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When I was a dev working with my business-oriented business partner, I had to get used to sitting in meetings where we promised the client the world having no idea if I could accomplish it or not.
Made a lot more money than I could have on my own.
"Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'YES'!!"
They did this to me when I was a technical director of a mid-sized engineering consultancy (aka, a sweat shop). I learned it on the fly when they had me go to a client meeting. They showed the slide deck of all of our credentials, and I was astonished that the sales engineer took the slide I sent them and increased all my years of experience by 25%. I asked them about it later, and they said don't worry about it, everybody does it.
It's unethical and it's wrong and I won't participate in it. I stopped working there.
This is often the advice given by senior folks and I think it is somewhat similar to say that you have to "lie a bit on your CV". Still, I always wonder what would I do if I make these big promises to clients/bosses/management and I fail to deliver. Wouldn't that be worse than having said "no, I won't be able to make it in time" from the beginning?
For context, I'm early in my career (3 YOE) and I don't deal with management that much yet (I'm still shielded by my tech lead and PM), so I'm always looking for advice on how to navigate these things. I really can't just say "YES, YES, YES" when I know *very well* that something won't be possible.
Maybe it is just a sign of being too junior?
The downside is all the stress from unrealistic objectives
This is also how trillion-dollar megacorps get contracts signed.
One of the most stressful times in my life was my first job at 19 where my boss would sell the moon to clients, then I had to find a way to deliver. On time.
Fuck that nonsense.
For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.
2 Timothy 4 (NLT), circa 65 Anno Domini
"Time is coming"? Pretty sure this always happened
There's got to be a variant that is a 2x2 matrix of this:
Lie to others, lie to yourself (spiral together; either fantastically poor or spectacularly rich)
Lie to others, tell yourself the truth (manipulation, morally broke, but materially rich)
Tell others the truth, tell yourself the truth (integrity, barely scrape by)
Tell others the truth, lie to yourself (be used by the system, usually end up poorly)
I think the fourth would be "lie to those who want you to tell the truth".
His father's saying may have been: "There are three honest ways to make a living".
The fourth option is where scams and fraud live.
It's not really a rule of thumb that "Tell others the truth, tell yourself the truth" means you have to barely scrape by. Plenty of people make good money that way.
oh god it's the Rumsfeld quadrants for truth....
These ways to get paid could be represented as a table:
They Want Lies They Want Truth
+--------------+---------------+
You Tell Lies | become rich | ??? |
+--------------+---------------+
You Tell Truth | go broke | make a living |
+--------------+---------------+
Maybe telling lies isn't such a great business idea after all?
There's also good money to be made telling people what they already know, usually in the form of a report and/or powerpoint deck
> report and/or powerpoint deck
if you can sell someone on a second report to verify the first you can make a lot of money too.
"a man with one watch always knows what time it is, a man with two watches is never quite sure"
Ah, but you only tell them the things they already know and want to hear.
That filter is crucial in any kind of advisory/consulting work. You're there to confirm biases, in 95% of the cases.
these are what self help books are.
It sounds like another way to put it: tell people what they want to hear and you'll go far. Most people want their beliefs confirmed, whether what they believe is true or fiction. Unfortunately it can lead to an echo chamber-y world where people only associate themselves with others who have the same core beliefs, which is even easier when communities are online.
I've told this story before, but it's relevant.
When I worked at BigCo [1], we were interviewing a candidate for a position. He was pretty good, and we were in the process of making him an offer, but he was asking for more money and trying to negotiate his salary higher.
I don't have an issue with this, BigCo has plenty of money, but other people, including a manager, were complaining. They felt that this is a good job and he shouldn't be doing this for the money.
I, not realizing that this was controversial, said "yeah, but come on, we all do this for the money."
Some people got defensive, explaining that they love the job. I responded "sure, it's good to like your job and your coworkers, I'm not trying to discourage that, but if BigCo stopped paying you then you'd probably stop showing up for work. At least I would hope so."
They kind of begrudgingly agreed, and the day went on as normal. The next day, I have an impromptu meeting scheduled with my manager's manager, explaining that I have a "bad attitude" and he mentioned that specific comment as a reason that this meeting was being called.
Now, to be fair, at the time I did have a bad attitude (in no small part due to at-the-time-undiagnosed sleep apnea), but the fact that I got in trouble for mentioning something that is objectively true really confused me. We weren't working for a charity, we weren't trying to cure cancer, we were working for a for-profit corporation. Of course we were doing it for the money, just like the corporation hired us so that they could make more money.
But I guess people just like to believe a collective lie.
[1] I'm sure you might be able to go through history and find the specific BigCo, and that is fine, but I politely ask that you don't post it here in relation to this comment.
There are various levels of self deception that almost everyone subscribes to.
