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Repeating a comment from 2021[0]: “Entrepreneurs are not at all like ordinary businessmen. An entrepreneur who is not in trouble closes no avenues, keeps a lot

Repeating a comment from 2021[0]: “Entrepreneurs are not at all like ordinary businessmen. An entrepreneur who is not in trouble closes no avenues, keeps a lot of balls in the air, and will never tell you the whole truth when a half-truth will do. An entrepreneur who is in trouble will lie, cheat, and steal. He will smuggle cocaine or ship bricks. We should never measure an entrepreneur by the standards of a rock-solid businessman.” — attributed to Kenneth Rind[1] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28060166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28060166 [1]: https://books.google.com/books?id=MQvGc8Ee1SsC&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=MQvGc8Ee1SsC&pg=PA137&lpg=...

supahfly_remix 3y ago
All of the rest of the quotation makes sense to me, but I'm wondering about this part: > "We should never measure an entrepreneur by the standards of a rock-solid businessman". Is the author saying that a rock-solid businessman follows a higher code of ethics?
- brycewray 3y ago
  I guess it depends on what he meant by “rock-solid.”
  - fuzzfactor 3y ago
    >I guess it depends on what he meant by “rock-solid.” Exactly. There's more than one kind of rock-solid. Someone who is a rock-solid entrepreneur will not lie, cheat, or steal whether they are in trouble or not. OTOH an "ordinary" non-entrepreneurial businessman may just be one who has not faced trouble (may also have a lot less risk of that) and not started to lie, cheat, or steal. Yet. But may do so any minute at the drop of a hat and you would never know. No need for a difference in codes of ethics, rather different kinds of rock-solid for thee than me. It's easy to remember when Enron was a rock-solid client, packed with ordinary businessmen from ordinary business schools and typical backgrounds, until one day it wasn't. Wasn't rock-solid that is, and able to pay. All the businessmen there remained ordinary after that regardless, except for the few whose ethical transgressions were among the "unavoidable handful" for which there were serious legal implications.
- pc86 3y ago
  The sentence immediately preceding your quote are things that a "rock-solid businessman" would never do according to Rind. So it sounds like he is saying that theoretical person has a higher code of ethics for whatever reason.
  - AndrewDucker 3y ago
    Because they're intending to be around for the next decade or more, they need to preserve their appearance of probity, and so they'll do fewer things which would make them look bad.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- deadbabe 3y ago
  Rock-solid businessmen understand business and how it works. Nothing personal, only business. Entrepreneurs are strongly driven by ego, their identity is personally tied to the thing they’re doing. There is immense pressure to succeed, not just for the money, but for their personal validation. It’s not enough to succeed, people must see you succeed. Otherwise, they’d just open some boring small business no one cares about instead of a hot new startup.

supahfly_remix 3y ago

All of the rest of the quotation makes sense to me, but I'm wondering about this part: > "We should never measure an entrepreneur by the standards of a rock-solid businessman". Is the author saying that a rock-solid businessman follows a higher code of ethics?

brycewray 3y ago
I guess it depends on what he meant by “rock-solid.”
- fuzzfactor 3y ago
  >I guess it depends on what he meant by “rock-solid.” Exactly. There's more than one kind of rock-solid. Someone who is a rock-solid entrepreneur will not lie, cheat, or steal whether they are in trouble or not. OTOH an "ordinary" non-entrepreneurial businessman may just be one who has not faced trouble (may also have a lot less risk of that) and not started to lie, cheat, or steal. Yet. But may do so any minute at the drop of a hat and you would never know. No need for a difference in codes of ethics, rather different kinds of rock-solid for thee than me. It's easy to remember when Enron was a rock-solid client, packed with ordinary businessmen from ordinary business schools and typical backgrounds, until one day it wasn't. Wasn't rock-solid that is, and able to pay. All the businessmen there remained ordinary after that regardless, except for the few whose ethical transgressions were among the "unavoidable handful" for which there were serious legal implications.
pc86 3y ago
The sentence immediately preceding your quote are things that a "rock-solid businessman" would never do according to Rind. So it sounds like he is saying that theoretical person has a higher code of ethics for whatever reason.
- AndrewDucker 3y ago
  Because they're intending to be around for the next decade or more, they need to preserve their appearance of probity, and so they'll do fewer things which would make them look bad.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
deadbabe 3y ago
Rock-solid businessmen understand business and how it works. Nothing personal, only business. Entrepreneurs are strongly driven by ego, their identity is personally tied to the thing they’re doing. There is immense pressure to succeed, not just for the money, but for their personal validation. It’s not enough to succeed, people must see you succeed. Otherwise, they’d just open some boring small business no one cares about instead of a hot new startup.