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Embezzlers Are Nice People (2017)

490 points by VHRanger 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
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neilk 3y ago
I always thought the gentleman thief was a fictional character. Assuming this is more or less real (the detailed dialogue is a bit concerning) it’s fascinating.
- kranke155 3y ago
  Sociopaths who become con men may appear gentlemen. I've met one who posed as a fashion designer. Absolutely dangerous individual, but you'd never guess it from looking or meeting him.
  - jprete 3y ago
    How did you figure it out?
    - kranke155 3y ago
      When he got close to what he wanted, he started lying about everything and anything. Eventually I realised he was trying to commit real estate fraud, and trying to illegally take over property through a series of stratagems. The lying was the giveaway. He just couldn't stop lying. Anything and everything you asked him, he was: - always the victim - going to get his lawyers - subtly threatening violence - demanding something strange or bizarre, like documents he didn't need access to. For people not used to it, it was a shock. He seemed affluent by every standard.
- throwawaysleep 3y ago
  You have to at least be able to put on a veneer of decency to get into these jobs at some point. Otherwise you would piss everyone off.
- deleted 3y ago
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- madoff2 3y ago
  Madoff is the obvious example
monero-xmr 3y ago
> I had another client about the same time, an elderly business man disliked by almost all that knew him, a truly unpleasant individual who never praised anyone, made more money than anyone I knew and could be cast as Scrooge except for his enjoyment of fishing which was all that he truly cared about other than money. But honest…he often would give more to the other side in the bargain than they asked because it was better business tactics to have a vendor who was making good money with you than not. > “Eddie’s just more honest than a lot of the business men I know... They grab a nickel here and lose a dollar in the long run.” I have seen this so many times, over and over. People burning bridges over relatively small amounts of money, discounting the longterm relationship, and most disastrous of all, ignoring that everyone has their own network and whisper to everyone what "really happened". You get a reputation as an asshole and then you wonder why everyone else seems like they don't treat you fairly.
marricks 3y ago
> And, almost always, most would have made more money and had a more profitable career if they had simply stopped stealing and starting working honestly. > I mean, figure it out. An embezzler has to not only do his or her job well so that no one is looking over his or her shoulder but has to do their job so well that they can steal for months or years and it won’t show up. Performance and pay aren't 1:1, and sometimes quite far from it. That imbalance or perceived imbalance could certainly drive some to embezzle. Bit of a just world fallacy there.
- kranke155 3y ago
  Having met people like this, it's exactly like it's said here. It's compulsive for them, they have to do it. Pretty sure the reasoning is ad hoc.
  - nine_k 3y ago
    So a better approach would be therapy instead of prison, I suppose?
    - forgetfreeman 3y ago
      Nope. Therapy produces results only when based on a sincere desire to make change.
      - munk-a 3y ago
        If someone is caught in a vicious spiral not only does Therapy sound like a better option than prison but even just a one time bailout might allow them to self-correct... I still think it'd be a good idea to have the therapy in place though. At the end of the day - people make mistakes, helping people out of those mistakes results in recidivism less often than you'd suspect.
        ohyes 3y ago
        That’s one flavor of embezzler, there probably a sociopath flavor as well. Sending a sociopath to therapy generally doesn’t work.
idkdotcom 3y ago
Which is not to say that every nice person is an embezzler. I was given the advice early in my career of being mindful of very nice people. I misunderstood it as "be a disgusting person". You need to be nice and be a honest person of integrity. That's the magic. Not "OR" but "AND".
- gustavus 3y ago
  I think this is important. At the end of the day you have to live with yourself, and it's easier to live with a person who is nice rather than one who is mean.
  - idkdotcom 3y ago
    100%.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  This was a piece of advice I used to often get from my parents as a child. Didn't really understand it for the longest time, I used to think "they're my friends! they're going to help me out too when I need it". Took a few times of getting into one-sided friendships to realize what they meant, nowadays anyone being excessively nice without a reason sets of alarms unless I know enough about them.
  - idkdotcom 3y ago
    It's really a balance, but yes, I too have been in relationships like the ones you describe.
cj 3y ago
The best engineer I ever worked with had 3 full time W-2 jobs remote in the US. It was really unfortunate when all 3 companies found out at the same time and he was fired from all 3. Not unfortunate that he was fired, but unfortunate that his talent went to waste. He was brilliant. But also a con artist. Edit: I was his direct manager, and when I say he "was brilliant" I mean that he was extremely smart, extremely good at thinking about architecture, all the characteristics of a great engineer, etc. But he simply didn't have the time to execute because he was secretly splitting his time between 3 companies. So he was fired for low productivity, even though he had all of the skills needed to be extraordinarily productive.
- rjbwork 3y ago
  Probably should have paid him triple the salary to be the best engineer you ever worked with then.
  - sbrother 3y ago
    Nah. I know a guy who does this, he views it as a game and all the money coming in is his score. Tripling his salary would just raise his high score and he'd keep playing as hard as ever.
    - deleted 3y ago
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    - theideaofcoffee 3y ago
      Isn’t it, though? Why do most people work? For the joy of making their employer richer? Or to take home the bacon and make a better life for themselves and people they care about? I used to be the type to make loyalty to my great exalted employer first and foremost, sacrificing chunks of my personal life beyond what my salary required. Then I wised up and now view it as how much I can extract as quickly as possible. Coincidentally, the quality of my work shot up when I viewed myself as mostly a mercenary, consistent raises, consistently good reviews even though I care less and less. So I see where he is coming from and I wish more people thought like him.
phone8675309 3y ago
Scam artists have to be superficially nice to their victims otherwise they'll never gain their confidence.
DudeOpotomus 3y ago
If you stop and think about it, almost every business is a scam of sorts that relies upon the weaknesses of human nature to thrive. In a lot of cases we're too lazy to do it ourselves. Or we need it NOW. Or we're too stupid to care or we're overwhelmed by other emotional factors. All these things and more impede our ability to make a clear distinction between value, cost and need. It's really hard to tell the difference between late stage capitalism and fraud. They're only divided by a thin legal line full of semantics and double speak. Words dont seem to have meanings. ie) Guaranteed, Free, Unlimited, etc. We've become entrapped in a web of tort law and legal ridiculousness. So in the end this guy tells it like it is... He's the known known, the honest thief.
- rockemsockem 3y ago
  People want stuff and want to accomplish more than they have time to do on their own. I have no idea why you want to twist that into dark desires and laziness.
  - DudeOpotomus 3y ago
    There are entire departments at large corporations that do nothing but think of ways to sneak in more fees and higher costs. Its endemic throughout corporate Americas largest industries. Insurance Banking Finance Media Energy Software All are infused with opaque business practices and layers of legal protections hiding behind 1000 page contracts.
    - rockemsockem 3y ago
      That's absolutely true. And it's also true that most Americans don't work at large corporations and that most companies are not large. https://www.bls.gov/charts/county-employment-and-wages/establishments-by-size.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/county-employment-and-wages/estab...
  - DudeOpotomus 3y ago
    Shrinkflation is one very clear example of this in action. Is selling a candy bar that is half the size of the packaging yet the same cost as it was before they shrank the product fraud or is it just business? It fits the definition of fraud more than anything...misrepresenting the outcome by hiding the facts. Seems pretty fraudulent to me...
silverquiet 3y ago
I'd generalize this to psychopaths; it's called superficial charm for a reason. They can be quite nice to talk to but they don't have any concept of loyalty and so will betray you without a second thought as soon as its advantageous. The smarter ones do very well in large organizations.
ilamont 3y ago
