actually... Once you have credibility with the person you are selling to? pointing out your own weaknesses, I think, builds a lot of trust.
But if pointing out your own weaknesses looks like you are trying to deflect criticism, you are a long way from honesty.
Walk around any conference that startup founders are attending and you are bound to hear countless stories of how well things are going.
I think, "Well, duh. You know, the truth might not be any of your business."
Most of your examples of lying are just about interpreting things differently. To an entrepreneur, their company is heading in the right direction because the signups are consistently going up. Sure, they haven't figured out how to keep those people engaged yet, but building a successful company takes time. There's not a blurry gray area between focusing on the positives and completely making something up that's provably false.
Yes, there are plenty of liars out there, but I don't think most of the behavior you're describing in your post fits that description.
> Dishonesty has two parts: 1) saying something that is untrue, and 2) saying it with the intent to mislead the other person.
He goes on to agree with Feynman: there are times where we "should ben[d] over backwards to show how [we] are maybe wrong" [1].
Yet, Aaron later states that "intellectual" honesty is an "impractical standard" to apply to every-day life. Some occasions call for it, others don't. Unfortunately, where we draw the line seems to be moving towards the latter.
-- Homer Simpson(Not that that answers your question).
I guess that we are outnumbered though.
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 the positives.
If you've ever met a good sales person working for your company, they're almost blind to the deficiencies in your products. It's not that they're deceiving you, it's that their internal reality is that that they see the positives, that's all they talk about. That's the product they're selling. If you try and say 'well this bit isn't great', they give you a confused look.
As soon as the 'negatives' click, their sales plummet. It's a built in defence mechanism to add confidence and to be honest it's up to the client to see the deficiencies, not the sales person.
That's kind of like a start up founder is, they've got to focus on the positives just to keep going. To stay working the hours, to keep their team going. To keep believing it will work out in the end. Having been part of a failed startup, I think the time for honest reflection and learning is afterwards.
But saying you've met x and y and z, worked for a company you haven't and photoshopping yourself in photos?
That's not the same thing at all.
That's just fraud.
Let's not conflate the two as this article has.