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Comment by ar_lan | Hacker News Reader

In general this can't work.

People are notoriously ruthless to people who admit their mistakes. For example, if you are in an argument and you lose (whether through poor debate or your argument is plain wrong), and you *admit it*, people don't look back at it as a point of humility - they look at it as a reason to dog pile on you and make sure everyone knows you were wrong.

In this case, it's not internet points - it's their jobs, and a lot of money, and massive reputation - on the line. If there is extreme risk and minimal, if any, reward for showing humility, why wouldn't you double down and at least try to win your fight?

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Is this your opinion or is this something that’s an actual theory in sociology or psychology, or at least something people talk about in practice? Not trying to be mean, just to learn.

There’s a whole genre of press releases and videos for apologies, so I’m not sure it’s such a reputational risk to admit one is wrong. It might be a bigger risk not to, it would seem.

But what you say sounds interesting.

I would be interested too if that's an actual theory. My experience has largely been that if you're willing to admit you were wrong about something, most reasonable people will appreciate it over you doubling down.

If they pile on after you have conceded, typically they come off much worse socially in my opinion.

The accent here being on „reasonable”. Very few actually are. Myself, I once recommended colleague to a job and they didn’t take him because he was too humble and „did not project confidence” (and oh my, he would be top 5% in that company at the very least).

There is a reason why CEOs are usually a showman type.

honestly, that's not my experience. sure you can admit in front of your friends, family and people that know you even if they are not your friend.

Admitting the mistake in front of strangers, usually leads to them making the shortcut next time and assuming you are wrong again.

you wont get any awards for admitting the mistake.

(This is a reflection on human behavior, not a statement about any specific work environment. How much this is or isn't true varies by place.)

In my experience, it's something of a sliding scale as you go higher in the amount of politicking your environment requires.

Lower-level engineers and people who operate based on facts appreciate you admitting you were incorrect in a discussion.

The higher you go, the more what matters is how you are perceived, and the perceived leverage gain of someone admitting or it being "proven" they were wrong in a high-stakes situation, not the facts of the situation.

This is part of why, in politics, the factual accuracy of someone's accusations may matter less than how successfully people can spin a story around them, even if the facts of the story are proven false later.

I'm not saying I like this, but you can see echoes of this play out every time you look at history and how people's reactions were more dictated by perception than the facts of the situation, even if the facts were readily available.

> If they pile on after you have conceded, typically they come off much worse socially in my opinion.

Those who are obsessed with their reputation above morality have usually had a lot of practice punching down, and they don't really look as bad as someone being dunked on who gets confused.

I think this is like a cornerstone of bullying. It seems to work in social situations. I'm sure everyone reading this comment can picture it.

Definitely anecdotal - I'm not sure on actual statistics as I'm sure that would be somewhat hard to measure.

Did you see how people reacted to Ilya apologizing? Read through the early comments here, it isn't very positive they mostly blame him for being weak etc, before he wrote that people were more positive against Ilya but Ilya admitting fault made people home in on it:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38347501&p=2

People tend to speak and act very differently in pseudonymous online forums, with no skin in the game, than they ever would in "the real world", where we are constantly reminded of real relationships which our behavior puts at risk.

The only venues where I've witnessed someone being attacked for apologizing or admitting an error have been online.

People are more honest about how they feel online. They might not attack openly like that offline, but they do think those things.

So you see people who refuse to acknowledge their mistakes fail upwards while those who do admit are often pushed down. How often do you see high level politicians admitting their mistakes? They almost never do since those who did never got that far.

I don't think people are more honest about how they feel online. I think that the venue makes one feel differently.

Probably < 1% of the people in the peanut gallery have even met the person they're attacking. Without participating in online discussion forums, how many of them would even know who Ilya is, or bother attacking him?

Honestly, I think the "never apologize or admit an error" thing is memetic bullshit that is repeated mindlessly, and that few people really believe, if challenged, that it's harmful to admit an error; they're saying it because it's a popular thing to say online. I've posted the same thing too, in the past, but having given it some thought I don't really believe it myself.

I think the big disconnect here is that you are thinking about personal relationships and not less personal ones. You should admit guilt with friends and family to mend those relationships, but in a less personal space like a company the same rules doesn't apply the onlookers do not react positively to acknowledge of guilt.

Ilya should have sent that message to Sam Altman in private instead of public.

I don't think it's reaction to apologizing, but to "yea we really had no plan whatsoever" which became clear with the tweet.

Alternative (being clueless AND unrepentant) would receive even worse reaction. Now people ISTM mostly pity Ilya as being way out of his league.

It’s not that simple… it depends on how you admit the mistake. If done with strength, leadership, etc., and a clear plan to fix the issue it can make you look really good. If done with groveling, shame, and approval seeking, what you are saying will happen.

The case here is not about admitting mistakes and showing humility. Admitting your mistake does not immediately mean that you get a free pass to go back to the way things were without any consequence. You made a mistake, something was done or said. There are consequences to that. Even if you admit your mistake, you have to act with the present facts.

Here, the consequences are very public, very clear. If the board wanted Altman back for example, they would have to give something in return. Altman has seemingly said he wants them gone. That is absolutely reasonable of him to ask that, and absolutely reasonable of the board to deny him that.

The context of my response was to rewinding the clock - admitting not being enough, it would be them bringing Altman back on, essentially.

As you said:

> [it's] absolutely reasonable of the board to deny him that.

My argument is essentially that there is minimal, if any, benefit for the board to doing this _unless_ they were able to keep their positions. Seeing as it doesn't seem to be a possible end, why not at least try, even if it results in a sinking ship? For them, personally, it's sinking anyway.

> People are notoriously ruthless to people who admit their mistakes

Some people, yes. Not all. I would say this attitude does not correlate with intelligence/wisdom.

What money do the independent board directors stand to gain? They have no equity in the company and their resumes have more than enough employable credentials (before this past Friday) to warrant not caring for money.

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