5 ms·

Plot twist: this drama is fabricated and is part of a meta-advertising package offered by The Martin Agency.

by daenz 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
slg 5y ago
If the CEO of a financial services company is both willing to lie to the public and is willing to have the public believe he is a liar, that is a bigger red flag than if he was just ignorant to the details of how an idea for an ad originated.
- beaned 5y ago
  All this characterizing as "lying" is so dramatic. Is there literally no possibility that he misunderstood something, or that maybe the caller-out from the ad agency is themself leaving something out? People are so quick to label and name-call when we can hardly say we really know anything about the situation for certain.
  - afavour 5y ago
    It is, I imagine, possible that someone beneath the CEO arranged the whole thing and covered up the ad agency’s involvement. Which would also be a massive red flag.
  - slg 5y ago
    I didn't say he was lying. I was reacting to the hypothetical in the previous comment that maybe this drama was intentional. If that is the case, I have no idea what word to use besides "lying". With our current knowledge, it can still be a misunderstanding and like I said maybe "he was just ignorant to the details of how an idea for an ad originated."
  - rhizome 5y ago
    It was a major Super Bowl commercial, I have to think its creative path was lit pretty brightly in everybody's minds. They didn't just pick it out of a stack of papers. At all. Of course I'm no business mercenary with experience at all levels and sizes of company, but for something like this I think we can assume they had a lot of meetings about it.
- Melting_Harps 5y ago
  > If the CEO of a financial services company is both willing to lie to the public and is willing to have the public believe he is a liar, that is a bigger red flag than if he was just ignorant to the details of how an idea for an ad originated. Armstrong and Coinbase are one of the most toxic companies in the Bitcoin ecosystem, they were willing to lie to new customers entering the space during Segwit all while spreading FUD; they tried to pawn off Bcash as Bitcoin to unsuspecting newbies. They also have a LONG history of shutting down accounts, reversing purchases, locking funds with limited recourse etc... worst yet is that they are one of YC's unicorns. Honestly, the sooner people realize why the should look for alternatives the better. As an early adopter who was excited about they could do to bring some level of professionalism after Bitcoinica and MtGox instead I'm ashamed and embarrassed to have ever directed anyone to them. Jack Dorsey's CASH/Block is everything that they will never be.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    what's jack doing different? I'm out of the loop
    - Melting_Harps 5y ago
      > what's jack doing different? I'm out of the loop To begin, Jack is a maximalist, and has been funding/supporting Lightening development really early on and has recently integrated it into CASH for no cost withdraws/txs. He has also paid for Bitcoin core development and made initiatives to lower Bitcoin's mining carbon footprint and will now be making miners. He also has spent a great deal of time time and resources to bring Bitcoin awareness into Africa, prior to COVID he was going to live in Africa to try and pick up where Patrick Byrne left off and onboard the develope WOrld with financial services they have been denied. Unfortunately, this was when they tried a hostile take over at Twitter and tried to oust him. Finally he has made it clear that his ambition is to make Bitcoin the currency of the Internet, and has had discussions about it's role with UBI. Whereas Armstrong has proven himself to be an incredibly shady individual with a focus on short term gains and operates with little to no scruples. > I'm sorry, but how is that any different from the entirety of the cryptocurrency space, or the YC startup space in fact? Plenty of scams in the former and cutthroats in the latter. Despite what you may think, in the 10+ years I've been in the BTC ecosystem scammers are the exception not the rule; you just hear about this because it's what makes headlines. You'll never know or hear about a period of time when you could buy bitcoin by sending cash or precious metals in the mail, or the times when bitcoin that were sent to a wrong address were sent back in good faith. I can go on, but it is only in the last 5 years that this space has inundated with these kind of antics: sadly that's the cost of scaling up a project, and getting closer to critical mass. I've been in the Corporate World, too and the two cultures never really mix well because we have different aims entirely; chiefly that monetary profit is a byproduct of our success, not the success itself. Coinbase has it's roots in the SV VC World and Goldman Sachs, which is why I think they have conducted themselves as they have. > They’re all toxic. >>Having spent over a year in the industry there’s no way I’d go back. I don't disagree about the space in the last 5-6 years, I haven't been to a meet up in around that time as it became a waste of time if you were around the early days where disrupting Industries with this tech was the biggest driver of our culture. Now it's all moonbois and memes. There are a few places I could point you to make you see what still exists from that time, but it's pretty fringe. But I must say that a single year doesn't really amount to much; Bitcoin moves at way too fast of a pace that I doubt you got much more than the ability to scratch the surface. In my first year, when Satoshi was still around on BTF, the Community told they didn't care what he thought and would kick the hornet's next and help out Wikileaks. In the coming years we'd see the Snowden revelations and manhunt, and Julian's releases via Wikileaks that included things like all those cables to vault 7 etc... which were only possible because Bitcoin appreciation (50,000%) allowed them to survive. [0] It took me 5 years before I was ready to undertake a startup, that was the first of it's kind in the space and upon reflection was needed but way too early, and only now has started to get wider traction. 0: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/16/wikileaks-julian-assange-bitcoin-50000-percent-return-thanks-to-us-government.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/16/wikileaks-julian-assange-bit...
- Aschebescher 5y ago
  Isn't advertising in general making shit up and lying to the public?
  - SllX 5y ago
    No. False advertising can get you sued, hence advertisers are usually careful about any claims they actually make in an advertisement preferring not to claim anything and imply everything.
  - pictur 5y ago
    Advertising is entirely based on lies. A very accurate finding.
    - cglace 5y ago
      I’m a plumber. I have an ad that shows me and my number and says to call me if your pipe busts. Where is the lie?
      - pictur 5y ago
        I don't mean presentation. i mean shitty youtube ads for shitty SaaS products for example.
- na85 5y ago
  It's a crypto company. All bets are off.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
BbzzbB 5y ago
How can it be anything else? What kind of sane CEO for an advertising company would publicly call out a client for lying - potentially costing them future business after they've made a homerun promo - without having said client be in the loop about it? OTOH, she is confrontational, especially in her other tweet[0], so I'm thorn. But it does seem like they could be just fabricating buzz. 0: https://twitter.com/Cavallokristen/status/1495868194975883266 https://twitter.com/Cavallokristen/status/149586819497588326...
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  It sounds like that agency was fired by the new CMO. Which seems pretty common. Advertising at that level is a big incestuous kick back revolving door of just a couple parent companies. Google says Martin Agency is owned by IPG. Which is like 1 of only 3 or 4 players that capture the vast % of traditional ad spend. They all own a bunch of different brands.
- lupire 5y ago
  > I'm advocating for @Accenture Acdenure, the condsulting body shop spun off from Arthur Andersen the fraudulent accounting ccompany that perpetrated the Enron fraud?
rhizome 5y ago
So it's still deceitful, just a different kind of deceit that can...I dunno, be cast as more acceptible? I'm not sure what kind of judgement either of those alternatives shows in an industry that has, I hope we can agree, credibility problems.

