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I struggle to understand the psychology of how founders who are clearly incompetent charlatans get second+ chances -- they couldn't do fraud successfully but in

I struggle to understand the psychology of how founders who are clearly incompetent charlatans get second+ chances -- they couldn't do fraud successfully but investors have a faith they could do business successfully. But they still get funding (like adam neumann of wework fame) and full on "narrative tongue baths" by the business media community (like this wsj article on trevor milton). Why? I struggle to understand the incentives + motivations here.

elzbardico 7mo ago
Having a great exit is the golden dream for VCs. But having founders that raise lots of money also have a value in itself even if the business fails in the long run.
- game_the0ry 7mo ago
  But you also have to build a business with the money you raise, or else you kill your reputation along the way.
  - elzbardico 7mo ago
    As the founder, yes. For the VCs there's not a lot of consequences by having hyped things like Theranos or WeWork.
    - game_the0ry 7mo ago
      I guess I would make a terrible VC, bc my money and reputation would matter to me.
ahf8Aithaex7Nai 7mo ago
The reason for this is the same as why real estate is so expensive and the price of gold is so high. There is far too much capital accumulation among the ultra-wealthy, who don’t know what to do with all that money. The expertise of someone like this founder lies simply in recognizing that this is the case and that it can be monetized.
- exogeny 7mo ago
  There was a great Money Stuff blurb about that w/r/t Adam Neumann. I can't find it to quote it directly, but the gist was that if you disabuse yourself of the notion that Neumann was playing a game of entrepreneurship and good-faith empire building, and instead conclude that the game he was playing was shameless capital extraction, every step and action he took suddenly makes sense. The truly amazing thing, especially the second time around, are the supposedly sophisticated investors who fall for it. "Oh, he's learned his lesson -- he won't do it again!".
  - game_the0ry 7mo ago
    > ...if you disabuse yourself of the notion that Neumann was playing a game of entrepreneurship and good-faith empire building, and instead conclude that the game he was playing was shameless capital extraction, every step and action he took suddenly makes sense. Sort of. I get the capital extraction part, but you also need to be a good steward of capital and make a profitable business out of it. He failed badly at the later part, and his reputation is an obstacle for the former. Not saying you are wrong, but if I am a "capital allocator" at a16z, he would be no-go.
    - anonymous_user9 7mo ago
      IMO you're being unfair; he talked his way into getting paid half a billion dollars for wework, and he's now a billionaire. That's a massive success at capital extraction.
      - game_the0ry 7mo ago
        This is too cynical for even a turbo cynic like me. Basically, you’re saying he mislead investors and got a bunch of money, so those investors see themselves being ripped off as a valuable skill, so they invest in him again. Wut? I say again — why would investors trust him if his only track record is losing investor money?
        7mo ago
alex_c 7mo ago
The past failure is in the abstract, and in the past. And anyway, they were unfairly maligned. There is an inside version of the story that they will be happy to tell you, which was clearly not their fault. But that is neither here nor there. What is important is the now, and in the now you are in the presence of someone who is Good At Making Money. And you too, by joining forces, will be Making Lots Of Money with this charismatic person, who can clearly achieve great things and will be clearly avoiding any past missteps that may have caused their downfall right before reaching greatness (but weren’t their fault anyway). Think of the future, not the past!
- jongjong 7mo ago
  This guy is a crook. Every adjective you could use to describe this guy goes against my core values.
  - busyant 7mo ago
    I suspect the person you replied to was being subtly sarcastic. edit: but honestly, I'm not sure.
    - jongjong 7mo ago
      It's hard for me to tell because I've seen this multiple times in my career (in tech). People wasting investors' money getting funding over and over while those actually building stuff get suppressed. I swear there are some people who control a lot of money who are just having fun ruining people's lives for laughs. There are people who spend years working for some company, betting their career on it but it turns out the whole thing was some kind of inside joke. My view is that some companies are basically somebody's toy and the employees are part of the entertainment like a personal reality TV show for some rich person so they can play-act as a hotshot entrepreneur. Probably it serves as some kind of inflation control mechanism. If you have a lot of money and want to spend it without driving inflation, you have to find things with extreme diminishing returns and you have to invest in people who value such things.
jongjong 7mo ago
