VCs are liars. And so am I. • Hacker News Board

Re: VCs are liars. And so am I.

#51

Post by seigenblues » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 10:58 PM UTC

jbreinlinger wrote: post #49

seigenblues wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't. I was writing a long post about how we think we're really good at detecting "important signals" like if someone's lying, but that we're actually terrible at it. But the new yorker article that was frontpaging yesterday should pretty much explain it, even though Jonah Lehrer is a bit smug for my tastes ;) TL;DR- the OP sounds like a very shallow-thinking VC who's blissfully unaware of his own biases. It…

Thanks for the feedback ;)

No problem :) I think you're catching enough flak for your over-50 comments below, so I didn't mention that one ;)

BTW, shallow thought wasn't meant as a derogative. It's what we monkeys do best, after all. It'll result in a different profile of swings, hits, & misses than other approaches, that's all.

(also, the irony that the new yorker article also suggests how we're really good at seeing the faults in others thought processes but not in our own is hi-larious)

Best of luck!

Re: VCs are liars. And so am I.

#52

Post by kposehn » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 11:24 PM UTC

mdda wrote: post #47

kposehn wrote: post #3

Interesting. To the author: I'd definitely want the blunt, unvarnished and harsh truth. No joke! The only way to get better is to get the truthful opinion of people that matter.

The problem with the standard "the truthful opinion of people that matter" is that if you don't like what you hear, you might just reclassify the speaker into the "people that don't matter" group. Even the statement of your enthusiasm for the unvarnished truth is a veiled threat... For this comment, all down-votes will be considered up-votes :-)

> The problem with the standard "the truthful opinion of people that matter" is that if you don't like what you hear, you might just reclassify the speaker into the "people that don't matter" group.

I've done that before - and it is one of the things I most regret. I ended a friendship because of that kind of mistake and swore to myself I'd never do that again.

After all, if I do that I'm exactly the kind of person I despise. How can I seek to improve myself if I won't listen when I might get butt-hurt from the words I hear?

> Even the statement of your enthusiasm for the unvarnished truth is a veiled threat...

I'm not sure how you figure that. It is actual enthusiasm, don't confuse it.

Re: VCs are liars. And so am I.

#53

Post by raffi » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 11:59 PM UTC

shrug I used to be part of the "please give me permission to start a business by letting me into your seed program" crowd. My company made it to the final round for a program and the end feedback was they didn't think we could deliver on what we were building.

At first, I took it as le insult. An insult against my mad pr0grammer skills.

In hindsight, I look at it as: my technology may have been OK, but it wasn't astounding enough to qualify as a revolution in the area and lead a big stampede to my door. It was a harder problem area (NLP). Something simpler with the same amount of persistence and execution may have led to much greater results.

In hindsight I appreciate the honesty. They saw it before I did.

The challenge is, people aren't ready to hear certain things until they're ready to hear it.

Re: VCs are liars. And so am I.

#54

Post by mikeleeorg » Thu, Jun 14, 2012, 12:59 AM UTC

While I totally understand the human nature behind it, I find it a shame that more investors don't offer personal criticism with their rejections. It's a great way for startup founders to grow their skills, at least when it comes to pitching to investors.

Re: VCs are liars. And so am I.

#55

Post by shard » Thu, Jun 14, 2012, 1:55 AM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #39

jerhewet wrote: post #16

> And I see the flip side, people that are past the age of 50 [...] are not capable of creating compelling social products. This tells me everything I need to know about this ass monkey.

Your ellipses excludes some important context: >people that are past the age of 50 and are trying to start a mobile, local, social startup but really are not capable Not "all people past the age of 50 -are- incapable", just people who are so incapable they don't recognize the credibility they lack due to external influential but not necessarily exclusive factors like their age, background, and appearance. I think all…

Ageism is just as inappropriate as sexism or racism. The tech industry seems to be going through growing pains with respect to sexism, but ageism is apparently still widely acceptable.

Re: VCs are liars. And so am I.

#56

Post by jayliew » Thu, Jun 14, 2012, 2:04 AM UTC

nirvana wrote: post #24

Dear OP: You always say the team is important. I couldn't agree with you more. The Team is important not only in the startup, but also in the group of people that make up your investors. Thus, given that we've decided your team is not strong enough to be investors in our company we're going to pass. In the future, it might be wise to hire partners who are not biased based on age, or prone to making decisions based on…

This response just proves the OP's point. Give him credit for opening up, instead of this response (which is not constructive), and comes off as an attack back at him.

For VCs to make money, they need to have as many founders like them, so they lie .. exactly because of responses like this. It does the VCs more harm to be honest with what they think[1], because it pisses off the founders.

[1] Sure they could be wrong about you (by passing on you), but nobody claims to be perfect. If you're just unable to accept rejection, then well, there's your first problem.

