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I'd like you to give more of your credentials. I've been in contact with several of the of the entrepreneurs featured there, one of whom is a YC-backed entrepr

I'd like you to give more of your credentials. I've been in contact with several of the of the entrepreneurs featured there, one of whom is a YC-backed entrepreneur (MTailor), and also for what it's worth I have another contact (via email) that I don't want to name. I haven't been on the show or anything like that. Why would you say that it is a "lie"? A lot of deals fall through. What specifically would you consider a "lie"? Examples of a lie would be if there were never any money that ever changed hands, etc. Other than that, it seems to be genuine >but no investor can adequately research a business in the 15 minutes it takes to shoot each pitch. You claim to have worked on shark tank but somewhere I heard that the pitches are much longer (up to an hour+) and get edited down, whereas you claim that it is 15 minutes, about the running time. So who's right? For this reason I would like you to name what crosses the lie threshold for you, and give just a bit more of your credentials. For the rest of us reading this I will state that the biggest "lie" isn't a lie at all: getting exposure on shark tank is a huuuuuuge amount of value for any company. But this is not something that any entrepreneur mentions (or it gets cut). I've never heard anyone say "Do you realize that when this airs, based on my talks with other founders we will get about five hundred thousand hits to our web site? So far we have a 7% closing rate on every single visitor who has ever come to our site." or anything like that... it's the elephant in the room that nobody really mentions, except a few times the sharks refer to it obliquely as 'gold-diggers' etc. but it's not mentioned in a positive light, for example when negotiating about valuations. I haven't seen anything else that seems to be a lie to me! (And this includes personal contact as mentioned at the top.)

eggdude 10y ago
I think his definition of "lie" is very broad in the sense of presenting something to be different than it actually is. For example: - The show makes it seem like the pitch lasts 15 minutes when it generally lasts much longer in reality (I've talked to a friend who has been on the show that has verified this). - The show makes it seem much more dramatic than it actually is by overlapping dialogue, rearranging and timing reaction shots, and using music (to the extend of fabricating a conversation) - The show makes it seem like an exact deal is made in 15 minutes when there is much more involved before and after the show
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- poppup 10y ago
  Yes. More or less I agree with what you have said. The main point is that the complaint against the TV show is ridiculous as the show is created for the purpose of entertainment, not veracity. It's interesting that some people think of TV as somehow "true." Maybe it is emotionally true, but it is not reality. Reality is having to commute 90 minutes to work on a TV show that portrays reality falsely as many of my colleagues do.
  - logicallee 10y ago
    Thank you. Look, this is not a place for video editors (in specific), i.e. you're literally on a startup forum. I don't know if you have any experience with startups other than via Shark Tank, but after reviewing after you've written I've come to the conclusion that your calling the show a lie is completely unwarranted, and informed more by your prior experience e.g. "We edited it so that he never came back down and that she was calling her daughter's name... as if they were up there naked or something... That is where the "lie" is most evident." -- but you did not give any examples of anything nearly that bad as regards the deals. You may not know this, but in normal negotiations with startups, there are many, many meetings involved over a very long period of time. So many deals fall through that there had to be a Handshake protocol invented just to keep VC's to their word - https://www.ycombinator.com/handshake/ https://www.ycombinator.com/handshake/ "Silicon valley runs on handshake deals." Yeah, due dilligence gets done afterward, not on the spot! Of course all pitches are rehearsed very, very heavily. I mean these are actual businesses that were built for a decade at times, you know? I think you go way too far writing "with just enough truth to keep 'suspension of disbelief' aloft." These are real businesses that continue whether or not anyone ever films them again. They're actual deals. A lie would be if these businesses (and their sales numbers, etc) were fabricated out of thin air and did not actually exist. Example: Silicon Valley, the show, like Pied Piper. If Pied Piper were presented as reality, and its numbers shown as reality, without even so much as existing - that would be a lie. The most telling is that you call Mark Cuban, who is by no means a celebrity first and investor second, a "talent". He's not some actor playing a role on Shark Tank. So I simply am not on board with your original comment that I replied to - it goes too far. You should have simply said that the interactions were heavily edited, and represent deals that continue after the part that is aired. A lie would be if an actor were playing the character invented for the "talents" you mentioned, but these people did not exist in real life, were not really business people at all, let alone actual investors investing in startups with real deals, or if the businesses were fabricated. So after reviewing what you've written I would suggest that you tone it down a bit. I had skype conversations with the businesses shown. My conversations had a startup on the other side - I wasn't talking with some character, like Homer Simpson. They also matched what I saw on screen (more or less, of course, heavily edited.) These are businesses first, and short shark tank segments only incidentally. They're not lies or fabrications.
dang 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12515619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12515619 and marked it off-topic.