They embezzle because they like it. They like the rush. They need money now, not in five years. They like being smarter than the drudges they figure are around them. And they embezzle, I am convinced, because they want to get caught sooner or later and that pattern is usually repeated over and over. You can embezzle for some of the reasons listed above, and not others. Or something completely different, like a conviction that the victim (which could be an employer or government agency or cofounder) owes you for some real or imagined damage or injustice. And some people do it for love. There was a case a few years back involving a nebbish CFO at an old-school family-run firm, Alden Shoe Company. This guy was utterly besotted with a former TV news anchor who was trying to start her own entertainment brand, and embezzled millions to fund her business and impress her as a moneyed knight in shining armor. He stole the money from a reserve account and family trust, and wasn't particularly smart about it: In 2011, according to criminal and civil court filings, Hajjar started writing checks to himself from that Santander account and depositing them in his personal bank accounts. That year, he wrote himself eight checks totaling $585,000. The next year, 17 checks for $1.2 million. He also transferred money from the cash reserve to a defunct Alden trust account, and then over to his personal accounts. In 2013, he used this method to take $1.2 million, and again to steal $4 million in 2014—the same year de la Garza started Lucky Gal Productions. ... At the end of each year, Hajjar simply moved money from an Alden line of credit into the Santander account, so everything looked copasetic for the year-end review. Then, after a successful review, he returned the borrowed funds to the Alden line of credit and no one was the wiser that the Santander account was missing money. https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2021/07/13/richard-hajjar-bianca-de-la-garza-alden/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2021/07/13/richard-hajja... The theft totalled $17 million. He didn't try hard to cover his tracks, and when the CEO of the shoe company figured it out, he admitted it right away. I don't think this guy was a born con artist or serial grifter or particularly brilliant. He'd been with the same company his entire career, and there wasn't any evidence of earlier embezzlement until he met the TV personality. I think he got 5 years in prison.
- flappyeagle 3y ago
  Wow Alden of all places. Glad they survived it seems
- 3y ago
gkoberger 3y ago
I don't think I really understand the takeaway of this article... the case wasn't really made ever that Eddie, let alone most grifters, are particularly nice. If anything, I think the takeaway is that grifters will always grift, because it's in their nature to find cracks in society they can use to their advantage. It's not about right or wrong, it's about seeing the world in a different way than most people do. And, since we're on HN, I think it's fascinating that many of us have the same mentality, except with computers/systems rather than people/money. (One of YC's application questions is how you hacked a system to your advantage.) That being said, I did find the dialogue to be quite beautiful. "I spent it on sweet, stupid things that make life an appropriate journey. Little things with some elegance attached."
- skulk 3y ago
  Yeah, that brought a tear to my eye. Then, > Of course I spent it. Why else take it? Money taken like that should not be spent on necessities of life but on luxuries of life. Necessities of life are the proper destination of grim jobs with little men working at little desks. sucked the tear right back in.
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    The is a deeper truth to this statement that you are letting your resentment get in the way of. Most of us live grim lives and little desks, when there is so much in the world to offer. We are the ones being wronged, not because we shouldn't do the work, but because they will never offer us enough to experience the other side.
    - skulk 3y ago
      No, that's pretty much exactly where I am with this as well. There are two classes of people in this world, those who sell their labor to live and those who live off the labor of others, neither because of their ingenuity or efficiency or lack thereof but the circumstances of their birth. The latter gets to enjoy all that the world has to offer at a baseline, and the former gets a taste of it when the latter deems it appropriate. This goes far beyond embezzlers and embezzlees, it's baked into the social contract itself.
dexwiz 3y ago
I always assume embezzlers are just people who have higher tolerance for boundary pushing. Exploring boundaries is a primal urge. Kids learn to do it at a young age. If you have ever trained an animal, you know they do it also. To me, embezzlement always appears as someone who pushed "perks of the job" into illegality. If you are going to be a successful embezzler the lag between pushing a boundary (from small office supplies, to stealing petty cash, to full on corporate embezzlement) must be pretty long. By the team the punishment comes, there is enough time to disconnect the action from the result and create alternate justifications. This gives a people a long time to escalate. Being a likable person likely gives you even more time. In the corporate world the lines are also a bit fuzzier. Is expensing a not-quite business dinner with overpriced wine embezzlement? Depends on who you ask. But doing so will surely embolden your next action. These people probably also display some level of narcissism/sociopathy. Minimizing victims by calling them "small people." Nonrecognition of emotional damage. I wonder how many of these people surround themselves with a cadre of enablers who are more willing to look the other way. And when its all said and done, they are on to the next thing.
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PhasmaFelis 3y ago
I think the author is confusing "well-spoken" for "nice." Eddie can speak poetically in court. Cool. But he thinks that fact alone makes him better than other people. “Your courts are not used to hearing an honest statement, are they?” You're a professional con artist, bud, don't go patting yourself on the back for "honesty." "Necessities of life are the proper destination of grim jobs with little men working at little desks." This guy is a stereotype of a Smug Rich Villain. If a movie character talked like that, you'd think it was a little over-the-top.
- cardiffspaceman 3y ago
  Maybe he’s recycling some handy words from a movie or novel.
- lo_zamoyski 3y ago
  > I think the author is confusing "well-spoken" for "nice." There is at least some overlap with the meaning of "nice", though, as in "nice guy", where it refers to a kind of person who is not genuinely courteous or kind for the sake of another's good (the benefit for them being spiritual reward), but someone who does it with an ulterior motive, to get something (typically unspoken, as it is underhanded) in return. The "nice guy" is likewise a conman, because his whole dishonest performance is to ingratiate himself with someone, as if doing so entitles him to something in return (think of the "nice guy" who tries to please women in order to receive attention, affection, or sexual favors, and then either pouts and whines, or becomes nasty, either overtly or in passive aggressive ways, when he doesn't receive them). Being "nice" is not the same as being "good". We should always be good, never nice.
  - PhasmaFelis 3y ago
    I see what you're saying, but remember the "Nice Guy" trope is sarcastic. "Nice Guys" are not actually nice guys. There's nothing wrong with being genuinely nice.
karmajunkie 3y ago
> I pushed my cannelloni around while he expounded on the future of Hong Kong and when he finally wound down, asked, “Does it not occur to you that people want to do business with honest people they can trust? Not dishonest people they have to watch?” > He became exasperated. “Didn’t you tell your client you have to create checks and balances in the company and watch each and every employee?” > “Yes, but…” > “And don’t you insist on systems being created in every company so that no one can get away with cooking the books or taking from the company no matter who is in charge?” > “Yes…” > “Then what difference does it make if someone you don’t trust is involved? You don’t trust anyone anyway. If your systems work, they work. I am not any more of a danger to you than any other person. I don’t see the problem.” Eddie would have made a good security consultant.
- zelos 3y ago
  The risk for the employer is (risk that an employee is an embezzler) x (risk that your systems fail to catch them), though, so you probably want to minimize both terms?
  - fallingknife 3y ago
    Not quite because they are correlated. As he says, embezzlers are smart. So lowering the second risk also lowers the first as a smart embezzler is not likely to try when the risk of getting caught is high.
    - scott_w 3y ago
      If I’m careful, I’m sure I could pet a tiger. If it sees me take enough precautions, it’s less likely to try and eat me. If it judges that’s it’s worth a pop and I don’t take sufficient precautions, I’m dinner. Or I can pet my dog that won’t even think to try. Which should I do?
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spxneo 3y ago
"The brighter and shinier something or someone is, the darker and longer is it's cast."
- mrmetanoia 3y ago
  That's heavy, as it can be true even without crime or hurting others.
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hprotagonist 3y ago
It’s about time to re-read Going Postal; a fine reminder.
- bombcar 3y ago
  This is well worth the read, and though it's a Discworld novel it can stand pretty much alone if you want it to. Once you realize just how firmly you're on the side of Moist and how identical Gilt is, then you can meditate for awhile on the world.
  - hprotagonist 3y ago
    "Who are you trying to fool, Mr. Lipwig?" "Me, i think. I've fallen into good ways. I keep thinking I can give it up any time I like, but I don't. But I know if I /couldn't/ give it up any time I liked, I wouldn't go on doing it. Er. There is another reason, too --" "And that is -- ?" "I'm not Reacher Gilt. That's sort of important. Some people might say there's not a lot of difference, but I can see it from where I stand and it's there. It's like a golem not being a hammer."
  - fnordian_slip 3y ago
