from Hacker News

Being full of value‑added shit

by rmason on 6/12/25, 8:03 PM with 106 comments

• by mjd on 6/12/25, 11:34 PM

  This reminds me of the observation that you shouldn't buy a car from a dealer who calls himself Honest Ed.

  Because honest people just go around being honest, they don't go around broadcasting honesty.

• by robomc on 6/12/25, 11:34 PM

  So we're just posting third party blind item gossip on here huh.

• by ta2112 on 6/13/25, 12:04 AM

  I've noticed this with movies. If a movie is being advertised a lot, it's usually a bad movie. Why else are they trying so hard?

  The opposite happened with the Matrix. I think I saw 1 bus stop poster for it, and didn't know what it was until multiple people at work said, "you have to see it!" Too bad they never made a sequel.

• by pixl97 on 6/12/25, 11:08 PM

  You meet a lot of people with no morals and no money.

  You meet less people with morals and no money.

  You meet even fewer with no morals and a lot of money.

  And you meet almost no one with morals and a lot of money.

• by nmaley on 6/13/25, 5:14 AM

  I knew a tech founder once who spent an hour lecturing us (his employees) on business ethics. He'd even written a little red book (like Mao) to codify his thoughts on how we should all behave.

  Fast forward a few years and the guy flees the US after being charged with securities fraud. Spends the rest of his life living on his millions in a foreign country with no US extradition treaty.

• by hahahacorn on 6/13/25, 1:53 AM

  Not to be that guy but this just isn’t a helpful heuristic and I think the author fundamentally misunderstands introductions. The point of self identifying with some operating principle (value-add) isn’t about guaranteeing it to be true, it’s a social contract that A: indicates your priorities and B: offers a short-circuit to credibility.

  Just because you state yourself as value-add doesn’t mean I am going to believe you are a value-add, it indicates that being value-add is your priority, so if I need to call on my investors for something I might go to you first, and if you fail to be a value add then you discredit literally your entire existence in my professional network.

  This is why “introduce yourself” is such a valuable question. It reveals how a person views themself in a context. Do they jump into titles? Achievements? Their operating principles? Their failures? Their insecurities?

  I don’t know. I prefer this over no information.

• by hn_throwaway_99 on 6/12/25, 11:16 PM

  What was the point of this blog post? To re-use the shit metaphor, to the author of this blog post: Shit or get off the pot. I have a general disdain for these types of post where the author has to know that the very first thing every reader would do is google around to try to figure out exactly who he's talking about (in this case, the psychopathic VC). I.e. leave plenty of details where a determined searcher can figure out the subject of the post, but without naming names. IMO, if you're going to go that far, you should either name names or shut up.

  Secondly, the only other takeaway I got from this post is "beware of narcissistic psychopaths, especially in the VC world." Yeah, and water is wet.

• by genman on 6/13/25, 12:59 AM

  Isn't it the symptom of current time - you have to blatantly self promote yourself? Or is it still easier to let your work speak for you instead of noisy self promotion?

• by ChrisMarshallNY on 6/13/25, 1:48 AM

  Eh. I’m not really into “hard and fast” rules. In most cases, there’s no reason to mention personal assets, but sometimes, it’s useful. Same goes for personal weaknesses.

  Whatever I say, I mean; whether making a commitment, giving a compliment, or telling someone that I may be good (or bad) at something, so they can make their own mind up.

  I do feel that it’s important to back up what I say. That’s a big reason that I’m so open.

• by nchmy on 6/13/25, 5:24 PM

  I'm an empath

• by BrenBarn on 6/13/25, 6:51 PM

  It seems like this is just saying "corporate buzzwords are bullshit", which I agree with but I'm not sure it's news.

• by worik on 6/12/25, 11:08 PM

  "My friend, you can trust me"