
Not being an asshole will make you more money - dumbfoundded
https://www.atlassquats.com/post/not-being-an-asshole-will-make-you-more-money
======
seanhunter
I have an example. In a previous role was in a position where we were
negotiating a large-ish (>1M USD) multi-year contract when our client asked us
to also do a proof of concept about some topic. It was just 1 week or 2 weeks
so I said it would be free but because of various regulatory stuff we needed a
contract in place.

I was dealing with the same purchasing lawyer on both contracts. The process
was super-standard: someone sends a first draft, the other side redlines
(proposes changes and makes comments), then the first team redline, etc, at
some point you all compromise a bit and someone makes a clean copy of the
document containing all the agreed changes for everyone to sign. So we got to
the point we had all agreed and the purchasing lawyer on the other side
produced the "clean copy" but he obviously thought we were a bunch of rubes so
he produced a clean copy for us to sign by backing out all of our changes and
only putting in his changes. This is a ridiculously low-integrity bush-league
stunt and he did it on the zero-cost POC contract while we were still
negotiating the >1m big contract.

Some people just want to win so bad it doesn't even matter to them that they
are being total assholes, the prize is zero and it's outright harmful to their
own interests. I bet he cheats when playing his own kids at boardgames.

~~~
meritt
> by backing out all of our changes and only putting in his changes

That so feels like a mistake because that's the sort of tactic that would
completely and utterly remove their capability of ever working as a corporate
lawyer ever again for any company.

If that genuinely happened, that lawyer needs to be disbarred, but that's a
pretty damn egregious accusation.

~~~
RobertRoberts
> That so feels like a mistake...

Easy to test.

1\. Send back the document he sent with a copy of your most recent edits and
ask him to confirm if his document is correct.

2\. But, make note of at ONE error, and see if he fixes all of them.

3\. If he only fixes only the one, then he's either really lazy or trying to
keep up the deceit.

4\. Repeat steps 1 to 3, be sure to CC everyone involved. If he's lazy he will
be ashamed and be more careful. If he's a sneaky bastard he will most likely
get angry.

Not foolproof, but will sure make everyone aware of what is going on.
(regardless of the motives)

~~~
lowdose
You must have had your share of weasels during contract negotiations.

~~~
RobertRoberts
I have dealt with some horrible people over the years. It's incredible what
they will do to get away with stuff.

Standing your ground while maintaining a logical and rational approach is the
only way to deal with them.

Most of them like a fight, so you simply can't pick one with them.

~~~
mikekchar
Assuming there is an external person arbitrating (which is usually the case
when dealing with internal politics at least -- one or two levels up from
you), it's _so_ important in these cases to stay reasonable. Virtually every
single time, the person that likes to fight will cross the line in the hopes
of goading you into a fight. But it's exactly at that time that you win. You
send a very reasonable email to the arbitrating person saying, "I'm really
trying my best to get this working, but I'm having trouble. Could you please
give me a hand." Since the arbitrating person really would rather do nothing,
they will look at the situation and say, "A is completely reasonable. B is
not. B, you need to change."

I remember one time where I was discussing a problem with a manager in another
team. Every single email he sent, he CC'd the management 2 levels up. Every
single email I sent, I sent directly to him only. My colleague was panicking.
He felt that I _needed_ to show my side of the story to upper management or
else I would be in trouble.

Eventually the management 2 levels up got frustrated: "Why am I getting all of
these emails? Why can't you people sort out this problem yourself?" To which I
reasonably replied, "I'm very sorry that you've been bothered, and I'm not
sure why this person is being so difficult. Now that you are here, would you
mind giving us a hand?" Problem solved.

~~~
RobertRoberts
You have a good point about CC'ing too many people. And that care should be
taken when including others in a discussion that could affect their
reputation.

Thanks for pointing this out.

------
ta1234567890
A few years ago I started a company, then raised money through convertible
notes. By the time the notes were due (2 years), we weren't ready to raise a
round yet, so all investors extended their notes. All except one.

The investor that didn't want to extend the note was also the CEO of the
company that was our largest client, so not only did he call his note, he also
ended his company's contract, making a huge hole in our revenue.