    I generally prefer the discworld books that are more firmly part of an overall storyline, like The Watch, since they have such great long character arcs. But Going Postal is a masterpiece in itself imho. Terry Pratchett was always great at making you empathise with flawed characters. Also, he was exceptional at creating "bad" or "evil" characters with believable and complex motivations, which never excused their actions.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      So many of his villains are multi-faceted, so much so that you start to think he actually cannot write an unsympathetic "pure evil/Sauron" style villain, and then he hits you right in the face with Carcer or Gilt. Truly a phenomenal author. It's fun to watch how his one-dimensional parody characters take on a life of their own over the series; you can really tell he has a love for them, even if they're not his cup of tea.
EcommerceFlow 3y ago
Reminds me of the time I spent HOURS preparing to cheat for a history map test in middle school, didn't pass, and realized later how much easier actually studying for the test would have been.
- kinleyd 3y ago
  I had a slightly better experience. For the thrill of it, I spent hours preparing for a couple of test papers making a number of little cheat sheets in tiny handwriting. At the end of the exercise I found I didn't need the cheat sheets - the stuff had gone right into memory and I did quite well in the tests.
  - 0x00washere 3y ago
    I learned Spanish vocabulary writing words on my hands to cheat off of, but ended up too nervous to look at them during quizzes. Amazing how the desire to do well, fear of getting caught cheating, can turn into a hyper-powered study technique.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  This was basically my studying strategy throughout my schooling, by preparing perfectly viable cheatsheets. Got everyone suspiciously staring, seeing the sheets on my desk as I reviewed them, only for me to visibly throw them out or put them away right before the exam started.
  - imzadi 3y ago
    My study method was to try to think of questions that might be on a test from the material as I was reading it. I'd write up the questions as I went along and then write up the answers and study the answers. It worked great until someone saw my made up questions and they were close enough to the real questions that it was decided I had stolen the test.
BryantD 3y ago
FWIW, the stories on this Web site appear to be fictional. I just read the lengthy https://www.stimmel-law.com/en/articles/story-13-adverse-possession-and-glory https://www.stimmel-law.com/en/articles/story-13-adverse-pos... which is about a retired machinist engaging in boat jousts on Shaw Lake in Golden Gate Park. There's no trace of a real person named Benjamin McIsserson, and no Shaw Lake in Golden Gate Park. (It's probably a stand-in for Spreckels Lake, which was built for model boats but which has never hosted combat between them.) So take it with a grain of salt.
- ziddoap 3y ago
  >There's no trace of a real person named Benjamin McIsserson I don't think this has any bearing on the whether the story itself is fictitious or not. I imagine all of the real names have been substituted in all of the stories, to prevent any unnecessary conflict/drama/liability/etc.
  - blululu 3y ago
    Protecting a person makes sense, but a lake is not going to sue for its role in the story. These details feel sketchy, and that is sort of the take away from the original piece: when someone is unreliable in one area, they are more suspect in others. To be charitable, the author maybe lost that detail of the story, but they could easily have substituted a generic 'lake in Golden Gate Park'. Or they could just use Google Maps to find Stow, Lloyd, Spreckles lakes (Elk Glenn, and the Chain of Lakes lakes would be unsuitable for boat jousts).
  - BryantD 3y ago
    If it was just a name, I’d agree. But there’s no way someone built a razor-sharp remote controlled boat and sent it running around a lake in Golden Gate Park sinking other boats without making the news.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      > accidently rammed one of the toy sail boats, shattering its mast, sinking the little vessel. "accidentally" doesn't sound like some asshole is just going around ruining kid's days with a demon boat. it's not too far fetched to imagine someone in the SFMYC accidentally hitting another boat and that not making the news. they're not the WWCC, which would go around sinking each other's ships and is active at Maker faire. SF model yacht club western warship combat club
paulcole 3y ago
I took a bunch of meetings with the CEO of a company providing HR/payroll services. Super nice guy and I thought his business/offering was really compelling, it just wasn't right for me at the time. Like 6 months later it comes out that he had stolen like $25 million from clients over the year (money that was supposed to be used to pay payroll taxes). Never would've guessed it.
Delumine 3y ago
Definitely an english major
- mise_en_place 3y ago
  That's why the writing style was so stuffy and stolid. The best writers are drunks, drug addicts, and dilettantes.
dvt 3y ago
> I spent it on sweet, stupid things that make life an appropriate journey. Little things with some elegance attached. Things only worth buying because they have little value in the long run. Like life, itself. Feel like I can oddly relate to this quote; not sure what that says about me, hah.
tsunamifury 3y ago
This story took place in the 70s. The value arbitrage corporations get from their workers today makes shareholders embezzling from workers just the way of the world now. He wasn't just charming -- he was nihilistically prescient. He knew where the world was going, and that other businessman at the end, he wouldn't survive in today's environment.
geye1234 3y ago
> Business may be competitive, but there are rules and it is not war. To Eddie, business was not only war, but war with the only rules being do not get caught if you can and make all the money you can. And trust no one. Eh, what? Don't most rich self-made people, and people at the top of big corps, think this way? (Not all, but a good-size majority?) I can assure you that the majority of such people worry only about the appearance of honesty and morality, not the substance. The 'elderly businessman' he quotes in the next paragraph has it pretty much right. We live in Hobbes' world. Or rather, we created it, by allowing such people to gain power and influence, and even seeing it as a good. (Btw, I'm not defending the subject's behavior, he clearly deserves a long spell in jail and needs to make right what he's done. But his argument that "everyone does it" isn't too far from the truth.)
- sanderjd 3y ago
  > Don't most rich self-made people, and people at the top of big corps, think this way? (Not all, but a good-size majority?) It's very hard to know! (It's not like you can send a survey around and ask.) But for what it's worth, I think this is overblown. It's not that it's not a thing. But I don't think it's as much of a thing as people tend to think. I think most people, including fancy business people, want to be the hero of their own story, and that a smaller-than-imagined proportion of people find "the only rules [are] do not get caught if you can and make all the money you can[, a]nd trust no one" to be compatible with their own heroes journey.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    Those two are not contradictory, though. One way to be a hero of one's own story is to demote everyone else to NPC. And once you do that, well, you're the hero, on some clearly important quest ... and they're just an NPC, they don't really matter, so what's the big deal about sticking to the rules regarding them? Especially if nobody finds out?
    - sanderjd 3y ago
      I covered this. I think that: > a smaller-than-imagined proportion of people find "the only rules [are] do not get caught if you can and make all the money you can[, a]nd trust no one" to be compatible with their own heroes journey. I just truly don't think this sort of thing is as common as the cynical-people-on-the-internet crowd seems to take it as obvious fact to be. I think it's more often reached for as a convenient simpler explanation for human behavior that is actually more complex and nuanced.
omoikane 3y ago
This reminds me of "All The Queen's Horses"[1], where a woman embezzled $53 million through careful accounting. I seem to recall it was mentioned how the perpetrator was described as nice and generous by her friends. [1] https://www.allthequeenshorsesfilm.com/ https://www.allthequeenshorsesfilm.com/
- gklitz 3y ago
  > described as nice and generous by her friends. I really hate these takes. Yes she was stealing a shit ton of money so she didn’t mind paying for stuff for friends and giving expensive gifts so people thought she was nice and generous. Take away the money and likely she would have been seen as greedy and nitpicky. It’s like people going “yea, he did steel a lot of cars, but I still think he was a pretty decent guy who always showed up in a nice looking car”
  - feoren 3y ago
    Yes, this says more about how awful humans are at judging others than it does about the people committing these crimes.
xyzelement 3y ago
The article makes a point that for people capable of embezzling, the embezzling is less lucrative long term than what they could have done legally with their abilities. I think in general there's immense power in the narratives people tell themselves. "I am too good/smart to be a straight-forward worker" can then land you in a significantly worse scenario than you can actually attain as a "straight-forward worker." But it's not like the ego is doing those ROI calculations.
coldtea 3y ago
>Since what Eddie didn’t understand is that people are not only in business for the money. Oh, it’s important, but it’s never just the money in my experience. It’s a dozen other things, the joy of creating something from nothing, the excitement of success, the comradeship one gets from working in a team that is good and effective, etc, etc. Business may be competitive, but there are rules and it is not war. To Eddie, business was not only war, but war with the only rules being do not get caught if you can and make all the money you can. And trust no one. Same with most of those "good guys" businessmen he constasts him with - who wouldn't hesitate to exploit, take advantage of, backstab, pull shady or even illegal shit on competitors, cut margin by selling shit, and of course, fire employees whenever they want to look good on paper and not give a fuck about it. Like Zuck did to the Winklevoss twins and Saverin, and the billions of people the platform mind fucks with its algorithm to sell ads and collect data. Or like Bill Gates and the Microsoft he run. Or like Larry Elisson. Or like Musk. Or like Bezos. Or the WeWork guy. Or the Uber guys. The list goes on.
