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The most thought-provoking sentence comes near the end: > Even if Gopman was in it for Gopman, self interest — no matter how imbued with hubris — isn’t mutuall

by tyre 11y ago

The most thought-provoking sentence comes near the end: > Even if Gopman was in it for Gopman, self interest — no matter how imbued with hubris — isn’t mutually exclusive with doing good. Absolutely true. The consequences of action are what matters. That said, Gopman never stops sounding like a shithead. There is a reason people care about motives. Once he achieves "redemption", how much will his future actions and motives align with doing good. In fact, the only reason he appears to continue to work on homelessness is to win back his reputation. So is it great that he is working with the homeless? Yes. Would I trust a "redeemed" Greg Gopman. Nope. That isn't to say that he cannot change, but this article shows that he is not there yet. Until the reason for the work shifts, there is no reason to believe that any company or cause he joins is for the cause and not selfish motives. Sometimes good things come of selfishness, but in the long term it is good to know where someone's priorities lie.

gonvaled 11y ago
(Sorry, out of context) > Would I trust a "redeemed" Greg Gopman. Nope. Which is exactly the same reason why I will never trust Microsoft: even if current actions are okayish, what they did in the past has disqualified them for life.
- minimaxir 11y ago
  That is not a good analogy. A company is not a person; the people in change of companies change, and in the case of Microsoft, very significantly over the years.
  - gonvaled 11y ago
    A person is also not a constant thing, but anyway past actions have a lot of weight. I do not trust them because what they did, how they did it, worked for them. They'll try again (they try still now, with a lower profile) whenever they feel they'll get benefit out of it. Any company can do this, but they are the ones who have already done it, repeatedly. And I will never trust them for basically what you could call "revenge": I think they have significantly altered the path of progress on IT, and have basically destroyed an option which was open for a while at the end of the 90s. The world is very much for the worse because of them, and that crime can never be corrected, since the option is not open anymore, and will never be.
  - zardgiv 11y ago
    Corporations are people, my friend.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      Corporate personhood is a convenient legal fiction but it's a myth that corporations hold all the same rights and responsibilities as an actual person. There are limits.
thebiglebrewski 11y ago
Can I ask you something - do you work in a homeless shelter or spend all of your time being selfless for other people? Or do you spend more than 50% of your time on personal gain like most of us? Because otherwise, I really don't think you have a right to say that you question Gopman's future intentions. When someone says something bad against someone else and then works tirelessly for a year or two to actually do something to fix it like Gopman has, I think they deserve at least their shot at redemption. You seem to basically agree with that I think? This makes me think though. Humanity is really good at holding grudges. But did the government of SF move ahead by just outright rejecting Gopman's later proposals instead of considering them completely, seeing if they would maybe potentially work, then rejecting them? Instead this is a binary, either someone and their ideas are 100% bad or 100% good according to their viewpoint based on track record. A few of them heard him out but then gossip and human nature got the best of us once again. And so he says fuck it and goes to South East Asia because even when you recognize you've done something wrong and try a few different ways to make it better, apparently nobody wants to hear it. Good works are good works if you ask me, regardless of intention. If our race vilifies someone or claims that they are absolutely bad for the rest of their life/have bad intentions for something they said when they seem to be trying in earnest to make up for it as best they can in the now, that just sucks. Then nobody has a shot at redemption and more importantly, the good works that could be done based on that shot are lost. I wanted to close by saying that I am also skeptical of Gopman and I think the initial words he said were pretty gross and definitely messed up. But I also think it's upsetting that we can't recognize the things he's done are a net positive, even if we can never 100% forgive him. And I also think holding grudges just isn't very positive, it just doesn't help much overall except make us like we're somehow 100x morally better than the other person. Honestly you and I probably see eye to eye on most of this but I just thought your comment half matched my thoughts and half didn't! Peace
- tyre 11y ago
  I work about 90 hours a week building software for local governments (http://seneca.systems http://seneca.systems). If I only cared about personal gain, I would have either a) stayed at Gusto (where the stock I left on the table is now worth ~$2m) or b) started an ad-network. You won't here about us in TechCrunch because what we do is not sexy or about our personal brands. I have never had so much fun as I do now, empowering public servants.[1] I agree he deserves a shot at redemption, but my point is that he doesn't seem to have gotten there yet. I'm not saying he is a bad person forever because of his original comments. Those do not really bother me—he fucked up, said some stupid things, and got vilified on the internet. But the why and how he goes about his future work absolutely matters to me because it indicates where he is going in the future. Let's say you're interviewing two candidates for a marketing position, both of whom have identical backgrounds, skills, etc. (impossible, but this is a hypothetical.) One says they want to do marketing for you because they love your customers, believe in your mission, and care about the impact they can have by spreading the word. The other one says they want to do marketing for you because they think you are attacking a huge market opportunity and can make a lot of money. Which do you hire? Would you say it doesn't matter because outcomes are the only important thing? I wouldn't, because part of trusting someone to act independently is understanding their motivations. If either of these candidates fuck up, they will do so in very different ways. Candidate 1 will err too much on the side of the customer and the mission, while Candidate 2 will err on the side of making money. I would take Candidate 1 11/10 times. [1]: Which, by the way, is probably irrelevant. You brought up good points regardless of who you are or what you do. Challenging the pedigree or credentials of the commentors only serves to distract. Unless I was making the point that I was better than him (which is not what I was trying to imply, so forgive me if it came off that way), then who I am is not relevant.

