[dustingetz]

"Companies that were over-zealous were definitely thought less of while companies that played a more aloof game were chased."

Do you think mediocre companies tend to be over-zealous, or are you implying that appearing socially proofed is an important signal?

In the "hot girl at the bar" analogy, playing games is +EV, but I would expect the big league players are too smart for that, am I wrong?

[holograham]

A bit of both actually. No one is immune to some of that bias even the big league players. The over-zealousness wasnt necessarily a turn off but it put the corp dev department in the drivers seat. We could then respond and shape a deal to our advantage as much as possible.