[HN Gopher] Not being an asshole will make you more money
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Not being an asshole will make you more money
Author : dumbfoundded
Score : 217 points
Date : 2020-03-06 16:34 UTC (6 hours ago)
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| projektfu wrote:
| Some examples of the term sheets would have been nice. But it's
| so true that people are often wasting your time trying to secure
| a win for themselves only. It makes me think about good
| recruiters and bad recruiters. The good ones want to find a great
| fit for the position and have a reputation for getting good
| salaries for the people they place. The bad ones want to undercut
| the other recruiters and try to convince the candidate to accept
| a lousy offer. I'm sure the candidates are perfectly able to do
| that themselves.
| mrwnmonm wrote:
| Now you stop being an asshole to get more money, which is exactly
| what an asshole will do.
| minikites wrote:
| Becoming a billionaire requires you to be an asshole by
| definition because the only way to accumulate and retain that
| (frankly incomprehensible) amount of money is through the
| exploitation of your employees and the surplus value of their
| labor at a tremendous scale.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Of course it won't. Otherwise the advertising industry wouldn't
| exist.
|
| More than that. In general, the market rewards being asshole and
| borderline fraudster. Reputation is a thing within smaller
| groups, but what matters is primarily reputation related to your
| behavior _towards your peers in that group_. And if your peer
| group is composed of assholes, then being an asshole is a
| positive trait as long as you 're not an asshole towards members
| of that group.
|
| Another thing: when you're a no-name upstart, reputation matters
| little because nobody knows you. When you're a large, successful
| business, any bad reputation can be compensated by proportionate
| spending on PR and advertising.
|
| Yet another thing: in B2C, consumers often don't have a
| meaningful choice. An individual is juggling _a lot_ of different
| priorities in their lives, not least of which is "saving money"
| and "buying stuff one likes". So e.g. Coca-Cola does a pretty lot
| of evil stuff, but people have strong taste preferences in the
| product category Coca-Cola sells, so nobody really boycotts them.
| Or, pretty much every major brand of smartphones is doing evil
| things, and every major telco provider is filled with assholes -
| yet as a citizen of the western world, I really _do_ need to have
| a smartphone. So I have to choose _someone_. Or, a grocery store
| next to the place I used to live would wash stale meat with
| detergent and sell as fresh. This lands straight into asshole
| category, but I still went there, because a) it was the closest
| store, and b) I have no guarantee other stores don 't do the same
| (and plenty of reasons to suspect they do).
|
| And yet another thing: taking VC investments; when investors come
| knocking for their returns, plenty of startups are forced to
| become assholes.
|
| --
|
| TL;DR: The market rewards assholes. If you're not an asshole,
| your competitors will force you to either become one, or get
| marginalized. There's an excellent essay that goes into details
| about the mechanics of that:
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/.
| dillonmckay wrote:
| Was Food Lion the meat bleacher?
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| A few years ago I started a company, then raised money through
| convertible notes. By the time the notes were due (2 years), we
| weren't ready to raise a round yet, so all investors extended
| their notes. All except one.
|
| The investor that didn't want to extend the note was also the CEO
| of the company that was our largest client, so not only did he
| call his note, he also ended his company's contract, making a
| huge hole in our revenue.
|
| After doing that, and knowing that the company would be
| struggling financially, he sued, forcing the company into
| bankruptcy.
|
| From the beginning we tried negotiating a payment plan or some
| other form of compensation, to no avail. Although at some point
| he did "offer" to completely take over the company and fire the
| founders (which we of course refused).
|
| During bankruptcy, he took over the assets of the company while
| also giving us and the trustee a hard time.
|
| Now, after having ruined the jobs of everyone that worked at our
| company plus the potential upside of all the other investors and
| shareholders, he is suing me and my cofounder personally.
|
| The company closed 2 years ago and it looks like this new lawsuit
| will take another 2 years. Also no one knows if this guy is going
| to stop at that.
|
| Be very careful about doing business with assholes, especially if
| they have a lot of money and you will be taking any type of
| potential liability (e.g. debt) in their favor, even if it's not
| personal liability, they might still try to go after you and make
| your life miserable.
| JackFr wrote:
| Another way put this is that he lent you money to build your
| company and then paid you money every month as a customer. When
| the note came due, you couldn't pay.
|
| One possibility that they cancelled their contract not to screw
| you, but because they felt you were not getting the job done
| and the future wasn't there for your company. Given that, it
| would make little sense to extend the note or continue the
| contract.
|
| As both customer and investor, your vision is not their
| problem.
|
| Lest you think I'm being to hard on you, I've worked at one
| startup which went bankrupt in a similar situation (most of the
| engineering team ended up at working for our biggest customer)
| and another in which the board fired the CEO, liquidated the
| bad bits and sold the good bits to one of our customers. In
| both those cases the founders saw themselves as victims of
| unscrupulous sharp players, but the reality was that they took
| other peoples money and were seemingly oblivious to the
| obligations that entailed.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| You are right. There are always multiple sides and stories
| for the same situation.
|
| It is perfectly possible that it could be that way, and I
| wish it was that way because then it would only be a money
| issue, which could (in theory) be rationally resolved.
|
| Things that somehow contradict that, is how unwilling to
| resolve the issue the investor has been. The company was
| profitable at the time he ended his contract and called the
| note. At that time he said he didn't care about his note,
| that he'd just write it off as a loss and he'd get 50% back
| in taxes. He could also have gotten his money back by taking
| a payment plan. Additionally we offered up the assets as
| payment so we could avoid bankruptcy, but he refused. Then he
| abandoned the assets after acquiring them in bankruptcy.
|
| To me it doesn't make any sense, but I hope you are right,
| that this is only about his money and that we can somehow
| reach an agreement that puts a definitive end to this mess.
| swsieber wrote:
| Is it possible for you to name said investor such that people
| know to stay away from said investor?
| volkk wrote:
| i'm going to guess that giving his name out in a public forum
| combined with the contextual knowledge we now have will make
| it very obvious who OP is. and then its possible for that
| asshole investor to further sue him for slander or whatever
| else
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| As user volkk said, unfortunately it would be legally risky
| for me to disclose the identity of the investor. Which is
| pretty frustrating, because then you realize that when
| someone does something bad to you (legally/morally), there
| are very few (legal) ways to remedy it, especially if they
| have a lot more money than you.
|
| I can say that he's not based in the Bay Area, so if you are
| raising money there it is very unlikely you will run into
| him.
|
| I can also say that our best investors were RightSide
| Capital, based out of SF. They supported us throughout the
| whole ordeal with the company and even offered to buy out the
| other guy. They also said that, out of 600+ investments they
| had done at the time, they had never seen another investor
| act the way ours did.
| AnatolyPetrova wrote:
| So did this backfire for this CEO? I assume that he never got
| the full amount of the note back but he possibly could have if
| he extended the note.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| You are correct. He most likely would have gotten his money
| back, even without renewing the note, had he accepted a
| payment plan.
|
| Instead, he chose to start a (very costly) legal fight.
|
| So far he's probably out $100k+ in legal fees and looking to
| spend $100-200k more in the new personal lawsuit. The
| original note was for $250k. I don't think he's ever going to
| recover the full amount of money he's put into this (not to
| mention also his and everybody else's time as well as
| opportunity costs).
| xwdv wrote:
| Why would he make it so personal? What did you guys do to
| him?
| JackFr wrote:
| Is it possible that it wasn't personal?
|
| That the contract was cancelled because the product
| wasn't worth it?
|
| That the note wasn't extended because he thought the
| company was a money sink which would not be profitable?
| That he thought trying to liquidate the good bits was a
| better way to get his money, rather than a payment plan
| from a value destroying enterprise?
|
| That he sued personally because he felt they might be
| trying to hide assets of the firm?
