What They STILL Don’t Teach at GSB About Getting Revenge

Larry Chiang is an instructional humorist and has a self-reported IQ of about 88. What he lacks in academic prowess, he more than makes up for in wisdom / street-smarts. He is not a Jedi but has instincts stronger than Obi-Wan Kenobi when it comes to corporate shenanigans. Read this and the force will be with you too. At Stanford, Chiang teaches ENGR145 as EIR (entrepreneur in residence). After a BASES keynote, he did Q&A via text message, revealed “What They STILL Don’t Teach You at Stanford GSB About Scamming”. Harvard Business wrote: “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School“ (it is the same title as his NY Times best seller)

If you read his hilariously awesome “What a Supermodel Can Teach a Stanford MBA” and “How to Get Man-Charm”, you will like his latest post: “What They STILL Don’t Teach at GSB About Getting Revenge“. It first appeared as a BASES blog post.

By Larry Chiang

There an old adage that states, “If you seek revenge, dig two graves”

For the most part, what Confucious said is true. I study revenge and quite frankly am really good at it (here, here and here). Here is what Confucious could have learned from me about revenge.

If you work in business long enough, you are going to get screwed. After you get worked over, you are going to want revenge… But there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Here are my thoughts:

-1- Just like comedy, timing is everything when it comes to revenge.

The difference between very funny and not that funny can be a few beats

Revenge is similar.

Timing a revenge act needs to be on your terms with countermeasures planned. You need countermeasures thought out two or three steps ahead for when your enemy attacks back.

-2- Revenge is like war… You annihilate your enemy and then offer to help them rebuild

Tokyo would have been hard to rebuild after the H-bomb, but Nagasaki is ok

Rebuilding is like good karma. The way that it applies here with revenge is that after you put them on their ass, you allow them to save face and help them rebuild a little.

If you rape Nanking and deny that it ever happened, you’ll get nuked later*.

-3- Resist the temptation to exact revenge on a weaker non-culprit.

Cliche example is little kid who is mean to small animals because someone was abusing them or did not love them enough. You take revenge to the doorstep of the one who harmed you NOT an innocent.

I repeat… You never take it out on some innocent victim.

You don’t kick the neighbors dog or harm other mid-size mammals.

My advice: you work hard, train hard and study hard. Then when your chance comes, you exact your revenge with a fury that is honed, exact and specific.
-4- Play for Chips

Chips here are favors. Get support before you go to war. If your port was seized or your land plundered, sign the peace treaty while you’re weak and play for more chips. Never go to war with a short stack

-5- Hope for bad behavior and spring your revenge maneuver

Sometimes, pretending to not understand the law lulls your opponent into making a mistake. For example, the credit industry has a two tier justice system in place that treats poor dumb people one way and smart rich people a different way.

If you pretend to be dumb, the credit official will incorrectly cite credit law and if you have proof via a voice recording (the offending party will rarely put their thoughts to paper) then you’ve got them. Spring your revenge maneuver after they clearly behave badly and hopefully illegally.

-6- Beat the strong to discourage weaker, would-be culprits

I am 9 for 9 in court.

In legal conflicts I am batting over .950. Translated, I win 95% of the time there is a legal conflict. I win 100% of the time I go to court.

How do I win so much?! Every once in a while, I take on a strong large opponent that I know I can beat (How I do that is a very long article). Beating a large, strong opponents and documenting those wins discourages future culprits.

-7- Budget for revenge by taking the damage you suffer and doubling it.

Two is the number of graves you dig when you seek revenge. Double your damage is the rule of thumb when you are budgeting your little revenge project.

What I mean is that only attorneys win in a court battle, so you better pay up and get the cash reserves

Les Grossman, played by Tom Cruise, does not let deals change
Les Grossman, played by Tom Cruise, threatens terrorists with a revenge of epic proportions in “Tropic Thunder”.

-8- Opt for the Thermonuclear Option

This is also called the “No One Wins Option” from my post on how to keep a deal from changing.

Get a gas mask because it will feel like it is helping after the nuke goes off. Plot spoiler: gas masks are useless when a nuke goes off.

-9- Regular boring revenge

Regular boring revenge is just the strait forward legal channel.

My mentor, Mark McCormack, was a lawyer and I am sure he used his staff to protect his clients interests when deals changed or were misinterpreted. Read his book “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School“.

TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington is not above getting temporary justice by blogging his side of the story before filing court papers. His ex-friend and business partner, Chandra Rathakrishnan yanked out the CrunchPad days before the product launch.

In summary, revenge needs to be properly executed but is generally bad for everyone. I hope this article serves to merely entertain you versus your using this as a guide to really get revenge.

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