I just can't comprehend the mental process or discussion that happened which led to this guy getting a pardon. It's just hard to imagine that anybody would give a f about this fraudster. Only explanation is he must know some dirt on someone. It's clear now. Modern society runs on blackmail. There's a blackmail hierarchy all the way to the top. I bet there are many people out there just making a living from just knowing dirt about people.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- cheema33 7mo ago
  > I just can't comprehend the mental process or discussion that happened which led to this guy getting a pardon. Trump when pardoning Trevor Milton said that he didn't know the guy, but heard that he said nice things about him. And Milton made a $1m donation.
- bryan0 7mo ago
  It's not that complicated. From the article: > Milton and his wife had also donated at least $3.2 million to Trump’s 2024 election and to political groups and people in Trump’s orbit, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
- vjvjvjvjghv 7mo ago
  Trump seems to have a weak spot for fraudsters. Milken, Conrad Black, Keith, Blagojevich and many more. Not sure why though.
  - jongjong 7mo ago
    The problem with Trump is that his only values are centered around business and deal making. It's all about loyalty, not about truth. Clearly he doesn't have much tolerance for disagreement.
jongjong 7mo ago
These fraudsters who get second chances have got blackmail. Trust me, all the people we see in the media are sharks. They only help each other if they feel a threat or have something to gain.
freediddy 7mo ago
Look how many people couldn't care about Epstein and the fact he was a convicted sex offender. Bill Gates didn't care and he was literally the richest person in the world at one point. The rich VCs and billionaires and aspirational billionaires only care about doing what they want to do and don't care what the peons like us think or care about.
madeofpalk 7mo ago
I recently invested a small amount of money in an early stage company where I had to declare I was either a 'high net worth individual' or a 'sophisticated investor'. The mutually exclusive clause seemed important to me.
- philipwhiuk 7mo ago
  Maybe you become both by not investing in such a company.
  - BobbyTables2 7mo ago
    And the beauty is that one also becomes not both by investing in such a company!
- enoint 7mo ago
  In the US, we have this class called “accredited investor”
watwut 7mo ago
Because those investors have exactly same moral and ethical framework. The fraud is just another legitimate way to make money to them. It is the same thing with Epstein or meetoo ... they were actually fine with all that and whoever complains is just pesky idiot. This article is not praising trevor milton tho.
TrackerFF 7mo ago
They are charismatic. They know how to work people. If you've ever worked with narcissists and sociopaths, you'll soon enough discover that they will do anything to get what they want. And they are professionals at playing people. They know what to say, how to present themselves, how to make their story, and what strings to pull on the people they try to convince. Some investors are also willing to suspend their disbelief - thinking that if they are the first to ditch to bag, there's money to be made...as long as they're not the ones holding the bag.
gaoshan 7mo ago
Charisma and connections are pretty much all it takes. Really only connections are needed but since these people are coming back from being exposed they need charisma to assuage the concerns of their connections.
rsp1984 7mo ago
It's distribution. Guy's got a brand name now. People and investors recognize his name. It's a lot easier to find an absolute quantity N of investor money for a fraudulent but well-known name than it is for an unknown upstart. The fraud might have a low close rate but the top of the funnel is huge. The unknown upstart can't even get meetings.
- actionfromafar 7mo ago
  He might credibly have access to federal bailout, too. That's worth something.
- game_the0ry 7mo ago
  His “brand” is “torching investor money.” Still don’t get it.
khat 7mo ago
To understand why you must understand the tax code. You can write off any investment losses. You can also recover losses if its from fraud. Though usually not fully. But you give 1 million for investment, boom its a fraud, and you get $800,000 back as opposed to keeping a million and paying $400,000 on it in taxes. It's a win-win situation. There is no penalty in betting on fraudsters. Whether this guy's schemes are deliberately for that is debatable. But on the flip side, putting downsides to investing on possible fraudsters considerably hinders any new genuine start up ideas from gaining investors.
- klaff 7mo ago
  How do you get $800k back? Where does that come from?
- dede2026 7mo ago
  What? Why would you get $800k back? Also why would owe $400k in taxes for "keeping a million"? Nothing you've said makes any sense. We're mid tax season but I really hope you hired a CPA.
socalgal2 7mo ago
This come up in a subthread last week https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47305450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47305450 My guess is that they're good talkers. They make it sounds like they learned their lesson or were framed but regardless if you hire them they'll make you rich!
vjvjvjvjghv 7mo ago
