I work with MDs and PhDs on a daily basis, analyzing their technologies for their start up companies. By far, I am much more willing to put in extra hours for friendly people than those that cram down my throat how much better they are than me.
I've found that the best response is to sit there, listen carefully, take note of any valid points, and ask followup questions if you need more information on one. You may learn something: despite the overall negativity of the conversation, my boss had many points that I'm going to want to keep in mind as we move forwards.
Understand, there is a lot of self-justification going around when it comes to entrepreneurship. As long as rich people are the distant Bill Gateses and Warren Buffets, people can put them up on a pedestal or say "Oh, they got lucky." But if someone you've grown up with or someone who used to work for you gets rich, you have to ask yourself "Why them and not me? Are they just smarter than me?"
Many smart people will do just about anything to avoid admitting that others are smarter than them, so they instinctively say "Oh, he's just going to fail." And when you succeed, they'll say "Oh, he just got lucky." If you succeed again they'll start saying "The game is rigged!".
But if you stoop to their level and say "Oh, look how smart I am, of course I'm going to succeed," you're just engaging in self-justification yourself. And that's a dangerous mental attitude to get into, because it blinds you to details. The reason you're smart in the first place is because you pick up details that other people don't; you can easily become stupid by believing yourself smart. This comes from experience: I did precisely this in high school and college, and then found that when I actually tried to get something done, the results were much more disappointing than I would've liked.
(Therapy for myself: I think you're smarter than me, I think you will succeed, and I think that if you do succeed, it will be because of skill. But keep what I say in mind anyway. It may be useful.)
I have a friend who (years ago) told me "Damn you're lucky! You have a horseshoe stuck up your [butt]. But you seem to work really hard for it..."
I never forgot that, and in the intervening years I've attributed the majority of my success to luck, rather than skill. Luck, however, that I work hard to create.
The reason is this: If you believe that your success is due to your own skill, you become lax. Complacent. Entitled. You've succeeded so far, so clearly you're da man and you should succeed going forward.
If, on the other hand, you ascribe it to luck, you acknowledge that there's little that you did to make it work. And so you have to keep working hard and scrambling to make the next project successful. Because your previous successes have little bearing on future performance.
Very well said.
Remember, whatever disappointments you have, don't come off sounding like this guy (someone who did well in school, but couldn't get hired at the firm he wanted): http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=445136&mc=...