A pretty high level one is that our jobs are meaningfully making a positive difference in the world, when in fact, most white collar jobs are just producing bullshit to grease the corporate wheels of modern society. Most people don't like to admit that though, so we tell ourselves little lies and go along with the corporate narrative. That's what you experienced.
But it goes deeper the more truthful you try to be. Down near the bottom of this pile of self deception is that humans are making the world a better place, when in fact we're ruining the world, causing environmental damage at an unprecedented rate in geological history, all the while exhausting the readily-accessible non-renewable resources, like hydrocarbons and minerals, that'll make the chance of a better future civilization on Earth highly unlikely.
I've been at BigCos in times past where there was some plausibility to this, but in the current BigCo workplace climate, anybody who tries to claim it's not about the money has a long row to hoe!
Yeah, this tendency of people to believe a collective lie, to try very hard to believe it, or at least make it look like they believe it, even when everybody knows its a lie, astounds me to no end.
Some examples:
- Russians (or insert any other dictatorship trying to appear otherwise) faking "democratic" elections. Who are you kidding, yourselves? No one believes it. Just tell the west: to hell with your democracy. Like, I just don't see why they need to go though that charade that everybody can see through.
- A country where pretty everybody is stealing from each other, and they all know it, and are still trying to fake uprightness to each other. I guess most countries fit this scenario. Like, we all know what's going on. The world does not end if you come right out and say to the effect of, yeah, we steal from each other (if not in so direct a fashion). But for some weird reason, people seem to feel it is important that the elephant in the room remain unacknowledged.
- The world is a very shitty and harsh place, especially to those with seemingly little status. Injustice abounds. Stupidity and absurdity reigns. And yet, almost all of us are expected to put on a happy, confident, optimistic face. Those unable to keep all the horror in are labeled freaks, anti-social, maladjusted, etc. People that fail are labeled lazy, not driven, etc. And yet, we pretty much all know the truth, but we like to lie to each other.
It's hard to understand.
My guesses on why this _really_ happened:
- The candidate was asking for more than what the others on the panel made, which was a no-no.
- The candidate was asking for what they currently make while being younger/less tenured than the others; also a no-no.
- The others on the panel had cost savings to the company as a performance target.
- They had beef with you and the candidate.
- They preferred another candidate, and they were fine with the comp.
We're all a big family here Tom, and beating you hurts us more than it hurts you, but it is good for your morale.
The wisdom from my Mom was “it’s better to be paid for what you know than what you do”. I’ve found it’s a bit more subtle than that, and enjoyed and learned a lot from piece work labor. But the sweet spot seems to be getting paid for what you do that uses what you know.
AI notwithstanding, of course.
Copy/pasta of the entire post:
My father, who died in 1981, was an inexhaustible font of wisdom and wit. I don’t know when he told me this particular three-part rule, but I’ve never forgotten it. I tweeted it three years ago, but people keep asking for it in one place, so here it is. There are three ways to make a living:
1) Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich.
2) Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living.
3) Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.
The rest is commentary.
---
That last line is undoubtedly a reference to:
> When someone challenged Hillel the Elder (b. 110 BCE) to teach the entire Torah while his listener stood on one foot, he famously replied, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the entire Torah, and the rest is commentary. Now go and study.”
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/5410546/jewis...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder
Aside, I've always seen it spelled "fount of wisdom", but either spelling is acceptable and this seems to mostly be an American/British spelling difference:
https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/font-knowledge-fount-wis...
Is it me, or have HN submissions gotten shorter and shorter recently? At this rate, top-scoring articles will consist of a single word in a few years.
There are very rich/powerful people that do #1 shocking well and I kind of wish I had figured it out sooner. Having a moral compass apparently set me back irreparably. I could've been somebody!
Watching our (newly hired) CTO lie to the entire company regarding the capabilities of a new feature I was hired to build was a brutal education in money-politics.
Thanks. I keep doing 3. I needed this.
My first thought was "cash, grass, or ass" but this works as well.
This hits home. I started my career in market research after someone told me that it was the only part of the business world where you’re paid to tell the unvarnished truth, which I thought was cool.
It wasn’t until many years later that I realized the clients actually wanted to be lied to, and that if you weren’t willing to do that you wouldn’t succeed.
In this thread: dang, I wish I was evil too!
I wish I didn't have any scruples, I'd be so rich.
I think they meant "fount" of wisdom
So there are two ways? xD
Sales in a nutshell. The world is a pyramid of lying and incentives.
What a bunch of complete sociopathic crap this is
Ooooooooh, so that's how sociopathic CEOs and directors of big companies get rich!
The "read the rest" button seems broken in Firefox on Windows... so that makes for a very short post.
Apparently if you're a YC alum you can get to the top of the front page of HN posting an advertisement to go read someone's paywalled Wall Street Journal op ed, with a broken link when you click "read the rest".
I can already think of 5 jobs this doesn't apply to in the slightest.