In remembrance of our roots, I’ve enclosed a link to Corporate Investor’s Official Guide to Aircraft Registration 2022. But our business now is far removed from business jets and aircraft.

We tackle a world upside down where everything is stacked up against the honest and hard-working man. When I talked about the fraudster Elizabeth Holmes four or five years ago, there were only unicorns in the tech jungle of Silicon Valley. Now there’re talking about “dragons”, private companies valued at $12 billion or more, net of capital raised. Axios The current U.S. dragons are: Stripe, SpaceX, Instacart, Epic Games, Databricks, Chime, Fanatics, Plaid, OpenSea, Miro and Grammarly. China has six, led by ByteDance. Dragons also are based in Australia, the Bahamas, India, Indonesia, The Bahamas and the U.K. [Axios]

I truly believe those fleeced nvestors who put money into Theranos did so to the extent they did because the Founder was female. The company lost most of the $945 MM it raised from investors when it dissolved amid regulatory probes and civil sanctions in 2018.

It’s all water under the water at this point. Look forward to more and egregious frauds coming out of Silicon Valley.

Well now, after two months of quarantine and two dozen emails requesting it, I finally said yes.

A phone consultation with me can be booked from anywhere in the world (make sure you’re adjusting your time to mine – I am on Pacific Time Zone -America). You’ll be required to enter a payment method to secure your reservation.

Please use this Square link (also repeated below). You’ll pay a reasonable fee of $300 for a 1/2 hour chat -we do this over the phone but if you feel the need to share things with me such as documents (non-proprietary, please) we can use Google Docs, Dropbox, or conference apps such as Cisco WebEx, Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts— I use them all. Make sure you use the one app you’re comfortable that it gives you the highest degree of security. If we need further time together, another 1/2 hour for example, you will not have to pay another $300. This phone consult is on a sliding scale after half an hour, your total phone consultation cost will depend on how long we’ll be together depending on our schedules. A full hour, for example, might end up costing you $450 if we so agree. I will not cut a phone call short before fully explaining myself to you and giving voice to my concise opinion, giving you time to take notes. I’m not here to hold your hand, I draw on 20 years of “Senior-level” experience.

If you need to cancel your phone appointment, please do so at least 24 hours beforehand. Otherwise, you’ll be charged a late cancellation fee of $100. No-Shows get charged more: 50% or $150.

The topic/s we’ll discuss can essentially be whatever roadblock(s) you have in your personal and professional life.

Please be as specific as possible. While you can change names for the sake of it, it may be advantageous to you to use your real name because it happened to you and not “your friend”. Have a solid clear, chronological List of Events, just like you do when you go to a lawyer. (To be clear, I don’t give lawyer advice or opinions of law). Hire a lawyer for that one. Lawyers (some of them) are good at what they do. Relationships “therapists” and “marriage counselors” -they’re garbage if you know what I mean. Note: I don’t discuss or entertain any securities offerings or investment advice.

I specialize in low-hope, distressed and high-stakes situations. Career, personal life, geo-tactical decisions, “incredibly difficult” missions, reboots of life.

Because of the nature of my business, all information will be held in strictest confidence. At worst I’ll point you to the right resources. I’ll sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement with the folks who want it. If you decide to go forward and employ me to undertake a project for you, thereby taking advantage of my personal resource capabilities, you will sign a formal Compensation for Services Agreement which spells out my tasks and responsibilities, the services involved, milestones. and compensation structure (typically a fixed retainer with half of it due at signing, the other half after completion).

Book NOW: Confidential Phone call with Max Cantor

Since I am starting to test this service, readers will understand that I am not able to answer their personal email questions any more, although your thoughts and inputs are always welcomed in the comments here.

Thank you.

Max Cantor

According to the [traditional view], the best way to get people to tell the truth is by eliciting lightning-quick responses, before they can reflect and dissemble.

But this may not be so, says a study published last month in the journal Psychological Science. It found that people are more likely to lie about themselves when under time pressure. “Asking people to respond quickly just makes them give you the answer you want to hear,” said John Protzko, the study’s first author and a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Susan Pinker

As Dr. Protzko observed, many studies “assume that putting people under time pressure gives you access to a hidden part of the mind. But we’re finding that they’re just lying. They’re giving you the answer that makes them look best.” He adds, “When you make people answer quickly, everyone lies.”

The moral of the study? If you want the truth, you have to be willing to wait for it.

Susan Pinker, WSJ

I wrote the title of this post as an obvious humorous take on Kahneman’s book title, Thinking Fast and Slow.

My take on the results of this study from interrogation techniques is: the lapse of time can either help gauge an answered lie or make it more difficult (as in the results of this study). There no rule as to which outcome the lapse of time will achieve.

On this blog we know how the CEOs , top brass and scummy bosses knee caps us.

Because we have undertaken a journey of discovery.

Now, let’s listen to my “boy” Boris Brejcha

How often does your boss butter you up with crap, not just with the innocent pat on the back “I get it. We’re on the same page.”  ?

What did Schwarzman say ? He said: “Everybody here can be successful.” You’ve heard that many times from many people, so he’s not the first and only to say it. The context:

“Landing an analyst position at Blackstone isn’t easy. In 2015, Schwarzman said the firm got more than 15,000 applications for 100 spots, or an acceptance rate of less than 0.7 percent. ‘It’s six times harder to get a job as an analyst at Blackstone than getting into Harvard, Yale or Stanford,’ the billionaire said in 2015. (Bloomberg)

When I heard that lie, common as it is, I thought: make a list of lies bosses, CEOs, top-of-the-food-chain people say. Some of these lies are so widespread, they’ve become part of daily life.

-“If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for your loved ones.” -As much as this makes sense (Does it ?), it is hamster wheeling. This is building a citizenry of servants and misandrists.

“Purpose doesn’t only come from work.” -Every once in a while an inspiring boss comes up with this one. Last seen: Mark Zuckerberg at the Harvard Commencement Speech earlier this year. This sentence is sort of read-the-fine-print while you’re doing shitty work. It’s your fault: it’s not the crappy job, it’s your lack of doing good things outside of it. Be a good donkey and stay at that unsatisfying job. Again, such statements read well on surface but are subterfuge for demolishing your personality.

When somebody says “Start at the bottom.“, ask yourself: Is such statement even necessary ? Someone can only start at the bottom. Where else can someone start, if not at the bottom. If they repeat it again four years later what they’re really saying is “Stay at the bottom.” Can you build an inverted pyramid ? Tell you what: I’ll look at your turnover, and based on that, I see what what you mean with the “Start at the bottom” line.

Skilled lies have to appear reasonable. The more powerful and polished the person, the more subtle the lying.

“Re-examine all that you have been told,
Dismiss that which insults your soul.” -Walt Whitman

The list is long.

I’m just getting warmed up.

Biggest lie you’re told -That’s how we make progress.