Is it fair to characterize a founder of a failed startup as a con man? I.e. did he make claims that were factually untrue, and intentionally deceived investors?
It’s as fair as characterizing an athlete saying he’s competing to win.
A common logical/semantic mistake is that claims about future facts are lies. They can be exaggerations, and we do see this often and I’m personally annoyed when I see it. These claims can be genuine or not. I often think it’s easier for a founder to be naive (or crazy) than not, because they can believe (sometimes strongly) the things they say.
But neither are lies. A lie is when you misrepresent a fact, something that already happened. That’s a big causal difference.
The large gray area is when someone misrepresents intent (as with most cases for cons). This, I suspect, is the main questions you should be asking, but I suspect it falls into the ethics rather than legal debates.
What investors were intentionally deceived and what were the lies specifically? I saw something about a Kickstarter, but it's trickier as there is no promise of delivered products, it ends up being an donation basically, although Kickstarter try to make that intentionally vague.
random3|4 months ago
It’s as fair as characterizing an athlete saying he’s competing to win.
A common logical/semantic mistake is that claims about future facts are lies. They can be exaggerations, and we do see this often and I’m personally annoyed when I see it. These claims can be genuine or not. I often think it’s easier for a founder to be naive (or crazy) than not, because they can believe (sometimes strongly) the things they say.
But neither are lies. A lie is when you misrepresent a fact, something that already happened. That’s a big causal difference.
The large gray area is when someone misrepresents intent (as with most cases for cons). This, I suspect, is the main questions you should be asking, but I suspect it falls into the ethics rather than legal debates.
FromTheFirstIn|4 months ago
embedding-shape|4 months ago