A lot of the investors are also bullshitters so they like bullshitting founders. I see a similar thing in companies. People wonder why people who don’t produce much but are politically savvy are moving up. The answer that most leadership is the same so they recognize each other.
tootie 7mo ago
> SyberJet’s own history shows the challenges. Over the past 40 years, an eclectic mix of financiers from Dubai to Taiwan invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing the plane maker’s lightweight business jets. But in all that time just four planes made it into the hands of customers. Putting two and two together it seems to me that this business is a front for money laundering or something.
strangattractor 7mo ago
Does anybody know his investors? I'd like an intro:)
dzonga 7mo ago
some of the 'investors' use such as investments as tax-write offs
jjk166 7mo ago
"Hey this guy fooled a lot of people last time and the people who got in and out early made a killing. This time I'm going to get in early." "He's got the hustle to do what it takes to succeed and is unencumbered by a moral compass. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet." "Pssh that's nothing compared to the fraud I committed to get here. Fake it till you make it baby!" "It takes balls to defraud powerful people and then do it again. I respect the machismo." Take your pick.
- lo_zamoyski 7mo ago
  "I respect the machismo." I believe the word he was looking for is "chutzpah", and no, it isn't a virtue, and no, it cannot be respected. Trash.
  - cjbgkagh 7mo ago
    “gall” has the more negative connotations.
    - taneq 7mo ago
      Unmitigated gall, even.
      - BobBagwill 7mo ago
        Whan I go to the Stacioners, I ever aske for mitigated Gal and meteoric Iron fillings. I fynde that it maketh the derkest and most persistente inke. Make sure that thou onlie bye swan quill, not goose, and specifie that they sholde onlie be from the right-handed wing.
- pimlottc 7mo ago
  This was the lesson from the Fyre Festival debacle. Most of his inside partners and enablers knew he wasn’t likely to succeed. They just saw an opportunity to benefits themselves and made sure their own risk was limited. In return, he got to trade on their reputation which allowed him to rope in more respectable partners and appear more legitimateto potential customers. It’s a vicious cycle.
anitil 7mo ago
I remember listening to a podcast (possibly complex systems?) that said the best way to find what kinds of frauds are out there is by looking at what known fraudsters are up to. [0] It might have been this one, but I can't find it in the transcript https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/fraud-as-infrastructure/ https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/fraud-as-infr...
moralestapia 7mo ago
I can guarantee you that Elizabeth Holmes will get a big bunch of funding for a new startup as soon as she's out of jail. Even with SBF I'm 50/50 on that.
- randallsquared 7mo ago
  A lot of companies are currently doing what (if you squint) Holmes was claiming Theranos would be able to do a decade ago. I agree with you that this is enough for her to claim, plausibly to some, that she was basically on the right track. SBF, similarly, happened to have FTX invest in Anthropic early, and while we don't know how that's gonna play out now that they're at odds with the DoW, the value of Anthropic has already increased enough that it would have made whole all the money he was wasting/embezzling, so there's going to be a path for people to claim that he's directionally worth investing more money in, if he's out anytime soon.
xbryanx 7mo ago
Well, here we all are clicking the link and engaging in a discussion on the loathsome creep. Attention, attention.
zzzeek 7mo ago
not speaking for upwards failures in general, but for the extraordinary cases of convicted frauds being pardoned, the incentives are: 1. his $1.8M donation to Trump shows other felons and fraudsters that paying Trump will pay back in dividends (Trump profits) 2. By pardoning thousands of frauds, con artists and outright violent nazis (Jan 6), Trump builds himself an army of loyalists who owe him their lives 3. By putting pardoned frauds, con artists and violent nazis in charge of government functions, Trump replaces the entire US government with one that will do his personal bidding textbook autocrat stuff
kelnos 7mo ago
My assumption is that the people he's working with today also would like to do some fraud, and are hoping he'll be better at it this time. And/or they're part of the Trump rich people's club. They all tend to stick together and help each other.
scoofy 7mo ago
Greater fool theory.
kjkjadksj 7mo ago
Like it or not these people know how to contact people who hand out money. That is really the skill in the VC world, not competence in some domain. It is a fundraising job. It takes charisma. Just got to keep the music going until you cash out. How many founders are actually trying to make a company last 100+ years, vs securing retirable wealth early in life?
foobiekr 7mo ago
The type of person who funders fall for is a personality type. That they have failed in the past doesn't matter, they fall in love anyway. This time is different. Venture guys aren't as smart or analytical as their propaganda would lead one to believe. A lot of them are just people who got lucky once.