After doing that, and knowing that the company would be struggling
financially, he sued, forcing the company into bankruptcy.

From the beginning we tried negotiating a payment plan or some other form of
compensation, to no avail. Although at some point he did "offer" to completely
take over the company and fire the founders (which we of course refused).

During bankruptcy, he took over the assets of the company while also giving us
and the trustee a hard time.

Now, after having ruined the jobs of everyone that worked at our company plus
the potential upside of all the other investors and shareholders, he is suing
me and my cofounder personally.

The company closed 2 years ago and it looks like this new lawsuit will take
another 2 years. Also no one knows if this guy is going to stop at that.

Be very careful about doing business with assholes, especially if they have a
lot of money and you will be taking any type of potential liability (e.g.
debt) in their favor, even if it's not personal liability, they might still
try to go after you and make your life miserable.

~~~
swsieber
Is it possible for you to name said investor such that people know to stay
away from said investor?

~~~
ta1234567890
As user volkk said, unfortunately it would be legally risky for me to disclose
the identity of the investor. Which is pretty frustrating, because then you
realize that when someone does something bad to you (legally/morally), there
are very few (legal) ways to remedy it, especially if they have a lot more
money than you.

I can say that he's not based in the Bay Area, so if you are raising money
there it is very unlikely you will run into him.

I can also say that our best investors were RightSide Capital, based out of
SF. They supported us throughout the whole ordeal with the company and even
offered to buy out the other guy. They also said that, out of 600+ investments
they had done at the time, they had never seen another investor act the way
ours did.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
> even offered to buy out the other guy

Why didn't this happen? That seems like an obvious outcome of the situation,
unless losing the big client is enough to effectively destroy the company.

~~~
kelnos
From the tone of OP's story, it seems like the other guy probably wouldn't've
agreed to the buyout; seems like he had an axe to grind.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
But does that matter? The other guy didn't have shares, he was owed money. If
the investor provides money, there's enough money to pay the other guy off...

------
papito
The most common difference between us peasants and the people of means is that
those other people ASK more often. Ask for more money, ask for a bonus, ask
for lower rent. And then it adds up.

The one thing that holds most of us back is shame. But shame is a good thing
in general. It's the glue that keeps societies together, preventing them from
spiraling down to the lowest common denominator.

Questionable if this still works nowadays. But, anyway, the trick is to uncork
some of that shame is small doses and be a little bit selfish every once in a
while.

~~~
Ididntdothis
I often ask people who are complaining about their salary whether have asked
for a raise. Most of the time the answer is “no” followed by reasons like “I
am afraid to get fired” or “they will make my life miserable” or “they should
just do the right thing”.

~~~
papito
Exactly. 9 out of 10 managers will give you more money. They are not going to
_offer_ it to you, normally, because they are not a charity. They want to give
you the least amount of money that you will except.

Secondly, who ever gets fired for asking for a raise? I mean, that is not
normal. And if that does happen to you, it's most likely of some other
underlying factors, where asking for a raise is just the last drop.

~~~
bradlys
> Exactly. 9 out of 10 managers will give you more money.

I don't know - man. I've worked at a lot of places and this doesn't seem to be
a common thing. It could be I've just worked at a lot of bad places but still.
Asking for more isn't enough. It has to be the threat of leaving in order to
get them to give more. At which point - the advice now for managers is, if
they're threatening to leave unless you pay more then just let them leave.

~~~
tunesmith
I've always thought a "threat" of leaving is a meaningless concept. It's
either a bluff or it isn't. Most straightforward way to handle it is to find
another offer that you will legitimately take if you don't get a sufficient
salary bump, and communicate that there aren't any hard feelings, you just
need what the new employer will pay you. If your manager refuses, you move,
and if he bumps your salary or counteroffers, you can reassess. This is really
the only way to handle it if you want to keep things simple. Or, you can
bluff.

