Comment by MechanicalTwerk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MechanicalTwerk | Hacker News Reader

MechanicalTwerk

Thinking out loud here...I'm sure this will get downvoted. I've never met PG or Sam - this comes only from videos I've watched online - but it seems not only the way they speak, but their mannerisms as well, are eerily similar. I doubt this is because Sam is mimicking PG or vice versa. Some of it I'm sure is due to the fact that in many videos they're just giving the standard pitch about YC's mission which is bound to sound similar.

I don't quite know what to make of it. I can hear my Organizational Behavior professor from college yelling "Group think! Group think!" or some bs like that but I was never a huge fan of that stuff. It certainly doesn't stand out as much as people who have picked up Zuck's habits. Ever hear anyone begin the answer to any question (literally does not matter what the question is or how it is posed) with "Right, so...". You can be sure their youtube history is riddled with Zuck interviews.

I know it's not isolated to tech and every industry faces this phenomenon. It just makes me cringe and I wish it wasn't so prevalent.

From my experience people tend to parrot the mannerisms of people that they emulate and vice versa. Or maybe spend much time around. No time to find support for this but I'm sure there are numerous studies that say the same.

Paul has a great deal of repect for Sam and Sam for Paul.

Not to mention that people are probably going to be more likely to support people that are like them in one way or another. I know when I get a phone call I tend to like people who talk fast, don't mess around with niceties (to me "how are you doing" is a complete waste of time) and get right to the point. Others of course don't. [1]

That said I don't know if your point is correct or not but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.

Starting a sentence with "so" is a crutch that I started to notice people using several years ago. That's clearly something that they pick up when surrounded in a community of others doing the same.

[1] A bit of selling is always like modem negotiation. Usually it's a good idea to parrot the behavior of the person you are trying to sell to. If they talk slow you talk slow. If they talk fast you talk fast. In general of course always exceptions.

Public speaking is a learned skill and to do it well, you need to do a few things that you wouldn't necessarily do in face to face conversation. I don't think it's the greatest way to judge what someone is like because a lot of nuance has to be cut from the content and your personality to appeal to a larger audience.

From the short conversations and limited interactions I've had with each of them plus Sam's actions since becoming president (eg http://blog.samaltman.com/what-ive-learned-from-female-found... and his recent RFS for breakthrough technologies) it seems to me that their leadership styles are very, very different.

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