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I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

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Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#91

Post by md8z »

novaleaf wrote: post #84
awb wrote: post #71

Another moral to this story that I haven’t seen mentioned yet: Don’t give unsolicited advice. Not only was this advice to buy a different company not asked for, it was presented in a vague way: “They’re better than us”. If I was the CEO of Yahoo on the receiving end of that, I’d be thinking a few things: 1) You don’t know my business well enough to be giving me unsolicited advice. 2) You’re passionate about subjectiv…

I don't think the introspection need be so nuanced. The instinctual "Why are you shit talking yourself? What did you just let slip that I don't know?!?" Is just as valid a red flag.

Or it could just be a drunk person running their mouth and a nervous exec getting spooked. No need to overanalyze every word of conversation to look for red flags.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#92

Post by rsstack »

bmitc wrote: post #80

I know we're on a forum associated with a startup accelerator, but something just rubs me wrong on these waxing poetic startup stories. It's like these people live in their own little world, where companies and little "ideas" and massive sums of money are just pawns in some game that ultimately doesn't matter. It's a sort of entrepreneurial aggrandizement, and there's a lot of unnecessary adulation and cult of person…

He has enough money for him and his children to retire comfortably. _Now_ he doesn't need to regret it. In 1998 he probably regretted it a lot when he realized what happened.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#93

Post by quietbritishjim »

novaleaf wrote: post #84
awb wrote: post #71

Another moral to this story that I haven’t seen mentioned yet: Don’t give unsolicited advice. Not only was this advice to buy a different company not asked for, it was presented in a vague way: “They’re better than us”. If I was the CEO of Yahoo on the receiving end of that, I’d be thinking a few things: 1) You don’t know my business well enough to be giving me unsolicited advice. 2) You’re passionate about subjectiv…

I don't think the introspection need be so nuanced. The instinctual "Why are you shit talking yourself? What did you just let slip that I don't know?!?" Is just as valid a red flag.

Most clever people I know are self deprecating. Treating a sentence like that at face value is bizarre - it says more about the listener's people skills.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#94

Post by meowface »

bmitc wrote: post #80

I know we're on a forum associated with a startup accelerator, but something just rubs me wrong on these waxing poetic startup stories. It's like these people live in their own little world, where companies and little "ideas" and massive sums of money are just pawns in some game that ultimately doesn't matter. It's a sort of entrepreneurial aggrandizement, and there's a lot of unnecessary adulation and cult of person…

Sometimes there are people who really are temporarily embarrassed (hundred-)millionaires.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#95

Post by khazhoux »

refurb wrote: post #89
FinanceAnon wrote: post #8

Is this the same guy who recently posted about trying to bluff Steve Jobs, getting called out on it and losing a deal? I wonder how many more stories like these he has lol Edit: found the link for those interested https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28826437

I’m not sure he bombed the Steve Jobs discussion. Throwing out a higher number you believe in is not destroying the deal, that’s just Jobs being a dick. His “i can’t trust you” is pure bullshit and nothing but a negotiating tactic. Now a better approach would be to ignore Steve and negotiate with the deal team (and let them argue with Steve). But the outcome could have been the exact same.

From his recounting of it, he literally killed the deal.

Steve had said "yes" and said Eddy Cue would take it from there, and was preparing to leave the meeting. Then Ali decided it would be good to start negotiating price right then and there.

Steve might have really been offended by Ali bluffing the sale price he could command. Or he could have been offended that this guy was such an obvious amateur.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#96

Post by khazhoux »

lordnacho wrote: post #6

Integrity matters. Even if he hadn't gotten a big offer later on, he could still walk away with that. Yes, you can argue that he could have just kept his mouth shut and still honestly taken the Yahoo deal, but he said what he thought was right and gave Yahoo some good judgement about pg's team. I recently interviewed with a number of firms, and the ones that give off the best impression are the ones who ask to integr…

> Integrity matters

Citation needed :-)

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#97

Post by khazhoux »

bmitc wrote: post #80

I know we're on a forum associated with a startup accelerator, but something just rubs me wrong on these waxing poetic startup stories. It's like these people live in their own little world, where companies and little "ideas" and massive sums of money are just pawns in some game that ultimately doesn't matter. It's a sort of entrepreneurial aggrandizement, and there's a lot of unnecessary adulation and cult of person…

Ha, I noticed this part in the twitter thread:

> Yahoo offered $125 million

> As a financially-insecure immigrant, I knew this deal would change my life.

I enjoyed how he specifically qualified that this was a lot of money for a "financially-insecure immigrant." Um... no. This is a lot of money for 99.999% of human beings on the planet.

A good read though.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#98

Post by coldtea »

torstenvl wrote: post #43
coldtea wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised. Dictionary to the rescue: "Integrity: 1. the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles."

Your response is (intentionally?) incomplete. Talking about integrity... https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/integrity Definition of integrity 1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY 2 : an unimpaired condition : SOUNDNESS 3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : COMPLETENESS

My response is about integrity as it pertains to the discussion - as a property of a person.

Note that (2) and (3) are not about people.

We don't say that someone who is not impaired (in "an unimpaired condition") has "integrity". We call them able and other things.

We don't say that someone who is "complete or undivided" has integrity either (we use the term "complete" for humans, but there it means something like satisfied or fulfilled).

(2) and (3) are not about integrity as in "X has integrity". It's about integrity as a property of things, in usages like "structural integrity", "mechanical Integrity" (the same sense used when we talk about "integrals" and so on).

And you made it sound like I did something nefarious. Talking about integrity (1).

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#99

Post by coldtea »

xeromal wrote: post #88
vaidhy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you always standup for the team you lead, then where is the moral principles and honesty? My (fill in the blanks) is always right means you have no integrity. Integrity is having a set of moral principles and evaluating against them honestly. You will see your beauty, warts and all.

I think you could consider looking out of the people under you as mouths to feed as moral. It's impossible to calculate the moral implications of the entire world for every decision you make, but taking care of your own is a pretty easy start.

>I think you could consider looking out of the people under you as mouths to feed as moral.

That's a quality a mafia boss might also have (taking care of its own team/employees/famiglia). Doesn't mean they have integrity (heck, it's not even moral - not every quality that results to the good of some people is moral).

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#100

Post by coldtea »

torstenvl wrote: post #39
coldtea wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not exactly. Having integrity means being whole, united, and indivisible. Not just any kind of whole. Somebody "whole, united, and indivisible" devoted to his own interests for example, doesn't have integrity (even if he's open about it and e.g. is equally and wholy bad to everybody). Let's stick to the dictionary: "1. the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles." The "whole, united, etc" thing i…

Someone devoted to his own interests lacks charity, but not integrity. And yes, being whole and undivided is also in reference to the moral quality, not just structural integrity.

>Someone devoted to his own interests lacks charity, but not integrity.

Well, I wasn't talking about some hermit fully devoted to his own self without impact on others.

I was talking about someone pursing his own interests ahead of everything else - who would e.g. lie if it benefits him, steel, backstab, and so on.

This man might be an "whole and undivided" jerk, but he lacks integrity - that is, an actual good moral character.

So, "whole and undivided" is not what people mean when they say "this person has integrity". They mean that he is a "man of his word", has honor, is not two-faced, and so on.

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