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> fake it til you make it I had a conversation with a friend recently about a mutual acquaintance. She surprised me by calling him a con man. In all the years

> fake it til you make it I had a conversation with a friend recently about a mutual acquaintance. She surprised me by calling him a con man. In all the years I knew this man, I’d never thought of him as a con man, but the title could fit based on the people who he’d ultimately screwed over. I pushed back with my friend’s characterization slightly because con man seemed a bit more malicious than what I percieved as his intent. Mostly I wasn’t sure if he’d crossed a similar line as ‘fake it til you make it’ in that in business, you often have to convince enough people that something will happen otherwise it won’t and at some point you may he overcommitted and have no choice but to embellish the truth and hope that some major piece doesn’t pull out and ruin the entire chain of dependencies. A prime example is missing payrole. It is basically death for a company, but saying you might miss payroll could guarantee you’ll miss payroll... so lie and hope for the best... Maybe not a great example, and he might be a conman for similar types of lies told to vendors. I do think it’s interesting that much of business relies on convincing people you can do what you say though...

loganfrederick 7y ago
The main difference is the level of knowledge and intent on coming through with your promises. It’s one thing to pitch people saying “If I/we do X and Y, we’ll make money.” It’s another if you make that pitch knowing you can’t possibly do it or that you know ahead of time you also need Z and don’t disclose that to your colleagues. Or maybe X and Y are possible but you have no intent to do it and just pocket the money and fly away. If you later find out something unexpected, ethically you should disclose that to partners before taking more of their time or money. Using your information asymmetry to take other’s money is unethical. Also, often the best con men won’t seem to have malicious intent because they don’t; they have purely selfish motives. Whether other people benefit or are harmed is irrelevant to their selfish benefit. I’ve seen this play out where yes-men/people just follow a psychopathic leader around because he rewards them for being members of his cult (as a means to keep them as followers, not because he cares about them). I would bet there were some very well paid people near the top of WeWork who knew it was a farce but were too well paid to sacrifice themselves and expose the truth early.

loganfrederick 7y ago

The main difference is the level of knowledge and intent on coming through with your promises. It’s one thing to pitch people saying “If I/we do X and Y, we’ll make money.” It’s another if you make that pitch knowing you can’t possibly do it or that you know ahead of time you also need Z and don’t disclose that to your colleagues. Or maybe X and Y are possible but you have no intent to do it and just pocket the money and fly away. If you later find out something unexpected, ethically you should disclose that to partners before taking more of their time or money. Using your information asymmetry to take other’s money is unethical. Also, often the best con men won’t seem to have malicious intent because they don’t; they have purely selfish motives. Whether other people benefit or are harmed is irrelevant to their selfish benefit. I’ve seen this play out where yes-men/people just follow a psychopathic leader around because he rewards them for being members of his cult (as a means to keep them as followers, not because he cares about them). I would bet there were some very well paid people near the top of WeWork who knew it was a farce but were too well paid to sacrifice themselves and expose the truth early.