Re: VCs are liars. And so am I.

#57

Post by javajosh » Thu, Jun 14, 2012, 2:05 AM UTC

jbreinlinger wrote: post #49

seigenblues wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't. I was writing a long post about how we think we're really good at detecting "important signals" like if someone's lying, but that we're actually terrible at it. But the new yorker article that was frontpaging yesterday should pretty much explain it, even though Jonah Lehrer is a bit smug for my tastes ;) TL;DR- the OP sounds like a very shallow-thinking VC who's blissfully unaware of his own biases. It…

Thanks for the feedback ;)

There is a sense of sustained confidence, of inevitability, of capability, that investors must look for in their founders. A person like this is bound to have a history of success, large and small. They can't help it. And none of these qualities are correlated to personality type or financial status. Such people are simply incessant creators. They cannot stop creating. You might try to stop them creating, and they would still find a way to thwart you and create anyway.

My sense is that most wannabe entrepreneurs do not have these qualities. And without these qualities, it will be difficult to succeed even with a world-class idea, or with all the money in the world, or even with great intelligence and capability.

The helpful words from you, then, would be the ones that change the would-be entrepreneur into an incessant creator.

Let us assume that such words exist, and that the supplicant (and I use that word advisedly) implements them. I reckon it would take a year (or possibly less) to demonstrate that a sustained change has occurred, thanks to those words.

The question arises, of course: do such words exist, and if so, what are they?

Note that if you discover these words, then they will be worth, literally, many billions of dollars.

Re: VCs are liars. And so am I.

#58

Post by rexreed » Thu, Jun 14, 2012, 2:21 AM UTC

taskstrike wrote: post #34

nirvana wrote: post #24

Dear OP: You always say the team is important. I couldn't agree with you more. The Team is important not only in the startup, but also in the group of people that make up your investors. Thus, given that we've decided your team is not strong enough to be investors in our company we're going to pass. In the future, it might be wise to hire partners who are not biased based on age, or prone to making decisions based on…

Unfortunately, the market dynamic is that there are lot more startups looking for funding that VCs looking for startups to fund. The reverse rejection does not work in this case.

The general rule is that if you are looking for venture capital, rather than the other way around, you're either not going to get very far or get a good deal. In other words, it's better to be wanted than to want. And that is the fundamental truth of every market, including the ones of venture capital and personal relationships.

In those scenarios where a startup is being pursued rather than pursuing, I doubt VCs will spend as much time lying as they will trying to make themselves the darling to partner with. If you keep in mind that VCs are situational liars, then you can separate the mercenary deal-chasers from the real value-added partners. That is, the ones that treasure openness and honesty are to be favored over those that lie out of convenience or cowardliness (and freely admit to doing so).

Re: VCs are liars. And so am I.

#59

Post by sopooneo » Thu, Jun 14, 2012, 2:28 AM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #41

Most people should not be told just to give up completely. I'm not sure why the OP wants to focus on "you just don't have what it takes to run a company" instead of "your presentation skills were lacking, rehearse more", or something like that. For many entrepreneurs, the offense is not in "x needs improvement", but "We believe you are too stupid to improve on x". Even if you believe that, why not just say "x needs i…

If you actually are capable, and someone says otherwise, you will ignore them.

Re: VCs are liars. And so am I.

#60

Post by rexreed » Thu, Jun 14, 2012, 2:32 AM UTC

jayliew wrote: post #56

nirvana wrote: post #24

Dear OP: You always say the team is important. I couldn't agree with you more. The Team is important not only in the startup, but also in the group of people that make up your investors. Thus, given that we've decided your team is not strong enough to be investors in our company we're going to pass. In the future, it might be wise to hire partners who are not biased based on age, or prone to making decisions based on…

This response just proves the OP's point. Give him credit for opening up, instead of this response (which is not constructive), and comes off as an attack back at him. For VCs to make money, they need to have as many founders like them, so they lie .. exactly because of responses like this. It does the VCs more harm to be honest with what they think[1], because it pisses off the founders. [1] Sure they could be wrong…

I'm not sure I interpret the above post you respond to as an attack.

If I were to overly simplify, the summary of the OP Post is: "We reserve the right to lie, because we feel you can't handle the truth"

And many entrepreneurs respond: "If you can't feel fit to tell me the truth, then we don't have a relationship based on trust. And that means, there is no relationship."

If the OP's opinion is honest and forthright (ironic given that it is asserting a right to lie), then the entrepreneur's response is just as justified in being honest and forthright (we reserve the right to not work with liars).

If the desire to lie on the part of the VC is simply to avoid the pain of dealing with upset enterpreneurs or the potential of burning bridges, then they need to accept that they may offend other entrepreneurs who more value honesty over lying for the sake of avoiding hurt feelings.