Should Entrepreneurs Lie? • Hacker News Board

Re: Should Entrepreneurs Lie?

#11

Post by pw0ncakes » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 10:18 PM UTC

maxharris wrote: post #9

pw0ncakes wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about this scenario? VC wants to know how much interest there is in your company. You claim to have 3 leads from other VCs although you have none. IMO there is nothing wrong with this lie, because it doesn't lead anyone to make a bad decision. If you're a good investment, you get funding faster and on better terms. If you're a bad investment and the VC is any good, you'll get rejected even if you have 1000 leads…

VCs can just talk to each other and figure out that you're a fraud, which alone is a great reason to not deal with you. Don't lie! Morality is not just some arbitrary thing that you can make up as you go along if you want to achieve anything. The proper standard of morality for you and me and everyone else is not what will help or hurt the other party, it's what will help or hurt you and your long-term rational self-…

VCs can just talk to each other and figure out that you're a fraud

That's the danger: getting scumbagged behind your back.

How is that "fraud"? Claiming you have customers you do not is fraud. Promising to deliver a project that you cannot or will not is a fraud. Claiming that other VCs are interested in you is not fraud; it's just the kind of thing you have to do if you weren't born into connections.

The only people who have a problem with that are silver-spoon assholes who want to keep doors shut to people who didn't hang out with them in high school.

Re: Should Entrepreneurs Lie?

#12

Post by huherto » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 10:22 PM UTC

Everybody lies. But you have to be careful since your reputation is very important.

Re: Should Entrepreneurs Lie?

#13

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 10:24 PM UTC

pw0ncakes wrote: post #11

maxharris wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VCs can just talk to each other and figure out that you're a fraud, which alone is a great reason to not deal with you. Don't lie! Morality is not just some arbitrary thing that you can make up as you go along if you want to achieve anything. The proper standard of morality for you and me and everyone else is not what will help or hurt the other party, it's what will help or hurt you and your long-term rational self-…

VCs can just talk to each other and figure out that you're a fraud That's the danger: getting scumbagged behind your back. How is that "fraud"? Claiming you have customers you do not is fraud. Promising to deliver a project that you cannot or will not is a fraud. Claiming that other VCs are interested in you is not fraud; it's just the kind of thing you have to do if you weren't born into connections. The only people…

[deleted]

Re: Should Entrepreneurs Lie?

#14

Post by pw0ncakes » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 10:25 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #8

pw0ncakes wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about this scenario? VC wants to know how much interest there is in your company. You claim to have 3 leads from other VCs although you have none. IMO there is nothing wrong with this lie, because it doesn't lead anyone to make a bad decision. If you're a good investment, you get funding faster and on better terms. If you're a bad investment and the VC is any good, you'll get rejected even if you have 1000 leads…

Smart people realize that everyone has issues of one kind or another. Just tell the truth. Most of your past transgressions will get you a free pass. Lieing about them won't. IMO there is nothing wrong with this lie You've just self-identified yourself as a person to avoid doing business with.

Most of your past transgressions will get you a free pass.

It depends. Transgressions that reflect immature judgment and make for funny stories you can tell, especially if they're more than a few years old. Failures that reflect on you as a person of low status you cannot. If you have a rocky past, you want to paint your past self as someone who hadn't settled down yet and decided what he wanted from life, not as a hapless loser who got rolled over by others.

In order to be taken seriously, you have to create a fiction of self that is congruent with the standing conception of a high-status person. This is not what anyone likes to hear; it's naked, bitter realism.

I am not such an asshole as I might sound in this thread. I hate deceiving people, and so I generally don't. It's not that I would consider it wrong-- some people can't be trusted with the truth, and it's necessary to lie to them. I just don't like mixing with people in the "can't be trusted with the truth" category at all and so I will avoid them even if they could benefit me... but I also realize that people who are more materially ambitious than I am will have to do so.

Re: Should Entrepreneurs Lie?

#15

Post by bg4 » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 10:28 PM UTC

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

Re: Should Entrepreneurs Lie?

#16

Post by maxharris » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 10:32 PM UTC

pw0ncakes wrote: post #11

maxharris wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VCs can just talk to each other and figure out that you're a fraud, which alone is a great reason to not deal with you. Don't lie! Morality is not just some arbitrary thing that you can make up as you go along if you want to achieve anything. The proper standard of morality for you and me and everyone else is not what will help or hurt the other party, it's what will help or hurt you and your long-term rational self-…

VCs can just talk to each other and figure out that you're a fraud That's the danger: getting scumbagged behind your back. How is that "fraud"? Claiming you have customers you do not is fraud. Promising to deliver a project that you cannot or will not is a fraud. Claiming that other VCs are interested in you is not fraud; it's just the kind of thing you have to do if you weren't born into connections. The only people…

People that are in business and successful because they were in a high school clique?