~~~
joshspankit
(Citation needed) I read recently that shopping for an offer, leveraging it
for a raise, and then staying was actually the wrong move. It essentially
started a countdown to them letting you go.*

* _If you’re indispensable, the rules may not apply to you_

~~~
tunesmith
Yeah, as a rule of thumb. Ultimately it's all about leverage over time. If
you're temporarily indispensable and now more expensive, but still replaceable
for cheaper in the medium term, that's not a great situation for you to be in.
On the other hand, if you really do have that other offer, you have a signal
that that might be what you're worth in the open market. And if everyone
starts getting more expensive, then employers simply have to adjust over time.

------
duxup
Kinda off topic but other side of the coin, befriending the asshole:

At my first job there was this grizzly old engineer who was known for being
pretty surly, but knew the code base almost as if by memory, and the behavior
of the code. He was bothered by anything and everything and really just wanted
to run out the clock and go home and work in his wood shop.

I was in support and nobody wanted to go to him for help, but man you had to
sometimes. I read something about guys like that being really particular about
things so I just made a long list of what he was annoyed that people didn't
bring him (information wise) and how they brought it to him when people or I
did go to him.

Most importantly I'd make a point that he would see that I brought him
information (about customer problems) based on his past feedback.

Eventually over the course of months he warmed to me and I could get his help
bringing him virtually nothing and he wouldn't complain. Dude was still
annoyed for not getting a mountain of information from other techs, but not so
much me. People there for 10 years would get a "Have Mark look at it first."
talk from him... I had been there for 9 months.

For him it was about getting to know people and trust that they would bother
to get him what he needed, once you proved that, he didn't so much care.

~~~
itwy
Not a native speaker but shouldn't grizzly above be grizzled? :)

~~~
mewse
If you go by the dictionary, "grizzled" and "grizzly" both have the same
meaning; having grey hair.

In common use, though, "grizzled" is generally used to imply "old" or even
"unkempt", and "grizzly" is generally used to imply "bad-tempered" (probably
alluding to the behaviour of the "grizzly bear")

..in this case, according to the story, either word would apply!

~~~
itwy
Got it, thanks.

------
DoreenMichele
There are basically two ways to make money:

1\. Add value so there is more pie to go around and get your cut of it.

2\. Extract value from what already exists. You get yours, but other people
tend to get screwed over.

If you aren't doing the first, you are probably doing the second. This is not
really a good long term strategy.

~~~
dumbfoundded
I appreciate this concise framing. I do think it gets more complicated than
this though.

Defining the pie gets really complicated. Sometimes you make one pie bigger
and another smaller. Companies like Lyft certainly decreased the taxi pie but
then made a new one altogether.

I believe there are fair ways to extract value from what already exists by
creating a better version in a competitive market. Ultimately I think the
value should be defined at the customer and societal levels. The tangents and
levels in between make things messy.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_I believe there are fair ways to extract value from what already exists by
creating a better version in a competitive market._

Adding efficiency is a means to add more pie.

Obviously, my comment is a simplification. It kind of goes without saying that
simplifications leave out a lot of nuance and gray zone.

~~~
dumbfoundded
Yeah, I didn't mean to add unnecessary complexity. I agree with your original
statement.

------
rs23296008n1
I've met plenty of assholes. They're rich and getting richer.

Being an asshole is like emitting a poison: at certain doses other people are
fine. As it increases they become more transactional* until they shut down or
let the relationship die. But this doesn't stop a lot from getting rich.

Assholes do get "handled" however. Often it is used against them. But does
this matter to them? Probably not to the extent you would expect. A lot of
assholes hide their ways until they pounce.

Being an asshole pays well. Does that make it ok? No. Does it matter to them?
Likely not: they're assholes.

The real lesson is to learn not to include assholes in your inner circle. And
make it hard for them to join or get too close. There are benefits to not
being an asshole.

All that said, there are benefits to _having_ an asshole. Shit needs to go
through somewhere. _And particular people are well suited to it. Let them._
Some deals go better when done between assholes.

* Or they're like a hot oven. We will tolerate the heat because we like cookies. But won't leave our hands in there too long or unprotected. We will turn the oven off completely when we don't need cookies. Transaction complete, cut ties. We might come up with ways to reduce exposure down to minimal levels. We'll wear gloves. Less time spent. Or we'll find a better oven with a better door and insulated handles.

------
koheripbal
The major flaw in this article is that it does not defined what constitutes
"asshole" behavior.

