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> I found myself to be equally gullible when intelligent people were abusive or outright dumb in other areas. This has been a challenge to unlearn, like learnin

> I found myself to be equally gullible when intelligent people were abusive or outright dumb in other areas. This has been a challenge to unlearn, like learning an old dog to sit. Basically, our proxies for predicting people's character range from bad to terrible. oh I am 100% with you on this. I tried to elaborate but I just sound bitter and twisted, and that's probably true. But I've spent the last few years unlearning things I thought I knew. It has been a painful and expensive set of lessons. long story short: I think we judge people's reaction to a situation by projecting how we would act... but that's not how people actually act.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
I would like to hear more about your experience.
- doctor_eval 5y ago
  I’ve finally worked out that people who want something from me, like my company or my software or my expertise, will say whatever they have to say to get a deal - but once the deal is done they just do whatever the hell they want, regardless of what they said. It’s the opposite of what I expect. I can’t deal with it. The people who do this are smart, confident and charismatic. It is clearly a negotiating strategy. But in reality, the only thing that matters is who controls the flow of money. If they control the money then it doesn’t matter what they said, they can do what they damn well please. They know this up front, and they count on it. Despite these setbacks I’ve done alright for myself, but honestly, I’m really bummed out about how useless I am when it comes to judging people and creating businesses where I’m free to actually do my best work. Anyway, I don’t know if that helps you, but you asked and honestly it has helped me a bit to vent even if it’s all in the abstract.
  - hoseja 5y ago
    I sometimes wonder if the snakes learn their craft in some consistent manner (schoolyard politics? non-naive parents?) or if it's mostly instinctual.
    - doctor_eval 5y ago
      Yeah - I wonder that too. I suspect all of the above. Having a privileged education and family contacts probably reinforces it. From what I’ve seen, openness and honesty are highly regarded in technical work but these traits are considered disadvantages in business.
  - nython 5y ago
    Thisstory about ebay's attempted takeover of craigslist might interest you. Even before Omidyar stepped down from Craigslist’s board, his appointed agent, Garrett Price, started bullying Craigslist’s owners. In an email to Buckmaster, Price wrote that Craiglist was “driving [eBay’s] execs (especially Meg) to distraction.” He told Buckmaster that eBay’s takeover was “inevitable” and that Craigslist needed to accept their fate, telling “Buckmaster that he and Newmark were mortal, but eBay was not, and eBay would acquire 100 percent of craigslist whether it took decades and, if necessary, over Newmark’s and Buckmaster’s dead bodies.” Buckmaster replied by reminding Price that when they negotiated the sale of their stake, eBay had agreed to abide by a three-year “courtship period” during which time, if Craigslist felt their two cultures were incompatible, eBay had agreed it would sell back its shares. Price’s response to Buckmaster: “that was then, this is now.” https://web.archive.org/web/20150623005252/https://pando.com/2014/12/01/whitman-omidyar-craigslist-ebay/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150623005252/https://pando.com...
    - doctor_eval 5y ago
      That is certainly the nature of things as I’ve experienced them. Thanks for posting this.
    - doctor_eval 5y ago
      Hey nython, i just wanted to reply again and say that I got a chance to read the whole article just now. It has really helped me put my recent experiences into context. THANK YOU. It's been one thing for me to be on the receiving end of bad behaviour and to form an opinion and suspicions about what happened. But it's quite another to see it played out deliberately, in the large, using trust and friendship as a weapon to defeat a group of people who aren't even playing the same game. The remarkable thing for me is that people really are capable of this kind of shitty behaviour; that it can be entirely intentional, and planned well ahead of time. And that it doesn't matter how rich some people are, they are happy to cheat and steal just to get a little bit more. It's disgusting. Thanks again for linking to it.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

I would like to hear more about your experience.

doctor_eval 5y ago
I’ve finally worked out that people who want something from me, like my company or my software or my expertise, will say whatever they have to say to get a deal - but once the deal is done they just do whatever the hell they want, regardless of what they said. It’s the opposite of what I expect. I can’t deal with it. The people who do this are smart, confident and charismatic. It is clearly a negotiating strategy. But in reality, the only thing that matters is who controls the flow of money. If they control the money then it doesn’t matter what they said, they can do what they damn well please. They know this up front, and they count on it. Despite these setbacks I’ve done alright for myself, but honestly, I’m really bummed out about how useless I am when it comes to judging people and creating businesses where I’m free to actually do my best work. Anyway, I don’t know if that helps you, but you asked and honestly it has helped me a bit to vent even if it’s all in the abstract.
- hoseja 5y ago
  I sometimes wonder if the snakes learn their craft in some consistent manner (schoolyard politics? non-naive parents?) or if it's mostly instinctual.
  - doctor_eval 5y ago
    Yeah - I wonder that too. I suspect all of the above. Having a privileged education and family contacts probably reinforces it. From what I’ve seen, openness and honesty are highly regarded in technical work but these traits are considered disadvantages in business.
- nython 5y ago
  Thisstory about ebay's attempted takeover of craigslist might interest you. Even before Omidyar stepped down from Craigslist’s board, his appointed agent, Garrett Price, started bullying Craigslist’s owners. In an email to Buckmaster, Price wrote that Craiglist was “driving [eBay’s] execs (especially Meg) to distraction.” He told Buckmaster that eBay’s takeover was “inevitable” and that Craigslist needed to accept their fate, telling “Buckmaster that he and Newmark were mortal, but eBay was not, and eBay would acquire 100 percent of craigslist whether it took decades and, if necessary, over Newmark’s and Buckmaster’s dead bodies.” Buckmaster replied by reminding Price that when they negotiated the sale of their stake, eBay had agreed to abide by a three-year “courtship period” during which time, if Craigslist felt their two cultures were incompatible, eBay had agreed it would sell back its shares. Price’s response to Buckmaster: “that was then, this is now.” https://web.archive.org/web/20150623005252/https://pando.com/2014/12/01/whitman-omidyar-craigslist-ebay/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150623005252/https://pando.com...
  - doctor_eval 5y ago
    That is certainly the nature of things as I’ve experienced them. Thanks for posting this.
  - doctor_eval 5y ago
    Hey nython, i just wanted to reply again and say that I got a chance to read the whole article just now. It has really helped me put my recent experiences into context. THANK YOU. It's been one thing for me to be on the receiving end of bad behaviour and to form an opinion and suspicions about what happened. But it's quite another to see it played out deliberately, in the large, using trust and friendship as a weapon to defeat a group of people who aren't even playing the same game. The remarkable thing for me is that people really are capable of this kind of shitty behaviour; that it can be entirely intentional, and planned well ahead of time. And that it doesn't matter how rich some people are, they are happy to cheat and steal just to get a little bit more. It's disgusting. Thanks again for linking to it.