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by mabbo 1410 days ago
Given the history of WeWork, my best guess is that Neumann's chief skill is convincing people to give him money and let him do whatever he wants with it.

He ran WeWork poorly. He convinced the board to let him scam it (legally). And he walked away with an unbelievable amount of money that came from VCs.

Given he has this skill, if I were a VC I wouldn't let him enter the building. I would have his email addresses on block lists. And I sure as hell wouldn't let him into a meeting where he can use his skills to convince me to give him money.
2 comments
danielrpa 1410 days ago
Your approach - which makes total sense - reminds me of the notion that normal human beings wouldn't be able to resist an Artificial Superintelligence because it would always be able to press the right human buttons, no matter how smart the individual is. The only solution, then, would be to find a way to completely isolate oneself from it.

Perhaps Neumann is like a "scam superintelligence"...

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mabbo 1410 days ago
But what if Neumann is some sort of financial Roko's Basilisk who will punish me for not helping him scam everyone out of money? Then logically I should help him scam me and everyone else!
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notacoward 1410 days ago
A lot of what happens in both business and politics makes more sense if we consider that some people have an innate ability to evade even smart people's BS detectors when they're together in person. Doesn't matter if it's animal magnetism, pheromones, subliminal body language, or scam superintelligence. Is it so hard to believe that we all have heuristics we use to decide whether to trust someone?

Where there are heuristics, there are ways to game those heuristics. Practically none of us are as immune to non-rational persuasion as we think/claim we are. Whatever it is, I've known people whose ability to get what they want was extremely hard to explain any other way. I literally avoid being in their presence, and that has been good for me.

I feel like I'm better than most at detecting BS, at least 90th percentile, but I'd be a fool to think I'm the best in the world. When I can sense that I'm outmatched, the rational thing to do is change the game. Con men have known since forever that egotists are the best marks.

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