of as immutable truth.
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I think most people get taken advantage of at a car dealership because they don't understand that they must do their homework on what the value is of the vehicle they're interested in, understand the financing, knowing what the extended warranty is worth and always walk away from pressure salesmanship.
If something is confusing, have them print out an offer on the vehicle and take it to someone for help. If they don't want to do that, walk! If the buyer remembers the dealership wants to make as much money as they can, then it's you against them. Since this is a given, what's on paper counts.
The more expensive a transaction, the more crap. Houses are worse than cars!
But then if you spend enough more you get into super fancy squads of lawyers territory and a lot more due diligence and contracts.
The sweet spot for scams it:
* rare enough for the average person that they won't do too many in their life, and so it would be high effort to become an expert
* not quite expensive enough that all your potential buyers can lawyer up
Kinda funny that we put up with it. It's not adding value to the economy.
or just call every dealership on the country looking for the ones that randomly need to fill their sales quota that month
I just say "To be honest" when I want to signal I'm about to say something that someone doesn't want to hear or that is slightly inappropriate
The tennis example is weird though. I don't think people who are bad at tennis go around claiming they're great at tennis, do they?
They do, seriously it is very common with male interactions. I have seen it first hand with tennis, golf, chess, and bowling. With golf easily being the most common
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Dunning Kruger would have us think so.
Also, most people who are good at something let their actions speak.
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Yup. Anytime someone keeps advertising some trait, its probably a cover up. They might not even be aware of it.
Perhaps they are subconsciously aware of it. That is why they have to go around muttering affirmations to the contrary.
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Similarly, there’s a special military unit whose motto is “Facta Non Verba”— deeds, not words. Talk is cheap!
So we're just posting third party blind item gossip on here huh.
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That's a weird juxtaposition of rare events and extraordinarily frequent ones. :p
Then they gossip about that, then they gossip about the gossip. Its a feedback loop.
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I've noticed this with movies. If a movie is being advertised a lot, it's usually a bad movie. Why else are they trying so hard?
The opposite happened with the Matrix. I think I saw 1 bus stop poster for it, and didn't know what it was until multiple people at work said, "you have to see it!" Too bad they never made a sequel.
You might just not like big-budget movies - there's definitely a correlation between the size of the budget and a lack of novelty. Take a look at Wikipedia's list of most expensive films, almost every single one on there is a big franchise film - often late in the franchise too. I think the first one on there that isn't based on previous material is Avatar at #41 and I think the only other is Tenet at #62.
This makes sense - if you're funding a movie you want a return on your investment. You could make 20 risky $10m movies or one that's $200m which has to succeed or else. When you put your money into the $200m movie you want to make sure it's as inoffensive as possible and appeals to as wide an audience as possible, so you want a franchise that's proven to pump out hits in the past (or a director who does the same, like Cameron for Avatar and Nolan for Tenet).
> Too bad they never made a sequel.
Sarcasm?
https://xkcd.com/566/
Language warning if you have kids around or don’t like that.
from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_(franchise) sequels:
I'm sure the parent-poster is making a joke about the other movies being bad, as opposed to being bizarrely unaware of them.
It's an xkcd reference
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You meet a lot of people with no morals and no money.
You meet less people with morals and no money.
You meet even fewer with no morals and a lot of money.
And you meet almost no one with morals and a lot of money.
Makes for a four-quadrant diagram that Gartner would never publish.
If ChatGPT generates it for someone's homework or slide deck, who's to say Gartner didn't. :)
I guess it depends on your definition of a lot. There are plenty of 100 million+ net worth people that have a good moral compass in my experience. Typically these are family business owners or what we'd call owner-operators.
Edit: I'd even argue the general idea of capitalism is virtuous by default.
1) I provide something others find useful
2) I invest (providing capital for others to do 1)
> I'd even argue the general idea of capitalism is virtuous by default.
I wouldn't, in my opinion:
Capitalism incentivizes selfishness at the detriment of others that are "playing the [capitalism] game" or anti-competitive practices. It also pushes people to hoard resources - think Tragedy of the Commons or anti-competitive practices in general. The incentive is to reduce the amount of resources available to competition while increasing your holdings, allowing you to repeat the loop but with higher chances of success.