There is a difference, for example, between being vindictive towards others,
and simply pushing people out of their comfort zone.

The term "asshole" is so vague that it borders on useless.

~~~
commandlinefan
Even if you could come up with a good definition, it would still be a silly
assertion. He’s wrong: not being an asshole won’t make you more money. Being
an asshole will also not make you more money. How nice or not nice you are to
other people is almost entirely unrelated to how much money you make.

~~~
illumanaughty
It's not a silly assertion, it's just that you've taken silly things away from
this article. He's asserting that if you're too self interested / lack empathy
you will hurt yourself in the long run.

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
It's ludicrous, not just silly. People are talking here like this is a study
that can be verified.

It is a random person ranting and completely subjective.

------
chrisbennet
I had a clients contract that had this in it:

"Recover any and all actual, incidental and consequential damages to XYZ,
_including but not limited to actual or estimated loss of profits_ and sales
and costs to cover, attorney’s fees and costs.."

I wrote back: "Nice try but yeah, no. ;-) "

(My lawyer fixed all these overreaches and they were a great client.)

As an aside my lawyer told me that when you a drafting a contract with someone
you want to work with, its best to be fair. If you don't, you're starting the
relationship where the counter-party doesn't trust you. After all, you tried
to screw them the very first chance you had.

~~~
fred_is_fred
If you are replying to clients like that then I am glad you have a lawyer.

~~~
chrisbennet
Lawyers are good tool in our business. If someone gives me a one page "mutual
NDA" I can handle it myself.

If I get 9 pages of "our standard contract" and I read it through, ask if I
can make changes and if they say yes, I give it to my lawyer.

For that contract I actually wrote back this:

 _Who signs these “standard contracts”?_

~~~
fred_is_fred
I was thinking of the legal ambiguity of reply with "but yeah, no". Perhaps
you were paraphrasing.

~~~
chrisbennet
When you have they whole email, there isn't any ambiguity. :-)

This is the whole email:

"Hi Guys,

Who signs these “standard contracts”?

4.2. In the event the Provider is in breach of any of the representations or
warranties set forth in Section 4.1 above, in addition to any other remedies
IPG may have under this Agreement, IPG, at its sole option and without
incurring any liability, may: (d) _Recover any and all actual, incidental and
consequential damages to IPG, including but not limited to actual or estimated
loss of profits and sales_ and costs to cover, attorney’s fees and costs;

Nice try but yeah, no. ;-)

If I can strike out the unreasonable parts we can probably come to some
agreement.

-Chris"

------
jariel
I don't see any evidence to support the assertion unfortunately :)

Also, the huge difference between emotional/perceptive aggression, and actual
aggression.

There are loud, crude people who like to push for a fair deal, or who are not
aggressive terms.

There are 'nice', cunning manipulative people who seek excessive terms.

There are actually truly nice people, who push for assertive terms, not
realising how far they are going.

And of course, there's mostly tons of misinterpretations: people who have
totally different needs, perspective, expectations with respect to how to go
about a situation. A founder seeing aggression might actually be an investor
taking a perfectly normative demand.

But yes, I've seen utter stupidity in deal making.

Relationships do matter, and you need a working agreement with whoever you're
working with, investors included.

~~~
seventytwo
I think you’re missing the point.

Make “rising tide lifts all boats” deals. Here, you’re entering in a deal to
create additional value to the world.

Don’t make deals with a zero-sum outlook. Here, you’re entering into a deal
for, at best, a transfer of existing value within the world.

~~~
munificent
That is the point of the article, yes. But it doesn't offer _evidence_ that
that is a _financially_ better strategy.

It is self-evidently morally better, of course. And it may be financially
better too. But the article just flatly claims it in a number of single-
sentence paragraphs without communicating any real data.

------
tlb
Don't respond to emails from random people trying to buy your business.
They're all scammy.

If you respond to these, or offers to re-fi your house, or help someone move
their royal fortune out of Nigeria, you're indeed going to be dealing with
assholes.

