Howard “The Professor” Lederer, former director of Full Tilt Poker, has given us his thoughts on a variety of business topics including ethics, negotiation technique and the importance of honesty.
His revelatory insights come from a series of interviews with Big Think uploaded earlier this week. Over a dozen short videos with Howard Lederer and sister Annie Duke are available, covering topics such as “Risky Business,” “Negotiating” and another titled “In Poker, Bluff. In Business, Hide.”
We learn that, in business, as in poker “all you have is your reputation,” and that you cannot just borrow money and then declare “oh sorry, I don’t have any money.”
“Honesty,” we are told, “is the best hustle.”
First, just to recap from the amended complaint filed last September in New York by Attorney Preet Bharara, it is alleged:
“... Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme. As a result of our enforcement actions this alleged self-dealing scheme came to light. Not only did the firm orchestrate a massive fraud against the U.S. banking system, as previously alleged, Full Tilt also cheated and abused its own players to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. As described, Full Tilt insiders lined their own pockets with funds picked from the pockets of their most loyal customers while blithely lying to both players and the public alike about the safety and security of the money deposited with the company … The FTP Insider Defendants specifically owned the following approximate percentages of Tiltware LLC: Bitar (7.8%), Lederer (8.6%), Ferguson (19.2%), and Furst (2.6%) ... Lederer received approximately $42 million.”
In another video, Lederer explains how, even if “poker broke,” it is important you still have your reputation and people respect your game. Poker, we are told, is all about making good decisions under conditions of uncertainty.
Full Tilt Poker is currently in talks with with the Department of Justice and PokerStars to come to an agreement to forfeit their assets, following eight months of negotiations with Groupe Bernard Tapie that fell through.
Lederer’s tips? Try seeing the deal from your opponents perspective and, if you are playing too hard-ball, you need to pull back a little from the deal so everyone gets a fair share. Empathy is a constant theme through his interview.
In total there are seven short videos with Howard Lederer, and eight with sister Annie Duke, including one full length interview. Phil Gordon and James McManus were also interviewed.
The videos were posted 2 days ago by Big Think which describes itself as: “A knowledge forum featuring the ideas, lessons, stories and advice of leading experts from around the world.”
In 2011 Time Magazine voted it the Number 1 site for news and info. Truly, it is a great site and poker players around the world will now give it an additional nomination for great comedy.