- jon_adler 3y ago
  Reading the article, I just kept thinking of Donald Trump (as a “smart” embezzler).
858509hua 3y ago
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hristov 3y ago
Psychopaths are nice people. Well they are not nice, but they are very charismatic so they appear nice. They also really like taking risks, doing high adrenaline activities and generally turning things up to eleven. This adds to their charm as if they have a secret to enjoying life better than normal people. The truth is actually quite the opposite. They have a physiological mental problem that prevents them from feeling ordinary feelings and they dial things up to eleven just to get a chance to feel anything. To paraphrase the great writer John le Carre they do not take risks because they enjoy life they do it because they are dead inside. By the way, John le Carre had the very bad luck to have a psychopath for a father and he suffered greatly for it. But he did get a very good book out of that experience — “the perfect spy”, one of the best descriptions of a psychopath in literature. Much recommended. Unfortunately the lack of feeling translates to a complete lack of compassion towards others so that leads psychopaths to do so much damage to innocent people. In their desire to feel something anything, psychopaths tend to gamble and do stimulant drugs. They also tend to think they’re special and the rules of society do not apply to them. So if you meet a charismatic person that likes to take big risks and do crazy stuff and/or gambles, stay away. I say that having fallen victim to a vile disgusting psychopath and still trying to get him to leave me alone. So beware, it is not fun.
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Plain old narcissism. This was the charm-heavy love bombing phase. The contempt, the passive aggression, the "your money is on its way", and perhaps the outright rages would have come later. The real point of the interview was the reassure the narcissist that he was still smarter, still more significant, and still more of an operator than the lawyer who convicted him. At the very least he got his prosecutor to turn up, which must have been a small consolation thrill.
indymike 3y ago
This story meshes with every incident of long term fraud or embezzlement I've seen in my business life (I've had to deal with four, so it is annecdata): 1. The fraudster is really, really nice and often has a disarming appearance. Often it's pretty or handsome. The one that got the most, an book keeper who got $143,000 via petty cash looked like everyone's Grandma. 2. The money is always spent quickly and on things that were not obvious to others at work. Vacations, gifts for family members, luxury items... One guy spent it all on guitars and amplifiers. 3. When caught, the fraudster/embezzler admits it readily and cooperates with everyone... The reason every one gave was right out of a Michael Chrichton book, "The Great Train Robbery": Judge: Now, on the matter of motive, we ask you: Why did you conceive, plan and execute this dastardly and scandalous crime? Edward Pierce: I wanted the money.
- cainxinth 3y ago
  Why do you rob banks? Because that's where the money is
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  I wonder, were they of some type? Lonely, disconnected, depressed? I know from personal experience that having no life, you get in a strange space, start thinking strange thoughts. Ridiculous things become plausible. Take the money? Why not! It's not like things can get worse for me.
jonnycomputer 3y ago
"Get the money any way you can, any time you can, short-term thinking, everyone is a crook anyway, so what’s the big deal?" Reminds me of special someone y'all know caught snoozing in a court room this afternoon.
n4r9 3y ago
> Then what difference does it make if someone you don’t trust is involved? You don’t trust anyone anyway. If your systems work, they work. This is where "Eddie's" argument falls through imo. Never assume your system works perfectly. Use every piece of supplementary information you have. Including knowledge of whether someone is willing and able to break the system.
- actuallyalys 3y ago
  Right, part of the system is not allowing in people who you already know to be untrustworthy.
idkdotcom 3y ago
The Wizard Of Oz is based on a book written in 1900. There is a long history of embezzlement and snake oil salesmanship in the United States. The hardest form of embezzlement to put a check on is is things such as when you promise that GPUs, if they are powerful enough, will one day produce AGI by running code because intelligence is a "property of matter". Kind of "if you compute it, it will show up".
alephnerd 3y ago
Who doesn't like Gilligan?
DoreenMichele 3y ago
I found it incredible that such brilliant and attractive people would be dumb enough to risk it all for the relatively paltry gains that embezzlement can earn. I kept looking to see the underlying motivations... In one of the Star Wars movies, Luke takes a starfighter and flies to another planet, pursues training with Yoda etc. I'm pretty sure the other timelines in the movie don't reasonably match up and I don't recall this causing a big hullabaloo. What people will blithely accept in a popular movie tells you something about their mental processes. It tells you something about how tolerant they will be of half-truths and stories not quite adding up IRL. And some people like exploiting that fact for some reason. They usually have an excuse -- "I'm some minority group or other and we never get a fair shake." But the reality is, as the author says, they just like it for some reason. Most people have partial info and make decisions based on simple rubrics, not comprehensive overviews of some unknown future. People routinely see what they want to see -- "Look! Free money -- again!" -- and blithely ignore inconvenient truths -- "Oops! Arrested again." Comments suggesting "right to be forgotten" is problematic are correct. It typically just teaches people they can get away with it.
karma_pharmer 3y ago
Money taken like that should not be spent on necessities of life but on luxuries of life. Sylvia Bloom, master of insider trading, disagrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Bloom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Bloom Sylvia Bloom (c. 1919 – 2016) was an American legal secretary. By copying her bosses' investment decisions she secretly accumulated a significant fortune and donated the bulk of it—US$8.2 million—for scholarships for underprivileged students upon her death. She lived modestly in a rent-controlled apartment, and even her closest friends and family did not know about her wealth.
Mathnerd314 3y ago
I'm not sure how much fiction reflects reality, but it seems like in every Chinese novel I read, the majority of officials are corrupt and greedy. The worst of them usually get in trouble, but a lot of them get away with it.
robtest123 3y ago
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jongjong 3y ago
What I don't understand is why fund managers don't just form groups with each other and take possessions of their clients hidden offshore assets... Then collectively gaslight their clients about the non-existence of the assets. It would be easy nowadays. Their clients are tax avoiders so it would be ethical... Some of their clients are public figures who wouldn't want to draw attention to their offshore assets with a big news article about their asset managers embezzling funds.
Consultant32452 3y ago
At one company I worked at someone had been fired for embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars. The company didn't even press charges. I guess the PR issue wasn't worth it. Wild.
WheelsAtLarge 3y ago
What's not mentioned is that just about anyone can be an embezzler given the opportunity. I remember reading that most embezzlers start small. They have the trust of a company or person and know that they can take a few bucks without anyone knowing. It starts small at first and grows to levels where they get caught. I knew a guy who was a cashier. The company he worked for decided to save a few bucks and got rid of the person who cashed him out each night and verified his transactions. He decided that he could steal a few bucks since no one would know. He started small and increased a bit. It was never a lot but he did it regularly. He continued and eventually, he got caught. What's interesting is that it wouldn't have happened had he not had the easy opportunity of take the cash.
developer1000 3y ago
Embezzlers are not smart nor brilliant. Its easy to steal its much harder and more luck is needed to earn the same amount. Id say about 100 to 1
cat_plus_plus 3y ago
I would rather someone file bogus expense reports for a vacation in Belize than overcomplicate my work to justify their own importance and in the practice stop me from advancing and getting a raise to go on my own vacation in Belize. The later case is super common, 100% legal and 100% greater asshole because I am deprived not only of some of my money but also my time and dignity. Everything comes in degrees and I would rather deal with someone who is a little crooked but still well meaning towards me than someone completely honest and a complete jerk.
etruong42 2y ago
"The people back in the studio on TV after this - they were talking about it like - who risks their half-a-million-dollar-a-year job for $70,000?" "Scott says he was kind of overworked and unhappy with his job, so everything felt a little less important. Maybe that had something to do with it. But he says crossing over that line was somehow just not as hard as it should have been." - Planet Money, Episode 671: An Insider Trader Tells All https://www.npr.org/transcripts/460689797 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/460689797

