Satan's Daughter: My Experience with a Startup Sociopath | Hacker News Reader

Satan's Daughter: My Experience with a Startup Sociopath

thoughtandactionblog.com

23 pointsIsaacL15 comments

I know I'm only reading one side of the story - but is this sociopathy? Although, it's clear that her driving motivations had very little with what it takes to make a company successful. "I need VC money to go live in the US" is not a credible business plan.

But, that said, I read it as she thought she was starting a business - with a partner - a technical co-founder. Not a 23 year old burn-out that needs to recover from life. And that she was disappointed, but tried to cheer herself up, internally, by irrationally keeping hope alive that the partner would, someday, against all hope, show up and be her partner.

Now, irrational is irrational, and this a trait you want in no-ways inhabiting the brain of a business partner. But I can't imagine even knowing where to begin coping with starting a business with someone who wanted to go on walkabout for 3 months, starting on day 1. I wouldn't know how to reason about my options other than to immediately separate.

Am I mis-reading this completely?

I kinda feel like this is an unnecessarily judgmental article about what comes down to two people with incompatible core values that never should've worked together in the first place.

Agreed. "Satan's Daughter" had different priorities than the author, but nothing in the reprinted conversations suggested she had any malicious intent. In fact, I can understand why she accused the author of being paranoid.

I quit reading because there seemed to be some unspoken emotional dynamic that made the author interpret SD's words in a much harsher manner than I read.

PS: Tricia?

I hope this made the author feel better, because otherwise I don't think it did him any good.

I'm pretty sure the author hasn't encountered real sociopaths yet.

I believe that you can do business, or you can do things that look like you are doing business. Both sides here are doing things that look like business without actually doing any business at all.

I think that she was right that rescheduling the incubator interview would have hurt her chances - I've had experiences like this in my life which confirmed this.

I think maybe it's because most investors are sociopaths themselves and they don't feel comfortable dealing with non-sociopaths - They prefer to deal with people who will consistently put money above all else. Any sign of non-sociopathy is considered inefficient and bad.

Flagged because there is nothing worthwhile here.

Entertaining read. It takes a while, in any business/other relationship to learn to stick to your guns.

Reading this, and somewhat projecting, I would say you lack confidence in some of your decisions. You therefore seemed opened to discussion.

I'd personally never quit a job for a startup with no money. But if I did, I believe that would be on me and I'd be walking into it with the idea that this would be an interesting experience which might not pan out.

Regarding the wedding/holiday. You just need to be firm about what you think is right. "I need to take this time off", "we need to reschedule/cancel as I have an important prior engagement".

If that kills the relationship, well it probably wasn't going anywhere anyway...

To find closure I ended up reading up on personality disorders. She certainly fit the pattern of either narcissistic personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder — aka, sociopathy.

The author is not a medical professional and has absolutely no place "diagnosing" someone else's mental health. That is completely unprofessional (not to mention libellous if the woman knows the article is about her). Mental health is far more complex than just ticking a few boxes and declaring you have some insight in to why someone does what they do.

Nothing in this suggests sociopathy to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Sociopathy 1) You really should just do startups with folks that are solid friends to begin with, and even then you will have disagreements. 2) She is not a sociopath, but worse. On your account she wanted to pivot on a non-existent product. She simply was not your peer.

Obviously everyone's experiences are subjective, but that didn't sound too bad to me. Compared to the horror stories coming out of startups that seems rather JV.

I have found that once a sociopath is unveiled, they start falling apart. However, they turn on a dime so it's very, very important that once you've realised what you are dealing with that you cut communication to the bare essentials. That's because they will be prepared to say and do whatever it takes to manipulate your emotions, and unlike the sociopath you have a conscience and you will be manipulated.

The solution is to get a third party who has no pre-existing relationship with them if you need something. In my case, I was owed close to $15,000, of which I knew I could not recover all of so I took the guy to a debt collector. He used his father to attempt to get out of the debt, and claimed I hadn't done the work. Sadly for him he had burned a LOT of people and it took a few emails to some key folks to disprove his claims.

He tried to bluff his way out, but at this point I was somewhat back on my feet and willing to lose $2,000 in court costs - if I lost, then I wouldn't go under, if I didn't lose I'd get it all back including the $2,000 which I could claim as court costs.

When it became clear I wasn't budging, I got paid $10,500 of which 10% went to the agency. Frankly, the agency earned that money and I was very happy to pay it!

So the golden rule is: cut off direct communications with a sociopath. A sociopath works by manipulating you, and quite often they cannot achieve their goals without you or someone else, so it drives them crazy if you don't engage. But that also reduces their effectiveness, so if you need something then use an intermediary.

meh, I am sure there is more to it than you want to talk about.

I will only talk about what was presented ( not the full details of what actually happened ).

My perspective is a little more balanced. She put a lot on the line. Her relationships suffered. Things fell apart for her.

I don't think it is anything terribly abnormal.

Having a stable personal life is key to being able to deal with an unstable professional (i.e. startup) life.

I know my wife has had to deal with a lot of emotional shit from me when I was in startups.

Sounds like this cost her more than it cost you - be forgiving of bad behavior.

People are not at their best in no-sleep, no-money situations.

She hates you - may be from her perspective she has good reason. She needed you to deliver - did you deliver or did you add to her stress?

My suspicion is that you added to the stress.

> In a later conversation she re-iterated the point that she really respected me for “setting boundaries”. I quit my job, started coding on the idea for 2 weeks, then went travelling for a month while working on the idea part-time.

So you did a little bit of coding and then disappeared.

The YCombinator interview is coming up and she has no way of knowing what is going on. A month? now? maybe she was hoping to force a decision from her.

I just read a lot of immaturity in both of you ( but curable! )

For what you wrote (once again - I have no idea what the full story is ), I would feel pretty negatively toward you as a professional - doesn't sound like you kept promises or delivered.

Repeating ONE LAST TIME, I don't know you or the other party - so this is just my statement about the post. (there is enough internet rage, I am not going to add to it)

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