eggdude 10y ago

I think his definition of "lie" is very broad in the sense of presenting something to be different than it actually is. For example: - The show makes it seem like the pitch lasts 15 minutes when it generally lasts much longer in reality (I've talked to a friend who has been on the show that has verified this). - The show makes it seem much more dramatic than it actually is by overlapping dialogue, rearranging and timing reaction shots, and using music (to the extend of fabricating a conversation) - The show makes it seem like an exact deal is made in 15 minutes when there is much more involved before and after the show

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
poppup 10y ago
Yes. More or less I agree with what you have said. The main point is that the complaint against the TV show is ridiculous as the show is created for the purpose of entertainment, not veracity. It's interesting that some people think of TV as somehow "true." Maybe it is emotionally true, but it is not reality. Reality is having to commute 90 minutes to work on a TV show that portrays reality falsely as many of my colleagues do.
- logicallee 10y ago
  Thank you. Look, this is not a place for video editors (in specific), i.e. you're literally on a startup forum. I don't know if you have any experience with startups other than via Shark Tank, but after reviewing after you've written I've come to the conclusion that your calling the show a lie is completely unwarranted, and informed more by your prior experience e.g. "We edited it so that he never came back down and that she was calling her daughter's name... as if they were up there naked or something... That is where the "lie" is most evident." -- but you did not give any examples of anything nearly that bad as regards the deals. You may not know this, but in normal negotiations with startups, there are many, many meetings involved over a very long period of time. So many deals fall through that there had to be a Handshake protocol invented just to keep VC's to their word - https://www.ycombinator.com/handshake/ https://www.ycombinator.com/handshake/ "Silicon valley runs on handshake deals." Yeah, due dilligence gets done afterward, not on the spot! Of course all pitches are rehearsed very, very heavily. I mean these are actual businesses that were built for a decade at times, you know? I think you go way too far writing "with just enough truth to keep 'suspension of disbelief' aloft." These are real businesses that continue whether or not anyone ever films them again. They're actual deals. A lie would be if these businesses (and their sales numbers, etc) were fabricated out of thin air and did not actually exist. Example: Silicon Valley, the show, like Pied Piper. If Pied Piper were presented as reality, and its numbers shown as reality, without even so much as existing - that would be a lie. The most telling is that you call Mark Cuban, who is by no means a celebrity first and investor second, a "talent". He's not some actor playing a role on Shark Tank. So I simply am not on board with your original comment that I replied to - it goes too far. You should have simply said that the interactions were heavily edited, and represent deals that continue after the part that is aired. A lie would be if an actor were playing the character invented for the "talents" you mentioned, but these people did not exist in real life, were not really business people at all, let alone actual investors investing in startups with real deals, or if the businesses were fabricated. So after reviewing what you've written I would suggest that you tone it down a bit. I had skype conversations with the businesses shown. My conversations had a startup on the other side - I wasn't talking with some character, like Homer Simpson. They also matched what I saw on screen (more or less, of course, heavily edited.) These are businesses first, and short shark tank segments only incidentally. They're not lies or fabrications.

dang 10y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12515619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12515619 and marked it off-topic.