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

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.