If you want to sell your business, take charge and run a competitive bidding
process. But ignore unsolicited offers.

~~~
dumbfoundded
It's tough when someone in your industry with a big name reaches out but in
general, you're right. Very rarely do people come to you with good intentions.
You generally have to seek out good people.

------
miguelmota
The term asshole is very subjective; some people will perceive being candid
and telling it how it is as being mean while others love the
straightforwardness. Bosses have to put emotions aside to think more logically
and that comes off as unsympathetic when talking to employees or partners.
Steve Jobs was known to not have been the nicest guy yet he’s praised all the
time.

~~~
jschwartzi
You're talking about being nice, not being an asshole. Assholes are people who
come in and shit all over everything instead of trying to play fair. People
who are not nice can be fair. Take as an analogy the difference between social
class and economic class, and how people can have a social class that's
different from their economic class.

~~~
miguelmota
Being apathetic and selfish are some attributes that both assholes and top
billionaires exhibit. I'd say it’s not so black and white and people will
perceive what being nice means to them differently depending on their social
economic status since people of lower economic status tend to be more
susceptible to emotions than a business person.

~~~
jschwartzi
Yeah, I was trying to use social and economic class as a metaphor for asshole
versus not-nice. Because it's easy to conflate the two in both cases.

------
angarg12
I don't own a business, but I have encountered these behaviours at a smaller
scale.

Now I think about this situation as a variation of the prisoners dilemma. If
both parties play nice, each one gets a smaller payoff. If one is an asshole
and the other is nice, the asshole gets a bigger payoff (by shafting the nice
party). This article proposes that being nice is beneficial for all parties in
the long term. That holds true also in the prisoners dilemma, if the game
repeats over time.

Now, why do people still act that way? One option, as this article presumes,
is that people are simply not aware that is the best option in the long term.

The second, most insidious option, is that they are aware, and do it in
purpose. Maybe the world is still big enough that you can play a first game
with different people until your fame catches up. Maybe the payoff for being
an asshole is so high that a single win is enough to retire.

~~~
dumbfoundded
Sometimes I feel like humans do not understand that we're the prisoners and
nature is the police.

Nature does not care about killing us. The universe will feel no remorse if an
asteroid kills us all or we do it ourselves with nukes. Corona doesn't feel
shame.

We're prisoners in so many ways. When are we going to start cooperating to try
to escape our death sentence? Or are we content to fight each other over
scraps while we await our fate?

~~~
solatic
> Sometimes I feel like humans do not understand that we're the prisoners and
> nature is the police.

Understanding that cooperation provides higher benefit to players compared to
competition requires prior education among the players. It is literally part
of any Introduction to Economics course.

The problem is a) under-education b) irrational players.

------
jacquesm
Most of the billionaires are assholes and/or criminals with a couple of
noteworthy exceptions. So maybe not being an asshole will get you ahead in the
middle but it won't get you all the way to the top of the foodchain.

So this is solid advice, but unfortunately the role models are exactly those
people that didn't follow this sort of advice. Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle,
Apple, Google and Facebook all would not have been as large and would not
generate as much money for their founders if the founders had been nice guys.
Fortunately we also have Woz and a couple of others like him to balance things
out a bit.

~~~
nhumrich
Wait.. are you saying bill gates is an asshole?

~~~
superhuzza
I wouldn't classify him as an asshole, but he definitely wasn't always the
nicest guy:

[https://www.gq.com/story/young-bill-gates-was-an-angry-
offic...](https://www.gq.com/story/young-bill-gates-was-an-angry-office-bully)

------
jdkee
Encouraging human interactions to operate along chimp-like hierarchies instead
of bonobo-like co-ops is why we see this behaviour everywhere.

[https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Science/Study-compares-
peac...](https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Science/Study-compares-peaceful-
bonobos-to-aggressive-chimps)

------
circlefavshape
Reputation information doesn't always flow freely.

After agreeing the purchase of the site for the house I'm now sitting in, the
sellers changed their asking price, tried to pull out of the sale after we got
planning permission, accused us of swindling them, and the night before we
fenced the property moved the boundary markers.