|
| I could be wrong, but there are other angles to see the
| picture from.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| It is possible, and I'm hoping that's the case (that it
| is not a personal issue).
|
| Replied to another comment of yours with more detail on
| why it looks like a weird situation.
|
| To add a bit more: our investors, the lawyers that we've
| worked with so far and even the bankruptcy trustee's
| team, have all been surprised by the way this guy has
| been handling the situation and seem to agree that it
| doesn't make sense to proceed that way in terms of
| getting a return on his money.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| >Is it possible that it wasn't personal?
|
| You would be stunned at how often the reasons for events
| like this are driven by simple narcissism and spite.
| That's not cynicism speaking, it's reality, and something
| well worth keeping in mind in any business endeavor.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| Great question. We are still trying to figure that out.
|
| We've consulted with multiple lawyers and therapists to
| try to fully understand the situation.
|
| Two guesses so far:
|
| 1) When he "offered" to take over the company, he said he
| would fire me and keep my cofounder running sales. This
| whole ordeal also coincidentally started a couple of days
| after my cofounder said she would be stepping down as CEO
| (even though he had previously told her he would extend
| the note). We have the impression he wants to "own" my
| cofounder somehow (according to an expert in psychopaths
| that we consulted with, the investor fits the profile -
| my cofounder is also very pretty and she's had to deal
| with stalkers multiple times in the past)
|
| 2) After the conflict started, we found out this investor
| apparently had defrauded some people to fund his own
| company (he currently has open lawsuits about that). If
| this is true, he might be projecting, believing maybe we
| did the same to him (which we did not)
|
| But those are just guesses. I wish he would just pick up
| the phone and we could talk to reach some sort of
| agreement to end this madness.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| As a side note. If you are considering raising money through
| convertible debt:
|
| 1) Make sure the contract protects you personally if the
| company cannot pay the note. For example, make it so the note
| automatically converts to equity instead, or so a certain % of
| note holders can force the conversion.
|
| 2) Make sure there is nothing in there saying that you or your
| company have to pay the legal fees of the investor.
|
| 3) Get legal services / liability insurance for the founders of
| the company. This will help ease the financial burden in case
| of legal issues.
|
| Usually, investors that lend you money have a lot more (legal)
| ways to go after you than equity investors (shareholders). With
| good actors this is usually not a problem, but when assholes
| are involved, you never know.
|
| Also, bankruptcy is expensive. There are 2 types of corporate
| bankruptcy, Chapter 7 and Chapter 11. Ch 7 will cost you about
| $20-50k in legal fees, depending on the complexity of the case
| - bear in mind that after the company files for Ch 7, you have
| to pay for your own legal fees. Ch 11 is about $100k+ - most
| lawyers will advise against it unless you have pretty deep
| pockets.
|
| You can also unwind a company outside of court, but it is a bit
| risky legally and something you definitely not want to do when
| there's a potential conflict or a bad actor involved.
| jdkee wrote:
| Encouraging human interactions to operate along chimp-like
| hierarchies instead of bonobo-like co-ops is why we see this
| behaviour everywhere.
|
| https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Science/Study-compares-peac...
| chrisbennet wrote:
| I had a clients contract that had this in it:
|
| "Recover any and all actual, incidental and consequential damages
| to XYZ, _including but not limited to actual or estimated loss of
| profits_ and sales and costs to cover, attorney's fees and
| costs.. "
|
| I wrote back: "Nice try but yeah, no. ;-) "
|
| (My lawyer fixed all these overreaches and they were a great
| client.)
|
| As an aside my lawyer told me that when you a drafting a contract
| with someone you want to work with, its best to be fair. If you
| don't, you're starting the relationship where the counter-party
| doesn't trust you. After all, you tried to screw them the very
| first chance you had.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| also, you won't be an asshole. that's good, in and of itself,
| isn't it?
| angarg12 wrote:
| I don't own a business, but I have encountered these behaviours
| at a smaller scale.
|
| Now I think about this situation as a variation of the prisoners
| dilemma. If both parties play nice, each one gets a smaller
| payoff. If one is an asshole and the other is nice, the asshole
| gets a bigger payoff (by shafting the nice party). This article
| proposes that being nice is beneficial for all parties in the
| long term. That holds true also in the prisoners dilemma, if the
| game repeats over time.
|
| Now, why do people still act that way? One option, as this
| article presumes, is that people are simply not aware that is the
| best option in the long term.
|
| The second, most insidious option, is that they are aware, and do
| it in purpose. Maybe the world is still big enough that you can
| play a first game with different people until your fame catches
| up. Maybe the payoff for being an asshole is so high that a
| single win is enough to retire.
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| Sometimes I feel like humans do not understand that we're the
| prisoners and nature is the police.
|
| Nature does not care about killing us. The universe will feel
| no remorse if an asteroid kills us all or we do it ourselves
| with nukes. Corona doesn't feel shame.
|
| We're prisoners in so many ways. When are we going to start
| cooperating to try to escape our death sentence? Or are we
| content to fight each other over scraps while we await our
| fate?
| brutt wrote:
| You assume that all parties have same IQ, same previous
| experience, equally informed, share same moral values, and
| share same goal. In this case, yes, they are doing wrong.
| danaw wrote:
| Ok no i
| koheripbal wrote:
| The major flaw in this article is that it does not defined what
| constitutes "asshole" behavior.
|
| There is a difference, for example, between being vindictive
| towards others, and simply pushing people out of their comfort
| zone.
|
| The term "asshole" is so vague that it borders on useless.
| illumanaughty wrote:
| The term is intentionally vague because what constitutes an
| 'asshole' depends entirely on domain specific traits.
|
| It's very clear what this article is getting at.
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| In the context of business, I would frame being an asshole as
| doing things that benefit yourself at the expense of others.
| Not being an asshole is doing things that benefit yourself and
| others.
|
| Let's say you sell some Saas tool. You're an asshole if you try
| to sell to anyone even if you think it won't help them. You're
| not an asshole if you truly believe your service will benefit
| your customers. You're an idiot if you're selling to someone
| and you can't tell the difference.
|
| I agree that my definition was certainly lacking but I hope
| this clarifies my intent to separate true assholery with simply
| being unpleasant to be around.
| koheripbal wrote:
| What if they are acting in the interests of the company? Is
| that "others" or "themselves"?
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| It doesn't matter. The point is the same either way. If you
| screw other people to get value for yourself it's a short
| term play. From office politics to corporate agreements,
| you should avoid the temptation to fuck others for your
| gain. It will probably hurt you in the long term.
| atoav wrote:
| Because it depends. Certain things are generally asshole
| behaviour tho:
|
| - beeing unfriendly when someone has a bad day
|
| - going out of your way to make someones life harder
|
| - unemphatically beeing to hard to someone in the wrong moment
|
| - participiting in badmouthing or mobbing
|
| - pushing work and tasks that you should do onto others without
| explicitly talking about it
|
| - beeing snarky to people who know less than you
|
| Etc.
| s_y_n_t_a_x wrote:
| Some might say being assertive is "being an asshole", but
| it's definitely a good business trait.
|
| This is all subjective and I'm surprised this article is even
| on here, it's just someone ranting.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Even if you could come up with a good definition, it would
| still be a silly assertion. He's wrong: not being an asshole
| won't make you more money. Being an asshole will also not make
| you more money. How nice or not nice you are to other people is
| almost entirely unrelated to how much money you make.
| mcguire wrote:
| Only if you can avoid subsequent deals with the same
| counterparties.
| illumanaughty wrote:
| It's not a silly assertion, it's just that you've taken silly
| things away from this article. He's asserting that if you're
| too self interested / lack empathy you will hurt yourself in
| the long run.
| s_y_n_t_a_x wrote:
| It's ludicrous, not just silly. People are talking here
| like this is a study that can be verified.
|
| It is a random person ranting and completely subjective.
| koheripbal wrote:
| You just re-defined asshole in a way that suits your
| argument.
|
| The article doesn't define it that way.
| eloff wrote:
| I suggest you look up game theory. Not being an asshole is
| actually the winning strategy over the long term.
| tlb wrote:
| Don't respond to emails from random people trying to buy your
| business. They're all scammy.
|
| If you respond to these, or offers to re-fi your house, or help
| someone move their royal fortune out of Nigeria, you're indeed
| going to be dealing with assholes.
|
| If you want to sell your business, take charge and run a
| competitive bidding process. But ignore unsolicited offers.
