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What I’ve learned from users

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I’ve learned from users

#321

Post by sleepdreamy »

Scoundreller wrote: post #283
scruple wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My last 2 vehicle purchases (2014 and 2021) were through internet sales managers. I told them what I wanted, when I was intending to buy, that I had sent the same e-mail to every $MAKE dealership from San Diego to San Francisco, and that whoever had the best offer was getting my money. It was a painless experience both times.

My friend tried to do this with a Subaru and got nowhere. But it was in 2018 I think. Nothing to lose with the strategy, but it is societal economic situation and demand of car dependent.

Agree. I've heard of this going very well, and other times you get zero bites. I think the courtesy/approach of the email also determines if this works or not.

If you start off combative I think its much less likely to go well.

I just let my fiancée know recently that this is how I intend to purchase our next vehicle. Strictly through email until the day I go to pick it up in person. If they say 'You have to come in' to talk price I am going to hang up immediately and call the next dealer on my list.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#322

Post by fuckstick »

caminante wrote: post #318
fuckstick wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting more irrelevant to the thread, but it’s highly unlikely “inability” to pass a step exam was the reason for exiting medicine. The first pass rate for US MDs is 95-97%. American medical school is designed to make it highly unlikely you will not pass those tests. You could also retake it up to 5 times. The real issue is that failing a step exam or passing with a lower score (once passed you can never ret…

>This is getting more irrelevant to the thread Maybe not the thread, but certainly relevant to the top commenter's story, which sounds really embellished. "Failing the MCAT" (?) -> "Failing boards as dropout reason" (?) ... And top commenter is all over the thread, trying to win people back after folks point out these oddities. Seems like a lot of effort. Either top commenter is the car sales messiah or embellishing…

I didn’t necessarily think of that as an oddity though. There’s a lot of stigma associated with dropping out of something like medicine combined with very few people out of medicine knowing any details of the training and licensure process. That said, the overwhelming likely scenario is either quitting or getting kicked out and using the “board” failure as a cover (colloquially doctors hardly ever call them boards in the US, they just call them “step”. Boards usually refer to exams taken for specialities after one is licensed and has completed residency). Regardless of the posters possible embellishments I wouldn’t expect them to know any of this. Also some people assume it’s like law where there’s some type of bar exam with a terrible first pass rate. There isn’t. Specialty board exams have lower pass rates, but failing those won’t prevent you from being a licensed practicing physician.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#323

Post by PNWChris »

fuckstick wrote: post #314
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate that you understood exactly what I meant, giving a medschool outsider some benefit of the doubt. Yes it was one of the board exams he couldn't pass. Others instantly assumed I was lying or exaggerating, as if I need some street cred on an anonymous 1 week old throwaway account.

This is getting more irrelevant to the thread, but it’s highly unlikely “inability” to pass a step exam was the reason for exiting medicine. The first pass rate for US MDs is 95-97%. American medical school is designed to make it highly unlikely you will not pass those tests. You could also retake it up to 5 times. The real issue is that failing a step exam or passing with a lower score (once passed you can never ret…

Ah, great points! The person may have said it was an exam to keep the explanation simple for others.

Perhaps they didn’t match (entirely didn’t match or couldn’t match where they needed to be for family/some obligation), burnt out, etc.

There’s tons of reasons one may not make it all the way through, though it is quite rare if you grind hard enough and are adequately flexible RE residency location and stuff. The system wants you to finish once you’re in med school, since med schools and residencies are measured by completion rates and similar success metics.

Medicine is a really tough thing to get in to, and I don’t think people fully grasp that as they apply for med school. It looks prestigious from the outside, but is financially draining for a long time and is extremely inflexible (find out where you match and move with only ~3 months notice?! Who thinks that’s acceptable in the modern world of two working spouses?).