When it was all done and dusted one of our neighbours said "it's great to see
someone getting the better of $FAMILY_X". Seems like we weren't entitled to
access to their reputations until we'd started to build the house, and became
true locals

------
projektfu
Some examples of the term sheets would have been nice. But it's so true that
people are often wasting your time trying to secure a win for themselves only.
It makes me think about good recruiters and bad recruiters. The good ones want
to find a great fit for the position and have a reputation for getting good
salaries for the people they place. The bad ones want to undercut the other
recruiters and try to convince the candidate to accept a lousy offer. I'm sure
the candidates are perfectly able to do that themselves.

------
mikekij
I totally agree. A business school professor of mine, Stuart Diamond, wrote a
book called Getting More about using these ideas in negotiation. His theory is
that you should always be leaving money on the table. If you're not, you're
playing the short game.

[https://www.amazon.com/Getting-More-Negotiate-Succeed-
Work/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Getting-More-Negotiate-Succeed-
Work/dp/0307716902)

~~~
fuzzfactor
When both parties leave a representative but not show-stopping amount of money
on the table intentionally, this can potentiate exponential growth like
nothing else.

Effectively each group gets to focus on efforts & shape the outcome in pursuit
of mutual growth, with a non-lopsided good-faith buffer to start with,
compared to predatory terms.

The reduction in risk and increase in functional leverage is phenomenal.

Alternatively, with a ruthless arrangement, there will be opportunity-sucking
or destructive imbalances for operations across a financial spectrum, whether
prosperous or underperforming at the time. Greedy ars'les thrive making
surplus look & act like shortage.

------
nitwit005
Unfortunately, you'll find people often respect assholes. Look no further than
how people are outright worshipful of successful criminals.

Some people also seem to learn how to capitalize on their poor reputations. If
you're well known in an industry, even for something bad, you can often get
people to talk to you.

------
chiefalchemist
> Smart successful people do not want to work with people they cannot trust.
> It's not worth it. The world's too big. You'll only ever whittle away your
> reputation until you're surrounded by mirrors of yourself. It's not worth
> it.

This can also be said for the hiring of talent. But these hiring people aren't
only aholes, plenty of them are simply plain ol' dumbasses.

Of course you're not getting the best people, you're sending up red flags like
fireworks on 4th of July.

------
crimsonalucard
I want to see stats for this. There's an evolutionary reason why ass holes
exist and they exist because the ass hole strategy is viable. Good people
exist too, also because there is viability in the good strategy as well.

------
TeMPOraL
Of course it won't. Otherwise the advertising industry wouldn't exist.

More than that. In general, the market rewards being asshole and borderline
fraudster. Reputation is a thing within smaller groups, but what matters is
primarily reputation related to your behavior _towards your peers in that
group_. And if your peer group is composed of assholes, then being an asshole
is a positive trait as long as you're not an asshole towards members of that
group.

Another thing: when you're a no-name upstart, reputation matters little
because nobody knows you. When you're a large, successful business, any bad
reputation can be compensated by proportionate spending on PR and advertising.

Yet another thing: in B2C, consumers often don't have a meaningful choice. An
individual is juggling _a lot_ of different priorities in their lives, not
least of which is "saving money" and "buying stuff one likes". So e.g. Coca-
Cola does a pretty lot of evil stuff, but people have strong taste preferences
in the product category Coca-Cola sells, so nobody really boycotts them. Or,
pretty much every major brand of smartphones is doing evil things, and every
major telco provider is filled with assholes - yet as a citizen of the western
world, I really _do_ need to have a smartphone. So I have to choose _someone_.
Or, a grocery store next to the place I used to live would wash stale meat
with detergent and sell as fresh. This lands straight into asshole category,
but I still went there, because a) it was the closest store, and b) I have no
guarantee other stores don't do the same (and plenty of reasons to suspect
they do).

And yet another thing: taking VC investments; when investors come knocking for
their returns, plenty of startups are forced to become assholes.

\--

TL;DR: The market rewards assholes. If you're not an asshole, your competitors
will force you to either become one, or get marginalized. There's an excellent
essay that goes into details about the mechanics of that:
[https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-
moloch/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/).

~~~
dillonmckay
Was Food Lion the meat bleacher?