Just how many people does Steve Jobs hire because he knew them from school? Zero, because his way of doing business is to hire the best. To the extent that people are like Jobs in this regard, their businesses are successful. People that hire friends, regardless of their ability will never rise to great heights in business (or any endeavor).

Do you want to work for someone mediocre, or someone great? Even if you were successful in your lie, lying would only get you the mediocre job. A great employer (someone of high caliber) would figure it out, or would be principled enough to fire you when they figured it out.

Re: Should Entrepreneurs Lie?

#17

Post by maxharris » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 10:34 PM UTC

pw0ncakes wrote: post #14

edw519 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart people realize that everyone has issues of one kind or another. Just tell the truth. Most of your past transgressions will get you a free pass. Lieing about them won't. IMO there is nothing wrong with this lie You've just self-identified yourself as a person to avoid doing business with.

Most of your past transgressions will get you a free pass. It depends. Transgressions that reflect immature judgment and make for funny stories you can tell, especially if they're more than a few years old. Failures that reflect on you as a person of low status you cannot. If you have a rocky past, you want to paint your past self as someone who hadn't settled down yet and decided what he wanted from life, not as a h…

"most people can't be trusted with the truth, and it's necessary to lie to them"

This is disgusting. You need to learn to respect yourself; this in turn will help you respect others.

Re: Should Entrepreneurs Lie?

#18

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 10:42 PM UTC

pw0ncakes wrote: post #3

Tough call, but here's the reality of business: everyone ends up "lying", even the people who do their best to be honest (those tend to fall into the overconfidence camp). Some people are just overconfident or have sunny reflections on the past, but everyone lies, and mostly about things of no consequence-- why they left their last job, who they know, their relative rank and responsibility in previous companies. I ge…

[deleted]

Re: Should Entrepreneurs Lie?

#19

Post by pw0ncakes » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 10:43 PM UTC

maxharris wrote: post #17

pw0ncakes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of your past transgressions will get you a free pass. It depends. Transgressions that reflect immature judgment and make for funny stories you can tell, especially if they're more than a few years old. Failures that reflect on you as a person of low status you cannot. If you have a rocky past, you want to paint your past self as someone who hadn't settled down yet and decided what he wanted from life, not as a h…

"most people can't be trusted with the truth, and it's necessary to lie to them" This is disgusting. You need to learn to respect yourself; this in turn will help you respect others.

I took out "most". That was far too strong a statement.

I respect myself. However, I'm aware of human nature as it actually is. Most people don't even like the truth. They despise the reality around them and need to be fed a fiction in order to function. The facts-- that good people often fail for varying reasons, that life is inherently unfair and often dark-- are so disquieting to them that they shut them out. This is why people tend to personalize past success and failure beyond what is reasonable; they want to believe they live in a just world.

Imagine interviewing a candidate who says this: "I'm interested in working for you because you have great people and I want to learn from them. As long as you have interesting assignments for me to do, and my superiors make my advancement and education a top priority, I'll do an excellent job of them. If I feel that this is not the case, or become isolated, I'll jump ship on a dime. Also, if I'm ever passed over for a plum assignment that is within my capability, I'll launch my resumes that afternoon.

This is the truth for any ambitious person, but you'd be absolutely nuts to say that sort of thing on an interview. You might be thrown out the door immediately for that kind of renegade honesty. You're expected to maintain a fiction of self that is otherwise.

Re: Should Entrepreneurs Lie?

#20

Post by pw0ncakes » Thu, Apr 08, 2010, 10:46 PM UTC

maxharris wrote: post #16

pw0ncakes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VCs can just talk to each other and figure out that you're a fraud That's the danger: getting scumbagged behind your back. How is that "fraud"? Claiming you have customers you do not is fraud. Promising to deliver a project that you cannot or will not is a fraud. Claiming that other VCs are interested in you is not fraud; it's just the kind of thing you have to do if you weren't born into connections. The only people…

People that are in business and successful because they were in a high school clique? Just how many people does Steve Jobs hire because he knew them from school? Zero, because his way of doing business is to hire the best. To the extent that people are like Jobs in this regard, their businesses are successful. People that hire friends, regardless of their ability will never rise to great heights in business (or any e…

People that are in business and successful because they were in a high school clique?

I never said this. Obviously, it is not true.

I said that the people who'd consider it some kind of moral transgression, rather than a strategic move, to tell a VC that you have other VC interest are the kinds of people who want to keep "the doors" closed to the hoipolloi, because their worst nightmare is outsiders getting into their club, so they have to throw into place a moral "consensus" that judges such moves to be wrong.