

Pitching VCs? Better know about IBM's latest OS/2 - danielharan
http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2008/08/from-the-trenches-os-who.html

======
dcminter
If I was keen to get (or keep) VC funding, I doubt I'd be in any hurry to tell
a VC that he was smoking crack whatever I actually thought.

While I'm probably a little naive, it also just wouldn't occur to me that he
was deliberately looking stupid. So my assumption would have to be that he
actually thought this was true for some reason. Possible reasons:

1\. He misheard something or otherwise confused OS/2 with something else. DB/2
for example. 2\. IBM had extracted some bit of technology derived from the
OS/2 lineage and were pitching this as the latest and greatest thing.

On this assumption, flat out contradicting him would make him look stupid, and
at least be a little rude. So to me this says more about his character (VC who
plays games - sounds unpleasant) than it does about that of the people he says
it to, other than that they're prepared to dissemble a little to keep an
investor happy.

Me, I'd say "Really? Are you sure!?" but I'm not looking for cash.

~~~
tonystubblebine
Right, his take away needs to be that he should create a style of conversation
where entrepreneurs feel safe saying "I don't know" or questioning him. He
hasn't discovered a flaw in entrepreneurs, just a flaw in his own style at the
meetings.

------
pg
Seems unethical for a potential investor to try to trick people like that.
Investors are supposed to be partners.

There's no need to anyway. People who don't know what they're talking about
usually disqualify themselves quickly enough without any leading questions.

~~~
rudyfink
Investors are supposed to watch out for and grow the money under their trust.
If one of them considers that involves throwing in different questions to find
out more about the people and/or product asking for his money, I don't see how
that is unethical.

We have countless articles on this system that praise alternative approaches
to dealing with markets. This post is entirely about part of one individual's
alternative approach.

~~~
pg
_If one of them considers that involves throwing in different question to find
out more about the people and/or product asking for his money, I don't see how
that is unethical._

Maybe that's clearer if we use a description more precise than "throwing in
different questions:" lying.

~~~
dcminter
Even if one takes an amoral view of it, there is a risk that the people you
were investing in will now waste time investigating a non-existent technology.

Or that they will incorrectly discount things that you say in the future. But
then that's one of the reasons that lying is so often a bad strategy in the
first place.

~~~
rudyfink
I think they'd pretty quickly find out that Arthur Andersen is effectively a
defunct entity. I suppose it is an "in joke" like the "thousands of case
studies" part of his question.

You are correct that some time, though probably not too much, would be wasted
in discovering the above. I do see your point.

I felt that was part of the author's point too; "lying is so often a bad
strategy". Perhaps the common ground between our approaches to the article is
that he should not be surprised that his bullshit question elicited a bullshit
response.

------
alex_c
Very amusing, I'm sure.

Let's look at it from the other perspective. You're in a meeting with someone
you want money from (and maybe someone you even respect). Your whole mindset
for the meeting is that you should come across as knowledgeable and confident.
He says something that confuses you. His tone of voice says "Even my
grandmother knows this, if you don't you're an idiot, and my money and I are
out of here". It might cross your mind that he's a VC and deals with a much
broader range of the tech landscape than you, focused on your startup for the
last year. You might even get as far as thinking "OS/2? I thought that was
ancient, but what do I know about the enterprise field, maybe they renamed
some $500,000 product as OS/2?"

You have a split second to decide what to say. Do you:

a) Say something that means "Sorry Mr. VC, but you are completely clueless
about technology"

b) Ask for clarification for a topic which doesn't really seem relevant

c) Try to smooth over what to you is an awkward bump in the conversation

b) seems like the optimal choice, but I couldn't really blame anyone who
chooses c) in the heat of the moment. At any rate, I would be wary of anyone
who chooses a).

~~~
chris_l
d) "No, I haven't heard of that"

~~~
alex_c
I guess I would lump that under b).

------
gcv
The human brain is pretty good at filling in details and justifying or
explaining inconsistent things. The person who mentioned a Slashdot thread
might not even have been lying. There might have been a thread which said "OS2
is old and dead" and another thread, the following day, which said "DB2 is the
future of databases," and, in the heat of the moment, talking to someone
you're trying to impress, the brain put the two together and delivered up an
attempt to cope with a strange question.

------
gwc
This phenomenon is by no means unique to entrepreneurial pitches. I see this
all the time in big business: managers BSing customers about stuff they don't
know, managers BSing higher managers about stuff they don't know, engineers
BSing managers ... you get the idea.

Is it just fear of seeming weak or ignorant? What is it about our culture that
makes us so resistant to admitting that we don't know something?

I'm reminded of the "Have you tried Javascript?" story:
[http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Straight_Shooter_for_Upper_M...](http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Straight_Shooter_for_Upper_Management.aspx)

~~~
blogimus
"What is it about our culture that makes us so resistant to admitting that we
don't know something?"