490 points by VHRanger 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

I always thought the gentleman thief was a fictional character. Assuming this is more or less real (the detailed dialogue is a bit concerning) it’s fascinating.

kranke155 3y ago
Sociopaths who become con men may appear gentlemen. I've met one who posed as a fashion designer. Absolutely dangerous individual, but you'd never guess it from looking or meeting him.
- jprete 3y ago
  How did you figure it out?
  - kranke155 3y ago
    When he got close to what he wanted, he started lying about everything and anything. Eventually I realised he was trying to commit real estate fraud, and trying to illegally take over property through a series of stratagems. The lying was the giveaway. He just couldn't stop lying. Anything and everything you asked him, he was: - always the victim - going to get his lawyers - subtly threatening violence - demanding something strange or bizarre, like documents he didn't need access to. For people not used to it, it was a shock. He seemed affluent by every standard.
throwawaysleep 3y ago
You have to at least be able to put on a veneer of decency to get into these jobs at some point. Otherwise you would piss everyone off.
deleted 3y ago
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madoff2 3y ago
Madoff is the obvious example

monero-xmr 3y ago

> I had another client about the same time, an elderly business man disliked by almost all that knew him, a truly unpleasant individual who never praised anyone, made more money than anyone I knew and could be cast as Scrooge except for his enjoyment of fishing which was all that he truly cared about other than money. But honest…he often would give more to the other side in the bargain than they asked because it was better business tactics to have a vendor who was making good money with you than not. > “Eddie’s just more honest than a lot of the business men I know... They grab a nickel here and lose a dollar in the long run.” I have seen this so many times, over and over. People burning bridges over relatively small amounts of money, discounting the longterm relationship, and most disastrous of all, ignoring that everyone has their own network and whisper to everyone what "really happened". You get a reputation as an asshole and then you wonder why everyone else seems like they don't treat you fairly.

marricks 3y ago

> And, almost always, most would have made more money and had a more profitable career if they had simply stopped stealing and starting working honestly. > I mean, figure it out. An embezzler has to not only do his or her job well so that no one is looking over his or her shoulder but has to do their job so well that they can steal for months or years and it won’t show up. Performance and pay aren't 1:1, and sometimes quite far from it. That imbalance or perceived imbalance could certainly drive some to embezzle. Bit of a just world fallacy there.

kranke155 3y ago
Having met people like this, it's exactly like it's said here. It's compulsive for them, they have to do it. Pretty sure the reasoning is ad hoc.
- nine_k 3y ago
  So a better approach would be therapy instead of prison, I suppose?
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    Nope. Therapy produces results only when based on a sincere desire to make change.
    - munk-a 3y ago
      If someone is caught in a vicious spiral not only does Therapy sound like a better option than prison but even just a one time bailout might allow them to self-correct... I still think it'd be a good idea to have the therapy in place though. At the end of the day - people make mistakes, helping people out of those mistakes results in recidivism less often than you'd suspect.
      - ohyes 3y ago
        That’s one flavor of embezzler, there probably a sociopath flavor as well. Sending a sociopath to therapy generally doesn’t work.

idkdotcom 3y ago

Which is not to say that every nice person is an embezzler. I was given the advice early in my career of being mindful of very nice people. I misunderstood it as "be a disgusting person". You need to be nice and be a honest person of integrity. That's the magic. Not "OR" but "AND".

gustavus 3y ago
I think this is important. At the end of the day you have to live with yourself, and it's easier to live with a person who is nice rather than one who is mean.
- idkdotcom 3y ago
  100%.
dotnet00 3y ago
This was a piece of advice I used to often get from my parents as a child. Didn't really understand it for the longest time, I used to think "they're my friends! they're going to help me out too when I need it". Took a few times of getting into one-sided friendships to realize what they meant, nowadays anyone being excessively nice without a reason sets of alarms unless I know enough about them.
- idkdotcom 3y ago
  It's really a balance, but yes, I too have been in relationships like the ones you describe.

cj 3y ago

The best engineer I ever worked with had 3 full time W-2 jobs remote in the US. It was really unfortunate when all 3 companies found out at the same time and he was fired from all 3. Not unfortunate that he was fired, but unfortunate that his talent went to waste. He was brilliant. But also a con artist. Edit: I was his direct manager, and when I say he "was brilliant" I mean that he was extremely smart, extremely good at thinking about architecture, all the characteristics of a great engineer, etc. But he simply didn't have the time to execute because he was secretly splitting his time between 3 companies. So he was fired for low productivity, even though he had all of the skills needed to be extraordinarily productive.

rjbwork 3y ago
Probably should have paid him triple the salary to be the best engineer you ever worked with then.
- sbrother 3y ago
  Nah. I know a guy who does this, he views it as a game and all the money coming in is his score. Tripling his salary would just raise his high score and he'd keep playing as hard as ever.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - theideaofcoffee 3y ago
    Isn’t it, though? Why do most people work? For the joy of making their employer richer? Or to take home the bacon and make a better life for themselves and people they care about? I used to be the type to make loyalty to my great exalted employer first and foremost, sacrificing chunks of my personal life beyond what my salary required. Then I wised up and now view it as how much I can extract as quickly as possible. Coincidentally, the quality of my work shot up when I viewed myself as mostly a mercenary, consistent raises, consistently good reviews even though I care less and less. So I see where he is coming from and I wish more people thought like him.

phone8675309 3y ago

Scam artists have to be superficially nice to their victims otherwise they'll never gain their confidence.

DudeOpotomus 3y ago

If you stop and think about it, almost every business is a scam of sorts that relies upon the weaknesses of human nature to thrive. In a lot of cases we're too lazy to do it ourselves. Or we need it NOW. Or we're too stupid to care or we're overwhelmed by other emotional factors. All these things and more impede our ability to make a clear distinction between value, cost and need. It's really hard to tell the difference between late stage capitalism and fraud. They're only divided by a thin legal line full of semantics and double speak. Words dont seem to have meanings. ie) Guaranteed, Free, Unlimited, etc. We've become entrapped in a web of tort law and legal ridiculousness. So in the end this guy tells it like it is... He's the known known, the honest thief.

rockemsockem 3y ago
People want stuff and want to accomplish more than they have time to do on their own. I have no idea why you want to twist that into dark desires and laziness.
- DudeOpotomus 3y ago
  There are entire departments at large corporations that do nothing but think of ways to sneak in more fees and higher costs. Its endemic throughout corporate Americas largest industries. Insurance Banking Finance Media Energy Software All are infused with opaque business practices and layers of legal protections hiding behind 1000 page contracts.
  - rockemsockem 3y ago
    That's absolutely true. And it's also true that most Americans don't work at large corporations and that most companies are not large. https://www.bls.gov/charts/county-employment-and-wages/establishments-by-size.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/county-employment-and-wages/estab...
- DudeOpotomus 3y ago
  Shrinkflation is one very clear example of this in action. Is selling a candy bar that is half the size of the packaging yet the same cost as it was before they shrank the product fraud or is it just business? It fits the definition of fraud more than anything...misrepresenting the outcome by hiding the facts. Seems pretty fraudulent to me...

silverquiet 3y ago

I'd generalize this to psychopaths; it's called superficial charm for a reason. They can be quite nice to talk to but they don't have any concept of loyalty and so will betray you without a second thought as soon as its advantageous. The smarter ones do very well in large organizations.