Providing something others find useful seems like a lucky side effect that often isn't even true, there's a lot of industries who have no intention of providing something useful (like stock trading, short trading especially). Most companies are trying to reduce costs as much as possible, reducing the usefulness of their product/service to the lowest point that people will still pay for.
But I agree with your other points - just because capitalism breeds selfishness it doesn't mean all parties are going to the extremes.
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I knew a tech founder once who spent an hour lecturing us (his employees) on business ethics. He'd even written a little red book (like Mao) to codify his thoughts on how we should all behave.
Fast forward a few years and the guy flees the US after being charged with securities fraud. Spends the rest of his life living on his millions in a foreign country with no US extradition treaty.
He fled rather than have the book thrown at him!
Not to be that guy but this just isn’t a helpful heuristic and I think the author fundamentally misunderstands introductions. The point of self identifying with some operating principle (value-add) isn’t about guaranteeing it to be true, it’s a social contract that A: indicates your priorities and B: offers a short-circuit to credibility.
Just because you state yourself as value-add doesn’t mean I am going to believe you are a value-add, it indicates that being value-add is your priority, so if I need to call on my investors for something I might go to you first, and if you fail to be a value add then you discredit literally your entire existence in my professional network.
This is why “introduce yourself” is such a valuable question. It reveals how a person views themself in a context. Do they jump into titles? Achievements? Their operating principles? Their failures? Their insecurities?
I don’t know. I prefer this over no information.
> This is why “introduce yourself” is such a valuable question. It reveals how a person views themself in a context. Do they jump into titles? Achievements? Their operating principles? Their failures? Their insecurities?
An old standby I love that is familiar, warm, emphasizes respect and consent, and plays well with individuals or a group:
“How may I help you?”
I'm an empath
It seems like this is just saying "corporate buzzwords are bullshit", which I agree with but I'm not sure it's news.
What was the point of this blog post? To re-use the shit metaphor, to the author of this blog post: Shit or get off the pot. I have a general disdain for these types of post where the author has to know that the very first thing every reader would do is google around to try to figure out exactly who he's talking about (in this case, the psychopathic VC). I.e. leave plenty of details where a determined searcher can figure out the subject of the post, but without naming names. IMO, if you're going to go that far, you should either name names or shut up.
Secondly, the only other takeaway I got from this post is "beware of narcissistic psychopaths, especially in the VC world." Yeah, and water is wet.
VC industry likes to mention that there are bad actors without actually mentioning the bad actors. It's a faux pas to actually name and shame. The industry happens to be small enough and super relationship-driven so, for better or worse, observing the faux pas matters.
I cannot think of a selfish upside to broadcasting who the alleged bad actors are.
But I can think of selfish downside to doing so. Retaliation and discrediting, by someone you already know is underhanded. Also, you don't want to be known as someone who might violate a confidence, or air industry dirty laundry. Also, when someone Web searches your name, you don't want some scandal headline to come up.
I can also think of selfish reason to say that there are bad actors, without naming them: "Of course, we're good ones, just warning you, because we're looking out for you."
Eh. I’m not really into “hard and fast” rules. In most cases, there’s no reason to mention personal assets, but sometimes, it’s useful. Same goes for personal weaknesses.
Whatever I say, I mean; whether making a commitment, giving a compliment, or telling someone that I may be good (or bad) at something, so they can make their own mind up.
I do feel that it’s important to back up what I say. That’s a big reason that I’m so open.
Isn't it the symptom of current time - you have to blatantly self promote yourself? Or is it still easier to let your work speak for you instead of noisy self promotion?
I hope you're joking. You can spend years developing ground-breaking shit in the dark and no one will ever know you exist. You might attract a miniscule following of people who recognize the value of what you're creating, but they won't evangelize for you.
Was there a time in human history where self promotion didn't work?
"Look upon my works ye mighty...."
"My friend, you can trust me"
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