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Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price resigns

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121–130 of 177 posts

Re: Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price resigns

#121

“The one moral CEO in America.” That's up there with Ken Lay's proclamation that Enron set the bar for corporate ethics (I can't find the exact quote, and obviously before the collapse). 'The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.' -- Ralph Waldo Emerson. Anyhoo, I have no actual idea if the accusations against Price are founded or not. That's for the courts to decide. I'm not into the whole…

"Innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt" is the gate for government violence, but as a society we operate on a very different standard, for very good reasons. Multiple credible accusations, corroborated by contemporaneous accounts, collated by a reputable journalist is definitely enough to call the accusations founded. Not enough to send people with guns to take away his freedom, maybe, but enough to fo…

> Multiple credible accusations, corroborated by contemporaneous accounts, collated by a reputable journalist is definitely enough to call the accusations founded.

Journalists build a narrative and then find facts that fit their narrative. If you continue to form your opinions on accusation you will find yourself easily manipulated by those who know how journalism works.

Re: Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price resigns

#122
post #17

I'm thinking that he wouldn't have been allowed to become successful unless there was dirt on him. It's the sad reality nowadays that the only people who can speak for the average person and for what's right are compromised in some way... They have to be compromised in order to be allowed to get that kind of reach. Still, the accusations against him sound kind of hand-wavy... The 'waterboarding' thing sounds bad but…

Who's "allowing" success, I'd like to make an appointment?

That’s not really a gotcha, instead just feels like naivety of how the world works and is controlled by those with power.

Re: Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price resigns

#123

Quoted post unavailable.

Exactly! HN is full of armchair judges, armchair scientists, armchair inventors, armchair researchers, you name it! More likely than not, their comments are going to be negative, belittling and demorsalizing to actual human beings involved. This goes both ways. We don't know which party is guilty. It could be the women. It could be the defendant. We don't know. We don't have access to the case files. The jury is stil…

FYI I’m replying with a humorous (to me) notice. While many HN folks fit your “armchair” statements, I can’t help but think that (as programmers) we generate a lot of value while sitting in chairs that have armrests. I haven’t read the article yet (I generally check the comments first to see if it’s worthwhile, and this one looks interesting), but I can’t help but contrast your opinion with the idea that your “armchair judges” have a level of (pseudo?)intellectual value that I appreciate. I have good experience using the opinions here as a good “tell” whether or not internet content (like the current article) is worth my time.

Re: Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price resigns

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask yourself, would you let your daughter/spouse/sister go on a date/business dinner alone with him after reading the times article?

I don't want to read the times article, it's just going to be more accusations and conjecture without proof And even if I did, and decided I don't want to let my daughter near him based on the rumours, I would certainly not slander him in public based on rumours

This comment is conjecture

Your refusal to learn what happened is not a firm of wisely handling doubt

Re: Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price resigns

#125

I'm thinking that he wouldn't have been allowed to become successful unless there was dirt on him. It's the sad reality nowadays that the only people who can speak for the average person and for what's right are compromised in some way... They have to be compromised in order to be allowed to get that kind of reach. Still, the accusations against him sound kind of hand-wavy... The 'waterboarding' thing sounds bad but…

Sorry, but this seems ridiculous. Surely it's plausible that a tech company can see success independently of any dirt on a founder, and that his $70k thing made for easy headlines and brought him a lot of attention.

It's more likely that a self-promoter conceives of this sort of angle and with a view to pushing it as a gimmick, and that the same personality type is prone to the allegedly selfish behaviour.

Re: Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price resigns

#126

“The one moral CEO in America.” That's up there with Ken Lay's proclamation that Enron set the bar for corporate ethics (I can't find the exact quote, and obviously before the collapse). 'The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.' -- Ralph Waldo Emerson. Anyhoo, I have no actual idea if the accusations against Price are founded or not. That's for the courts to decide. I'm not into the whole…

"Innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt" is the gate for government violence, but as a society we operate on a very different standard, for very good reasons. Multiple credible accusations, corroborated by contemporaneous accounts, collated by a reputable journalist is definitely enough to call the accusations founded. Not enough to send people with guns to take away his freedom, maybe, but enough to fo…

Unfortunately, that approach leads to confimation bias, as well as other biases. The point being - the media and other nefarious characters knowing - once the seed of accusations are planted, for the most part we are wired *not* to let go of that. It lives on well after the real facts have surfaced.

Also, along the same lines, the human memory is fairly easy to manipulate. It's not the air tight SSD we all presume it to be.

As a rule of thumb "follow the money". The fact is there are plenty of CEOs and other champions of Crony Capitalism that would pay good money to see him fall. If Big Sugar can buy off Harvard profs and their research so they blame fat for America's failing health ...Price is definitely fair game. And look...sugar still gets a free pass from most people.

I'm not defending Price. He's got a lawyer for that. Simply pointing out that beneath the surface, the world is a dirty place. When money and the status quo is involved I'm far slower to jump to conclusions.

Re: Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price resigns

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also answered the GP's question as to why we should care about this. If you're reading and seeing multiple stories all over the media about what a wonderful, altruistic person someone is, the information as to whether that person is in fact a great guy, or whether he's a predatory scumbag who is exploiting the media to make himself look great is very valuable. It tells you something about how the media works.

> a gear guy or a predatory scumbag You can be a terrible person and have great ideas/inventions. Steve jobs treated his family like shit, Nazis made many scientific discoveries, etc.

I think you can assassinate a wonderful idea by having the _wrong_ person present it. People rarely judge a thing on its inherent qualities.

Re: Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price resigns

#128

I hope this means he'll stop posting the 70k story every other day on LinkedIn. Only person I've ever had to block there. I didn't follow him, but too many 2nd+ degree connections liked his posts to make it too much for me.

Same here, he is my one and only LinkedIn block.

Given how anodyne (even if sometimes vapid) most LinkedIn activity is, it’s quite a feat of obnoxiousness to get yourself blocked on LinkedIn, of all places.

Re: Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price resigns

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt" is the gate for government violence, but as a society we operate on a very different standard, for very good reasons. Multiple credible accusations, corroborated by contemporaneous accounts, collated by a reputable journalist is definitely enough to call the accusations founded. Not enough to send people with guns to take away his freedom, maybe, but enough to fo…

> Multiple credible accusations, corroborated by contemporaneous accounts, collated by a reputable journalist is definitely enough to call the accusations founded. Journalists build a narrative and then find facts that fit their narrative. If you continue to form your opinions on accusation you will find yourself easily manipulated by those who know how journalism works.

For the record...that's not journalism. It might be reporting. It might be marketing. It might be character assassination.

But. It's not journalism.

We need to stop giving that type of behaviour a greater title than it deserves.

Re: Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price resigns

#130

Quoted post unavailable.

That's a legal principle which exists because of the incredibly high bar we want our governments to cross before they deprive people of their liberties. Individual citizens can believe whatever they want to believe.

Im pretty sure it was implemented because of the amount of mob justice that was going on during the period of the salem witch trials.
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