ilamont 3y ago

They embezzle because they like it. They like the rush. They need money now, not in five years. They like being smarter than the drudges they figure are around them. And they embezzle, I am convinced, because they want to get caught sooner or later and that pattern is usually repeated over and over. You can embezzle for some of the reasons listed above, and not others. Or something completely different, like a conviction that the victim (which could be an employer or government agency or cofounder) owes you for some real or imagined damage or injustice. And some people do it for love. There was a case a few years back involving a nebbish CFO at an old-school family-run firm, Alden Shoe Company. This guy was utterly besotted with a former TV news anchor who was trying to start her own entertainment brand, and embezzled millions to fund her business and impress her as a moneyed knight in shining armor. He stole the money from a reserve account and family trust, and wasn't particularly smart about it: In 2011, according to criminal and civil court filings, Hajjar started writing checks to himself from that Santander account and depositing them in his personal bank accounts. That year, he wrote himself eight checks totaling $585,000. The next year, 17 checks for $1.2 million. He also transferred money from the cash reserve to a defunct Alden trust account, and then over to his personal accounts. In 2013, he used this method to take $1.2 million, and again to steal $4 million in 2014—the same year de la Garza started Lucky Gal Productions. ... At the end of each year, Hajjar simply moved money from an Alden line of credit into the Santander account, so everything looked copasetic for the year-end review. Then, after a successful review, he returned the borrowed funds to the Alden line of credit and no one was the wiser that the Santander account was missing money. https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2021/07/13/richard-hajjar-bianca-de-la-garza-alden/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2021/07/13/richard-hajja... The theft totalled $17 million. He didn't try hard to cover his tracks, and when the CEO of the shoe company figured it out, he admitted it right away. I don't think this guy was a born con artist or serial grifter or particularly brilliant. He'd been with the same company his entire career, and there wasn't any evidence of earlier embezzlement until he met the TV personality. I think he got 5 years in prison.

flappyeagle 3y ago
Wow Alden of all places. Glad they survived it seems
3y ago

gkoberger 3y ago

I don't think I really understand the takeaway of this article... the case wasn't really made ever that Eddie, let alone most grifters, are particularly nice. If anything, I think the takeaway is that grifters will always grift, because it's in their nature to find cracks in society they can use to their advantage. It's not about right or wrong, it's about seeing the world in a different way than most people do. And, since we're on HN, I think it's fascinating that many of us have the same mentality, except with computers/systems rather than people/money. (One of YC's application questions is how you hacked a system to your advantage.) That being said, I did find the dialogue to be quite beautiful. "I spent it on sweet, stupid things that make life an appropriate journey. Little things with some elegance attached."

skulk 3y ago
Yeah, that brought a tear to my eye. Then, > Of course I spent it. Why else take it? Money taken like that should not be spent on necessities of life but on luxuries of life. Necessities of life are the proper destination of grim jobs with little men working at little desks. sucked the tear right back in.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  The is a deeper truth to this statement that you are letting your resentment get in the way of. Most of us live grim lives and little desks, when there is so much in the world to offer. We are the ones being wronged, not because we shouldn't do the work, but because they will never offer us enough to experience the other side.
  - skulk 3y ago
    No, that's pretty much exactly where I am with this as well. There are two classes of people in this world, those who sell their labor to live and those who live off the labor of others, neither because of their ingenuity or efficiency or lack thereof but the circumstances of their birth. The latter gets to enjoy all that the world has to offer at a baseline, and the former gets a taste of it when the latter deems it appropriate. This goes far beyond embezzlers and embezzlees, it's baked into the social contract itself.

dexwiz 3y ago

I always assume embezzlers are just people who have higher tolerance for boundary pushing. Exploring boundaries is a primal urge. Kids learn to do it at a young age. If you have ever trained an animal, you know they do it also. To me, embezzlement always appears as someone who pushed "perks of the job" into illegality. If you are going to be a successful embezzler the lag between pushing a boundary (from small office supplies, to stealing petty cash, to full on corporate embezzlement) must be pretty long. By the team the punishment comes, there is enough time to disconnect the action from the result and create alternate justifications. This gives a people a long time to escalate. Being a likable person likely gives you even more time. In the corporate world the lines are also a bit fuzzier. Is expensing a not-quite business dinner with overpriced wine embezzlement? Depends on who you ask. But doing so will surely embolden your next action. These people probably also display some level of narcissism/sociopathy. Minimizing victims by calling them "small people." Nonrecognition of emotional damage. I wonder how many of these people surround themselves with a cadre of enablers who are more willing to look the other way. And when its all said and done, they are on to the next thing.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

PhasmaFelis 3y ago

I think the author is confusing "well-spoken" for "nice." Eddie can speak poetically in court. Cool. But he thinks that fact alone makes him better than other people. “Your courts are not used to hearing an honest statement, are they?” You're a professional con artist, bud, don't go patting yourself on the back for "honesty." "Necessities of life are the proper destination of grim jobs with little men working at little desks." This guy is a stereotype of a Smug Rich Villain. If a movie character talked like that, you'd think it was a little over-the-top.

cardiffspaceman 3y ago
Maybe he’s recycling some handy words from a movie or novel.
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
> I think the author is confusing "well-spoken" for "nice." There is at least some overlap with the meaning of "nice", though, as in "nice guy", where it refers to a kind of person who is not genuinely courteous or kind for the sake of another's good (the benefit for them being spiritual reward), but someone who does it with an ulterior motive, to get something (typically unspoken, as it is underhanded) in return. The "nice guy" is likewise a conman, because his whole dishonest performance is to ingratiate himself with someone, as if doing so entitles him to something in return (think of the "nice guy" who tries to please women in order to receive attention, affection, or sexual favors, and then either pouts and whines, or becomes nasty, either overtly or in passive aggressive ways, when he doesn't receive them). Being "nice" is not the same as being "good". We should always be good, never nice.
- PhasmaFelis 3y ago
  I see what you're saying, but remember the "Nice Guy" trope is sarcastic. "Nice Guys" are not actually nice guys. There's nothing wrong with being genuinely nice.

karmajunkie 3y ago

> I pushed my cannelloni around while he expounded on the future of Hong Kong and when he finally wound down, asked, “Does it not occur to you that people want to do business with honest people they can trust? Not dishonest people they have to watch?” > He became exasperated. “Didn’t you tell your client you have to create checks and balances in the company and watch each and every employee?” > “Yes, but…” > “And don’t you insist on systems being created in every company so that no one can get away with cooking the books or taking from the company no matter who is in charge?” > “Yes…” > “Then what difference does it make if someone you don’t trust is involved? You don’t trust anyone anyway. If your systems work, they work. I am not any more of a danger to you than any other person. I don’t see the problem.” Eddie would have made a good security consultant.

zelos 3y ago
The risk for the employer is (risk that an employee is an embezzler) x (risk that your systems fail to catch them), though, so you probably want to minimize both terms?
- fallingknife 3y ago
  Not quite because they are correlated. As he says, embezzlers are smart. So lowering the second risk also lowers the first as a smart embezzler is not likely to try when the risk of getting caught is high.
  - scott_w 3y ago
    If I’m careful, I’m sure I could pet a tiger. If it sees me take enough precautions, it’s less likely to try and eat me. If it judges that’s it’s worth a pop and I don’t take sufficient precautions, I’m dinner. Or I can pet my dog that won’t even think to try. Which should I do?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

spxneo 3y ago

"The brighter and shinier something or someone is, the darker and longer is it's cast."

mrmetanoia 3y ago
That's heavy, as it can be true even without crime or hurting others.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

hprotagonist 3y ago

It’s about time to re-read Going Postal; a fine reminder.

bombcar 3y ago
This is well worth the read, and though it's a Discworld novel it can stand pretty much alone if you want it to. Once you realize just how firmly you're on the side of Moist and how identical Gilt is, then you can meditate for awhile on the world.
- hprotagonist 3y ago
  "Who are you trying to fool, Mr. Lipwig?" "Me, i think. I've fallen into good ways. I keep thinking I can give it up any time I like, but I don't. But I know if I /couldn't/ give it up any time I liked, I wouldn't go on doing it. Er. There is another reason, too --" "And that is -- ?" "I'm not Reacher Gilt. That's sort of important. Some people might say there's not a lot of difference, but I can see it from where I stand and it's there. It's like a golem not being a hammer."
- fnordian_slip 3y ago
  I generally prefer the discworld books that are more firmly part of an overall storyline, like The Watch, since they have such great long character arcs. But Going Postal is a masterpiece in itself imho. Terry Pratchett was always great at making you empathise with flawed characters. Also, he was exceptional at creating "bad" or "evil" characters with believable and complex motivations, which never excused their actions.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    So many of his villains are multi-faceted, so much so that you start to think he actually cannot write an unsympathetic "pure evil/Sauron" style villain, and then he hits you right in the face with Carcer or Gilt. Truly a phenomenal author. It's fun to watch how his one-dimensional parody characters take on a life of their own over the series; you can really tell he has a love for them, even if they're not his cup of tea.