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| It's tough when someone in your industry with a big name
| reaches out but in general, you're right. Very rarely do people
| come to you with good intentions. You generally have to seek
| out good people.
| jariel wrote:
| I don't see any evidence to support the assertion unfortunately
| :)
|
| Also, the huge difference between emotional/perceptive
| aggression, and actual aggression.
|
| There are loud, crude people who like to push for a fair deal, or
| who are not aggressive terms.
|
| There are 'nice', cunning manipulative people who seek excessive
| terms.
|
| There are actually truly nice people, who push for assertive
| terms, not realising how far they are going.
|
| And of course, there's mostly tons of misinterpretations: people
| who have totally different needs, perspective, expectations with
| respect to how to go about a situation. A founder seeing
| aggression might actually be an investor taking a perfectly
| normative demand.
|
| But yes, I've seen utter stupidity in deal making.
|
| Relationships do matter, and you need a working agreement with
| whoever you're working with, investors included.
| seventytwo wrote:
| I think you're missing the point.
|
| Make "rising tide lifts all boats" deals. Here, you're entering
| in a deal to create additional value to the world.
|
| Don't make deals with a zero-sum outlook. Here, you're entering
| into a deal for, at best, a transfer of existing value within
| the world.
| munificent wrote:
| That is the point of the article, yes. But it doesn't offer
| _evidence_ that that is a _financially_ better strategy.
|
| It is self-evidently morally better, of course. And it may be
| financially better too. But the article just flatly claims it
| in a number of single-sentence paragraphs without
| communicating any real data.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| From The Godfather Part II: "Hyman Roth always makes money
| for his partners. One by one, our old friends are gone.
| Death, natural or not, prison, deported. Hyman Roth is the
| only one left, because he always made money for his
| partners."
| eloisant wrote:
| Indeed: "So many people are straight assholes in business.
| Especially the more you climb the ladder."
|
| This sentence alone contradicts the title...
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| Not necessarily, but good point. I think many people become
| assholes once they get anywhere to protect what they have.
| The risk equation flips once you've "made it". People
| optimize for minimizing loss rather than maximizing for
| expected value.
|
| If you're going for maximizing ev, I believe my thoughts hold
| true.
| potta_coffee wrote:
| This is a decent article. I generally agree with the sentiments
| presented, but I disagree with the font-choice, which I found
| difficult to read.
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| I appreciate the feedback. Any recommendations for something
| legible?
| mikekij wrote:
| I totally agree. A business school professor of mine, Stuart
| Diamond, wrote a book called Getting More about using these ideas
| in negotiation. His theory is that you should always be leaving
| money on the table. If you're not, you're playing the short game.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Getting-More-Negotiate-Succeed-Work/d...
| duxup wrote:
| Kinda off topic but other side of the coin, befriending the
| asshole:
|
| At my first job there was this grizzly old engineer who was known
| for being pretty surly, but knew the code base almost as if by
| memory, and the behavior of the code. He was bothered by anything
| and everything and really just wanted to run out the clock and go
| home and work in his wood shop.
|
| I was in support and nobody wanted to go to him for help, but man
| you had to sometimes. I read something about guys like that being
| really particular about things so I just made a long list of what
| he was annoyed that people didn't bring him (information wise)
| and how they brought it to him when people or I did go to him.
|
| Most importantly I'd make a point that he would see that I
| brought him information (about customer problems) based on his
| past feedback.
|
| Eventually over the course of months he warmed to me and I could
| get his help bringing him virtually nothing and he wouldn't
| complain. Dude was still annoyed for not getting a mountain of
| information from other techs, but not so much me. People there
| for 10 years would get a "Have Mark look at it first." talk from
| him... I had been there for 9 months.
|
| For him it was about getting to know people and trust that they
| would bother to get him what he needed, once you proved that, he
| didn't so much care.
| draw_down wrote:
| Who decides who is an asshole? Makes all the difference.
| miguelmota wrote:
| The term asshole is very subjective; some people will perceive
| being candid and telling it how it is as being mean while others
| love the straightforwardness. Bosses have to put emotions aside
| to think more logically and that comes off as unsympathetic when
| talking to employees or partners. Steve Jobs was known to not
| have been the nicest guy yet he's praised all the time.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| You're talking about being nice, not being an asshole. Assholes
| are people who come in and shit all over everything instead of
| trying to play fair. People who are not nice can be fair. Take
| as an analogy the difference between social class and economic
| class, and how people can have a social class that's different
| from their economic class.
| miguelmota wrote:
| Being apathetic and selfish are some attributes that both
| assholes and top billionaires exhibit. I'd say it's not so
| black and white and people will perceive what being nice
| means to them differently depending on their social economic
| status since people of lower economic status tend to be more
| susceptible to emotions than a business person.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| Yeah, I was trying to use social and economic class as a
| metaphor for asshole versus not-nice. Because it's easy to
| conflate the two in both cases.
| oarabbus_ wrote:
| It seems like the bigger asshole tends to make more money,
| unfortunately for myself.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| > I really don't understand why.
|
| > So many people are straight assholes in business. Especially
| the more you climb the ladder. As my bootstrapped business
| reached $3M ARR, a wave of no-name investors approached us. Some
| of the term sheets more than insulted me. They sought to take
| control of the company without any payout for the co-founders or
| employees. They just wanted to capitalize a company they'd now
| own.
|
| > I don't understand why.
|
| (Warning: Probably unpopular opinion for capitalistic mind sets
| following)
|
| Well, big surprise, because they got corrupted (ethically) by
| their money and greed, or that is the way they got a hold of it
| in the first place. They got some, so they want more. Money buys
| almost anything in capitalistic society after all. They see a
| chance to take advantage of a fellow human being, a chance to
| profit! They do not care about the human in your business. They
| care about ways they could profit from it. You are only a means
| of increasing their capital. The higher the amount of money
| investors have, the more likely, that they got it through
| ethically questionable means, because that is, where the big
| money is made.
|
| There might be ethical investors out there too. Haven't knowingly
| met any such yet, might have unknowingly met some. It is probably
| also quite difficult to keep a clean sheet through all the
| complexity of today's financial world.
|
| (perspective change from having a company which others want to
| invest in, to investments being done by people)
|
| There is a difference between working for a wage and using money
| to "magically" create more money, fueling turbo capitalism. In
| many cases that difference is an ethical one: What investments
| does one make? Can one be sure, that those investments are not
| actually investments, which flow directly or indirectly into
| production of weapons, climate destroying big companies,
| pesticide producing giants, who are responsible for decimating
| bee populations and starvation in third world countries? Anyone
| "investing" should really think hard about it and be on the
| lookout for superficially nice investments, which are actually
| indirectly quite unethical.
|
| Now I will admit, that there are probably still many ways to make
| ethical investments. Of course there are. It's just that those
| are not yielding the highest returns. You could invest in social
| projects, in green energy/technology, in research for many good
| things. You can even donate to a good cause (like protection of
| rain forest) and thereby make an investment into all our future.
