[throwdecro]

> sometimes he was just a...

Why qualify it with "sometimes"? I think it's safe to assume that the way a person behaves in private, among their peers, shows more about their essential character than how they behave when doing public relations.

The Schmidt and Jobs on display in the email are the essential Schmidt and Jobs. The admirable qualities are the stage show.

[mensetmanusman]

This is always an interesting debate.

Is someone closer to their true self when they are drunk? Tired? On a power trip?

[niyikiza]

That's an interesting question. The cynic argues that everyone is on a PR mission and that our true self is when we are in a moment of weakness. The idealist argues that those moments are rare and far in between, and shouldn't define us. But at the heart of the debate is the question of whether there is a "true self" at all. Maybe people do just what people do.

I suspect we try to characterize people because we're attempting to build a Bayesian Model that can help us predict someone's next move. And all that is going to depend on our 'prior' and 'base rate'. In this perspective, there is no "true self" that will be observed by everyone on the planet.