But that's kind of the point - in your culture apparently there is a difference between making unrealistically ambitious claims and being scammy, and in my cult

But that's kind of the point - in your culture apparently there is a difference between making unrealistically ambitious claims and being scammy, and in my culture there is not. If someone tries to get investor's money by making unrealistic claims, they may be above the line legally, but in my culture they're clearly behaving morally unacceptably, demonstrating that they are a fraudster, someone who can't be trusted or respected by others in the community, "not one of us", and deserve to be shunned even if they were my friend or relative. In my mind there is a strong ethical duty to ensure that your claims are realistic, and it's a severe breach of ethics to be irresponsible with unrealistic claims, triply so when others' money is on the line. As far as I understand, in USA being a bullshitter is treated as somewhat acceptable, to me being a bullshitter means you're scum that I'd need to warn others in the community so that they wouldn't work for you or with you. So while in every country there definitely are some "hustler-type" people who do try to initiate startups, they also have issues hiring and local B2B sales if word gets around that they are the type of person who routinely make unrealistically ambitious claims; the world is small, most industries even smaller and people do try to check references of potential partners through friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend channels - so while a failed startup won't necessarily be held against you, the factors of why and how it failed (and how it affected others) definitely can be.