Consider the hypothesis that Alice lied to us about how much money the business was making. (I actually remember her telling me it brought in $5,000 a month. We chose the $3,000 because that seemed more charitable and was what Emerson remembers her telling him). Or that she lied to you about how much it made. Or both.
Everybody already agrees that she gives unreliable testimony. There’s also a clear motive. When she’s talking to you, she’s trying to seem maximally like a helpless victim, because otherwise she wouldn’t get the $5,000 or the support. When she was talking to us, she was trying to seem maximally successful as an entrepreneur so we would incubate her.
There’s also a clear motive. When she’s talking to you, she’s trying to seem maximally like a helpless victim, because otherwise she wouldn’t get the $5,000 or the support
Again, we did not promise any payment for anything until quite late in the process, and I think this came up before any kind of reward for any of this was discussed. I think this is misrepresenting the situation pretty badly.
Everybody already agrees that she gives unreliable testimony.
I do not think such generalizations should currently assumed to be common-knowledge. I think a huge fraction of the testimony she has given is accurate. There are a few places in which things Alice says do seem contradicted by things you are showing and saying.
The same is also true in reverse, where many claims in your post and appendix about (for example) stuff that Ben knew at different points in time, or claims you are making about what Ben or Alice or Chloe said are also demonstrably false.
In-aggregate I would still very substantially update if Alice claimed that something was true. I also do not think she lives up to my standards of precision and accuracy, but I would definitely not describe that in a kind of blanket statement as you do here.
Consider the hypothesis that Alice lied to us about how much money the business was making. (I actually remember her telling me it brought in $5,000 a month. We chose the $3,000 because that seemed more charitable and was what Emerson remembers her telling him). Or that she lied to you about how much it made. Or both.
Yes, I am considering that. I think it’s quite plausible she exaggerated how much money her business was making. I think that’s bad, but also isn’t something particularly terrible (I’ve seen many people do it over the years, and I think it’s pretty bad, but sadly also not uncommon). I also think it’s plausible you are misremembering or distorting the numbers she told you.
My current best guess is that she said some vague things to you about how much money it was making, which were probably exaggerated. Given the broader context and evidence, I would be quite surprised if the $3000 or $5000 is correct, and that she lied to Ben about by substantially downplaying how much money came from the business, though it is not impossible (I would give it like 10%-15%).
FWIW I think I don’t care how much money she actually made. I care how much money she said she made to NL, and how much she told Ben that she told NL she was making.
If she insinuated high to NL to get the job and then did not own up to that when talking to Ben, that is very hard for me to forgive. Even setting aside the idea that NL might not have hired her in the first place if she accurately represented both her skills and her financial dependence, thus avoiding this whole mess in the first place… it basically treated Ben as an arrow to be fired at people who she felt wronged by, and once again led in an additional way to this whole more recent mess.
And unless I’m misremembering, there’s at least a bit of evidence that Emerson believed she was making ~36k a year and said as much to her, which presumably was not corrected by her after, but even if it was… yeah, it doesn’t look great for Alice here, by my lights.
Consider the hypothesis that Alice lied to us about how much money the business was making. (I actually remember her telling me it brought in $5,000 a month. We chose the $3,000 because that seemed more charitable and was what Emerson remembers her telling him). Or that she lied to you about how much it made. Or both.
Everybody already agrees that she gives unreliable testimony. There’s also a clear motive. When she’s talking to you, she’s trying to seem maximally like a helpless victim, because otherwise she wouldn’t get the $5,000 or the support. When she was talking to us, she was trying to seem maximally successful as an entrepreneur so we would incubate her.
Again, we did not promise any payment for anything until quite late in the process, and I think this came up before any kind of reward for any of this was discussed. I think this is misrepresenting the situation pretty badly.
I do not think such generalizations should currently assumed to be common-knowledge. I think a huge fraction of the testimony she has given is accurate. There are a few places in which things Alice says do seem contradicted by things you are showing and saying.
The same is also true in reverse, where many claims in your post and appendix about (for example) stuff that Ben knew at different points in time, or claims you are making about what Ben or Alice or Chloe said are also demonstrably false.
In-aggregate I would still very substantially update if Alice claimed that something was true. I also do not think she lives up to my standards of precision and accuracy, but I would definitely not describe that in a kind of blanket statement as you do here.
Yes, I am considering that. I think it’s quite plausible she exaggerated how much money her business was making. I think that’s bad, but also isn’t something particularly terrible (I’ve seen many people do it over the years, and I think it’s pretty bad, but sadly also not uncommon). I also think it’s plausible you are misremembering or distorting the numbers she told you.
My current best guess is that she said some vague things to you about how much money it was making, which were probably exaggerated. Given the broader context and evidence, I would be quite surprised if the $3000 or $5000 is correct, and that she lied to Ben about by substantially downplaying how much money came from the business, though it is not impossible (I would give it like 10%-15%).
FWIW I think I don’t care how much money she actually made. I care how much money she said she made to NL, and how much she told Ben that she told NL she was making.
If she insinuated high to NL to get the job and then did not own up to that when talking to Ben, that is very hard for me to forgive. Even setting aside the idea that NL might not have hired her in the first place if she accurately represented both her skills and her financial dependence, thus avoiding this whole mess in the first place… it basically treated Ben as an arrow to be fired at people who she felt wronged by, and once again led in an additional way to this whole more recent mess.
And unless I’m misremembering, there’s at least a bit of evidence that Emerson believed she was making ~36k a year and said as much to her, which presumably was not corrected by her after, but even if it was… yeah, it doesn’t look great for Alice here, by my lights.