elzbardico 7mo ago

Having a great exit is the golden dream for VCs. But having founders that raise lots of money also have a value in itself even if the business fails in the long run.

game_the0ry 7mo ago
But you also have to build a business with the money you raise, or else you kill your reputation along the way.
- elzbardico 7mo ago
  As the founder, yes. For the VCs there's not a lot of consequences by having hyped things like Theranos or WeWork.
  - game_the0ry 7mo ago
    I guess I would make a terrible VC, bc my money and reputation would matter to me.

ahf8Aithaex7Nai 7mo ago

The reason for this is the same as why real estate is so expensive and the price of gold is so high. There is far too much capital accumulation among the ultra-wealthy, who don’t know what to do with all that money. The expertise of someone like this founder lies simply in recognizing that this is the case and that it can be monetized.

exogeny 7mo ago
There was a great Money Stuff blurb about that w/r/t Adam Neumann. I can't find it to quote it directly, but the gist was that if you disabuse yourself of the notion that Neumann was playing a game of entrepreneurship and good-faith empire building, and instead conclude that the game he was playing was shameless capital extraction, every step and action he took suddenly makes sense. The truly amazing thing, especially the second time around, are the supposedly sophisticated investors who fall for it. "Oh, he's learned his lesson -- he won't do it again!".
- game_the0ry 7mo ago
  > ...if you disabuse yourself of the notion that Neumann was playing a game of entrepreneurship and good-faith empire building, and instead conclude that the game he was playing was shameless capital extraction, every step and action he took suddenly makes sense. Sort of. I get the capital extraction part, but you also need to be a good steward of capital and make a profitable business out of it. He failed badly at the later part, and his reputation is an obstacle for the former. Not saying you are wrong, but if I am a "capital allocator" at a16z, he would be no-go.
  - anonymous_user9 7mo ago
    IMO you're being unfair; he talked his way into getting paid half a billion dollars for wework, and he's now a billionaire. That's a massive success at capital extraction.
    - game_the0ry 7mo ago
      This is too cynical for even a turbo cynic like me. Basically, you’re saying he mislead investors and got a bunch of money, so those investors see themselves being ripped off as a valuable skill, so they invest in him again. Wut? I say again — why would investors trust him if his only track record is losing investor money?
      - 7mo ago

alex_c 7mo ago

The past failure is in the abstract, and in the past. And anyway, they were unfairly maligned. There is an inside version of the story that they will be happy to tell you, which was clearly not their fault. But that is neither here nor there. What is important is the now, and in the now you are in the presence of someone who is Good At Making Money. And you too, by joining forces, will be Making Lots Of Money with this charismatic person, who can clearly achieve great things and will be clearly avoiding any past missteps that may have caused their downfall right before reaching greatness (but weren’t their fault anyway). Think of the future, not the past!

jongjong 7mo ago
This guy is a crook. Every adjective you could use to describe this guy goes against my core values.
- busyant 7mo ago
  I suspect the person you replied to was being subtly sarcastic. edit: but honestly, I'm not sure.
  - jongjong 7mo ago
    It's hard for me to tell because I've seen this multiple times in my career (in tech). People wasting investors' money getting funding over and over while those actually building stuff get suppressed. I swear there are some people who control a lot of money who are just having fun ruining people's lives for laughs. There are people who spend years working for some company, betting their career on it but it turns out the whole thing was some kind of inside joke. My view is that some companies are basically somebody's toy and the employees are part of the entertainment like a personal reality TV show for some rich person so they can play-act as a hotshot entrepreneur. Probably it serves as some kind of inflation control mechanism. If you have a lot of money and want to spend it without driving inflation, you have to find things with extreme diminishing returns and you have to invest in people who value such things.