|
| Most people, who "invest" in something however, are almost
| completely after the returns those things yield and do not give a
| damn about the ethical aspect of that investment. They do not
| give a thought about indirectly investing in some huge company,
| which takes part in producing weapons or building the next big
| coal mine (thinking of a recent example).
|
| Lets take a look at for example DAX (German stock index). Anyone
| investing in any "financial product" that invests into the top n
| DAX companies. There we have BASF and Bayer, responsible for
| producing, selling and lobbying for pesticide usage and killing
| natural diversity and species, starvation of people in India and
| forcing farmers to use genetically modified seeds, in the name of
| profit. We have BMW and Daimler, where at least to my knowledge
| Daimler is part of the diesel scandal, making people believe
| their cars were cleaner than they really are, indirectly guilty
| of dealing huge damage to our environment and health. We have
| Deutsche Bank and Telekom there as well. Telekom just sucks for
| being a monopoly (at least was) and keeping technology way behind
| in Germany. Deutsche bank does not have a good name, when we talk
| about ethics, although I do not personally know exactly what they
| did. Probably investments in weapons and stuff like that. And
| wasn't Adidas connected to child labour in third world countries?
|
| So basically anyone investing in DAX as such invests in these at
| least partly evil players, knowingly or unknowingly. But people
| are being scared by people working in banks and other places, who
| tell them that, if they do not invest into something with more
| risk, they will not be able to take advantage of those precious
| percentages at the stock market and then those scared people stop
| thinking and become investors. Notice also how usually the
| people, who are consulting you at banks and insurances try to
| steer you into the direction of stock market backed investments.
| Usually they will make other options simply look worth, simply
| based on percentages. That is often, because when you invest into
| such products of theirs, their company gets more flexibility of
| investment itself and can do more unethical investments, yielding
| higher returns for them.
|
| In my opinion anyone investing into anything has a
| responsibility. That responsibility is not to increase their own
| riches, but to look out (not only superficially) for any
| ethically questionable consequences of their investment and even
| the responsibility to try to make the world a better place with
| their investment.
| seanhunter wrote:
| I have an example. In a previous role was in a position where we
| were negotiating a large-ish (>1M USD) multi-year contract when
| our client asked us to also do a proof of concept about some
| topic. It was just 1 week or 2 weeks so I said it would be free
| but because of various regulatory stuff we needed a contract in
| place.
|
| I was dealing with the same purchasing lawyer on both contracts.
| The process was super-standard: someone sends a first draft, the
| other side redlines (proposes changes and makes comments), then
| the first team redline, etc, at some point you all compromise a
| bit and someone makes a clean copy of the document containing all
| the agreed changes for everyone to sign. So we got to the point
| we had all agreed and the purchasing lawyer on the other side
| produced the "clean copy" but he obviously thought we were a
| bunch of rubes so he produced a clean copy for us to sign by
| backing out all of our changes and only putting in his changes.
| This is a ridiculously low-integrity bush-league stunt and he did
| it on the zero-cost POC contract while we were still negotiating
| the >1m big contract.
|
| Some people just want to win so bad it doesn't even matter to
| them that they are being total assholes, the prize is zero and
| it's outright harmful to their own interests. I bet he cheats
| when playing his own kids at boardgames.
| pc86 wrote:
| Except this has been tried before and they typically end in one
| of three outcomes:
|
| 1) It was a mistake and it doesn't go to court.
|
| 2) It was intentional and it doesn't go to court because the
| attorney, while still being a piece of shit, understands what
| option 3 is.
|
| 3) It was intentional, it goes to court, and you produce the
| email evidence showing the attorney agreed to changeset N then
| sent along changeset N-1, and the provisions are thrown out
| because they were executed in bad faith.
| listsfrin wrote:
| * if you have the money and the people prepared for 3)
| thomk wrote:
| Civil lawsuits come down to just one thing in this country:
| MONEY.
|
| Not the law, not what is right or who has been virtuous.
| Just money. Or more specifically: who has the money.
|
| If you are poor and you sue someone who is rich, they
| control that outcome. If you are rich and you sue someone
| who is poor, they (by default) control that outcome;
| there's nothing there. If you are both poor, a judge will
| often decide based who looks and sounds the less poor. If
| you are both rich, then (the equivalent of) actuaries
| decide the outcome.
|
| Criminal lawsuits are similar. I do not care how much you
| fuck up in this country; The amount of time you spend in
| jail will be inversely proportional to the amount of money
| you can spend to fight it.
| Jommi wrote:
| This point only pertains in places with a poisonous legal
| system, such as US or UK.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| It's a common negotiation strategy to be a complete ass and
| wearing people down. A lot of people will give in just to keep
| the peace. It also works to ask for more concessions right
| before closing the deal. You just have to be shameless. I think
| that's why sociopaths tend to do well in business.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| Once word gets around though, it starts to harm you in the
| long run. I worked for a company where one of the owners
| seemed to have a world view that _everyone_ is trying to
| screw you over, so you better screw them over first.
|
| After I left I had a friend ask about the company, because
| they were about to a deal with them. I gave my honest opinion
| and suggested they be sure to get any money up front and be
| very careful to reduce their risk.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Once word gets around though, it starts to harm you in
| the long run.
|
| How sure of that are you? One of the big proponents of this
| strategy is currently President of the United States.
| minikites wrote:
| >Once word gets around though, it starts to harm you in the
| long run.
|
| Does it? It seems to have worked for the president of the
| USA just fine and that was his exact tactic in all of his
| business "deals".
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| I am not so sure about that. When I was consultant I had
| several clients that were a complete pain to deal with but
| they also had a lot of money to spend so it was worth it in
| the end. When I read business biographies I get the
| impression that a lot of successful people/companies like
| Gates, Jobs, Ellison or Walmart are really hard to do
| business with. They will exploit you as soon as you make
| the slightest mistake but if you play everything right you
| can make good money.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| This kinda seems like a just world fallacy. It might get
| around, it might not - I'm not sure its really known either
| way. But we like to hope people that regularly behave like
| assholes eventually get punished for it.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I've encountered two types of people who attempt the
| asshole strategy: A) those stick around in town and after
| about 10 years, eventually build a bad reputation that
| they can't shake, and B) those who have to move every 2
| to 3 years to keep ahead of their bad reputation.
|
| The first group finds they eventually have to move to get
| back to progressing in their career (hopefully learning
| from their mistake). I've known guys who moved and did
| change, running into them again and finding them to be
| completely different people, settled into family life,
| and quite happy. I've known guys who moved and didn't
| change, found themselves needing to move again in 10
| years, all while cursing the world for being against
| them.
|
| The second group just never progresses in their careers.
| You see them try to move into positions that seemingly
| fit such behavior, like "serial entrepreneur" or "SEO
| consultant". They never really grow, always behaving like
| they're still in their early 20s. By the time they hit
| their 40s, they can't pick up chicks at bars anymore and
| it hits home that they've wasted their life.
| Unfortunately, I've never met anyone who changed and
| turned it around.
|
| It does come around. It just takes longer than internet
| scale time.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It does surely go around often. It also looks like it
| doesn't often (but this one is a negative, so one can not
| be sure).
|
| No alternative is rare, so the ratio is the interesting
| measure. (And no, I don't know this one.)
| ptero wrote:
| > A lot of people will give in just to keep the peace.
|
| IME it works only if the party is the only way in town and
| negotiation is only on scope and price (i.e., the other party
| cannot take their business elsewhere). Otherwise they get
| known as "assholes not to deal with" which is a very hard
| thing to shake off. My 2c.
| swat535 wrote:
| The only time you can afford to have this behaviour is when
| you have leverage over the other party either by connections,
| dependencies or assets. People often forget that without
| leverage being rude will get you nowhere. Try this at work
| tomorrow and I bet you in no time your manager will show you
| the door. If both parties are on equal terms when it comes to
| negotiation power then it will either turn into a pissing
| contest or gets resolved quickly.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| I often think that bullies get a lot of perceived leverage.
