A "tell" in poker is when you observe a change in another player's behavior or demeanor that may give a clue to what their hand is. In business—running, growing, and scaling tech businesses as a CEO, founder, chairman, or board member or as an investor—there are going to be lots of deals and you’re going to deal with lots of characters and stakeholders. I've been thinking lately about whether there are tells of someone's character.

One thing I find frustrating in dealing with stakeholders and in deal-making situations is when people are less than straightforward and manipulative. Unfortunately, that’s more often the case than not. I can think of three examples of interesting tells I've seen in some of my deals that I thought you might find interesting.

The first is when someone talks about how transparent and open they are. I’ve often found that people who brag about this can, in the background, be quite duplicitous.

The second is when someone is very paranoid about others—their intentions and actions, constantly reading into everything. Often, that person is someone you should be slightly paranoid about.

Third is when you see an emotional overreaction, especially from a founder or CEO. They say they can't talk about something now because of everything that’s going on. This kind of emotional response can signal that they’re trying to avoid addressing a very direct issue. The tell here is that they’re using a certain amount of emotionalism to avoid having the discussion.

I think these are all important issues to be aware of. On the last point, I don't necessarily have a good solution, but I think next time – I'll just keep pressing on the issue in the moment and not back off, seeing how much tension develops. These are all tells, and we need to be alive to them. We should be aware of the spirit of the person we’re dealing with, as well as any emotionalism they’re using against us.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this: when someone is excessively concerned about their reputation, I often find that person has a very big ego or a thin skin. I hope that helps.