Page 2 of this thread. Third post.
Definitely. You'd think someone that had failed miserably his first try would have a bit of heart for a guy in a similar spot. But Bob probably thinks of Shart as an 'outsider' and himself as a real professional, and he's actually just doing that thing where people who are professionals don't want non-professionals entering their space at all.
Comic folks too. I loved my tenure as self-published indie scum, though. I'll get back to it someday.
But they didn't have a tough crowd. They had a tough co-host who is now making a very similar toy line to the one he was grilling.
I don't think Lenny's silence here constitutes evidence of what you're suggesting it does. If we're positioning him as winner and Vala as loser based on who gets to design namebrand GIJoes, then it is unsurprising that Lenny doesn't respond and it has little to do with his character. In any conflict or negotiation, the more powerful party is that which can walk away (or here, continue to design GI Joes) without resolving the conflict between the parties. From personal experience, as a younger scientist much of my most impactful work was stolen by a couple powerful players in the immunotherapy field. I've through public channels blasted their continued publications derived from my work on occasion but they never address my posts and never will. I have an interest in resolving the matter but they don't; unresolved, they get to keep publishing papers on it and being big names in the field. Why risk mutual engagement, particularly when one knows one is in the wrong and won't be held to account for ignoring engagement? Similarly, Elon Musk missed this memo, but billionaires don't have to respond to our complaints about them because whether they do or not they stay billionaires.
100% not what I'm doing. I'm positioning Lenny as the winner because he doesn't stoop to the level of jumping on social media to talk shit about Bob and his fake Action Force line. To my knowledge, he's never done so, despite repeated jabs from Vala at himself and the line he works on. Lenny, as far as I've seen, has never even stooped to the level of casually throwing 'directionless, no names' kind of shade.
We don't disagree on any of this - I just don't think it's relevant. Lenny definitely isn't a billionaire. He didn't steal anything from Bob, or copy him in any way. This is -essentially- two equals in the field, more or less, working on competing (sort of) toylines. Lenny may work for a bigger company, but he's also an employee while Bob is the owner of his own company. If Lenny wanted to make some off-hand snarky remarks in a 'if you know you know' kind of way, he absolutely could. I doubt Hasbro would even give a shit.
I'd challenge that Lenny gets to be called 'the powerful.' That dude is one random exec getting grumpy away from not having a job, just like many of us. Nor would I characterize Vala as the aggrieved party here. He's just a failed bully. If anything, he's probably counting on Lenny's position with a larger company to keep him silent while Bob gets to denigrate him and his work with impunity.
All of that wasn't meant to be conflated. Clearly Lenny isn't a billionaire and is an employee. Each example - billionaire, capitalist, powerful scientist, or Hasbro designer who works on a desirable IP like GI Joe - each of these exemplifies someone who gets to carry on doing what they're doing by doing nothing with regard to a conflict. If you position Vala as the guy "just making that line of military guys that ISN'T G.I. Joe, and will only ever be the line that isn't G.I. Joe" and he shares that view and feels aggrieved by how things played out at Hasbro, then I wouldn't take his outbursts or someone else's reticence as prima facie evidence as to who is in the right.
HE DIDN'T GO AFTER THE GODFORSAKEN HIPS?! That's straight where I'd've gone... Maybe he didn't feel like he had a leg to stand on as that was also a source of breakage on Action Force figures in wave 1. Drop down hips and I have a beef.
