Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance
bothsidesofthetable.com
Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance
1–10 of 60 posts
Re: Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance
#2Very valid points. People will forgive all kinds of mistakes and failures - except for ethical ones. There are always reasons to take the short cut in prisonner's dilemma but work and life is a repeated game where trustworthiness pays.
In the first example (staying loyal to a lower valuation) financial incentives are on the aide of ethics. The later example (tossing out a signed term sheet to get a better investor) is where it's a real test. It's not an ethics decision until there is downside.
Re: Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance
#3I used to think negotiations were simple - just come in with a reasonable, middle of the way set of terms, treat the counter-party as a reasonable, benevolent entity, and everything will work out all right. I quickly discovered that while there are some people who work this way, for the most part if you adopt this approach people will eat you alive. You won't even know what hit you.
I'd use the "reasonable terms" principle with friends I worked with for some time, or with people who have an immensely strong reputation for being reasonable (YC, etc.) But if you met someone two weeks ago, and they bring up the concept of an emotional bond into what ought to be a commodity transaction, alarms would go off in my head. (Note that it's easier to talk about an emotional bond when you're on the better end of the deal).
Mark probably is one of the very few people who work in a reasonable manner, but unfortunately for every person who works this way there are dozens of impostors who'll pretend they're reasonable and then eat you alive the moment you let your guard down.
So my advice would be the opposite. Unless you've worked with the person for a while, or have really strong evidence that they put insanely strong ethics before profits (and believe me, gut feeling is not strong evidence), or you've already indicated commitment, take the better deal.
Re: Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance
#4I used to think negotiations were simple - just come in with a reasonable, middle of the way set of terms, treat the counter-party as a reasonable, benevolent entity, and everything will work out all right. I quickly discovered that while there are some people who work this way, for the most part if you adopt this approach people will eat you alive. You won't even know what hit you. I'd use the "reasonable terms" pri…
Completely agree. A simple rule of thumb is to treat everyone as guilty till proven innocent.
Proven innocent: close friends you'd trust with your children or your money, colleagues you've been through the crucible with (you know the measure of each other), YC and other small companies with a strong rep built over years and a simple management structure that isn't likely to be co-opted, etc.
Gut feeling = wishful thinking + rose-tinted glasses. Ignore it.
Re: Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance
#5This is an experienced VC writing total bullshit. He should know better. In love and war, everything is fair.
Re: Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance
#6Remember that VCs are motivated by returning a big return to their LPs first.
It's nice to say that they'll stick with you but that could change in an instant. Plenty of stories out there where people have gotten screwed over by unscrupulous VCs.
PS. obviously, there are exceptions to the norm but I'm a big believer in understanding people's primary motivations.
Re: Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance
#7I used to think negotiations were simple - just come in with a reasonable, middle of the way set of terms, treat the counter-party as a reasonable, benevolent entity, and everything will work out all right. I quickly discovered that while there are some people who work this way, for the most part if you adopt this approach people will eat you alive. You won't even know what hit you. I'd use the "reasonable terms" pri…
[deleted]
Re: Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance
#8I used to think negotiations were simple - just come in with a reasonable, middle of the way set of terms, treat the counter-party as a reasonable, benevolent entity, and everything will work out all right. I quickly discovered that while there are some people who work this way, for the most part if you adopt this approach people will eat you alive. You won't even know what hit you. I'd use the "reasonable terms" pri…
I don't know Mark Suster, and maybe I'm completely misreading this, but the whole story seems rather self-serving to me. His "ethical dilemma" was whether to agree to a deal changing in such a way that he would be paying 50% more... and when he said that no, he wasn't going to pay 50% more, we're supposed to accept this as a great triumph for ethics?
I'm a great believer in behaving ethically, but this is not the sort of example I'd give.
Re: Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance
#9Business negotiations (in which VCs benefit from founders not shopping around, negotiating for better deals, or building interest) are not at all comparable to a social situation involving actual humans. The goal is to get readers thinking morally instead of in the cold business terms that the VC is.
Re: Always Go Home with the Lady Who Brought you to the Dance
#10This sounds way too much to me like a VC trying to teach startup founders a brand of ethics that mostly benefits VCs.