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> I have come to believe that for people that act like this, it is a game, and the game is not won if they cannot get every penny. It probably bothered them that I walked away from the table with less than 100k, because some how they did not play the game hard enough to get that from me.

So very true. The thoughts this remark triggers spawn off into 2 separate forks:

0. Robert Ringer wrote a series of books about winning even though the other guys are trying to intimidate the heck out of you. He categorized all business people into 3 types.

http://www.word-gems.com/leadership.ringer.intro.html

http://bookoutlines.pbworks.com/w/page/14422735/Winning%20Th...

http://www.word-gems.com/leadership.ringer.one.html

http://www.word-gems.com/leadership.ringer.two.html

http://www.word-gems.com/leadership.ringer.three.html

1. And the other fork is the series of books by Suzette Haden Elgin that have "gentler art of verbal self defense" in the title. In one of her earlier books, she was trying to articulate the difference in communication between men and women; for most women, "sports/game" was a separate category in parallel with other categories. To translate her argument about male communication patterns into a programming one we're familiar with, she said basically that for men, "sports/game" was the base class for all categories. I'm slightly trivializing her argument, but that she was trying to make the point that competitiveness is something you overlook at your peril.

Interesting links. I'd never heard of Mr. Ringer, or his theory before this.

My simplistic understanding of his 3 types theory is this: "In summation, I realized that no matter how a guy came on, he would, in the final analysis, attempt to grab all of my chips (again with the one exception that I pointed out)." (The exception being the classic "win-win", where the other party benefits from my success, thus aligning incentives.)

My reaction to reading that was to think about myself. If the theory is correct, then regardless of my own intentions, I'm going to try to "grab all [his] chips". That actually makes his "Type Number One" guy the most honest and ethical.

I don't think I can quite reconcile my own ethics with that analysis, but I'm willing to consider it. It paints a somewhat bleak picture of business ethics.

How do you read his theory, if you put yourself in the shoes of the other party in the transaction, rather than his first person?

My take on what he wrote was that people (in sales) will do for themselves first, their friends second (if anything is left over or what they can't personally grab), and everyone else last.

Thinking this way helps me keep my confidence when another party tries to sell me on a plan to "help" me when I can't understand how they will personally profit by their plan. So I can refuse their "help" with confidence knowing I can't possibly be missing out on anything.

That is a very succinct summary, thank you for that.

I was actually asking about this from the opposite person's perspective. I didn't catch the "in sales" part -- did I just miss that, or am I missing a larger context of his theory? Having missed that piece of info, I was wondering what this theory says about my own motivations (I would categorize myself in the 3rd category, where I try to help my friends. But shouldn't I question my own motivations, given this outlook?)

I suppose it's reasonable to question one's own motivations pretty regularly, anyhow.

Thanks. I just assumed if value is being transferred, as money/assets rather than experience or knowledge or something else intangible, then the transfer involves "selling". That is just my default assumption in business.

It probably bothered them that I walked away from the table with less than 100k, because some how they did not play the game hard enough to get that from me.

And if they read this, they'd be surprised that you're not grateful, since they let you get away with that $100k instead of squeezing everything out. They probably feel they were generous. People, eh.

Yes, I am sure that they viewed the salary that I drew as compensation for my efforts, never mind the fact that I rarely put in less than 80 hours a week and was under-compensated for even the first 40 of it.

Ah well, You live you, learn if it did not happen, I would not have awesome stories to tell my kids and their buddies when we are hanging out on the porch of our shack in the FL keys. You have to have tales, to be what we call an old salty dog, down there. Half of them are crazy and the other half of them are telling the truth. At least it gives me a good story to tell.

Don't VCs see how incredibly destructive this is to the startup ecosystem? I would _never_ put in 80 hour workweeks if I suspected I could be cheated out of the big winnings (which would be very unlikely in the first place). This is just another story that hammers this point in, only a week after the Zynga debacle.

And there have got to be more developers like me out there, who simply are too cauctious and value their own time too highly to risk being conned like this. If you want to be reasonably safe from stuff like this, your only options are to (1) bootstrap, (2) take VC but be so good that you can set your own terms or (3) work for a company that will guarantee you a good salary, benefits and bonuses.

Don't VCs see how incredibly destructive this is to the startup ecosystem?

I think the answer is somewhere between no and they don't care. The fact is many people including myself, dust themselves off and go for another round so the negative effect of destroying the market is offset by the fact that it can be almost an addiction to be in the market.

What they can do though is ruin their name to the point that they become a second rate player. Which is exactly where you run into most of these guys.

I got really emotionally involved in the Zynga story because of my history, which is unusual for me. But to me that issue was far more concerning to the industry than the bad VC's because that was most likely the VC's and the operations team working together to deprive other latter entrances for capitalizing on their risk.

In this case the very people that generally are on the receiving end of VC dilution, are perpetuating the same victimization. That has the ability to kill the industry, an entrepreneur will, take another swing but a developer who was never going to get as rich as the entrepreneur, getting screwed, is going to leave the industry and become a high paid developer. Then because options are looked at as a bait that can be yanked, developers are going to demand full market rate, plus the options just for passing over more stable gigs with established organizations. It's only going to take one more Zynga for that to happen.

If others follow Zynga's example, developers will demand that the industry pay the full price of the developers risk up front, that is going to limit the ideas that get funded, and it will be bad for everyone. But we deserve it if that happens, greed over humanity deserves destruction.

Not sure we can say that we "deserve it", but I see your point...there are always bound to be some greedy assholes who don't see the bigger picture. It's really fascinating (in a morbid way) how much less innocent the startup scene is today than just five years ago when YC was in its infancy and PG's startup essays were considered controversial.

There are just _so many sleazebags_ involved in startups right now. Of course this reflects the rest of the world, but it really pains me every time I see a naïve or just unlucky nerd get shafted by some unscrupulous authority figure. Maybe a crash would actually be a good thing, because it would scare off everyone who isn't in tech for legitimate reasons.

There are just _so many sleazebags_ involved in startups right now

There was a lot in the .com boom, maybe a little more now but history has a way of remembering the noble and valiant while only the super villains get their place cemented in history.

To me it seems about the same, the A players are for the most part respectable, the B players have some sleaze, and with the C players, well you better cover your ass faster than the new guy on D block.

> Almost all VCs I know care primarily about the success of their companies and not about extracting every last point of equity.

This quote is from someone who has not been around the block.

The author did preface it with "i know" which does condition it as their experience. But yes they may have a experience that is the minority to the odds of running across a bad VC and generally once you are in a VC group you tend to use those connections in the future. For example I just had a really good idea the other day, called a good VC that I know and we are working out the details now to start working on it. If I had met her as one of my first contacts, I probably would have not went through the learning process that I did.

In his own words is probably best here: http://cdixon.org/aboutme/

that explains why VC's don't like my strategy of cutting costs and funding from operations.....