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#324

Post by hinkley »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #196
hinkley wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the whole thing with VC is that they've somehow figured out how to make money while being wrong 90% of the time. With those sorts of numbers, are you really doing much better than random chance? I think your main goal is not finding who knows the Answer, but to identify who's lying about it. With those sorts of volumes of money you're going to attract fraud, and fraud can quickly break "throwing darts at a board"…

"being wrong 90% of the time." They are not wrong 90% of the time. They place correct bets on correct companies, 90% of which will fail. This does not make them wrong, it makes them excellent gamblers. If I'm getting 100:1 odds to roll snake-eyes (two 1's), that's a great bet, and a correct one, and I am not wrong to take it, even though I'll lose money the vast majority of the time.

> They place correct bets on correct companies, 90% of which will fail.

It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the bottom?

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#325

Post by omgwtfbyobbq »

Scoundreller wrote: post #281
omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish that was the case. The dealership experience seems designed to maximize the pressure and extract as much value from customers as possible. My first Toyota dealer experience was offering to buy a car at advertised price, and them refusing/countering with a lease. We just walked out. Based on that, I waited until Toyota offered pretty good unadvertised discounts and called up a bunch of dealers with an offer/car…

> I got the car my wife and I wanted for $1k more than my offer, which was I think $9k less than MSRP I think these numbers are better represented in percents rather than absolutes. $9k less than msrp on a Corolla seems unobtainium.

Oh yeah, it was on a plug-in prius. MSRP was I think 37K and we paid 28k. It was something like $6k in manufacturer credits because sales had stalled after Toyota ran out of carpool stickers. The dealer only knocked off $3k, and I'm sure they still made money on the sale.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#326

Post by caminante »

fuckstick wrote: post #322
caminante wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is getting more irrelevant to the thread Maybe not the thread, but certainly relevant to the top commenter's story, which sounds really embellished. "Failing the MCAT" (?) -> "Failing boards as dropout reason" (?) ... And top commenter is all over the thread, trying to win people back after folks point out these oddities. Seems like a lot of effort. Either top commenter is the car sales messiah or embellishing…

I didn’t necessarily think of that as an oddity though. There’s a lot of stigma associated with dropping out of something like medicine combined with very few people out of medicine knowing any details of the training and licensure process. That said, the overwhelming likely scenario is either quitting or getting kicked out and using the “board” failure as a cover (colloquially doctors hardly ever call them boards in…

Wayyy off topic, but here are some thoughts.

> There’s a lot of stigma associated with dropping out of something like medicine...

Sure, there's external stigma, but IMO, the larger driver for stigma is self-imposed. Med school enrollees are filled with "most likely to exceed" personalities who are harder on themselves and catastrophize a minor setback v. peers as "the end of the world."

> (colloquially doctors hardly ever call them boards in the US, they just call them “step”.

Anecdotally, I've only heard friends in medicine (US) refer to them (the USMLE exam[0] and steps) as "boards," while in med school. I'm sure that some call them steps, too. I'm also aware of post-residency/fellowship specialty boards. Those are usually singular because you only need one and sometimes they're oral, like a thesis defense where you get grilled on a schedule of of your cases over the past couple years.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Medical_Licensin...

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#327

Post by phpthrowaway99 »

caminante wrote: post #318
fuckstick wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting more irrelevant to the thread, but it’s highly unlikely “inability” to pass a step exam was the reason for exiting medicine. The first pass rate for US MDs is 95-97%. American medical school is designed to make it highly unlikely you will not pass those tests. You could also retake it up to 5 times. The real issue is that failing a step exam or passing with a lower score (once passed you can never ret…

>This is getting more irrelevant to the thread Maybe not the thread, but certainly relevant to the top commenter's story, which sounds really embellished. "Failing the MCAT" (?) -> "Failing boards as dropout reason" (?) ... And top commenter is all over the thread, trying to win people back after folks point out these oddities. Seems like a lot of effort. Either top commenter is the car sales messiah or embellishing…

Can you think of any possible reason I would do this on a basically new account, labeled throwaway, basically making it worthless as a long term account anyway?

Furthermore, I said early on I was top 1% in the country (for my brand atleast, which already only hires 'better' and experienced salespeople) and later narrowed it down to the most accurate at 0.3%.