| They may not have real leverage but they intimidate people.
| [deleted]
| dillonmckay wrote:
| Ha. Our city council is dealing with that regarding a CATV
| franchise agreement.
|
| The cable company's attorneys changed several provisions that
| did not show up as redline changes, while intentionally making
| syntax and grammar errors that did show up as redline changes.
| meritt wrote:
| > by backing out all of our changes and only putting in his
| changes
|
| That so feels like a mistake because that's the sort of tactic
| that would completely and utterly remove their capability of
| ever working as a corporate lawyer ever again for any company.
|
| If that genuinely happened, that lawyer needs to be disbarred,
| but that's a pretty damn egregious accusation.
| [deleted]
| moron4hire wrote:
| > That so feels like a mistake because that's the sort of
| tactic that would completely and utterly remove your
| capability of ever working as a corporate lawyer ever again
| for any company.
|
| No, that's basically SOP for big corporate lawyers.
| Matticus_Rex wrote:
| No it isn't.
| ta999999171 wrote:
| You both have different experiences, and the reality is
| somewhere in the middle........
| amelius wrote:
| "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by
| stupidity."
| caminante wrote:
| No. This can't be attributed to stupidity.
|
| He's an attorney. Contract version control is part of his
| job. Selectively discarding counterparty edits is blatant.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| > That so feels like a mistake...
|
| Easy to test.
|
| 1. Send back the document he sent with a copy of your most
| recent edits and ask him to confirm if his document is
| correct.
|
| 2. But, make note of at ONE error, and see if he fixes all of
| them.
|
| 3. If he only fixes only the one, then he's either really
| lazy or trying to keep up the deceit.
|
| 4. Repeat steps 1 to 3, be sure to CC everyone involved. If
| he's lazy he will be ashamed and be more careful. If he's a
| sneaky bastard he will most likely get angry.
|
| Not foolproof, but will sure make everyone aware of what is
| going on. (regardless of the motives)
| lowdose wrote:
| You must have had your share of weasels during contract
| negotiations.
| mediaman wrote:
| It's not that easy to accept only your own changes though.
| You can accept all changes, or reject all changes, but
| accepting only your own and rejecting others, at least in
| Word, takes specific effort.
| Loughla wrote:
| I attribute user error and stupidity when most people
| attribute malicious intent. 99% of the time, I am correct.
|
| I'm betting that, _if the lawyer was not acting
| maliciously_ , s/he used the wrong version of the document
| to accept changes.
| throwanem wrote:
| Fair point. On the other hand, I'm not much more inclined
| to work with a stupid lawyer than a malicious one. If he
| opens by screwing up this badly, what's he going to do
| next?
|
| There are some cases in which granting the benefit of the
| doubt is too much of a risk to be worth taking.
| [deleted]
| Loughla wrote:
| Oh, absolutely. Making a stupid mistake isn't necessarily
| better than malicious intent. I wouldn't work with either
| of those people, especially if my livelihood is involved.
|
| I was just saying that I tend to err on the side of
| stupidity. Most people are stupid. Very few are bad
| actors in their day-to-day lives.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Be careful with how you as a non-attorney assess the
| intelligence of attorneys.
|
| With a sufficiently big organization, it's common for
| some sort of higher precedence, non-negotiable appendix
| to render most of this stuff moot anyway. Corporate
| attorneys on the sell-side, even at surprisingly big
| companies frequently screw this up, often when making
| snide comments through the salespeople.
|
| My buddy tells a story from when he was an SE many years
| ago and his company's attorneys were going to kill a deal
| over an NDA requirement. The customer ended up getting
| them to agree to "blah blah blah, subject to applicable
| law". One problem: the customer was a city, subject to
| freedom of information law in that state!
|
| Experienced salespeople usually get it but eye-roll, as
| they have an incentive to STFU.
| jfengel wrote:
| Unfortunately, as with all cases of information
| asymmetry, I lack the tools on which to assess them. But
| since it's required that I do make an assessment, I am
| going to have to take an extremely self-defensive
| posture.
|
| The attorney is the expert. I am not. If the attorney
| makes a mistake, I have no tools with which to judge
| whether it was stupidity or malice. I have to assume that
| it's both. My own attorney may better be able to make
| that assessment, and I'll respect their judgment. But
| until then, an opposing attorney has to be assumed to
| have all of the power and every reason to use it.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| I double read most of my emails with more than 3 bullet
| points.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| you are badly naive here .. far, far worse is common in
| certain markets
| azinman2 wrote:
| Are you sure it wasn't a genuine mistake?
| izacus wrote:
| No, I've had this happen when drawing up contracts with
| American lawyers way too many times for it to be mistakes.
| We've had lawyers try to sneak in one sided clauses after we
| agreed differently with business owners pretty much
| constantly.
|
| It always significantly deteriorated relations with that
| company. But I guess Americans think that's fine because
| "it's just business".
| azinman2 wrote:
| IANAL, but if you have correspondence indicating that you
| wanted something removed and both sides agreed to it, then
| I'd imagine you'd have a case in court if they slipped
| something in. Contracts are never 'iron-clad' -- for
| example, you cannot legally sign away your soul. Lots of
| stuff can be invalidated in court.
| dillonmckay wrote:
| That sounds expensive.
| izacus wrote:
| Sure, but when they "fix" things like ticket/issue
| response times, SLAs, responsibilities of both companies,
| it can later be very hard to prove what you've agreed on
| a video call with a CEO/CTO. Especially when that other
| company decides that you'll be the one taking the blame
| for their internal politics.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Always get everything in writing. If you've been passing
| redlines back and forth, you should have that at minimum.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Yeah this is standard American bullshit.
| airstrike wrote:
| That's a really prejudiced and unwarranted view of
| Americans. If anything it says more about your biases and
| prejudices than it does about one nation.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I am American?
|
| I am saying that as an American, one that works in
| America, and from my subjective experience working in b2b
| and consulting jobs, the business culture around me is
| full of contractual bullshit.
| airstrike wrote:
| Being an American doesn't make it any less prejudiced.
| It's a gross generalization. Even assuming it were true,
| how is this an exclusive characteristic of America?
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I don't know whether it's exclusive. I never claimed
| that.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Just think about the larger situation of EULAs and no-
| competes and arbitration clauses. Everything is hoping
| you don't read the fine-print, or have no energy to fight
| it, even to say you haven't read or were mislead and
| therefore it shouldn't apply.
| airstrike wrote:
| > But I guess Americans think that's fine because "it's
| just business".
|
| That's a really prejudiced and unwarranted view of
| Americans. If anything it says more about your biases and
| prejudices than it does about one nation.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _That 's a really prejudiced and unwarranted view of
| Americans. If anything it says more about your biases and
| prejudices than it does about one nation._
|
| I am an American citizen so you can take it from an
| American citizen instead. Companies have zero scruples
| whatsoever about screwing over others in business.
| airstrike wrote:
| Being an American doesn't make it any less prejudiced.
| It's a gross generalization. Even assuming it were true,
| how is this an exclusive characteristic of America?
