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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

Some of these criticisms are just irrelevant personal abuse - like saying he doesn't think Neumann's t-shirt is fitted well.

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At that level of income, clothes are a choice. Simply insulting him about his clothes may not be very helpful, but thinking about the message Neumann is sending with that clothing choice is productive. I'm inferring from the text that that picture is from an investor presentation, though I don't quite know, but if it was, those clothes are rife with meaning. They are as deliberately crafted as any of the words in that presentation were, and you are fully entitled to analyze that and make decisions based on that analysis.

Or, it's just a t-shirt.

That is pretty much exactly the same thing as seeing a character wearing a T-Shirt in a movie and trying to argue it must have just been what the actor came on to the set wearing that day.

No it's not. Actors are meant to pretend to be different people.

The CEO isn't supposed to be pretending to be a different person.

I disagree.

Or the curtains are just blue.

In a behaviorial finance class I took we learned about a few hedge funds that followed CEO's during the 90's, and shorted their companies whenever the CEO underwent plastic surgery. Turns out that personal appearance insecurity of the CEO was inversely correlated to company performance.

From Steve Job's turtleneck to Zuck's zip-up hoodie, CEO appearance is a market signal that some speculators choose to use.

You're wrong on this, and the parent poster is right.

Execs in his position have style consultants on retainer.

Also the bits about these people "Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan and Masayoshi Son of Softbank". Two paragraphs of hearsay about the skills and motivations of these people and not a drop of anything resembling hard evidence. A lot of "he's actually incompetent and the only reason he made good decisions in the past is because he was lucky".

If you follow Matthew Stoller on Twitter (or subscribe to his substack), you'll find lots of specific content about those two. Usually he's snarky about people he's built a wealth of back story on.

I don't find the t-shirt bit irrelevant, it's an aesthetic that speaks volumes and has a place in the critique, particularly as contrasted with the aesthetic that will replace it. That's how it's referenced, and not as a direct or adhominem attack.

And describing Jamie Dimon as a mediocrity is simply ignorant. JPMorgan has outperformed all the big banks for the past 10 years, and it's not close.

JPM is tied up in billions of dollars of loans to WeWork, but those loans are commercial mortgages. Typically those loans are largely underwritten based on the building and real estate rather than focusing the borrower. Presumably the loans were made on the same terms they would be made to a REIT, based on what revenue the building can support. If WeWork fails, well then JPM owns the building.

WeWork doesn’t own the buildings right now - the landlords do.

It's ok to make fun of the guy who gets in trouble for smoking weed on private planes and whose new age nepotism hire wife fires people for having bad energy. The reason people like this exist is because nobody has been ridiculing them and saying no.

If anything we need way more people making fun of elite billionaires. Sharpen up your wit and sarcasm folks, we're gonna need it in the years ahead.

I did not read that as a criticism of Neumann, I read it as, same shit different day. As in, don't matter how you dress up their CEO the company is still shit

He has some criticisms but he strays from seriousness with jabs like the one you point out. It sounds like me in high school being sarcastic in a juvenile way —it’s momentarily funny but totally detracts from the main story. In this case issues in self-dealing. In a small biz self dealing may be necessary and may be common practice. After all it’s all your money or your debt. But here it’s in conflict with fiduciary duty of a CEO.

While it can sound personal, I think it's more aimed at the general lax and loose silicon valley "new age" way of doing things, opposed to the stuffy old ways of white-collar finance.

There's this mantra that you need to suspend your disbelief a bit, when it comes to (tech) startups.

I thought much of the post, if not the entire post, was full of garbage illuminated by this example.

Seems like this guy acts like rock stars of the past. And it s not like rock stars didn’t make tons of money

Defending those of poor character and moral fiber (not my judgement, facts reported) from a jab about their clothes is low priority. The other issues presented are far more pressing.

I personally think it's good to call out arguments that we disagree with, that are imprecise, or irrelevant.

Not as pressing in this case but elsewhere if you leave those arguments uncriticized it gives those you are arguing against more leverage in the form of things they can point out.

It's important we hold people to high standards

What if its totally irrelevant to the larger issue and the nitpicking of minor parts of an article are just used to distract and diffuse any conversation actual issues?

You presume to tell others how to arrange their priorities? Very well. I will say that you are wrong. It is a fine priority to defend people from unfair jabs and accusations. These attacks damage the quality of our public discourse, which is in bad enough shape already.

You will find no shortage of fair jabs and meaningful accusations to be aired in the matter of WeWork. They are scathing enough on their own. Random sniping about T-shirt quality detracts from the points that matter.

Thank you. Letting rhetoric slip into the mud hasn't served other platforms for discourse well recently (exhibit a: politics).

Taking a jab at clothing generally is so low effort to be actually embarrassing and will invalidate anything else that you are trying to say. IMO.

Taking some comedic/low effort jabs should not invalidate from one's main (and valid) arguments. IMO.

Else it's low effort on the listener's part.

"comedic"

Well, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die".

I'm amazed that the focus is on the author calling a t-shirt "ill-fitting" instead of calling Neumann a liar and a thief.

Apparently, Neumann's fashion sense is more defensible than his personal integrity.

>fashion sense is more defensible than [...] personal integrity.

You take issue with this?

This is just one thread... look at the rest of the discussion.

What is more embarrassing is picking one statement in huge article and getting hung up on it? As a writer certain things make stylistically sense perhaps only to the author, but that is one substantive article about the state of Capital markets and "Captains" of New Industry.

We're not under any time pressure in this discussion; there's no need to prioritize. Pointing out "low blows" which and writer should strive to be above is pressing, in my opinion.

That's not at all a low blow. It's pointing out one of the many signaling methods this conman used to swindle investors "look at me, I make no sense because I'm so unconventional..."

It's crazy to me that a forum full of the self proclaimed intellectual elites can't get the meaning of that sentence without a full blown explanation.

Ah, I see your point. That is deceptive; I thought it was just generic vitriol.

As for me I only _dream_ of dwelling amongst the ranks of the Valley's intelligentsia... many years to go before I proclaim myself a bonafide intellectual elite.

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