------
voodootrucker
As long as the fed is printing fake money, money is essentially free to those
with good credit, and it makes sense to do all the things described by the OP.
Someone will bite, and you may as well make the money.

One day, I hope for a society where money is a real measure of productivity
and all the things the OP said will be 100% valid. This is not that day.

------
bitxbit
I think this is being naive. You can wreck your career this way. You can be
very talented but get screwed over if you are not aware of the people around
you. In sense you need to have an “asshole” radar on at all times and be ready
to respond in kind. Personally, this is exhausting.

~~~
eric234223
You can't change an asshole but you need to be more asshole to an asshole in
order to inspire respect among peers and people around you. In my career
before i get promoted i was already a go to guy among my peers because people
knew i don't expect sympathy from an asshole and push their ideas if i see
merit in it.

------
gigatexal
But, but ... nice guys (and girls) finish last - or so the saying goes. It’s
been my experience that the belligerent and those that take charge and those
that are just the loudest garner more attention and cash. That’s not me
though.

------
lazyjones
Not being one will earn you more in the long run, if you can fend off all the
axxholes who fare better at short-term gains.

Unfortunately, our economy is now based on high short-term gains, there's
plenty of axxholes everywhere.

------
winrid
Telling people what you want and telling others when they screw up is commonly
seen as mean behavior in the world today.

But it's hard to be successful if you don't do those things.

------
forkexec
It worked for Denis Leary, and not just stealing Bill Hick's act. More of a
musical thing.

------
mrwnmonm
Now you stop being an asshole to get more money, which is exactly what an
asshole will do.

------
oarabbus_
It seems like the bigger asshole tends to make more money, unfortunately for
myself.

------
minikites
Becoming a billionaire requires you to be an asshole by definition because the
only way to accumulate and retain that (frankly incomprehensible) amount of
money is through the exploitation of your employees and the surplus value of
their labor at a tremendous scale.

------
blackrock
This is true..

Until you have a lot of money, and then you become an asshole.

------
Razengan
“But it won’t make it more fun” - Assholes, probably.

------
potta_coffee
This is a decent article. I generally agree with the sentiments presented, but
I disagree with the font-choice, which I found difficult to read.

