Please don't cross into personal attack on HN. And please don't cross-examine other users. That's not curious conversation, which is what we're here for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Projection? As a fairly honest person it took a long time to stop assuming other people were too. The alternative world view is disappointing but you get used to it.

People are generally honest of course but investing is an adversarial setting essentially by definition, where honesty is hard to come by. Sometimes being more honest than needed might even put you at an unfair disadvantage, and keeping some cards close to your chest is just expected.

And of course, it's not like you have to get VC involved in order to run a successful business. You can self-bootstrap, which lets you focus 110% on efficiency and doing more with less. No BS involved.

I don't believe the parent was expressing surprise at this unethical behavior, they were instead pointing out one way the grandparent's example isn't quite equivalent to the situation the OP provided.