The Surprisingly Large Cost of Telling Small Lies

That's the first thought that came to me when reading the article.

Honesty is the best policy small lies are always counter productive and increase expectations to an unreasonable level sometimes making you putting a lot of effort into meeting it.

There's very few situations where lying is a good idea however 100% complete honesty is probably not a good idea either there's some things in business you just can't reveal however outright refusing to answer the question is probably a good solution.

As others have said there are lies and then there are lies, and it also depends on who tells them.

PR people for example are basically trained to lie, but with subtlety. They wont outright lie but rather deviate the conversation by pointing out other facts which are actually irrelevant but serve the purpose to steer looks away and do some damage control.

A lot of founders lie but they avoid the examples given in the article and instead choose to overhype the context in which their product works by using weaselwords and also try to downplay the obstacles or don't even mention them.

I was in a pitch event once and this guy who could sell ice in Siberia went from salesman supreme to sweating bullets when someone in the audience destroyed the RDF he built around himself and the product by pointing out a simple fact that turned to be the achilles heel of the app.

I'm sure a lot of people were thinking about the same, but most weren't, so if the pitch guy didn't mention it, was he lying? or was he expecting you to know it and be okay with it?

At the end it depends on who you are and where you are standing, for example how do the snapchat founders fit into this? the oust of the third member was one thing but after that the remaining two lied openly and abundantly about everything from the "story" of the idea to how it came to be, the involvement of the ex-cofounder and even about the logo he created which is why they had to modify it.

Then again when you are a company with the momentum to reject a 3 billion dollar acquisition offer its a whole different position from that of the guy in the pitch event above.

how about all the succesful scammers? or lying to your "customers". I know I don't want to do what they do. But I happen to know some people in some industries in IT where it is pretty much the business model. I do get a bit jealous when they expose their flamboyant luxurous lifestyle on Facebook to be honest. so how do you define success? money or happiness ?

Perhaps you really are just that atypical corner case, I don't really know. But if you study some of the techniques for detecting "tells" and subtle cues that someone is lying (basically the works and/or derivatives of Dr. Paul Ekman) - and if you follow up on instances where suspected "hits" can be investigated discreetly and without a huge confrontation - you may come to realize just how depressingly common and widespread casual lying is.

Actually, while it might sound cool - I don't really recommend this course of study. It would almost certainly NOT make you a happier person. "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." (- Eccl. 1:18)

So nuke marketing, pr and send all politicians in exile?

I would say something else dont bullshit. No dont lie. A lie can be forgiven and managed. Spinning the language and saying I told the truth creates much more poisonous effects.