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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

I've known Andrew for years, and I know he's a good guy. If you spent an hour talking to him, you'd be mortified to have said what you just said.

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> I know he's a good guy

That's not an argument. That's what his father would say, or his grandmother.

PS1: What does "good guy" even mean? Most people are "good guys" in that they don't spend their weekends torturing small animals in their attic. Most bad things are done by "good guys" because there isn't enough bad guys to do all the evil that's being done.

PS2: Like many others, I did enjoy / admire his exit letter; but I still have a problem not just with accounting practices at Groupon, but the essence of what Groupon was trying to do.

His father would have a bias that I don't.

We form an opinion on people in the first 10 seconds we meet them; this opinion rarely ever changes.

There was a study where students were asked to rate their professor right while the professor was entering the classroom for the first time, and then at the end of the semester. Opinions from students hardly changed at all after a semester of class.

It's very difficult for you to know if you're biased. It's impossible for me to know you're not.

It's also been shown that we like to be consistent with what we've already said, so perhaps unstated opinions are more subject to change than stated ones.

I think it was Dale Carnegie that pointed out if you asked everyone if they themselves were dishonest, you would discover the surprising result that in fact there never has been a dishonest homo sapien in the history of this planet.

I thought his very sincere Groupon exit memo[1] is what made me think he is a good guy. I've never met him, so my opinion is based solely on what I read here. However, the backlash against Andrew is akin to Jason Calacanis's battle with DHH [2] and Jason Cohen's "King vs Rich"[3]. No one here is "right" but I suspect many more people in this community are far more motivated to want to become kings than be rich, hence the backlash.

[1] - http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/one-thing-could-save...

[2] - http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2219-jason-calacanis-vs-david...

[3] - http://blog.asmartbear.com/rich-vs-king-sold-company.html

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