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Business negotiations (in which VCs benefit from founders not shopping around, negotiating for better deals, or building interest) are not at all comparable to a social situation involving actual humans. The goal is to get readers thinking morally instead of in the cold business terms that the VC is.

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This applies to a business negotiation. Not a series of them and much less to a career made out of busines negotiations. Business is life as usual: sometimes you must decline of something but generally you have to play the bigger game where it matters how you treat other people, even at the expense of optimal business or a short-term gain.

I would say that playing these social games IS what constitutes business and while it's important to bond to allow for future business sometimes, actually, the right thing is rather to not to play along if your gut says no, even if it was good for business.

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