Comment by btreesOfSpring | Hacker News Reader

Comment by btreesOfSpring | Hacker News Reader

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Also of interest is Varoufakis on EconTalk[0] interview in 2013, almost two years before the Greek electoral victory of Syriza and Varoufakis taking the political position of finance minister. You might hear from this interview how Varoufakis looked at Greece's crisis negotiation-position with the EU: that for Greece, similar to the employee-management structure of Valve, there was a lack of hierarchy between peers and only a room full of equals. In that sense and through the Valve-hierarchy of equals lens, much of the tone-deaf rhetoric of Varoufakis towards his peers though the bailout talks can be interpreted with a wider spectrum of sound. Varoufakis, it seems, sincerely thought he would bring "enlightened" new ideas of successful software development management to a negotiation table of frustrated, advantaged, EU financial stalwarts.

[0] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/02/varoufakis_on_v.htm...

> Varoufakis, it seems, sincerely thought he would bring "enlightened" new ideas of successful software development management to a negotiation table of frustrated, advantaged, EU financial stalwarts.

What he thought (and later stated) was that people would be interested in solutions instead of blaming, finger pointing and political games. He reminds me of a goal-oriented team member versus the team members who want so save their hides at all costs to the detriment of the company.

> people would be interested in solutions instead of blaming, finger pointing and political games.

Would anyone be interested in bureaucratic machinations over solutions? Varoufakis' ex post facto statement sounds bitter and judgemental and to be expected in the face of his failure.

If you listen to his EconTalk episode, you get a sense of an admirable and optimistic person who, when faced with the defensive positioning of EU stalwarts, represented his ideas in a naive and condescending way that denied himself and the Greek people he represented the chance to establish trust and the proper report to begin alternative negotiations in earnest. His economic ideas might be perfectly salient but his self-introduction at the bailout talks did not represent those ideas very well.

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