Gregory's ServerContinuing the email chain: (edit: looks like an image got duplicated here sorry, the full text in the first post in the thread would probably be easier to read anyway)
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62 comments
 Based on the type of posting I do, you may think to yourself "so, you're going to go through his rebuttal post, right?" But no, I'm not. Because, as I told him, I'm not debating this with him. And that includes not debating his points away from him either. I'm not engaging with this bullshit, because I explicitly told him I wouldn't be and he vomited it out at me anyway. He does not deserve it. And frankly, 90% of it isn't even saying I'm wrong. Anyway, unless I get anything else in my inbox that's it, but I think it's such absolutely unhinged behavior that people should know about it. I don't want to hear a single other fucker tell me "but the search is good!" Use that line on literally anyone else but me, no other search CEO has shown up in my email inbox to mansplain their company to me. Just for some perspective, if you want to know how little reach the fedi post with the link to this blog post got: the first post in this thread already has more likes and boosts after less than a hour since posting it than my blog post ever did that he felt the need to confront me over.  @lori nothing sets off more alarm bells about a company, group or project than the founder/ceo/lead throwing down "u said WOT m8?" And demanding to debate u in person at the bike racks after last bell. That's so.... High school. If you're convinced that your product, co or mission is solid, why are you so brittle about negative public commentary? Perhaps it's not and you're afraid anyone will spot your new clothes for what they are. How do people give people like this money?  @lori I don't understand why he'd email you... surely he could just send his query to a chatbot and ask it to tell him what your reply would be? @lori I wonder if they go to these lengths if you unsubscribe from their marketing emails... @lori I just want to chime in with the experience I had with another kagi project, Kagi Small Web. I found some explicit hate speech and conspiracy content and reported it on the project GitHub, and was told that they don't like censorship in their directory. I attempted to add some left-leaning links and they were never merged. That's what kind of business they run.  This is gold: “ no other search CEO has shown up in my email inbox to mansplain their company to me.”  @lori I'd been a Kagi subscriber for a bit, but I eventually soured on all the AI bullshit and walked away. Sounds like I made the right call. @lori@hackers.town honestly, pushing for a call gives me infamous "business the Russian way" vibes, where criticism is a threat and you would never start your letter with "hi lori, i'm Vlad, and as a CEO of Kagi I would like to thank you for the time you've taken to write the blog article..."  This appears to be your first experience dealing with a narcissist. This is how they roll. And, yea, it probably does eat him alive to think someone would not love his company and, by extension, him. Hopefully he's the run-of-the-mill type. Because if he's a malignant narcissist he may not stop until he feels you have been properly punished for your lack of faith. (I know this territory well; I've worked for several of them and had a malignant narcissist parent.) @jackwilliambell sorry but no, not my first time dealing with a Vlad and wasn't even totally shocked about this Vlad doing this They *are* terribly common in tech industry C-Suites. And when I say that I don't just mean people with narcissistic and selfish personalities; there are a lot of those everywhere. I mean people with the actual mental disorder. And it isn't common in the general population at all; less than 1 in 200 people fit the DSM-5 diagnosis. (Malignant narcissists are often diagnosed as psychopaths.) They are also over-represented in the medical field and the military. No surprises there!   @lori I'm writing to say that I admire your response so much. The second crime scene boundary, your direct communication style, making the whole thing public, thank you for modeling such great boundaries.  @venite @melanie in a different country! They had to set up a legal entity in a whole other country to print tshirts! I hope this is some kind of money laundering scam because otherwise what the hell are you DOING And the shirts don't even have their logo on them and they're giving the 20,000 shirts away for free  @funnymonkey Both are such obvious signs that they think building in-house from scratch is the only solution. And that’s a pretty big blind spot to have. @lori @melanie @funnymonkey @lori @venite @melanie re: creating t-shirt company vs implementing tax compliance - - YES omg. I hadn't put the weirdness clear in my head until you pointed that out. So, so much of A Choice. @melanie I've dealt with this type of guy before, if you try to debate them they just feel rewarded for their behavior, the best thing you can do is give them nothing. Then if they keep insisting on yelling at you it's clear that this was never a discussion, they're just ranting at random strangers. They have nothing to twist the story with later, but you have a lot of proof of them being boundary crossers later. @daisy55 Every single reply I made to him told him I didn't want to talk to him about it lmao and his replies got longer and longer I went ahead and posted this because I stopped getting replies but I'm worried I'm going to wake up tomorrow and find out it's because it took him hours to draft a 500 page reply next  @dexiheart you just don't understand his VISION, which is exactly what i described it as being except with a more positive attitude about it >:( @lori the moment he started about sales tax made me think "... does this man not know what sales tax is????? like at all???????" @dexiheart lmao again i don't wanna get into Rebuttals here but I have posted this about kagi's financials before so I'll restate it: they talked about how they hadn't been paying sales tax they DID owe, so it's not like they JUST started having to pay it, they needed to before and just never did until now  @lori A couple of points here that I realise are very minor next to the overall unhinged-ness of the emails themselves: 1) Parts 2 and 3 here appear to be the same screenshot - I think one may be missing. 2) I think you could do with quotes around "nothing" (to make it clear you mean the answer given is "nothing" rather than that they are "saying nothing") in this sentence of the blog post. I see why Vlad got confused here at least.  @lori i love how when tech bros see anything mildly critical of them they call it "an agenda" 🙄 |
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