EcommerceFlow 3y ago

Reminds me of the time I spent HOURS preparing to cheat for a history map test in middle school, didn't pass, and realized later how much easier actually studying for the test would have been.

kinleyd 3y ago
I had a slightly better experience. For the thrill of it, I spent hours preparing for a couple of test papers making a number of little cheat sheets in tiny handwriting. At the end of the exercise I found I didn't need the cheat sheets - the stuff had gone right into memory and I did quite well in the tests.
- 0x00washere 3y ago
  I learned Spanish vocabulary writing words on my hands to cheat off of, but ended up too nervous to look at them during quizzes. Amazing how the desire to do well, fear of getting caught cheating, can turn into a hyper-powered study technique.
dotnet00 3y ago
This was basically my studying strategy throughout my schooling, by preparing perfectly viable cheatsheets. Got everyone suspiciously staring, seeing the sheets on my desk as I reviewed them, only for me to visibly throw them out or put them away right before the exam started.
- imzadi 3y ago
  My study method was to try to think of questions that might be on a test from the material as I was reading it. I'd write up the questions as I went along and then write up the answers and study the answers. It worked great until someone saw my made up questions and they were close enough to the real questions that it was decided I had stolen the test.

BryantD 3y ago

FWIW, the stories on this Web site appear to be fictional. I just read the lengthy https://www.stimmel-law.com/en/articles/story-13-adverse-possession-and-glory https://www.stimmel-law.com/en/articles/story-13-adverse-pos... which is about a retired machinist engaging in boat jousts on Shaw Lake in Golden Gate Park. There's no trace of a real person named Benjamin McIsserson, and no Shaw Lake in Golden Gate Park. (It's probably a stand-in for Spreckels Lake, which was built for model boats but which has never hosted combat between them.) So take it with a grain of salt.

ziddoap 3y ago
>There's no trace of a real person named Benjamin McIsserson I don't think this has any bearing on the whether the story itself is fictitious or not. I imagine all of the real names have been substituted in all of the stories, to prevent any unnecessary conflict/drama/liability/etc.
- blululu 3y ago
  Protecting a person makes sense, but a lake is not going to sue for its role in the story. These details feel sketchy, and that is sort of the take away from the original piece: when someone is unreliable in one area, they are more suspect in others. To be charitable, the author maybe lost that detail of the story, but they could easily have substituted a generic 'lake in Golden Gate Park'. Or they could just use Google Maps to find Stow, Lloyd, Spreckles lakes (Elk Glenn, and the Chain of Lakes lakes would be unsuitable for boat jousts).
- BryantD 3y ago
  If it was just a name, I’d agree. But there’s no way someone built a razor-sharp remote controlled boat and sent it running around a lake in Golden Gate Park sinking other boats without making the news.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    > accidently rammed one of the toy sail boats, shattering its mast, sinking the little vessel. "accidentally" doesn't sound like some asshole is just going around ruining kid's days with a demon boat. it's not too far fetched to imagine someone in the SFMYC accidentally hitting another boat and that not making the news. they're not the WWCC, which would go around sinking each other's ships and is active at Maker faire. SF model yacht club western warship combat club

paulcole 3y ago

I took a bunch of meetings with the CEO of a company providing HR/payroll services. Super nice guy and I thought his business/offering was really compelling, it just wasn't right for me at the time. Like 6 months later it comes out that he had stolen like $25 million from clients over the year (money that was supposed to be used to pay payroll taxes). Never would've guessed it.

Delumine 3y ago

Definitely an english major

mise_en_place 3y ago
That's why the writing style was so stuffy and stolid. The best writers are drunks, drug addicts, and dilettantes.

dvt 3y ago

> I spent it on sweet, stupid things that make life an appropriate journey. Little things with some elegance attached. Things only worth buying because they have little value in the long run. Like life, itself. Feel like I can oddly relate to this quote; not sure what that says about me, hah.

tsunamifury 3y ago

This story took place in the 70s. The value arbitrage corporations get from their workers today makes shareholders embezzling from workers just the way of the world now. He wasn't just charming -- he was nihilistically prescient. He knew where the world was going, and that other businessman at the end, he wouldn't survive in today's environment.

geye1234 3y ago

> Business may be competitive, but there are rules and it is not war. To Eddie, business was not only war, but war with the only rules being do not get caught if you can and make all the money you can. And trust no one. Eh, what? Don't most rich self-made people, and people at the top of big corps, think this way? (Not all, but a good-size majority?) I can assure you that the majority of such people worry only about the appearance of honesty and morality, not the substance. The 'elderly businessman' he quotes in the next paragraph has it pretty much right. We live in Hobbes' world. Or rather, we created it, by allowing such people to gain power and influence, and even seeing it as a good. (Btw, I'm not defending the subject's behavior, he clearly deserves a long spell in jail and needs to make right what he's done. But his argument that "everyone does it" isn't too far from the truth.)

sanderjd 3y ago
> Don't most rich self-made people, and people at the top of big corps, think this way? (Not all, but a good-size majority?) It's very hard to know! (It's not like you can send a survey around and ask.) But for what it's worth, I think this is overblown. It's not that it's not a thing. But I don't think it's as much of a thing as people tend to think. I think most people, including fancy business people, want to be the hero of their own story, and that a smaller-than-imagined proportion of people find "the only rules [are] do not get caught if you can and make all the money you can[, a]nd trust no one" to be compatible with their own heroes journey.
- int_19h 3y ago
  Those two are not contradictory, though. One way to be a hero of one's own story is to demote everyone else to NPC. And once you do that, well, you're the hero, on some clearly important quest ... and they're just an NPC, they don't really matter, so what's the big deal about sticking to the rules regarding them? Especially if nobody finds out?
  - sanderjd 3y ago
    I covered this. I think that: > a smaller-than-imagined proportion of people find "the only rules [are] do not get caught if you can and make all the money you can[, a]nd trust no one" to be compatible with their own heroes journey. I just truly don't think this sort of thing is as common as the cynical-people-on-the-internet crowd seems to take it as obvious fact to be. I think it's more often reached for as a convenient simpler explanation for human behavior that is actually more complex and nuanced.

omoikane 3y ago

This reminds me of "All The Queen's Horses"[1], where a woman embezzled $53 million through careful accounting. I seem to recall it was mentioned how the perpetrator was described as nice and generous by her friends. [1] https://www.allthequeenshorsesfilm.com/ https://www.allthequeenshorsesfilm.com/

gklitz 3y ago
> described as nice and generous by her friends. I really hate these takes. Yes she was stealing a shit ton of money so she didn’t mind paying for stuff for friends and giving expensive gifts so people thought she was nice and generous. Take away the money and likely she would have been seen as greedy and nitpicky. It’s like people going “yea, he did steel a lot of cars, but I still think he was a pretty decent guy who always showed up in a nice looking car”
- feoren 3y ago
  Yes, this says more about how awful humans are at judging others than it does about the people committing these crimes.

xyzelement 3y ago

The article makes a point that for people capable of embezzling, the embezzling is less lucrative long term than what they could have done legally with their abilities. I think in general there's immense power in the narratives people tell themselves. "I am too good/smart to be a straight-forward worker" can then land you in a significantly worse scenario than you can actually attain as a "straight-forward worker." But it's not like the ego is doing those ROI calculations.

coldtea 3y ago

>Since what Eddie didn’t understand is that people are not only in business for the money. Oh, it’s important, but it’s never just the money in my experience. It’s a dozen other things, the joy of creating something from nothing, the excitement of success, the comradeship one gets from working in a team that is good and effective, etc, etc. Business may be competitive, but there are rules and it is not war. To Eddie, business was not only war, but war with the only rules being do not get caught if you can and make all the money you can. And trust no one. Same with most of those "good guys" businessmen he constasts him with - who wouldn't hesitate to exploit, take advantage of, backstab, pull shady or even illegal shit on competitors, cut margin by selling shit, and of course, fire employees whenever they want to look good on paper and not give a fuck about it. Like Zuck did to the Winklevoss twins and Saverin, and the billions of people the platform mind fucks with its algorithm to sell ads and collect data. Or like Bill Gates and the Microsoft he run. Or like Larry Elisson. Or like Musk. Or like Bezos. Or the WeWork guy. Or the Uber guys. The list goes on.

jon_adler 3y ago
Reading the article, I just kept thinking of Donald Trump (as a “smart” embezzler).