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Being an American doesn 't make it any less
| prejudiced._
|
| Correct, but it does provide an insider's opinion.
|
| > _It 's a gross generalization._
|
| It is.
|
| > _Even assuming it were true, how is this an exclusive
| characteristic of America?_
|
| It isn't. I've noticed that Chinese companies are even
| worse.
| mcv wrote:
| But other companies still do business with them, right?
| So they're getting away with it.
| izacus wrote:
| "It doesn't matter how we behave as long as they're still
| forced to do business with us." attitude is exactly what
| I was talking about :)
| izacus wrote:
| I wouldn't word it like this if it wouldn't be a very
| noticable pattern of behaviour comming pretty much only
| from US customers. Negotiations with customers from other
| cultures have been significantly more honest - it doesn't
| mean they weren't seeking an advantage, but this
| agreesive backstabing from legal departments right after
| signing up the customer was something that was very very
| US American.
|
| After seeing it first-hand, I'm noticing this attitude
| even in fields like global politics, where burning
| goodwill to gain very minor advantages seems to be the
| policy these days.
| seanhunter wrote:
| He did a few things when he did it which made it clear it
| wasn't a mistake. He had to sort of go out of his way to do
| it.
| Nrbelex wrote:
| And if you're sure, did you report this to the relevant
| disciplinary body?
| jandrese wrote:
| What, the bar association?
|
| Sleezy as this is you wouldn't be able to show damages
| since you didn't sign the contract. The other lawyer can
| claim error and the burden of proof would be on you.
|
| If you did accept, then you have a lengthy court battle
| ahead where a jury could very well rule "abide by the
| contract you signed you reneging moocher."
|
| The real world isn't a school playground. Calling a teacher
| over is time consuming and expensive and far from a
| guarantee of justice. It is up to you to keep yourself safe
| from assholes like this by always doing your due diligence.
| Someone who pulls this kind of shit constantly will
| eventually lose their license, but many years down the road
| and after many victims.
| Nrbelex wrote:
| ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 8.4:
| Misconduct: "It is professional misconduct for a lawyer
| to: [...] (c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty,
| fraud, deceit or misrepresentation..."
|
| [https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsi
| bili...]
|
| If it really was intentional, this very clearly meets the
| standard, and there's absolutely no requirement that
| there be damages for the lawyer to be disciplined. I'm
| not talking about a fraud or malpractice claim, so
| there's no reason this would involve a lengthy court
| battle, etc.
|
| Further, Rule 8.3: "(a) A lawyer who knows that another
| lawyer has committed a violation of the Rules of
| Professional Conduct that raises a substantial question
| as to that lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness
| as a lawyer in other respects, shall inform the
| appropriate professional authority."
|
| [https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsi
| bili...]
|
| Seems to fit as well if the behavior was repeated.
| jandrese wrote:
| But on the same site:
|
| https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsib
| ili...
|
| > The ABA is not a lawyer disciplinary agency and has no
| authority to investigate or act upon complaints filed
| against lawyers. Each state has its own agency that
| performs that function in regard to lawyers practicing in
| that state. Locate your state agency from the Directory
| of State Disciplinary Agencies.
|
| So you're not dealing with the ABA, but the underfunded
| and understaffed state board.
| Nrbelex wrote:
| Of course you're dealing with your local licensing
| authority, but they'll all have a rule substantially the
| same as the model rule cited.
|
| California's state bar even has a formal opinion calling
| out this or similar behavior:
|
| "Had Seller's Attorney intentionally created a defective
| "redline" to surreptitiously conceal the change to the
| covenant not to compete, his conduct would constitute
| deceit, active concealment and possibly fraud, in
| violation of Seller's Attorney's ethical obligations."
|
| [https://www.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/0/documents/ethics/Opi
| nion...]
| fma wrote:
| What happened after?
|
| FWIW My wife and I were negotiating a commercial lease and we
| always did a diff between what they send back and what we sent
| them in case they pulled something like that. It may not be
| malicious (i.e. they updated a wrong version). They had
| integrity and they didn't do pull any stunts.
| seanhunter wrote:
| We called him out on it, he sent a new version and we
| executed. On the big contract he tried several other small
| variants on this (going back and post-hoc altering wording
| that had been agreed, delaying things for no reason, just
| generally being an incredible pain in the ass to deal with in
| a million small ways) until we got a press release from the
| CEO of his (global) company saying how happy they were to
| work with us and his demeanor instantly changed and he became
| super-constructive and efficient.
|
| In spite of everything everyone on this thread thinks/says,
| it definitely wasn't an error. I spoke to another third-party
| vendor (over a beer) who were going through purchasing at the
| same time as us and he was doing the exact same thing with
| them.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Maybe his pay was based on how hard he screws it?
| SignalsFromBob wrote:
| I hope you cut that client lose. If they'll do something like
| that on the POC they'll do it on the big contract and in
| numerous other ways. You'll have to double-check _everything_
| with a client like that and not be able to trust them. Life 's
| too short to put up with that.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| this is the reason you include md5sum or sha1 checksum when you
| send the binary releases. plus it helps with version tracking.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Unfortunately, you'll find people often respect assholes. Look no
| further than how people are outright worshipful of successful
| criminals.
|
| Some people also seem to learn how to capitalize on their poor
| reputations. If you're well known in an industry, even for
| something bad, you can often get people to talk to you.
| papito wrote:
| The most common difference between us peasants and the people of
| means is that those other people ASK more often. Ask for more
| money, ask for a bonus, ask for lower rent. And then it adds up.
|
| The one thing that holds most of us back is shame. But shame is a
| good thing in general. It's the glue that keeps societies
| together, preventing them from spiraling down to the lowest
| common denominator.
|
| Questionable if this still works nowadays. But, anyway, the trick
| is to uncork some of that shame is small doses and be a little
| bit selfish every once in a while.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| I think the other thing is ruthless prioritization.
|
| If you say "no" when you should, you can say "yes" when it's
| important.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| I often ask people who are complaining about their salary
| whether have asked for a raise. Most of the time the answer is
| "no" followed by reasons like "I am afraid to get fired" or
| "they will make my life miserable" or "they should just do the
| right thing".
| papito wrote:
| Exactly. 9 out of 10 managers will give you more money. They
| are not going to _offer_ it to you, normally, because they
| are not a charity. They want to give you the least amount of
| money that you will except.
|
| Secondly, who ever gets fired for asking for a raise? I mean,
| that is not normal. And if that does happen to you, it's most
| likely of some other underlying factors, where asking for a
| raise is just the last drop.
| cosmie wrote:
| > They are not going to offer it to you, normally, because
| they are not a charity. They want to give you the least
| amount of money that you will except.
|
| An alternative perspective from my time managing: That
| reflects the viewpoint of the business, not necessarily the
| viewpoint of the manager.
|
| Getting an out-of-band raise approved triggers entire
| internal processes, outside of the control of the immediate
| manager requesting it.
|
| Triggering one proactively as a manager with no impetus
| other than "this person deserves it" is likely to get
| denied or a token amount approved. As you said, the
| business wants to pay the least amount of money an employee
| is willing to accept. If the employee has given no
| indication they have issue with their current pay, the
| business has no reason to presume there's a need to pay
| them more.
|
| However, once someone asked for one, I could take that and
| use it as leverage. If the employee has brought it up,
| there's evidence of doubt on whether the company is still
| meeting that minimum threshold. Denying the raise outright
| increases the risk of attrition, so the business takes it
| seriously compared to the proactive request from the
| manager. _Then_ I can use what I know to work the system in
| the way that results in a far more favorable raise.
| bradlys wrote:
| > Exactly. 9 out of 10 managers will give you more money.
|
| I don't know - man. I've worked at a lot of places and this
| doesn't seem to be a common thing. It could be I've just
| worked at a lot of bad places but still. Asking for more
| isn't enough. It has to be the threat of leaving in order
| to get them to give more. At which point - the advice now
| for managers is, if they're threatening to leave unless you
| pay more then just let them leave.
| tunesmith wrote:
| I've always thought a "threat" of leaving is a
| meaningless concept. It's either a bluff or it isn't.
| Most straightforward way to handle it is to find another
| offer that you will legitimately take if you don't get a
| sufficient salary bump, and communicate that there aren't
| any hard feelings, you just need what the new employer
| will pay you. If your manager refuses, you move, and if
| he bumps your salary or counteroffers, you can reassess.
