Silicon Valley Is Filled With Liars • Hacker News Board

Re: Silicon Valley Is Filled With Liars

#61

Post by Danieru » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 2:19 AM UTC

anon808 wrote: post #57

mattmanser wrote: post #25

When I was about 12 I remember doing some school craft competition where we had to make and then sell our wares to our teachers. A teacher said something to me that's always stuck, but I always struggle with following. It was "Don't point out your own short comings" I was saying things like 'in the final run the paint job will be better', highlighting the deficiencies of our Xmas decorations instead of highlighting t…

Once it's recognized that a person thought that way, why would any rational person believe what they had to say?

Very true. The salesman's only saving grace is that no human being is rational.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Filled With Liars

#62

Post by bpatrianakos » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 2:21 AM UTC

I have decided that for me personally, the comments defending the original TC article are what I'll point to when I say "HN really has gone downhill". The article was awful journalism (it shouldn't even be considered journalism) and read like a gossip rag except no one knew or cared about the girl in question.

It's not good to lie but writing a takedown piece about a nobody makes you look like a bigger ass than the subject of the article itself. Especially when the entirely of the story could be summed up as "this girl lied about being a big shot. Here's some pictures that may or may not have been made by her and may or may not be innocent like how lots of people photoshop people next to famous people". There was no research, it was a dumb story unworthy of coverage by a widely read blog like TC, and I think it's shameful the story ended up on HN at all without being killed let alone the front page.

Yeah sure, it sparked a discussion about ethics and whatnot but if you look at the comments a lot of them read like people discussing the one-sided farces that are reality shows.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Filled With Liars

#63

Post by at-fates-hands » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 2:25 AM UTC

To me it's funny to hear people complain about people lying in the startup and tech industry. You should hang out with some outside sales people sometime. Those guys make what she did look like a girl scout bake sale.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Filled With Liars

#64

Post by j_baker » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 2:46 AM UTC

nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #44

j_baker wrote: post #32

The world is filled with liars. I can come up with examples of this happening outside Silicon Valley for almost all of these points. Vanity metrics? "Customers saved an average of $200 by switching to Geico" Acquisition boasting? I'm sure this happens all the time, but nothing comes to mind immediately. Perpetual Euphoria? Enron's CEO talked the company up until the last minute. Perpetual Euphoria for Investors? Hous…

> Lying about who you're friends with? Every high schooler in existence. Who would a high schooler lie about being friends with? Was I really that lame that I don't recall ever doing that?

Ok, so maybe it's an exaggeration to say that everyone does that. I bet you'd be surprised if you really sat down and thought about it though.

"You know, Leslie Fischer and I are totally BFFs. She went to the dance with Bobby Jones and told me all about it. She told me he dumped her to hang out with his friends and then started dating that tramp Haley Freeman."

Re: Silicon Valley Is Filled With Liars

#65

Post by ucee054 » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 2:53 AM UTC

biznickman wrote: post #49

mattmanser wrote: post #25

When I was about 12 I remember doing some school craft competition where we had to make and then sell our wares to our teachers. A teacher said something to me that's always stuck, but I always struggle with following. It was "Don't point out your own short comings" I was saying things like 'in the final run the paint job will be better', highlighting the deficiencies of our Xmas decorations instead of highlighting t…

As we discussed in the comments of the post, I think I simply blur the definition of "lying". Stretching the truth, or purposely omitting the other side of the story is a form of lying if you ask me. Am I completely wrong here?

You aren't the only one who thinks this way.

(Not that that answers your question).

I guess that we are outnumbered though.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Filled With Liars

#66

Post by dbecker » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 3:36 AM UTC

Maybe it's because I don't live in Silicon Valley... or because I'm less "into the startup scene" than other people on HN... but I'm surprised anyone even cares about the TechCrunch article.

Shirley Hornstein is a nobody to me. She fooled some people, which is a shame. But, how many people are really affected by photoshopped pictures with some celebrities on her facebook page. The rest of this isn't particularly newsworthy either.

The TC article is irrelevant gossip. This blog response is sort of a stretch too.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Filled With Liars

#67

Post by HorizonXP » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 3:36 AM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #15

You think Silicon Valley is bad? Hahaha. You should see Toronto. The distribution here is totally bimodal. The 10 to 15% that get it and the remainder that are so totally clueless it isn't even funny. I once, when I was younger and dumber, had a self-proclaimed "angel" investor tell me that he needed to ask his wife if he could invest 25k after leading me to believe he could close a whole round himself. Of course thi…

I really wish we could fix the situation here in Toronto. I really don't want to have to go to the Valley, there are competitive reasons why I want to keep my startup here. But if funding is as difficult to find as Torontonians make it out to be, I may have to move.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Filled With Liars

#68

Post by michaelochurch » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 3:39 AM UTC

People are piling on Shirley Hornstein because (1) she got caught, and (2) she's female. The second of these is 90 percent of it.

If you "trick" powerful people into accepting you as one of your own by claiming connections you don't have, and succeed in doing so, you've earned it. (If you fail, then slink away quietly and try again in a couple of years.) A lot of people are dumbasses who let the crowd make their decisions for them, and they deserve what they get from people who can mislead them about the crowd opinion (and mostly, those outsiders are just as competent, and would only be rejected because they weren't born in the "right" place).

Overt fraud is wrong. If you claim to be a doctor and don't know a thing about medicine, that's quackery and it endangers people and you belong in jail. If you convince the powerful that you are part of their club until the lie becomes true, then it's not really my thing, but I see nothing wrong with it.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Filled With Liars

#69

Post by dbecker » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 3:39 AM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #6

What especially bothers me about this sort of trend is that it forces those of us who aren't big on bullshitting to do it anyway. The impression I've gotten is that prospective investors and the like expect that you're going to contort your numbers into a just-over-the-horizon hockey stick. So, any stance that rejects this fake 'crushing it'[1] mentality is viewed as an indication that you're failing miserably. [1] F…

I've worked with dishonest people. "Everyone is bullshitting, so I have to too" was always their excuse.

I disagree that the existence of liars "forces" others to do the same, and I think it's a really harmful way of thinking.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Filled With Liars

#70

Post by qq66 » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 3:44 AM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #68

People are piling on Shirley Hornstein because (1) she got caught, and (2) she's female. The second of these is 90 percent of it. If you "trick" powerful people into accepting you as one of your own by claiming connections you don't have, and succeed in doing so, you've earned it. (If you fail, then slink away quietly and try again in a couple of years.) A lot of people are dumbasses who let the crowd make their deci…

Claiming that you worked at company X when you didn't is like claiming that you have a degree from a university that you didn't attend, and is one of the most clear-cut and common examples of professional deceit. I don't think this is a sexism issue at all -- look at how roundly Alexey Vayner was mocked. While I don't think the TechCrunch article was an example of charitable judgment, people are bloodthirsty and love to string up an "example case" every so often.