My reaction to all of this has been pretty straightforward:...

My reaction to all of this has been pretty straightforward:

1) If there's one thing I know about online interactions, it's not to let someone take you to Crime Scene Number Two. Having a private debate with Vlad about this would mean no witnesses and no accountability, meaning he could claim anything about the discussion. Even moreso when done through a call instead of text.

2) I repeatedly told Vlad I would not engage with him and he continued to come at me, increasingly so even

3) This is the CEO of a company getting extremely twisted up because one nobody posted a blog post that barely got any engagement or shares that said they didn't trust him or his company.

4) This subject line that implies...what, that this can be fixed? "Fatih (sic) can not be lost"? It's a bizarre thing to start with.

Like 11 April at 23:21 | Open on hackers.town

37 comments

lori

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.

11 April at 23:23 | Open on hackers.town

lori

I think this is petty and sad behavior from the CEO of a company and I think this is a man that does not understand boundaries at ALL.

And you know what I truly believe? I already thought this before based on seeing his responses to feedback, but I believe it a thousand times more now that I've been on the receiving end: I think it genuinely eats him alive that someone doesn't agree with him or doesn't think he's doing great work, and he also truly believes that if he can just keep explaining himself to them they'll OBVIOUSLY see it his way. He cannot accept that someone might think Kagi sucks, to the point where he has to reach out to someone like me to try to argue them into Thinking Correctly.

I think this is petty and sad behavior from the CEO of a company and I think this is a man that does not understand boundaries at ALL.

Expand text...

11 April at 23:25 | Open on hackers.town

lori

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.

11 April at 23:28 | Open on hackers.town

lori

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.

11 April at 23:50 | Open on hackers.town

Yohannon

@lori he clearly needs to google... excuse me, KAGI... the phrase "Streisand Effect". 🤦🏼‍♂️

12 April at 0:01 | Open on mastodon.social

Third spruce tree on the left

@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?

12 April at 2:45 | Open on mas.to

Third spruce tree on the left

@lori also top marks for textifying the email thread

12 April at 2:46 | Open on mas.to

jack

@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?

12 April at 10:11 | Open on strangeobject.space

erik:~$ :idle:

@lori I wonder if they go to these lengths if you unsubscribe from their marketing emails...

12 April at 0:37 | Open on fosstodon.org

Jex

@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.

12 April at 3:05 | Open on mas.to

gkrnours

@jex That's the kind of behavior I expected when I reached in the chain mail the "I talk politics at dinner in private but not professionally in public".

12 April at 6:25 | Open on mastodon.gamedev.place

bigiain

This is gold: “ no other search CEO has shown up in my email inbox to mansplain their company to me.”

https://hackers.town/@lori/112255132348604770

@lori

12 April at 7:45 | Open on aus.social

Michael

@lori hey when I closed my trial account with them aaagggess ago and said it was because I didn’t realise they were so keen on AI bullshit I got a similar e-mail from Vlad! I didn’t bother to reply, seems like that was the right chocie

12 April at 9:08 | Open on cloudisland.nz

lori

@fincham God that's amazing, I can't say I'm shocked (or shocked by the one I got) because I've seen him in discord trying to debate people into thinking they should give him money. He can't even tolerate "I don't think this fits in my budget"

12 April at 10:25 | Open on hackers.town

0xC0DEC0DE07E8

@lori @fincham if you are waiting in line to be harassed by the Kagi CEO for not liking his product, STAY IN LINE. He will get around to emailing you!

12 April at 11:34 | Open on hachyderm.io

Lnklnx :debian:

@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.

12 April at 11:16 | Open on mastodon.sdf.org

River :therian:

@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..."

12 April at 11:31 | Open on derg.social

Reina :maybe_verified:

@lori His response is so fuckinh hilarious because it's basically just "I don't believe [thing you wrote]. Let me explain. What I believe is [thing you wrote but phrased differently]"

Does he not realise that none of the things he said refuted your points? He just repeated you while pretending to disagree ...

This is what he's been doing in everything I've seen from him too. He thinks that explaining himself multiple times will make people somehow change their mind. But people aren't misunderstanding him, they're disagreeing with him. Fundamentally.

Also, like, why does he even bother responding to everything? Is that just all he does every day? xD

I already disliked him for his "technology is apolitical" stance, but now I dislike him even more. Fuck him.

@lori His response is so fuckinh hilarious because it's basically just "I don't believe [thing you wrote]. Let me explain. What I believe is [thing you wrote but phrased differently]"

Does he not realise that none of the things he said refuted your points? He just repeated you while pretending to disagree ...

Expand text...

12 April at 14:50 | Open on antabaka.me

lori

@Reina This is honestly a common thing I saw in Reddit comments. "If you disagree with me it must be that I'm not explaining my point clearly enough, because it's impossible that you actually think I'm wrong"

12 April at 14:53 | Open on hackers.town

Jonbjohns

@Reina

I'd be curious if this response thread is the same he gives others that disagree

12 April at 15:36 | Open on idlethumbs.social

Jack William Bell

@lori

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.)

12 April at 2:02 | Open on rustedneuron.com

lori

@jackwilliambell sorry but no, not my first time dealing with a Vlad and wasn't even totally shocked about this Vlad doing this

12 April at 2:25 | Open on hackers.town

Jack William Bell

@lori

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!

12 April at 2:35 | Open on rustedneuron.com

deilann

@lori this is tommy tallarico levels of response

11 April at 23:25 | Open on tech.lgbt

lori

@deilann YOU ARE NOT WRONG

11 April at 23:25 | Open on hackers.town

deilann

@lori

if the CEO of Google or Microsoft wanted to clarify things to you you'd sit down and talk to them (tommy tallarico voice)

11 April at 23:28 | Open on tech.lgbt

rixx

@lori @deilann Do you think Vlad's mother is very proud of him tho

12 April at 10:56 | Open on chaos.social

deilann

@rixx @lori

how many guinness world records does vlad have

12 April at 13:01 | Open on tech.lgbt

Ben S.

@lori I'm not owned! I'm not owned! 🌽

12 April at 1:31 | Open on mastodon.sdf.org

Melanie (they, she)

@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.

12 April at 6:45 | Open on queer.party

Anna

@melanie @lori seconded, this is an education!

And… they started their own physical t-shirt printing business? To give away merch? That’s wild.

12 April at 7:12 | Open on mastodon.nl

lori

@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

12 April at 10:30 | Open on hackers.town

Anna

@lori @melanie I thought one of my previous employers had it bad when they decided to build their own Java framework because they disliked one (1) thing about Spring. This is a class of their own.

12 April at 10:34 | Open on mastodon.nl

funnymonkey

@lori I love how tax compliance was too hard to implement, but starting a new separate tshirt printing business was totally in scope and achievable. @venite @melanie

12 April at 11:22 | Open on freeradical.zone

Anna

@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

12 April at 11:24 | Open on mastodon.nl

Leona

@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.

12 April at 14:37 | Open on mindly.social

lori

@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.

12 April at 10:29 | Open on hackers.town

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