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Comment by aridiculous | Hacker News Reader

In his mixergy interview, he was a nice, great, caring guy, but when Andrew took a wrong step, Blank sort of lost it on air. I chalked it up to he having a bad day or being highly stressed, but it was interesting to see such a quick shift in character.

It reminds me of that scene in "Inside Job" where Columbia Dean Glenn Hubbard changes tone after a question he doesn't like. It's as if he pulled a mask off and became a monster.

It's those small behavioral observations that make humans so interesting to me.

Note: Steve Blank has chosen to be a public figure so I don't believe talking about his behavior is equivalent to gossip.

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It's been a while since I've watched it, but I didn't get the impression that Blank lost it. As I remember, Andrew just made a big deal out of his minor misstep and focused on the misstep rather than getting the interview back on track. I think most interviewees, not just Blank, would find this annoying.

Please consider my comment retracted (I can't delete it); Andrew did a much better job than I remembered.

Thanks - I will watch the entire clip later (looks interesting) but a quick scan and I would say what appears to be the part of the interview that was referred to seems to be somewhat ambiguous. And I think you're right I wouldn't characterize it as "lost it" either. Although he does appear irritated and says he was "blindsided" I don't think this is really representative of the Steve that I remember and commented about (no clips of that sorry..)

It starts at about 20:10 and Steve says he was "blindsided" at about 21:00 approx. as if he was misled or something by Andrew. I thought the question Andrew asked was a good question.

That type of behavior is representative of someone with an anger problem. And you're right this could also be chalked up to someone, anyone, having a bad day. But in this case (as you described) he was doing an interview and is for all intents and purposes retired and having a great time being toast of the startup town. He's didn't just get fired from HP or anything. (And of course what you described is what I did experience.)

But that video appears to have vanished. If you can find a link I'd like to see it.

http://ifile.it/mdk43ht - this link will probably be dead in a week or two

(BTW, if you save everything you find interesting, you realize just how much disappears from the Internet. The half-life of the average link is about 4.5 years.)

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