~~~
dumbfoundded
I appreciate the feedback. Any recommendations for something legible?

~~~
potta_coffee
The font is really thin, even when I zoom it's difficult to read. A thicker
sans font would be easier to read. The one you're using looks nice visually,
it's just hard to see.

------
jiveturkey
also, you won't be an asshole. that's good, in and of itself, isn't it?

------
hypnotist
you cannot AB test that.

------
the_burning_one
Goldman Sachs disagree

------
zelphirkalt
> I really don't understand why.

> So many people are straight assholes in business. Especially the more you
> climb the ladder. As my bootstrapped business reached $3M ARR, a wave of no-
> name investors approached us. Some of the term sheets more than insulted me.
> They sought to take control of the company without any payout for the co-
> founders or employees. They just wanted to capitalize a company they'd now
> own.

> I don't understand why.

(Warning: Probably unpopular opinion for capitalistic mind sets following)

Well, big surprise, because they got corrupted (ethically) by their money and
greed, or that is the way they got a hold of it in the first place. They got
some, so they want more. Money buys almost anything in capitalistic society
after all. They see a chance to take advantage of a fellow human being, a
chance to profit! They do not care about the human in your business. They care
about ways they could profit from it. You are only a means of increasing their
capital. The higher the amount of money investors have, the more likely, that
they got it through ethically questionable means, because that is, where the
big money is made.

There might be ethical investors out there too. Haven't knowingly met any such
yet, might have unknowingly met some. It is probably also quite difficult to
keep a clean sheet through all the complexity of today's financial world.

(perspective change from having a company which others want to invest in, to
investments being done by people)

There is a difference between working for a wage and using money to
"magically" create more money, fueling turbo capitalism. In many cases that
difference is an ethical one: What investments does one make? Can one be sure,
that those investments are not actually investments, which flow directly or
indirectly into production of weapons, climate destroying big companies,
pesticide producing giants, who are responsible for decimating bee populations
and starvation in third world countries? Anyone "investing" should really
think hard about it and be on the lookout for superficially nice investments,
which are actually indirectly quite unethical.

Now I will admit, that there are probably still many ways to make ethical
investments. Of course there are. It's just that those are not yielding the
highest returns. You could invest in social projects, in green
energy/technology, in research for many good things. You can even donate to a
good cause (like protection of rain forest) and thereby make an investment
into all our future.

Most people, who "invest" in something however, are almost completely after
the returns those things yield and do not give a damn about the ethical aspect
of that investment. They do not give a thought about indirectly investing in
some huge company, which takes part in producing weapons or building the next
big coal mine (thinking of a recent example).

Lets take a look at for example DAX (German stock index). Anyone investing in
any "financial product" that invests into the top n DAX companies. There we
have BASF and Bayer, responsible for producing, selling and lobbying for
pesticide usage and killing natural diversity and species, starvation of
people in India and forcing farmers to use genetically modified seeds, in the
name of profit. We have BMW and Daimler, where at least to my knowledge
Daimler is part of the diesel scandal, making people believe their cars were
cleaner than they really are, indirectly guilty of dealing huge damage to our
environment and health. We have Deutsche Bank and Telekom there as well.
Telekom just sucks for being a monopoly (at least was) and keeping technology
way behind in Germany. Deutsche bank does not have a good name, when we talk
about ethics, although I do not personally know exactly what they did.
Probably investments in weapons and stuff like that. And wasn't Adidas
connected to child labour in third world countries?

So basically anyone investing in DAX as such invests in these at least partly
evil players, knowingly or unknowingly. But people are being scared by people
working in banks and other places, who tell them that, if they do not invest
into something with more risk, they will not be able to take advantage of
those precious percentages at the stock market and then those scared people
stop thinking and become investors. Notice also how usually the people, who
are consulting you at banks and insurances try to steer you into the direction
of stock market backed investments. Usually they will make other options
simply look worth, simply based on percentages. That is often, because when
you invest into such products of theirs, their company gets more flexibility
of investment itself and can do more unethical investments, yielding higher
returns for them.

In my opinion anyone investing into anything has a responsibility. That
responsibility is not to increase their own riches, but to look out (not only
superficially) for any ethically questionable consequences of their investment
and even the responsibility to try to make the world a better place with their
investment.

~~~
fuzzfactor
Looks like Deutsche Bank enabled Donald Trump after his dealing had proven to
be less-than-honest and he was too "toxic" for regular US institutions to
touch any more.

[https://forensicnews.net/2020/01/03/trump-deutsche-bank-
loan...](https://forensicnews.net/2020/01/03/trump-deutsche-bank-loans-
underwritten-by-russian-state-owned-bank-whistleblower-told-fbi/)

[https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-deutsche-bank-helped-
fi...](https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-deutsche-bank-helped-finance-
donald-trump-political-rise-51582050221)

------
asjw
Just like Madoff or Trump or Weinstein

~~~
dumbfoundded
Being in jail doesn't sound profitable. Robbing a bank makes rich for a second
too.

As for Trump, he probably should've put his daddy's money in the S&P.

~~~
chinesempire
I think we can agree that billionaires main trait is not being nice

Putin is worth 200 billions...

~~~
dumbfoundded
I'm almost certain that Putin makes tons of money for those immediately around
him and as soon as he stops, he'll be replaced. That's generally how
dictatorships work.

~~~
chinesempire
The money doesn't disappear though and I'm sure the Bush family is still doing
well

~~~
dumbfoundded
I've heard that the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay
solvent. That doesn't mean you should be irrational though. Or if you do,
understand that it's a short play. Rationality generally wins.

~~~
chinesempire
An assholes can be completely rational, become incredibly rich and still be an
asshole.

It doesn't mean being an asshole it's the best strategy to become rich, it
isn't enough to become one and generally I think being good decent human
beings is much better for society and for themselves, but the numbers shows
that very rich people are usually not among the best people in this world.

------
danaw
Ok no i

------
isjustaguy
"Not being an asshole will make you more money"

Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Paul Graham, Jack Dorsey, all of AirBNB and Uber's
executive staff, Mark Benioff, Larry Ellison and Donald Trump would all beg to
differ.

