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Trust isn’t built on charm—it’s built on results.
Yet look around and you’ll see the opposite everywhere. Slick presentations win over working prototypes. Polished pitches beat proven products. The art of solicitation has become so sophisticated, so cinematic, it’s often mistaken for the solution itself.
“A menu is very useful, but it is no substitute for the dinner. A guidebook is an admirable tool, but it is hardly to be mistaken for the journey.”
— Alan W. Watts
Our decisions get tossed around by invisible inputs that have nothing to do with quality or value. A well-targeted solicitation makes deposits in your emotional piggy bank—not your logical one—until eventually it cracks wide open.
But that’s closer to lust than love. It’s influence, not trust.
The Theranos Trap
Elizabeth Holmes understood this perfectly. She sold a very specific product to a very specific niche: old, rich men. And what do old rich men want more than anything? To live longer. To get richer. To extend their prime—just a bit.
Theranos promised both. With just a single drop of blood, The Edison would give patients a full diagnostic screening. It would be easy—even pleasurable—to catch diseases early. Outsmart the reaper.
Rupert Murdoch and George Shultz cut checks. Henry Kissinger did too. At 91, he told The New Yorker:
“She has a sort of ethereal quality—that is to say, she looks like nineteen. And you say to yourself, ‘How is she ever going to run this?’”
“She does so,” he said, “by intellectual dominance; she knows the subject.”
But dominance over whom? And what subject exactly?
Excluding Holmes, the board was 100% male, with an average age of 76. George Shultz was 93.
The Edison was science fiction, and the biggest buyers of science fiction are those looking for something to believe.
They invested their time and money, but did they trust Holmes? The old-fashioned way to build trust is through track record—say what you’ll do and do what you say. Integrity. Reliability.
That’s not what these investors were using. Theranos was a proxy for what these old rich mean wanted to be true. But that’s not trust—it’s trust-lite. A low-level, give-them-the-benefit-of-the-doubt kind of faith typically reserved for the ice cream man or the Uber driver, not million-dollar checks.
The Counter-Example
This is exactly what Alex Karp, the eccentric CEO of Palantir, rails against. He’s focused on product over promotion.
“Clients are tired of these damn steak dinners and golf,” he says. “They want to see products that actually work.”
What he’s tired of is the sales team that’s all hat, no cattle. Slick PowerPoints. Great steak dinners. Empty calories.
Karp said, “We’re bad at slick PowerPoints. We’re even worse at steak dinners. We don’t play golf. We play software.”
That sounds idealistic—maybe even naïve—but it cuts to the core: you don’t build trust by entertaining someone. You build it by helping them solve something.
Too often, it’s not the best product that wins—it’s the best campaign. Instead of the best solution, it’s those sharp knives and steak dinners. And don’t fool yourself—the knives aren’t for your filet.
When Good Companies Go Bad
Even companies that built their reputation on solutions can fall into the solicitation trap. Take Apple—once the gold standard of “show, don’t tell.”
At WWDC 2024, they promised a revolutionary Siri that could read personal context and take real action across apps. The demo video showed Siri pulling TV recommendations from old texts, organizing photos with a single request.
When journalists asked to try it, Apple said no. Why? Because it wasn’t a demo. It wasn’t even a prototype. It was a concept video.
They ran national TV ads pushing those features for iPhone 16—then quietly pulled the ads when the features were delayed indefinitely. They weren’t selling a product, they were selling a promise. Vaporware. Solicitation dressed up as solution.
Like Holmes, they were hopeful they could build what they’d dreamed up. But hope is not a strategy.
This pattern—promising first, building later—reveals the difference between solutions and solicitation.
Solutions vs. Solicitation
What happens at those dinners and rounds of golf Karp despises? Those interactions can shape trust too—when used well. When they build understanding and foster transparency, they can accelerate solutions. But too often, they’re not about clarity. They’re about currying favor and gaining influence.
Birthdays and baby names. Likability and leverage. Not trust.
Solicitation asks people to trust proxies—your presentation, your credentials, your charm. A few drinks and a round of golf can breed reciprocity, but shortcuts like social proof and status aren’t trust. They’re influence masquerading as the real thing.
Solutions let people trust results.
Karp is, by his own admission, an idealist. He believes that over time, if he makes the best software, he will succeed. I can’t speak to Palantir’s technology, but his strategy is one I agree with. Not simply because of the product, but because of the compounding effect of producing it.
At the end of the day, none of those proxies matter if the thing doesn’t solve your problem. If it doesn’t work.
Shipping solutions—even in small increments—compound into trust. The dinner might get you in the door. The solution is what keeps you there.
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