[kls]

So the article resounded with me, because being raised by my grandparents on a family citrus farm during the transition thru the NAFTA years and watching my family loose what little land wealth they had. It left an indelible mark, a mark of insecurity and fear and it lead to behavior like this.

I remember one time, when I just started out in tech, I went to an interview for a group that was contracting for NASA, the interview went very well, they loved me, the team loved me. I pretty much had the job. The team liked me so much that they invited me to lunch. I declined, you could tell the temperature changed at that very moment that I did. I did not get the job, and in retrospect I should have just told them I am not in the position to pay for a meal out at this time. I had literally put my last pennies into the tank of my car to get to that interview.

Anyways, I back story that, to say this; I did well in the industry, I have exited a few companies and I have held some pretty impressive titles at some pretty big orgs but I never got rich. Some of that had to do with dragging my family out of poverty but some of it had to do with something else. I helped build a startup and we sold that startup for a good deal of money. I received a pittance because I did not know my value. It was enough to take off some of life's stresses but it was not FU money. I went to work for one of the companies that we had a B2B relationship with that was a downstream provider to the company we sold. Anyways it was here that things changed for me, and it was not because of me or my work. It was because the CEO of that company became my personal friend. Her name was Sheila and she told me something that I had never heard before and that was this.

She told me that I was what she calls institutionally poor. That I had been conditioned thru my childhood to think like a poor person and in doing so you send out unconscious signals to others. She told me this because she came up similar. She told me that it causes you to over analyze and over estimate risk and therefore you will not take the bold moves that people that don't have to worry do. That while you can change the world and everyone see it. If you hold onto the fear on needing your safety net under you, that you will never extract your true value from other. So I said, so you are going to pay me my fair value, she laughed and said no, I got you for a very good deal. 3 Days latter I walked into her office, with my resignation letter and told her I had an offer from another company. She said, now you get it, how much did they offer. I told her, and she said I will double that if you stay. That was when I learned a tangential lesson, and that is sometimes hard ass, ball busters are the best people.

Point being there is a piece of this, that the person that grew up poor has to break themselves free of and many times they don't even know what they need to free themselves of and that is thinking like a poor person.

[JoeAltmaier]

Great story, helps me see the profound effect that such stresses put on a person.

I got another clue out of it. That 'personal friend' was a user, a manipulator, a predator, and preyed upon folks like us. She must have felt something personal toward you else she'd never have said what she did and given up the raw deal she pushed over on you. To threaten to quit and get offered double - that's a situation to run from as fast as you can. Get double from the next person, but never, ever work for such a person as that again. That's my take anyway.

[kls]

I don't see it that way, she was a friend, she built a company from the ground up and she took care of people. At that time (2002ish IIRC) she was paying me fair market rate which in full disclosure was about $150k USD a year. She knew my worth, she was trying to teach it to me. She saw me build the other company and she saw that I did not extract my value from that deal. She paid me what I asked for when she called me after the exit of the other company and that is the point, I did not ask for more. She needed me to fix her companies technical problems, she knew I could do it and I did, she knew my value, I did not. She came to me in need, and "I" asked for market rate, because I was not working due to the exit and was worried about burning up the small safety net I had just acquired. She was a friend in tilting her hand. Had she just told me you don't make enough here, here is some money. I would not have learned the lesson that she wanted me to learn as a friend.

When that happened I was annoyed, I went and interviewed and I asked for as much as I thought I could get. I had never interviewed when I did not need a job, it was the first time I has ever interviewed without a sword over my head and I had to do that to learn the lesson that she knew she could not teach me, but was in the position to nudge me into. She was stupid rich, it did not hurt her one bit to pay me double, the key was I never asked for it, because I thought like a poor man. Money was very valuable to me, to her it was an afterthought as compared to the important things she needed accomplished.

When you are poor, money and the retention of it, is the bottom line. When you are rich it is not. It is a factor, a rich person is not going to go into a bad deal and loose money intentionally but in her case she was loosing millions in lost opportunity. Had I asked for $500k, her mind would have still been on the Millions is lost opportunity, not the $500k it will take to pursue it. It is as simple as that.

[lazide]

Who do you think would NOT be a ‘predator’ in that situation exactly?

Sounds like she offered insight and a 2nd chance to someone she thought would benefit from it, and then helped them build on it in a way that stuck.

Should she have been offering more than they thought they were worth? Who would that benefit? It would likely just cause anxiety and imposter syndrome.

That’s avoiding the whole issue of someone who knows what they’re worth and is able to stand up and ask for it is worth more than someone who does not or will not. To everyone.