Plot twist: this drama is fabricated and is part of a meta-advertising package offered by The Martin Agency.

by daenz 5y ago

Plot twist: this drama is fabricated and is part of a meta-advertising package offered by The Martin Agency.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

slg 5y ago

If the CEO of a financial services company is both willing to lie to the public and is willing to have the public believe he is a liar, that is a bigger red flag than if he was just ignorant to the details of how an idea for an ad originated.

beaned 5y ago
All this characterizing as "lying" is so dramatic. Is there literally no possibility that he misunderstood something, or that maybe the caller-out from the ad agency is themself leaving something out? People are so quick to label and name-call when we can hardly say we really know anything about the situation for certain.
- afavour 5y ago
  It is, I imagine, possible that someone beneath the CEO arranged the whole thing and covered up the ad agency’s involvement. Which would also be a massive red flag.
- slg 5y ago
  I didn't say he was lying. I was reacting to the hypothetical in the previous comment that maybe this drama was intentional. If that is the case, I have no idea what word to use besides "lying". With our current knowledge, it can still be a misunderstanding and like I said maybe "he was just ignorant to the details of how an idea for an ad originated."
- rhizome 5y ago
  It was a major Super Bowl commercial, I have to think its creative path was lit pretty brightly in everybody's minds. They didn't just pick it out of a stack of papers. At all. Of course I'm no business mercenary with experience at all levels and sizes of company, but for something like this I think we can assume they had a lot of meetings about it.
Melting_Harps 5y ago
> If the CEO of a financial services company is both willing to lie to the public and is willing to have the public believe he is a liar, that is a bigger red flag than if he was just ignorant to the details of how an idea for an ad originated. Armstrong and Coinbase are one of the most toxic companies in the Bitcoin ecosystem, they were willing to lie to new customers entering the space during Segwit all while spreading FUD; they tried to pawn off Bcash as Bitcoin to unsuspecting newbies. They also have a LONG history of shutting down accounts, reversing purchases, locking funds with limited recourse etc... worst yet is that they are one of YC's unicorns. Honestly, the sooner people realize why the should look for alternatives the better. As an early adopter who was excited about they could do to bring some level of professionalism after Bitcoinica and MtGox instead I'm ashamed and embarrassed to have ever directed anyone to them. Jack Dorsey's CASH/Block is everything that they will never be.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  what's jack doing different? I'm out of the loop
  - Melting_Harps 5y ago
    > what's jack doing different? I'm out of the loop To begin, Jack is a maximalist, and has been funding/supporting Lightening development really early on and has recently integrated it into CASH for no cost withdraws/txs. He has also paid for Bitcoin core development and made initiatives to lower Bitcoin's mining carbon footprint and will now be making miners. He also has spent a great deal of time time and resources to bring Bitcoin awareness into Africa, prior to COVID he was going to live in Africa to try and pick up where Patrick Byrne left off and onboard the develope WOrld with financial services they have been denied. Unfortunately, this was when they tried a hostile take over at Twitter and tried to oust him. Finally he has made it clear that his ambition is to make Bitcoin the currency of the Internet, and has had discussions about it's role with UBI. Whereas Armstrong has proven himself to be an incredibly shady individual with a focus on short term gains and operates with little to no scruples. > I'm sorry, but how is that any different from the entirety of the cryptocurrency space, or the YC startup space in fact? Plenty of scams in the former and cutthroats in the latter. Despite what you may think, in the 10+ years I've been in the BTC ecosystem scammers are the exception not the rule; you just hear about this because it's what makes