I think a lot of people fail to recognize that they're the next target, or convince themselves they're special in some way that makes them immune. It's like when someone knowingly participates in an affair and tells themselves "Sure, they're cheating on their current partner to be with me, but after they break things off I know we'll be together forever!"

Some people really do thrive on this shit though. They know the rules of the game and want to play it. What they’re really thinking is they’ll be better at the game than their opponents.

I mean can you actually imagine the internal monologue of a guy like Sam Altman?

LLMs have more of an internal monologue, and they have none.

Not exactly true:

https://www.anthropic.com/research/tracing-thoughts-language...

They’re even trying to expose some of it as a summary, as part of the anthropomorphization of Claude.

Yup, exactly this

For example, if you go off with the cheating partner, don't expect it to not happen again

Because rich and powerful people also have massive egos to go with their power and money. Some of them will find your rejection a personal attack and try to actively sabotage you. Not all VCs are like that, but there are enough of them that you need to be careful about how you handle the situation.

Because if you get involved with most VCs, you will then have to watch your back until the end of time.

None of those "worst experiences" seem all that unusual to me (though nobody will say #1 out loud anymore until after they've invested), and #3 is completely in character for Vinod.

If one partner is the core of the company, and the others the VC thinks are useless ( I am not saying in this case they were...just that the VC might have that perception) what should the VC do?

After all its just business decisions like Cloudflare recent layoffs no?

https://blog.cloudflare.com/building-for-the-future/

If they truly are useless that's one thing, but the ability to "impress" some asshole in a 30 minute pitch has little to do with running a successful tech company.

With what authority are VCs claiming to be capable of being an accurate judge of talent or character in less than an hour?

Sounds like said VC in your example is doing insufficient due diligence and just investing based on vibes.

>> the ability to "impress" some asshole in a 30 minute pitch has little to do with running a successful tech company.

Judging by the stories being shared here, that is all it takes to get funded...

Sure but the act of actually securing VC funding is a small part of running a company. Those VCs are not going to recoup their investments if they pick people who optimize for funding and not for product vision and good leadership.

They have superior taste of course.

something pattern something matching something

I suppose one could argue that VCs develop a taste for it after speaking with so many founders.

But, of course, you often don’t find out what lay down the road not travelled, except for those companies that get funded elsewhere, so it’s not like there’s an obvious objective measure.

I can’t help wondering if it’s a bit like Moneyball though and, if you had good enough data that you could model it well enough, you’d discover a lot of that taste is just shooting bull and doesn’t amount to much. Possibly there’d be a lot of variability across VCs.

Yeah, this is par for the course with VC. You should never believe your VC (even post funding) is your friend. They can be a great business partner and resource but they're never your friend under that dynamic

there is a saying about mixing business with pleasure

omfg that’s the beach access guy

ugh. That douchebag doesn't even surf.

Sadly, I've experienced this myself, and I'm aware of other people who were cut off from opportunities in similar ways. I applaud the tweet because this is important to say out loud: we are often not living in the world we think we are observing. Many people know this, but few talk about it. It's an open secret.

I had the same thing happen (though seed round). I don't think it's uncommon. Also never took another meeting with the guy.

My pet theory is that it is more nurture than nature. These (VC) veterans have seen thousands of startups come and go, and become so desensitized to the ruthlessness.

Of course to people like the author, it seems borderline sociopathic to casually suggest such levels of betrayal. It is like trying to get into the most exclusive nightclubs, and when you're finally in the front, the bouncer will look at the group and say "You can get in, but not those two". It sucks, but to the bouncer it is just business as usual, and you're just another face.

Nah, he was talking about taking their stock. That’s morally theft even if by some convoluted reason it’s not legally theft.

I get the business as usual analogy but the specifics of the interaction are different. You just showing up to your club with your friends is different than having equity in a company you cofounded.

Vinod is insane. You can hear more of his really bad takes on his recent Sam Harris podcast episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/479...