Not being an asshole will make you more money • Hacker News Board

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#41

Post by wildengineer » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #18

fenwick67 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 out of the top 15 American billionaires inherited their wealth, that is the secret to wealth, have rich parents.

And 9 out of the top 10 American billionaires are self-made. It's amazing how you can use the same data to argue the opposite point, just on how you frame it.

I hate that word, self-made. I think of Bezos, Buffet, Gates and all three of them had investment from their parents or had a business relationship made possible by their parents. Of the billionaires I know of, all them came from at least an upper middle class family. Certainly they are a special kind of talent and a big part of their own success, but they were raised by nurturing families with significant resources.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#42

Post by mediaman » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

meritt wrote: post #32

seanhunter wrote: post #5

I have an example. In a previous role was in a position where we were negotiating a large-ish (>1M USD) multi-year contract when our client asked us to also do a proof of concept about some topic. It was just 1 week or 2 weeks so I said it would be free but because of various regulatory stuff we needed a contract in place. I was dealing with the same purchasing lawyer on both contracts. The process was super-standard…

> by backing out all of our changes and only putting in his changes That so feels like a mistake because that's the sort of tactic that would completely and utterly remove their capability of ever working as a corporate lawyer ever again for any company. If that genuinely happened, that lawyer needs to be disbarred, but that's a pretty damn egregious accusation.

It's not that easy to accept only your own changes though. You can accept all changes, or reject all changes, but accepting only your own and rejecting others, at least in Word, takes specific effort.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#43

Post by DesiLurker » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

seanhunter wrote: post #5

I have an example. In a previous role was in a position where we were negotiating a large-ish (>1M USD) multi-year contract when our client asked us to also do a proof of concept about some topic. It was just 1 week or 2 weeks so I said it would be free but because of various regulatory stuff we needed a contract in place. I was dealing with the same purchasing lawyer on both contracts. The process was super-standard…

this is the reason you include md5sum or sha1 checksum when you send the binary releases. plus it helps with version tracking.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#44

Post by minikites » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #37

Ididntdothis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a common negotiation strategy to be a complete ass and wearing people down. A lot of people will give in just to keep the peace. It also works to ask for more concessions right before closing the deal. You just have to be shameless. I think that’s why sociopaths tend to do well in business.

Once word gets around though, it starts to harm you in the long run. I worked for a company where one of the owners seemed to have a world view that everyone is trying to screw you over, so you better screw them over first. After I left I had a friend ask about the company, because they were about to a deal with them. I gave my honest opinion and suggested they be sure to get any money up front and be very careful to…

>Once word gets around though, it starts to harm you in the long run.

Does it? It seems to have worked for the president of the USA just fine and that was his exact tactic in all of his business "deals".

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#45

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

seventytwo wrote: post #3

jariel wrote: post #2

I don't see any evidence to support the assertion unfortunately :) Also, the huge difference between emotional/perceptive aggression, and actual aggression. There are loud, crude people who like to push for a fair deal, or who are not aggressive terms. There are 'nice', cunning manipulative people who seek excessive terms. There are actually truly nice people, who push for assertive terms, not realising how far they…

I think you’re missing the point. Make “rising tide lifts all boats” deals. Here, you’re entering in a deal to create additional value to the world. Don’t make deals with a zero-sum outlook. Here, you’re entering into a deal for, at best, a transfer of existing value within the world.

From The Godfather Part II: "Hyman Roth always makes money for his partners. One by one, our old friends are gone. Death, natural or not, prison, deported. Hyman Roth is the only one left, because he always made money for his partners."

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#46

Post by minikites » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

eanzenberg wrote: post #36

asjw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is true Warren Buffet' father was a congressman Larry Page's father was a professor of computer science at University Sergey Brin's father was professor of mathematics at University and his mother worked at NASA these are the first three I looked up and they don't look like low or middle class

Your model breaks down. 99.9999999...% of children of congresspeople, professors and NASA workers are not billionaires.

It's a "necessary but not sufficient" type of condition.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#47

Post by ptero » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

Ididntdothis wrote: post #26

seanhunter wrote: post #5

I have an example. In a previous role was in a position where we were negotiating a large-ish (>1M USD) multi-year contract when our client asked us to also do a proof of concept about some topic. It was just 1 week or 2 weeks so I said it would be free but because of various regulatory stuff we needed a contract in place. I was dealing with the same purchasing lawyer on both contracts. The process was super-standard…

It’s a common negotiation strategy to be a complete ass and wearing people down. A lot of people will give in just to keep the peace. It also works to ask for more concessions right before closing the deal. You just have to be shameless. I think that’s why sociopaths tend to do well in business.

> A lot of people will give in just to keep the peace.

IME it works only if the party is the only way in town and negotiation is only on scope and price (i.e., the other party cannot take their business elsewhere). Otherwise they get known as "assholes not to deal with" which is a very hard thing to shake off. My 2c.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#48

Post by techntoke » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

praptak wrote: post #40

jacquesm wrote: post #6

Most of the billionaires are assholes and/or criminals with a couple of noteworthy exceptions. So maybe not being an asshole will get you ahead in the middle but it won't get you all the way to the top of the foodchain. So this is solid advice, but unfortunately the role models are exactly those people that didn't follow this sort of advice. Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, Apple, Google and Facebook all would not have bee…

I think most people would agree that Google founders were nice guys before (and even for some time after) they became ultra rich.

As much bad rap as Google gets, they actually provide a lot of resources for someone looking for work. With Internet access, you can get email, a phone number, document editor, 15GB of storage with file sync, and probably many many more. However, unless you are savvy enough to go into your account and disable a bunch of stuff, they're going to use that data to track you.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#49

Post by HarryHirsch » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #39

fenwick67 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6 out of the top 15 American billionaires inherited their wealth, that is the secret to wealth, have rich parents.

That means that 9 out of 15 didn't inherit their wealth. So, maybe that's not so much the secret after all.

Connections are still useful. Consider Zuckerberg, he didn't inherit his wealth from his parents, but the connections he inherited from his father, a prominent dentist in Westchester County, certainly helped.

Re: Not being an asshole will make you more money

#50

Post by throwaway55554 » Fri, Mar 06, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #6

Most of the billionaires are assholes and/or criminals with a couple of noteworthy exceptions. So maybe not being an asshole will get you ahead in the middle but it won't get you all the way to the top of the foodchain. So this is solid advice, but unfortunately the role models are exactly those people that didn't follow this sort of advice. Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, Apple, Google and Facebook all would not have bee…

> Most of the billionaires are assholes and/or criminals with a couple of noteworthy exceptions. So maybe not being an asshole will get you ahead in the middle but it won't get you all the way to the top of the foodchain.

Or did they become assholes along the way/once they got there?