jongjong 7mo ago

I just can't comprehend the mental process or discussion that happened which led to this guy getting a pardon. It's just hard to imagine that anybody would give a f about this fraudster. Only explanation is he must know some dirt on someone. It's clear now. Modern society runs on blackmail. There's a blackmail hierarchy all the way to the top. I bet there are many people out there just making a living from just knowing dirt about people.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
cheema33 7mo ago
> I just can't comprehend the mental process or discussion that happened which led to this guy getting a pardon. Trump when pardoning Trevor Milton said that he didn't know the guy, but heard that he said nice things about him. And Milton made a $1m donation.
bryan0 7mo ago
It's not that complicated. From the article: > Milton and his wife had also donated at least $3.2 million to Trump’s 2024 election and to political groups and people in Trump’s orbit, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
vjvjvjvjghv 7mo ago
Trump seems to have a weak spot for fraudsters. Milken, Conrad Black, Keith, Blagojevich and many more. Not sure why though.
- jongjong 7mo ago
  The problem with Trump is that his only values are centered around business and deal making. It's all about loyalty, not about truth. Clearly he doesn't have much tolerance for disagreement.

jongjong 7mo ago

These fraudsters who get second chances have got blackmail. Trust me, all the people we see in the media are sharks. They only help each other if they feel a threat or have something to gain.

freediddy 7mo ago

Look how many people couldn't care about Epstein and the fact he was a convicted sex offender. Bill Gates didn't care and he was literally the richest person in the world at one point. The rich VCs and billionaires and aspirational billionaires only care about doing what they want to do and don't care what the peons like us think or care about.

madeofpalk 7mo ago

I recently invested a small amount of money in an early stage company where I had to declare I was either a 'high net worth individual' or a 'sophisticated investor'. The mutually exclusive clause seemed important to me.

philipwhiuk 7mo ago
Maybe you become both by not investing in such a company.
- BobbyTables2 7mo ago
  And the beauty is that one also becomes not both by investing in such a company!
enoint 7mo ago
In the US, we have this class called “accredited investor”

watwut 7mo ago

Because those investors have exactly same moral and ethical framework. The fraud is just another legitimate way to make money to them. It is the same thing with Epstein or meetoo ... they were actually fine with all that and whoever complains is just pesky idiot. This article is not praising trevor milton tho.

TrackerFF 7mo ago

They are charismatic. They know how to work people. If you've ever worked with narcissists and sociopaths, you'll soon enough discover that they will do anything to get what they want. And they are professionals at playing people. They know what to say, how to present themselves, how to make their story, and what strings to pull on the people they try to convince. Some investors are also willing to suspend their disbelief - thinking that if they are the first to ditch to bag, there's money to be made...as long as they're not the ones holding the bag.

gaoshan 7mo ago

Charisma and connections are pretty much all it takes. Really only connections are needed but since these people are coming back from being exposed they need charisma to assuage the concerns of their connections.

rsp1984 7mo ago

It's distribution. Guy's got a brand name now. People and investors recognize his name. It's a lot easier to find an absolute quantity N of investor money for a fraudulent but well-known name than it is for an unknown upstart. The fraud might have a low close rate but the top of the funnel is huge. The unknown upstart can't even get meetings.

actionfromafar 7mo ago
He might credibly have access to federal bailout, too. That's worth something.
game_the0ry 7mo ago
His “brand” is “torching investor money.” Still don’t get it.

khat 7mo ago

To understand why you must understand the tax code. You can write off any investment losses. You can also recover losses if its from fraud. Though usually not fully. But you give 1 million for investment, boom its a fraud, and you get $800,000 back as opposed to keeping a million and paying $400,000 on it in taxes. It's a win-win situation. There is no penalty in betting on fraudsters. Whether this guy's schemes are deliberately for that is debatable. But on the flip side, putting downsides to investing on possible fraudsters considerably hinders any new genuine start up ideas from gaining investors.

klaff 7mo ago
How do you get $800k back? Where does that come from?
dede2026 7mo ago
What? Why would you get $800k back? Also why would owe $400k in taxes for "keeping a million"? Nothing you've said makes any sense. We're mid tax season but I really hope you hired a CPA.

socalgal2 7mo ago

This come up in a subthread last week https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47305450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47305450 My guess is that they're good talkers. They make it sounds like they learned their lesson or were framed but regardless if you hire them they'll make you rich!

vjvjvjvjghv 7mo ago

A lot of the investors are also bullshitters so they like bullshitting founders. I see a similar thing in companies. People wonder why people who don’t produce much but are politically savvy are moving up. The answer that most leadership is the same so they recognize each other.