858509hua 3y ago

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hristov 3y ago

Psychopaths are nice people. Well they are not nice, but they are very charismatic so they appear nice. They also really like taking risks, doing high adrenaline activities and generally turning things up to eleven. This adds to their charm as if they have a secret to enjoying life better than normal people. The truth is actually quite the opposite. They have a physiological mental problem that prevents them from feeling ordinary feelings and they dial things up to eleven just to get a chance to feel anything. To paraphrase the great writer John le Carre they do not take risks because they enjoy life they do it because they are dead inside. By the way, John le Carre had the very bad luck to have a psychopath for a father and he suffered greatly for it. But he did get a very good book out of that experience — “the perfect spy”, one of the best descriptions of a psychopath in literature. Much recommended. Unfortunately the lack of feeling translates to a complete lack of compassion towards others so that leads psychopaths to do so much damage to innocent people. In their desire to feel something anything, psychopaths tend to gamble and do stimulant drugs. They also tend to think they’re special and the rules of society do not apply to them. So if you meet a charismatic person that likes to take big risks and do crazy stuff and/or gambles, stay away. I say that having fallen victim to a vile disgusting psychopath and still trying to get him to leave me alone. So beware, it is not fun.

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago

Plain old narcissism. This was the charm-heavy love bombing phase. The contempt, the passive aggression, the "your money is on its way", and perhaps the outright rages would have come later. The real point of the interview was the reassure the narcissist that he was still smarter, still more significant, and still more of an operator than the lawyer who convicted him. At the very least he got his prosecutor to turn up, which must have been a small consolation thrill.

indymike 3y ago

This story meshes with every incident of long term fraud or embezzlement I've seen in my business life (I've had to deal with four, so it is annecdata): 1. The fraudster is really, really nice and often has a disarming appearance. Often it's pretty or handsome. The one that got the most, an book keeper who got $143,000 via petty cash looked like everyone's Grandma. 2. The money is always spent quickly and on things that were not obvious to others at work. Vacations, gifts for family members, luxury items... One guy spent it all on guitars and amplifiers. 3. When caught, the fraudster/embezzler admits it readily and cooperates with everyone... The reason every one gave was right out of a Michael Chrichton book, "The Great Train Robbery": Judge: Now, on the matter of motive, we ask you: Why did you conceive, plan and execute this dastardly and scandalous crime? Edward Pierce: I wanted the money.

cainxinth 3y ago
Why do you rob banks? Because that's where the money is
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
I wonder, were they of some type? Lonely, disconnected, depressed? I know from personal experience that having no life, you get in a strange space, start thinking strange thoughts. Ridiculous things become plausible. Take the money? Why not! It's not like things can get worse for me.

jonnycomputer 3y ago

"Get the money any way you can, any time you can, short-term thinking, everyone is a crook anyway, so what’s the big deal?" Reminds me of special someone y'all know caught snoozing in a court room this afternoon.

n4r9 3y ago

> Then what difference does it make if someone you don’t trust is involved? You don’t trust anyone anyway. If your systems work, they work. This is where "Eddie's" argument falls through imo. Never assume your system works perfectly. Use every piece of supplementary information you have. Including knowledge of whether someone is willing and able to break the system.

actuallyalys 3y ago
Right, part of the system is not allowing in people who you already know to be untrustworthy.

idkdotcom 3y ago

The Wizard Of Oz is based on a book written in 1900. There is a long history of embezzlement and snake oil salesmanship in the United States. The hardest form of embezzlement to put a check on is is things such as when you promise that GPUs, if they are powerful enough, will one day produce AGI by running code because intelligence is a "property of matter". Kind of "if you compute it, it will show up".

alephnerd 3y ago

Who doesn't like Gilligan?

DoreenMichele 3y ago

I found it incredible that such brilliant and attractive people would be dumb enough to risk it all for the relatively paltry gains that embezzlement can earn. I kept looking to see the underlying motivations... In one of the Star Wars movies, Luke takes a starfighter and flies to another planet, pursues training with Yoda etc. I'm pretty sure the other timelines in the movie don't reasonably match up and I don't recall this causing a big hullabaloo. What people will blithely accept in a popular movie tells you something about their mental processes. It tells you something about how tolerant they will be of half-truths and stories not quite adding up IRL. And some people like exploiting that fact for some reason. They usually have an excuse -- "I'm some minority group or other and we never get a fair shake." But the reality is, as the author says, they just like it for some reason. Most people have partial info and make decisions based on simple rubrics, not comprehensive overviews of some unknown future. People routinely see what they want to see -- "Look! Free money -- again!" -- and blithely ignore inconvenient truths -- "Oops! Arrested again." Comments suggesting "right to be forgotten" is problematic are correct. It typically just teaches people they can get away with it.

karma_pharmer 3y ago

Money taken like that should not be spent on necessities of life but on luxuries of life. Sylvia Bloom, master of insider trading, disagrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Bloom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Bloom Sylvia Bloom (c. 1919 – 2016) was an American legal secretary. By copying her bosses' investment decisions she secretly accumulated a significant fortune and donated the bulk of it—US$8.2 million—for scholarships for underprivileged students upon her death. She lived modestly in a rent-controlled apartment, and even her closest friends and family did not know about her wealth.

Mathnerd314 3y ago

I'm not sure how much fiction reflects reality, but it seems like in every Chinese novel I read, the majority of officials are corrupt and greedy. The worst of them usually get in trouble, but a lot of them get away with it.

robtest123 3y ago

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jongjong 3y ago

What I don't understand is why fund managers don't just form groups with each other and take possessions of their clients hidden offshore assets... Then collectively gaslight their clients about the non-existence of the assets. It would be easy nowadays. Their clients are tax avoiders so it would be ethical... Some of their clients are public figures who wouldn't want to draw attention to their offshore assets with a big news article about their asset managers embezzling funds.

Consultant32452 3y ago

At one company I worked at someone had been fired for embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars. The company didn't even press charges. I guess the PR issue wasn't worth it. Wild.

WheelsAtLarge 3y ago

What's not mentioned is that just about anyone can be an embezzler given the opportunity. I remember reading that most embezzlers start small. They have the trust of a company or person and know that they can take a few bucks without anyone knowing. It starts small at first and grows to levels where they get caught. I knew a guy who was a cashier. The company he worked for decided to save a few bucks and got rid of the person who cashed him out each night and verified his transactions. He decided that he could steal a few bucks since no one would know. He started small and increased a bit. It was never a lot but he did it regularly. He continued and eventually, he got caught. What's interesting is that it wouldn't have happened had he not had the easy opportunity of take the cash.

developer1000 3y ago

Embezzlers are not smart nor brilliant. Its easy to steal its much harder and more luck is needed to earn the same amount. Id say about 100 to 1

cat_plus_plus 3y ago

I would rather someone file bogus expense reports for a vacation in Belize than overcomplicate my work to justify their own importance and in the practice stop me from advancing and getting a raise to go on my own vacation in Belize. The later case is super common, 100% legal and 100% greater asshole because I am deprived not only of some of my money but also my time and dignity. Everything comes in degrees and I would rather deal with someone who is a little crooked but still well meaning towards me than someone completely honest and a complete jerk.

etruong42 2y ago

"The people back in the studio on TV after this - they were talking about it like - who risks their half-a-million-dollar-a-year job for $70,000?" "Scott says he was kind of overworked and unhappy with his job, so everything felt a little less important. Maybe that had something to do with it. But he says crossing over that line was somehow just not as hard as it should have been." - Planet Money, Episode 671: An Insider Trader Tells All https://www.npr.org/transcripts/460689797 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/460689797