But let's say I'm lying.. for fun I suppose? Doesn't everything I wrote apply to someone that actually IS top 1% in car sales? Even if I didn't sell 30 cars a month for 10 years, surely you don't deny someone does that? And even if you'd argue that "no, no one can sell 30 cars a month for years!!"... Doesn't the entire point of my original message still stand.. even a salesperson that is just average will still make tens of thousands of calls, practice thousands of closes, see how thousands of people act as they try to negotiate or stall...

Are you implying top sales people don't exist, or that one wouldn't be on hacker News, or that I was simply not one because of the way I write things?

Ps, if you check my post history, you'll see I went to Cal as an ME, and recently self taught and wrote an entire Saas in shitty php that 30+ companies pay for happily. Unless that is ALSO made up, doesn't that sound exactly like the type of person that would probably outperform the average car sales person?

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#328

Post by caminante »

phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #327
caminante wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is getting more irrelevant to the thread Maybe not the thread, but certainly relevant to the top commenter's story, which sounds really embellished. "Failing the MCAT" (?) -> "Failing boards as dropout reason" (?) ... And top commenter is all over the thread, trying to win people back after folks point out these oddities. Seems like a lot of effort. Either top commenter is the car sales messiah or embellishing…

Can you think of any possible reason I would do this on a basically new account, labeled throwaway, basically making it worthless as a long term account anyway? Furthermore, I said early on I was top 1% in the country (for my brand atleast, which already only hires 'better' and experienced salespeople) and later narrowed it down to the most accurate at 0.3%. But let's say I'm lying.. for fun I suppose? Doesn't everyt…

> Can you think of any possible reason I would do this on a basically new account, labeled throwaway, basically making it worthless as a long term account anyway?

On first order principles, I reject your premises that "throwaway" account names make accounts worthless in the long run. There are tons of counter-factual examples, e.g., "ironic name."

> Ps, if you check my post history, you'll see

See, this is circular reasoning. If your account is "worthless," what incentive do you have to be reliable/honest?

What's interesting is that I think you know these counter-arguments and are trying to steer away from them.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#329

Post by phpthrowaway99 »

rchaud wrote: post #311
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car salespeople say a lot of culturally inappropriate things constantly to each other. The sales manager I mentioned constantly referenced himself being a Jewish accountant to us as a fun way to remind us he's good at his job. Somehow it stuck and I guess I forgot even positive stereotypes are now allowed. I have to admit, the fun banter between salespeople and even management is the #1 thing I miss these days.

> guess I forgot even positive stereotypes are now allowed. could have been avoided had you said something like "we had a Jewish accountant, as he often liked to remind us" or something that didn't imply that you personally attached some elevated level of job competence based on his choice of holy book(s).

Isn't Jewish also a race, not just a choice of holy books? When he said it I assume he meant it regarding the race, not that reading the Torah makes you better with numbers.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#330

Post by phpthrowaway99 »

caminante wrote: post #328
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you think of any possible reason I would do this on a basically new account, labeled throwaway, basically making it worthless as a long term account anyway? Furthermore, I said early on I was top 1% in the country (for my brand atleast, which already only hires 'better' and experienced salespeople) and later narrowed it down to the most accurate at 0.3%. But let's say I'm lying.. for fun I suppose? Doesn't everyt…

> Can you think of any possible reason I would do this on a basically new account, labeled throwaway, basically making it worthless as a long term account anyway? On first order principles, I reject your premises that " throwaway " account names make accounts worthless in the long run. There are tons of counter-factual examples, e.g., "ironic name." > Ps, if you check my post history, you'll see See, this is circular…

No, I didn't know of apparently a popular user named ironic name. However, I'd still argue that ironic name is just a username like most. A username that says throwaway in the actual username is always going to be considered basically trollish imo and serves no real purpose of building a reputation around. What, am I going to magically turn this into a network play to land a VP of sales job somewhere?

And to your second point, that while obviously there is no proof of anything by just reading my post history, you'd have to be slightly crazy to think I started a new account recently, and from the FIRST post dreamt up an elaborate plan to seem like a php Saas creating, Berkeley grad, top salesperson persona..

And to think, you caught me in my massive lie because I mistook the MCAT exam for board exams! Something no regular person would EVER do.

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