tootie 7mo ago

> SyberJet’s own history shows the challenges. Over the past 40 years, an eclectic mix of financiers from Dubai to Taiwan invested hundreds of millions of dollars in developing the plane maker’s lightweight business jets. But in all that time just four planes made it into the hands of customers. Putting two and two together it seems to me that this business is a front for money laundering or something.

strangattractor 7mo ago

Does anybody know his investors? I'd like an intro:)

dzonga 7mo ago

some of the 'investors' use such as investments as tax-write offs

jjk166 7mo ago

"Hey this guy fooled a lot of people last time and the people who got in and out early made a killing. This time I'm going to get in early." "He's got the hustle to do what it takes to succeed and is unencumbered by a moral compass. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet." "Pssh that's nothing compared to the fraud I committed to get here. Fake it till you make it baby!" "It takes balls to defraud powerful people and then do it again. I respect the machismo." Take your pick.

lo_zamoyski 7mo ago
"I respect the machismo." I believe the word he was looking for is "chutzpah", and no, it isn't a virtue, and no, it cannot be respected. Trash.
- cjbgkagh 7mo ago
  “gall” has the more negative connotations.
  - taneq 7mo ago
    Unmitigated gall, even.
    - BobBagwill 7mo ago
      Whan I go to the Stacioners, I ever aske for mitigated Gal and meteoric Iron fillings. I fynde that it maketh the derkest and most persistente inke. Make sure that thou onlie bye swan quill, not goose, and specifie that they sholde onlie be from the right-handed wing.
pimlottc 7mo ago
This was the lesson from the Fyre Festival debacle. Most of his inside partners and enablers knew he wasn’t likely to succeed. They just saw an opportunity to benefits themselves and made sure their own risk was limited. In return, he got to trade on their reputation which allowed him to rope in more respectable partners and appear more legitimateto potential customers. It’s a vicious cycle.

anitil 7mo ago

I remember listening to a podcast (possibly complex systems?) that said the best way to find what kinds of frauds are out there is by looking at what known fraudsters are up to. [0] It might have been this one, but I can't find it in the transcript https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/fraud-as-infrastructure/ https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/episodes/fraud-as-infr...

moralestapia 7mo ago

I can guarantee you that Elizabeth Holmes will get a big bunch of funding for a new startup as soon as she's out of jail. Even with SBF I'm 50/50 on that.

randallsquared 7mo ago
A lot of companies are currently doing what (if you squint) Holmes was claiming Theranos would be able to do a decade ago. I agree with you that this is enough for her to claim, plausibly to some, that she was basically on the right track. SBF, similarly, happened to have FTX invest in Anthropic early, and while we don't know how that's gonna play out now that they're at odds with the DoW, the value of Anthropic has already increased enough that it would have made whole all the money he was wasting/embezzling, so there's going to be a path for people to claim that he's directionally worth investing more money in, if he's out anytime soon.

xbryanx 7mo ago

Well, here we all are clicking the link and engaging in a discussion on the loathsome creep. Attention, attention.

zzzeek 7mo ago

not speaking for upwards failures in general, but for the extraordinary cases of convicted frauds being pardoned, the incentives are: 1. his $1.8M donation to Trump shows other felons and fraudsters that paying Trump will pay back in dividends (Trump profits) 2. By pardoning thousands of frauds, con artists and outright violent nazis (Jan 6), Trump builds himself an army of loyalists who owe him their lives 3. By putting pardoned frauds, con artists and violent nazis in charge of government functions, Trump replaces the entire US government with one that will do his personal bidding textbook autocrat stuff

kelnos 7mo ago

My assumption is that the people he's working with today also would like to do some fraud, and are hoping he'll be better at it this time. And/or they're part of the Trump rich people's club. They all tend to stick together and help each other.

scoofy 7mo ago

Greater fool theory.

kjkjadksj 7mo ago

Like it or not these people know how to contact people who hand out money. That is really the skill in the VC world, not competence in some domain. It is a fundraising job. It takes charisma. Just got to keep the music going until you cash out. How many founders are actually trying to make a company last 100+ years, vs securing retirable wealth early in life?

foobiekr 7mo ago

The type of person who funders fall for is a personality type. That they have failed in the past doesn't matter, they fall in love anyway. This time is different. Venture guys aren't as smart or analytical as their propaganda would lead one to believe. A lot of them are just people who got lucky once.