| This is really the only way to handle it if you want to
| keep things simple. Or, you can bluff.
| joshspankit wrote:
| (Citation needed) I read recently that shopping for an
| offer, leveraging it for a raise, and then staying was
| actually the wrong move. It essentially started a
| countdown to them letting you go.*
|
| * _If you're indispensable, the rules may not apply to
| you_
| ta999999171 wrote:
| If you're underperforming, and have the gall to ask for a
| raise closer to someone that isn't, that could be
| indicative of issues grasping reality/fit into the team.
|
| Not everyone is you/us.
| sdinsn wrote:
| > 9 out of 10 managers will give you more money
|
| Perhaps in the tech industry where there is a lower supply
| of workers, but not everywhere. Plenty of managers will say
| no because they know you can be quickly replaced.
| downerending wrote:
| True, but it's not a foolproof strategy. I'm shy about
| asking for more money, too. Instead, when I want a raise, I
| just line up a new job with the raise and switch.
| swsieber wrote:
| A company I worked for had a down year, and so I asked for
| paternity leave. They wouldn't give it to me, but I did get a
| maxed out PTO accrual rate. It was a stressful experience.
| JackRabbitSlim wrote:
| No. The difference is those with means can _accept the risk_ of
| asking for more. It 's not simply that they ask, its that they
| survive when/if it fails.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| I've seen pride and greed without a trace of shame. Its ugly,
| dangerous, and orange.
| tunesmith wrote:
| You can also ask creatively. I've had a few occasions where I
| told friends about how I've done things like... if their final
| offer salary range isn't as high as I would have liked but
| still acceptable, ask for a signing bonus to help make up a
| difference. The response I've gotten (from a couple of friends)
| has approached the level of shock, or (from a female friend)
| almost anger at the realization that they would have never even
| thought of that. Unsure whether to conclude it's privilege on
| my part, or conditioning on their part that they wouldn't have
| thought of it, probably a mix of both.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Most of the billionaires are assholes and/or criminals with a
| couple of noteworthy exceptions. So maybe not being an asshole
| will get you ahead in the middle but it won't get you all the way
| to the top of the foodchain.
|
| So this is solid advice, but unfortunately the role models are
| exactly those people that didn't follow this sort of advice.
| Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, Apple, Google and Facebook all would
| not have been as large and would not generate as much money for
| their founders if the founders had been nice guys. Fortunately we
| also have Woz and a couple of others like him to balance things
| out a bit.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| That's what bothers me about all the adoration "billionaires"
| are getting lately. These guys got where they are by taking
| advantage of whatever they could, not by being generous or
| nice.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| It's not even that - people venerate the results of luck. For
| every "self-made" billionaire, there's untold legions of
| people who had nearly the extra same formula, but were just a
| little off. Sure, a lot of them worked hard and had good
| ideas, but so do tons of people. Somehow it's more acceptable
| to think these people earned their success more than a simple
| lottery winner, whose long hours and hard work at their
| janitorial job gave them enough free cash to buy a ticket.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| I think it's also wrong to attribute everything to luck.
| The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Zuckerberg
| or Gates are certainly very capable people who would have
| done well under most circumstances. But they were also
| lucky to be at the right place at the right time and
| meeting the right people.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I would say it leans HEAVILY towards luck. Given their
| background and abilities, they certainly would have done
| well regardless, we have to remember that "done well" can
| be measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. To
| increase that by another 4 orders of magnitude isn't
| going to be simply due to being capable.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| They are getting this adoration because they invest heavily
| in building it. They now have hordes of PR people creating
| their reputations in newspapers, tvs, social networks and
| blogs.
|
| It's better than lobbying because you don't need to convince
| people to do things your way if they like you.
|
| I've noticed such activity in places as unexpected as imgur,
| reddit or HN. Posts boosted out of nowhere, waves of comments
| for a specific trend in their favor, accounts that are very
| quick to react to critics, etc.
|
| It feels off, but on the other hand it's impossible to prove.
| You could always argue it's genuine and it would be
| impossible to be sure.
| nhumrich wrote:
| Wait.. are you saying bill gates is an asshole?
| mcguire wrote:
| Say it ain't so!
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Can anything actually realiably get you to that top though?
| Even though a lot of asshole are there, I would doubt that
| being an asshole is a pre-req, and that in fact it's extreme
| luck - these people are > 6 sigma outliers when it comes to a
| lot of things. And it could very well be a learned behaviour of
| being that rich. Either way, it's pointless to aim to be one of
| those people - you just can't without the stars aligning in so
| many ways you can't control. Instead you're just an asshole who
| wants to be a billionaire, which probably makes you more of an
| asshole.
| fenwick67 wrote:
| 6 out of the top 15 American billionaires inherited their
| wealth, that is the secret to wealth, have rich parents.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| That means that 9 out of 15 didn't inherit their wealth.
| So, maybe that's not so much the secret after all.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Connections are still useful. Consider Zuckerberg, he
| didn't inherit his wealth from his parents, but the
| connections he inherited from his father, a prominent
| dentist in Westchester County, certainly helped.
| BigBubbleButt wrote:
| And 9 out of the top 10 American billionaires are self-
| made.
|
| It's amazing how you can use the same data to argue the
| opposite point, just on how you frame it.
| mcguire wrote:
| Ok, we've got:
|
| Jeff Bezos
|
| Bill Gates
|
| Warren Buffett
|
| Mark Zuckerberg
|
| Larry Ellison
|
| Larry Page
|
| Sergey Brin
|
| Michael Bloomberg
|
| Steve Ballmer
|
| Jim Walton
|
| I'll start: Here's my list of the "self-made":
|
| Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Michael Bloomberg (although I
| don't know how he made partner at Bloomberg at 30). Maybe
| Steve Ballmer. Page and Brin are special cases; they're
| the children of university professors.
| minikites wrote:
| Define "self-made", that's the real difference of
| opinion. How many first generation immigrants from truly
| impoverished nations become billionaires?
| mdszy wrote:
| A group doesn't have to be the majority to be
| significant.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| Are they self made? They might have made billions, but
| did they come from wealthy well connected families that
| or were they self made? Turning a million into a billion
| is significantly easier than turning a hundred into a
| billion because it buys you the ability to try without
| risking your future.
| cooperadymas wrote:
| Every time someone brings up people being self-made the
| discussion turns into post hoc justification. It seems
| that we can't simply accept someone's immense success and
| we must find some excuse for why they made it. Yes, luck
| and the people around them play a role in any success
| (and equally, in any failure) and that must be accounted
| for, but that's not nearly enough to automatically
| discount the actual person.
|
| I guarantee if a the son of a middle class innkeeper with
| an absentee father from Greenbow, Alabama became a
| billionaire people would say he had an advantage because
| he got to experience a diverse group of people as a kid
| and had a loving mother who supported him. An orphan
| living on the streets in an impoverished town in Italy
| and we'd say not everyone has the opportunity to make
| their own way when they're only 9 years old.
|
| Shrug.
| zeusk wrote:
| I wouldn't count Bill Gates entirely self made and so
| would himself. His parents, his colleagues, and every one
| around him played a major role in success. If anything,
| I'd say luck and timing are more important than being
| nice.
| asjw wrote:
| I don't think that is true
|
| Warren Buffet' father was a congressman
|
| Larry Page's father was a professor of computer science
| at University
|
| Sergey Brin's father was professor of mathematics at
| University and his mother worked at NASA
|
| these are the first three I looked up and they don't look
| like low or middle class
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| How are professors not middle class, financially?
| Academia doesn't pay particularly well.
| chinesempire wrote:
| I wish my father was professor at University.
|
| How is it not upper class?