I've heard it explained as "Male Answer Syndrome"

<http://www.wordspy.com/words/maleanswersyndrome.asp>

~~~
gaius
If this were called "female lying syndrome" it would be a Thing You Could Not
Say.

I'm a beer-swilling steak-eating iron-pumping male and I say "I don't know
anything about that" all the time. What compelled _you_ to post that glib
answer?

~~~
blogimus
"What compelled _you_ to post that glib answer?"

It might be glib, it might be stereotypical, but I run into BS answers a lot.
The article struck a chord with me because I've witnessed this quite often
over the years, and its mostly the guys (rather than the gals) who to HAVE to
have an answer.

I'm sure google and forums has made this "syndrome" worse.

to your question: I got this from a recent email discussion of a group of
former co-workers from a now defunct software company, where someone started
complaining about this issue and we had a big long discussion on it.

~~~
unalone
Guys and girls both do it. It's just that it happens in two different ways.

Guys are more likely to lie about things they haven't heard of, in my
experience. girls are more likely to pretend to have a similar opinion as
somebody they're talking with. On the contrary, girls will admit if they don't
know what you're talking about, whereas guys are very willing to say that they
loathed Moulin Rouge and that your taste is terrible.

It cuts both ways.

------
carterschonwald
Its not so much the not understanding the OS/2 part, but moreso the fact that
Arthur Anderson is about as disgraced as any auditing/accounting firm can be
while still having profitable divisions, which should sound off the alarm
bells.

Is it really reasonable to expect a business person to be familiar with the
history of countless major software artifacts that are essentially defunct,
and/or similarly many contemporary research projects that also produce
possibly usable software artifacts?

~~~
Agathos
Does Andersen have any profitable divisions? Heck, does it have any divisions?

~~~
byrneseyeview
<http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AACN>

Andersen has been shut down, but their consultants seem to be doing okay.

------
thorax
Someone you respect and trust lies to you and you fall for it. Film at 11.

Even if these guys aren't falling for it, they're trying not to make the
fellow look too dumb on this.

I would be more comfortable with this test if it didn't include the "thousands
of case studies". Had it been true, the entrepreneur would likely be
humiliated (or shown much less capable) if he professed to be clueless about
this trend. If it's important enough to have 3rd party case studies written in
the thousands, surely he glossed over it somewhere.

I'd really like them to say "Wow-- I hadn't heard it was coming back so
strongly. We'll definitely look into it. Have you heard what kind of
browser/flash/cross-compiler/solitaire support they have?" but I'm not going
to fault an entrepreneur from trying to dance around such a strongly worded
test by a VC prankster.

------
rit
I think the point he's making is it's better to admit gaps in your knowledge
than bullshit.

While I may not have been bold faced about "OS/2 is back ? OH that's awesome"
I sure as hell would have pointed out that Arthur Andersen is gone, fallout
from the Enron scandal.

My assumption is that he threw the Andersen bit in to totally kill any chance
of 'reality' in the OS/2 comment.

~~~
dcminter
I would just have assumed that he meant Accenture and mis-spoke.

Ok, if he has a pattern of saying dumb things it's different, but if he just
goes off on one for a moment - why would you rub his nose in it?

~~~
rit
Probably.

But then again, I've never learned to keep my mouth shut, which is why I'm
still working for other people.

------
Readmore
While this article is funny it also just pisses me off. Who are these morons
that are getting all this VC money?

After a long fight I've finally decided to believe PG. It does matter where
you start your startup, you're not going to get funding in Tulsa OK.
Apparently you can be an idiot and get funding in Canada though, maybe I
should move there.

~~~
huhtenberg
> Apparently you can be an idiot and get funding in Canada though, maybe I
> should move there.

Well .. _are_ you an idiot ? :-)

~~~
Readmore
haha, well I could be, if it gets me funding. ;)

------
cmos
All is fair in love and war.

The real point here is to just relax and be human while making a pitch. If
your feeding lines of BS to a VC he won't want to be your business partner,
because it will want to know when things are going bad. Complete frankness and
a normal conversation will get you far in life.

------
lisper
The Right Answer to this question is, "No, I hadn't heard about that study.
Can you send me a pointer?" That completely defuses the situation, and hedges
against the possibility that the guy might not be joking.

------
gecko
Kind of makes me wish we had a list of companies he'd tried this at; it makes
me nervous to think I might be invested in some of them.

------
thomasswift
you didn't know that os/2 main function was cooking the books and came with an
unprinter? Jk for any os/2 heads.

