First, the few rich guys that I know (north of $10m) are shitheads. Not that they are personally offensive, or even necessarily morally bankrupt. Instead they are willing to ask for asinine things from people who should rightly be offended by the request. They try to make deals that favor them without regard to the interests of the other person, and it turns out to be a winning strategy because they'll get rejected over and over, but in the 10 or 20% of cases where they win, they get ridiculously good deals.
That tendency to ask for too much could be seen as a type of over confidence, but it's also a riskier strategy on average.
Then, these people are almost indifferent to the details of whatever deal they've made. They will make a deal that is exactly what it needs to be to get signed, but which is utterly impossible to deliver. They don't care: "it'll work out."
That's another form of over confidence: the belief that impossible things will work out well enough. It also turns out to be true enough to get someone into the multimillionaire range. One has to be a little more careful to break much higher than that, but it's a good starting strategy. And again, it's a risk to make a deal you might not be able to deliver on.
I didn't read the paper, but I know that dissertations necessarily have to be very limited, so they tend to be simplistic when they are original research, so I wonder:
1) Who was in the entrepreneur group? Successful serial entrepreneurs, or just some undergrad kids in the entrepreneur club?
2) How risk measured? A little psychological battery designed to measure general risk-taking won't capture the mindset of a person who does shaky deals. Is it risky to do try for a deal that'll probably fall through and you probably can't deliver on, or is it safer to do lots of quick and dirty deals so the volume makes up for the instability? How could this paper have measured that?
They try to make deals that favor them without regard to the interests of the other person
I don't see how exactly this makes one a "shithead" though. Don't you always try to get the best deal for yourself first and then if the other person doesn't budge you compromise a bit? I pretty much always start out with any deal ridiculously in my favor because you don't lose anything if the other person rejects it...
My rule is typically "make an offer that is just before the point of being offensive and then compromise from there if the deal is needed." That way you can usually reach a "midpoint" that is still mostly on your favorable side of the deal.
I'm not a multi-millionaire, but I'll call ya in 10 years and let you know if I am ;)
I just wanted to say your comment about brazenly-illogical-yet-effective (i.e. "assholish") business mannerisms rings true to my own experience and some of the characters I have encountered (and, unfortunately, worked for as well). There are many different ways to make a buck.
That tendency to ask for too much could be seen as a type of over confidence, but it's also a riskier strategy on average.
Then, these people are almost indifferent to the details of whatever deal they've made. They will make a deal that is exactly what it needs to be to get signed, but which is utterly impossible to deliver. They don't care: "it'll work out."
That's another form of over confidence: the belief that impossible things will work out well enough. It also turns out to be true enough to get someone into the multimillionaire range. One has to be a little more careful to break much higher than that, but it's a good starting strategy. And again, it's a risk to make a deal you might not be able to deliver on.
I didn't read the paper, but I know that dissertations necessarily have to be very limited, so they tend to be simplistic when they are original research, so I wonder:
1) Who was in the entrepreneur group? Successful serial entrepreneurs, or just some undergrad kids in the entrepreneur club?
2) How risk measured? A little psychological battery designed to measure general risk-taking won't capture the mindset of a person who does shaky deals. Is it risky to do try for a deal that'll probably fall through and you probably can't deliver on, or is it safer to do lots of quick and dirty deals so the volume makes up for the instability? How could this paper have measured that?
If anyone has access to this database, let us know the answers: http://mansci.journal.informs.org/cgi/content/abstract/52/9/...