Earlier quoted context omitted.
They say most successful CEOs score highly on tests for being a sociopath. I think this guy could be on his way to the Fortune 400!
Not sociopaths, psychopaths. Sociopaths tend to be introvert / loner types.
If you want to get rich, stop being a fucking joker
151–160 of 301 posts
Re: If you want to get rich, stop being a fucking joker
#152At first I thought this was posted by one of the email's recipients as a form of revenge on its douchebag author. Then, I realized it was posted by the author on his own blog... how embarrassing. The whole letter/blog simultaneously reeks of desperation, egotism, conceit and condescension. He clearly craves validation and doesn't hesitate to dole it out to himself. "I picked you guys because you're the best! Now quit…
I think, this is in part a consequence of the deification of Steve Jobs, who might have adopted a similar stance towards his partners/employees. Such behavior is now automatically assumed to be acceptable by some subset of people. The No Asshole principle is passé. The author may have written such an email irrespective of Steve Jobs influence. But the audacity to post it on his own blog for everyone to "admire" certa…
I think that's probably ascribing Jobs too much credit. He certainly wasn't the first businessperson with a superinflated sense of self-importance and a serious disregard for the well-being of those "in his way", even when those people are his employees.
Re: If you want to get rich, stop being a fucking joker
#153"Dear Sebastian, we quit, piss off. Best, Sam, Lee, and Jon." Seriously, this is just ridiculous. Is there anyone here that would actually put up with this ridiculous public shaming at all, let alone from a CEO that's off in Asia staying up "20 hours" to print flyers for one of his other companies, while he bitches that you're not reneging on your teaching commitments (which I would presume he knew about when he took…
The "public" part is what really surprised me the most. I get that it's his "thing" to post a lot of stuff about his make-believe success story, but you simply don't post what three people are supposed to be motivated by on the Internet. Not even when you edit it to obscure their names. They /can/ read your blog, you know?!
The text in itself is very close to self-parody and severely lacks editing (as most of his writing that I have read or sampled) but that can be forgiven in a person-to-person context. There is a whole different world of rules that apply when you address an entire audience that does not happen to be on your payroll. As it stands, this is a kneejerk "and you know what? I'm so taken by how motivating my own writing to you guys is, I'll also blog it ON THE INTERNET" reaction that reeks of delusion.
Telling your employees "hey guys, stop joking around" and telling the entire world that your employees are "jokers" are two very different things - even if we don't know them in person. Having the person I work for confuse the two would be quite the wakeup call for me.
In fact, this reminds me of an anecdote - I once did an internship at a design studio. One day, one of the guys asked me for a favor - send out faxes with his software and make sure to resend all the faxes that failed to be sent. (He had to leave early, for whatever reason.) Turns out, he kept a LOT of failed records and I ended up sending a lot of faxes from previous batches.
He was obviously angry at me and I could certainly agree with that. But then he proceeded to call every single recipient and tell them that the idiot intern messed it up. There were a million excuses (the software failed etc.) he could have used that were perfectly harmless and he won nothing by shaming a particular person in front of them. But still, he did. So yeah, that WAS quite a wakeup call.
Re: If you want to get rich, stop being a fucking joker
#154he's manic, and one of his friend should take him to a therapist. he's comparing himself to nietzsche, hannibal, byron. he's making crazy plans of self-improvement. he's swearing, cussing, incoherent, ALLCAPS in every blog post. he's not sleeping. he's not focusing on anything of real value. I really hope he has someone that takes care of him.
Re: If you want to get rich, stop being a fucking joker
#155he's manic, and one of his friend should take him to a therapist. he's comparing himself to nietzsche, hannibal, byron. he's making crazy plans of self-improvement. he's swearing, cussing, incoherent, ALLCAPS in every blog post. he's not sleeping. he's not focusing on anything of real value. I really hope he has someone that takes care of him.
he says he's actually bipolar in that first blog post.
Re: If you want to get rich, stop being a fucking joker
#156At first I thought this was posted by one of the email's recipients as a form of revenge on its douchebag author. Then, I realized it was posted by the author on his own blog... how embarrassing. The whole letter/blog simultaneously reeks of desperation, egotism, conceit and condescension. He clearly craves validation and doesn't hesitate to dole it out to himself. "I picked you guys because you're the best! Now quit…
he's a complete egotist
"Whenever I compared myself to people similar to me, it wasn’t even close. I worked more, accomplished more, produced more, did more meaningful things, was traveling the world. I read more books, did more writing, was generally healthier and more disciplined, spent my time well. I was the top 1% for my age, and even better than that if you measured me against people from similar backgrounds."
http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/the-weakest-of-the-great-me...
Re: If you want to get rich, stop being a fucking joker
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
LinkedIn has a stub page saying "I don't really use linkedin". His 'About' page has this: "I worked as an entrepreneur from 2004 to 2008". That's it. From 2009 onwards, there appears to be a lot of stuff about travel, and sleeping less, and "purifying my diet". I have some friends with bios/resumes like this; these also happen to be my "rich kid" friends.
I really dislike seeing comments like this on HN. I've clawed my way from poverty to lower middle class, helped out as many people along the way as I could, done some amazing things, written a lot of brilliant code that's running the guts of a couple businesses and maybe even an East Bay school district still. But, I've never written about any of it, I don't talk about it much, and honestly, I'd rather do just about…
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Re: If you want to get rich, stop being a fucking joker
#158"Dear Sebastian, we quit, piss off. Best, Sam, Lee, and Jon." Seriously, this is just ridiculous. Is there anyone here that would actually put up with this ridiculous public shaming at all, let alone from a CEO that's off in Asia staying up "20 hours" to print flyers for one of his other companies, while he bitches that you're not reneging on your teaching commitments (which I would presume he knew about when he took…
It reads like the person has a drug habbit. I feel sorry for the employees.
Yeah, there is some hypomania there, stimulant induced or otherwise.
Re: If you want to get rich, stop being a fucking joker
#159"Dear Sebastian, we quit, piss off. Best, Sam, Lee, and Jon." Seriously, this is just ridiculous. Is there anyone here that would actually put up with this ridiculous public shaming at all, let alone from a CEO that's off in Asia staying up "20 hours" to print flyers for one of his other companies, while he bitches that you're not reneging on your teaching commitments (which I would presume he knew about when he took…
A couple points -
They're partners, not employees.
Yes, I'll suffer at the printshop when I promised it. My colleague offered to do it, but he just had a baby and it would be ridiculous to keep him all night. No one else was available on Sunday night.
> they tend to be neither very good businessmen nor good employers.
My staff like me, I pay top of market (sometimes 10x market pay, if the person is worth it but short-changed due to supply and demand), everyone is treated great, we have a culture of radical transparency and honesty, have a book club, there's no task management, and everyone is free to basically do whatever they want whenever they want as long as they get their job done.
I want people to be their best and keep their word. And again, that email was to business partners, not to employees, on what was supposed to be a very short project that dragged on.
I don't know if you'd like working with me. Maybe not, it's not for everyone. But I look for top performers, pay them extremely well, treat them well, give them huge respect and autonomy, and push them to give their best and really deliver. We tend to have fun, too.