| bradlys wrote:
| Financially - it's possible they're middle class. I've
| seen plenty of professors making $150k+/yr though...
| That's 3x the median household income.
|
| But, I think middle class is more than just raw finance.
| Educational background of the parents is very important
| too. If you grow up with two professors - don't you think
| you'll do better than two high school dropouts? (On
| average)
| eanzenberg wrote:
| Your model breaks down. 99.9999999...% of children of
| congresspeople, professors and NASA workers are not
| billionaires.
| chinesempire wrote:
| I think you made some mistakes in your math.
|
| There are 535 Congressmen in USA, 99.99999999% of them is
| well... 535.
|
| If I find the son of a Congressman that made billions
| your model will prove wrong
|
| Warren Buffet is one.
| eanzenberg wrote:
| >>99.9999999...% _of children of_
| chinesempire wrote:
| Still one in a billion
| minikites wrote:
| It's a "necessary but not sufficient" type of condition.
| wildengineer wrote:
| I hate that word, self-made. I think of Bezos, Buffet,
| Gates and all three of them had investment from their
| parents or had a business relationship made possible by
| their parents. Of the billionaires I know of, all them
| came from at least an upper middle class family.
| Certainly they are a special kind of talent and a big
| part of their own success, but they were raised by
| nurturing families with significant resources.
| throwaway55554 wrote:
| > And 9 out of the top 10 American billionaires are self-
| made.
|
| Is there really such a thing as self-made? I honestly
| don't believe so. Otherwise, I think more people would do
| it.
| filoleg wrote:
| Disagreed. Simply said, not everyone has the chops to do
| it, not even mentioning luck. If that wasn't the case, we
| wouldn't have a demand/supply graph for software
| engineers in the US so screwed up, given how much pay one
| can get and how few credentials are required for it,
| especially compared to other similarly paying jobs.
|
| Not saying that those situations are perfectly comparable
| at all, just trying to make a point that "if it was so
| good and easy, why isn't everyone successfully doing it"
| isn't really a solid argument for this.
| gshdg wrote:
| Majority isn't so much what matters.
|
| The percentage of people with significant inherited
| wealth who becomes billionaires far exceeds the
| percentage of people with significant inherited wealth in
| the general population.
|
| Thus, inheriting wealth has an enormous impact on the
| likelihood of becoming a billionaire in America.
| praptak wrote:
| I think most people would agree that Google founders were nice
| guys before (and even for some time after) they became ultra
| rich.
| hcnews wrote:
| As an ex-googler, Google was mostly nice and virtuous till
| Larry/Sergey/Eric were at helm. Things started changing when
| Ruth joined Alphabet, there was deeper focus on investor
| returns etc. Soon after that CEO role was transferred to
| Sundar.
|
| However, I have to qualify this by saying that I didn't ever
| work in Ads. And this is a common day-to-day googler's view
| who didn't know anything that went on in the executive land
| (e.x. Andy Rubin)
| techntoke wrote:
| As much bad rap as Google gets, they actually provide a lot
| of resources for someone looking for work. With Internet
| access, you can get email, a phone number, document editor,
| 15GB of storage with file sync, and probably many many more.
| However, unless you are savvy enough to go into your account
| and disable a bunch of stuff, they're going to use that data
| to track you.
| aphextron wrote:
| > Fortunately we also have Woz and a couple of others like him
| to balance things out a bit.
|
| Except Woz ended up a low digit millionaire, and Jobs a multi-
| billionaire. Hard work simply doesn't pay off the way being a
| sociopath does in our society.
| Aunche wrote:
| I think a lot of people confuse "being an asshole" and "playing
| the game." If you ever play poker with people who don't know
| they're doing, they'll often accuse you for "being an asshole"
| for making an optimal decision. The point of the game is to
| make as much money as possible, so it's a bit silly to be upset
| when someone is leveraging every advantage they have as long as
| they aren't cheating.
| throwaway55554 wrote:
| > Most of the billionaires are assholes and/or criminals with a
| couple of noteworthy exceptions. So maybe not being an asshole
| will get you ahead in the middle but it won't get you all the
| way to the top of the foodchain.
|
| Or did they become assholes along the way/once they got there?
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| The leaders behind those companies did not exhibit asshole
| behavior consistently.
|
| They cultivated strategic partnerships with the right people at
| the right time, and once they got enough of what they wanted,
| sometimes they behaved like assholes.
|
| They probably behaved like assholes with some employees but not
| their key employees.
| eshyong wrote:
| I'd guess that most people would be ok with not getting to the
| top. Most would be happy to have a few million dollars in the
| bank by the time they retire.
|
| America seems to have an absolutist mindset. Being a
| billionaire != success/happiness in life. There's a lot of grey
| between the black and white.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| There are basically two ways to make money:
|
| 1. Add value so there is more pie to go around and get your cut
| of it.
|
| 2. Extract value from what already exists. You get yours, but
| other people tend to get screwed over.
|
| If you aren't doing the first, you are probably doing the second.
| This is not really a good long term strategy.
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| I appreciate this concise framing. I do think it gets more
| complicated than this though.
|
| Defining the pie gets really complicated. Sometimes you make
| one pie bigger and another smaller. Companies like Lyft
| certainly decreased the taxi pie but then made a new one
| altogether.
|
| I believe there are fair ways to extract value from what
| already exists by creating a better version in a competitive
| market. Ultimately I think the value should be defined at the
| customer and societal levels. The tangents and levels in
| between make things messy.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _I believe there are fair ways to extract value from what
| already exists by creating a better version in a competitive
| market._
|
| Adding efficiency is a means to add more pie.
|
| Obviously, my comment is a simplification. It kind of goes
| without saying that simplifications leave out a lot of nuance
| and gray zone.
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| Yeah, I didn't mean to add unnecessary complexity. I agree
| with your original statement.
| asjw wrote:
| Just like Madoff or Trump or Weinstein
| booboolayla wrote:
| Or a certain "activist" who bought a $10mil house in Martha's
| Vineyards from his supposed book deals.
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| Being in jail doesn't sound profitable. Robbing a bank makes
| rich for a second too.
|
| As for Trump, he probably should've put his daddy's money in
| the S&P.
| chinesempire wrote:
| I think we can agree that billionaires main trait is not
| being nice
|
| Putin is worth 200 billions...
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| I'm almost certain that Putin makes tons of money for those
| immediately around him and as soon as he stops, he'll be
| replaced. That's generally how dictatorships work.
| chinesempire wrote:
| The money doesn't disappear though and I'm sure the Bush
| family is still doing well
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| I've heard that the market can stay irrational longer
| than you can stay solvent. That doesn't mean you should
| be irrational though. Or if you do, understand that it's
| a short play. Rationality generally wins.
| chinesempire wrote:
| An assholes can be completely rational, become incredibly
| rich and still be an asshole.
|
| It doesn't mean being an asshole it's the best strategy
| to become rich, it isn't enough to become one and
| generally I think being good decent human being is much
| better for society and for themselves, but the number
| shows that very rich people are usually not among the
| best people in this world.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| Reputation information doesn't always flow freely.
|
| After agreeing the purchase of the site for the house I'm now
| sitting in, the sellers changed their asking price, tried to pull
| out of the sale after we got planning permission, accused us of
| swindling them, and the night before we fenced the property moved
| the boundary markers.
|
| When it was all done and dusted one of our neighbours said "it's
| great to see someone getting the better of $FAMILY_X". Seems like
| we weren't entitled to access to their reputations until we'd
| started to build the house, and became true locals
| gigatexal wrote:
| But, but ... nice guys (and girls) finish last - or so the saying
| goes. It's been my experience that the belligerent and those that
| take charge and those that are just the loudest garner more
| attention and cash. That's not me though.
| hypnotist wrote:
| you cannot AB test that.
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