by tyre 11y ago

gonvaled 11y ago

(Sorry, out of context) > Would I trust a "redeemed" Greg Gopman. Nope. Which is exactly the same reason why I will never trust Microsoft: even if current actions are okayish, what they did in the past has disqualified them for life.

minimaxir 11y ago
That is not a good analogy. A company is not a person; the people in change of companies change, and in the case of Microsoft, very significantly over the years.
- gonvaled 11y ago
  A person is also not a constant thing, but anyway past actions have a lot of weight. I do not trust them because what they did, how they did it, worked for them. They'll try again (they try still now, with a lower profile) whenever they feel they'll get benefit out of it. Any company can do this, but they are the ones who have already done it, repeatedly. And I will never trust them for basically what you could call "revenge": I think they have significantly altered the path of progress on IT, and have basically destroyed an option which was open for a while at the end of the 90s. The world is very much for the worse because of them, and that crime can never be corrected, since the option is not open anymore, and will never be.
- zardgiv 11y ago
  Corporations are people, my friend.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    Corporate personhood is a convenient legal fiction but it's a myth that corporations hold all the same rights and responsibilities as an actual person. There are limits.

thebiglebrewski 11y ago

Can I ask you something - do you work in a homeless shelter or spend all of your time being selfless for other people? Or do you spend more than 50% of your time on personal gain like most of us? Because otherwise, I really don't think you have a right to say that you question Gopman's future intentions. When someone says something bad against someone else and then works tirelessly for a year or two to actually do something to fix it like Gopman has, I think they deserve at least their shot at redemption. You seem to basically agree with that I think? This makes me think though. Humanity is really good at holding grudges. But did the government of SF move ahead by just outright rejecting Gopman's later proposals instead of considering them completely, seeing if they would maybe potentially work, then rejecting them? Instead this is a binary, either someone and their ideas are 100% bad or 100% good according to their viewpoint based on track record. A few of them heard him out but then gossip and human nature got the best of us once again. And so he says fuck it and goes to South East Asia because even when you recognize you've done something wrong and try a few different ways to make it better, apparently nobody wants to hear it. Good works are good works if you ask me, regardless of intention. If our race vilifies someone or claims that they are absolutely bad for the rest of their life/have bad intentions for something they said when they seem to be trying in earnest to make up for it as best they can in the now, that just sucks. Then nobody has a shot at redemption and more importantly, the good works that could be done based on that shot are lost. I wanted to close by saying that I am also skeptical of Gopman and I think the initial words he said were pretty gross and definitely messed up. But I also think it's upsetting that we can't recognize the things he's done are a net positive, even if we can never 100% forgive him. And I also think holding grudges just isn't very positive, it just doesn't help much overall except make us like we're somehow 100x morally better than the other person. Honestly you and I probably see eye to eye on most of this but I just thought your comment half matched my thoughts and half didn't! Peace

tyre 11y ago
I work about 90 hours a week building software for local governments (http://seneca.systems http://seneca.systems). If I only cared about personal gain, I would have either a) stayed at Gusto (where the stock I left on the table is now worth ~$2m) or b) started an ad-network. You won't here about us in TechCrunch because what we do is not sexy or about our personal brands. I have never had so much fun as I do now, empowering public servants.[1] I agree he deserves a shot at redemption, but my point is that he doesn't seem to have gotten there yet. I'm not saying he is a bad person forever because of his original comments. Those do not really bother me—he fucked up, said some stupid things, and got vilified on the internet. But the why and how he goes about his future work absolutely matters to me because it indicates where he is going in the future. Let's say you're interviewing two candidates for a marketing position, both of whom have identical backgrounds, skills, etc. (impossible, but this is a hypothetical.) One says they want to do marketing for you because they love your customers, believe in your mission, and care about the impact they can have by spreading the word. The other one says they want to do marketing for you because they think you are attacking a huge market opportunity and can make a lot of money. Which do you hire? Would you say it doesn't matter because outcomes are the only important thing? I wouldn't, because part of trusting someone to act independently is understanding their motivations. If either of these candidates fuck up, they will do so in very different ways. Candidate 1 will err too much on the side of the customer and the mission, while Candidate 2 will err on the side of making money. I would take Candidate 1 11/10 times. [1]: Which, by the way, is probably irrelevant. You brought up good points regardless of who you are or what you do. Challenging the pedigree or credentials of the commentors only serves to distract. Unless I was making the point that I was better than him (which is not what I was trying to imply, so forgive me if it came off that way), then who I am is not relevant.