headlines. You'll never know or hear about a period of time when you could buy bitcoin by sending cash or precious metals in the mail, or the times when bitcoin that were sent to a wrong address were sent back in good faith. I can go on, but it is only in the last 5 years that this space has inundated with these kind of antics: sadly that's the cost of scaling up a project, and getting closer to critical mass. I've been in the Corporate World, too and the two cultures never really mix well because we have different aims entirely; chiefly that monetary profit is a byproduct of our success, not the success itself. Coinbase has it's roots in the SV VC World and Goldman Sachs, which is why I think they have conducted themselves as they have. > They’re all toxic. >>Having spent over a year in the industry there’s no way I’d go back. I don't disagree about the space in the last 5-6 years, I haven't been to a meet up in around that time as it became a waste of time if you were around the early days where disrupting Industries with this tech was the biggest driver of our culture. Now it's all moonbois and memes. There are a few places I could point you to make you see what still exists from that time, but it's pretty fringe. But I must say that a single year doesn't really amount to much; Bitcoin moves at way too fast of a pace that I doubt you got much more than the ability to scratch the surface. In my first year, when Satoshi was still around on BTF, the Community told they didn't care what he thought and would kick the hornet's next and help out Wikileaks. In the coming years we'd see the Snowden revelations and manhunt, and Julian's releases via Wikileaks that included things like all those cables to vault 7 etc... which were only possible because Bitcoin appreciation (50,000%) allowed them to survive. [0] It took me 5 years before I was ready to undertake a startup, that was the first of it's kind in the space and upon reflection was needed but way too early, and only now has started to get wider traction. 0: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/16/wikileaks-julian-assange-bitcoin-50000-percent-return-thanks-to-us-government.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/16/wikileaks-julian-assange-bit...
Aschebescher 5y ago
Isn't advertising in general making shit up and lying to the public?
- SllX 5y ago
  No. False advertising can get you sued, hence advertisers are usually careful about any claims they actually make in an advertisement preferring not to claim anything and imply everything.
- pictur 5y ago
  Advertising is entirely based on lies. A very accurate finding.
  - cglace 5y ago
    I’m a plumber. I have an ad that shows me and my number and says to call me if your pipe busts. Where is the lie?
    - pictur 5y ago
      I don't mean presentation. i mean shitty youtube ads for shitty SaaS products for example.
na85 5y ago
It's a crypto company. All bets are off.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

BbzzbB 5y ago

How can it be anything else? What kind of sane CEO for an advertising company would publicly call out a client for lying - potentially costing them future business after they've made a homerun promo - without having said client be in the loop about it? OTOH, she is confrontational, especially in her other tweet[0], so I'm thorn. But it does seem like they could be just fabricating buzz. 0: https://twitter.com/Cavallokristen/status/1495868194975883266 https://twitter.com/Cavallokristen/status/149586819497588326...

dillondoyle 5y ago
It sounds like that agency was fired by the new CMO. Which seems pretty common. Advertising at that level is a big incestuous kick back revolving door of just a couple parent companies. Google says Martin Agency is owned by IPG. Which is like 1 of only 3 or 4 players that capture the vast % of traditional ad spend. They all own a bunch of different brands.
lupire 5y ago
> I'm advocating for @Accenture Acdenure, the condsulting body shop spun off from Arthur Andersen the fraudulent accounting ccompany that perpetrated the Enron fraud?

rhizome 5y ago

So it's still deceitful, just a different kind of deceit that can...I dunno, be cast as more acceptible? I'm not sure what kind of judgement either of those alternatives shows in an industry that has, I hope we can agree, credibility problems.