

Netflix Co-Founder: It isn't lying if you believe it  - cwan
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/05/13/it-isnt-lying-if-you-believe-it/

======
seanstickle
I think the canonical response to this comes from Harry Frankfurt:

""" Both lies and bullshit can either be true or false but bullshitters aim
primarily to impress and persuade their audiences, and in general are
unconcerned with the truth or falsehood of their statements (it is because of
this that Frankfurt concedes that "the bullshitter is faking things", but that
"this does not necessarily mean he gets them wrong"). While liars need to know
the truth to better conceal it, bullshitters, interested solely in advancing
their own agendas, have no use for the truth. Thus, Frankfurt claims,
"...bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are" (Frankfurt 61).
"""

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit>

~~~
lotusleaf1987
Translation: intellectual dishonesty is worse than ignorance.

I loved that book by the way. 'On Truth' was good too, but 'On Bullshit' is
definitely better.

------
TomOfTTB
I don't disagree with the sentiment here but I object to the idea that "anti-
hucksterism can be seen every day on HackerNews"

A startup, by definition, is an act of hope. It's a bunch of people agreeing
to be underpaid and overworked for the chance at doing something great. Even
though they know the odds of them actually doing something great are next to 0
(the majority of startups fail).

So the type of Bu--sh--ting or Hucksterism he refers to absolutely MUST be
present by definition. And I think everyone knows that. In fact I think it's
celebrated here more than any place else.

Look at all the "ASK HN: REVIEW MY STARTUP" threads and you'll see a lot of
support. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone tell a budding entrepreneur not to
reach for $100-a-share. When criticism is present it's almost always to help
the person achieve that goal not reprimand them for having it.

------
pygy_
This is called sophistry, and it had already been debunked by Socrates 2500
years ago.

He made a lot of eloquent ennemies in the process, which probably didn't help
during the trial that sealed his fate.

~~~
mcantor
It was my understanding that the derogatory use of "sophistry" implies an
_intent to deceive_ , which is not professed by the author of the article.

~~~
lukeschlather
He's not just advocating deception, he's advocating that if you deceive
anyone, be sure to first deceive yourself.

------
larrik
I love how HN gets mentioned as if readers of CNN's financial pages would
already know what it was.

That said, I don't feel that HN is overall anti-marketing. It just tends to
attract people who would prefer not be the ones doing the marketing (and who
would prefer not to need it). To me that's not the same.

(Personally, when my wife was taking marketing classes in college as part of a
Graphic Design degree, I couldn't believe how evil her textbooks were.
"Consumer Behavior" is an ugly cross between psychology and evil.)

~~~
tjr
Good marketing: we have a product that we truly believe you would benefit
from; let us tell you about it, because we want to be of service to you (for a
fair price).

Bad marketing: we want your money. We realize you won't just give it to us, so
how about if we give you this product in exchange for your money? We'll do
whatever we can to make you think you want this product, even if you really
don't, because we really want your money.

I think most marketing leans toward the bad side, which is unfortunate. I
really appreciate good marketing.

------
raganwald
To tie this into another subject of discussion, where do Ballmer's disparaging
remarks about Apple's products fit in? Is he bullshitting but believes what he
says and just hopelessly incompetent at recognizing their merit? Or is he
deliberately lying to try to manipulate people into buying his products?

~~~
TomOfTTB
I think he believes it.

Ballmer has said iPods and Google aren't allowed in his house
([http://www.geek.com/articles/apple/no-ipod-google-in-
ballmer...](http://www.geek.com/articles/apple/no-ipod-google-in-ballmers-
house-20060331/)). He and his family all use Zune and Bing (by Ballmer's
edict). So he's completely detached himself from reality.

If anything this is the reason Ballmer has to go. He has Microsoft too
ingrained into his thinking. So much so that he can't see its weaknesses
anymore. Which means those weaknesses don't get addressed and things go from
bad to worse.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
As a product guy, I would want my family to try the competition. My products
should win because they are better, not by edict. You can't give an edict to
the whole market!

~~~
mirkules
As much as I agree with the ideology behind your statement, history has shown
us that inferior products sometimes do win just because of better marketing.

~~~
roc
Do you have any examples handy? What I often find when people say this
(particularly engineers) is that they're weighting solely on theoretical
engineering superiority and under-valuing things like price, life-cycle use,
and common user experience.

I'm not saying you're suggesting this, I just always see things like "Betamax
vs VHS" trotted out. Where the engineers spend undue time comparing visual
quality specs and completely ignore things like the simple fact that Betamax
tapes didn't hold enough video to record the types of things that consumers
wanted to record. (movies, sports, etc)

~~~
jfoutz
Wine and diamonds are pretty obvious examples.

It's a lot easier to find examples where things are all pretty much equal
except marketing. Toothpaste, soap, all sorts of consumable household stuff
where the only differences are color, perfume and marketing.

~~~
roc
Fair enough. Wine and Diamonds fit that bill. I was thinking electronics, but
those make the argument pretty succinctly.

------
wccrawford
While technically correct, it doesn't remove the need to apologize if you end
up having told an untruth.

In other words, you are still responsible for correcting anything you say if
it's wrong.

It's worse to knowingly tell an untruth, but it's still bad to have done it at
all.

------
hammock
This whole article is a great piece of bullshit. And I say that not in a
disparaging way.

The story about kibble? Sure it's probably half-true but he clearly spun it in
a different why to tie it into his argument here.

And then this is just a blatant example of bullshit/spinning:

 _I had to think for a minute. Then I said, "It isn't lying if you really
believe it yourself."_

Kind of appropriate to write a piece in defense of bullshitting which is
composed entirely of bullshit. :)

Disclaimer: I have been known to bullshit myself.

------
khafra
It is trivially true that you're not lying if you believe what you're saying.

However, in context, his message is closer to "it's not lying if you lie
convincingly to yourself first," which is one of the more pernicious flaws in
our culture.

------
6ren
netflix stock price: 246
[http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:NFLX](http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:NFLX)

I guess any statement about the future is a lie, since you can't know.
Interesting how he relates a similar propensity to "lie": optimism. OTOH, the
self-fulfilling prophecy is a real effect: expect success, and you increase
its likelihood.

~~~
iam
Sounds like he not only predicted the stock price, but shot well past it!

------
tzs
Or as George Costanza put it: "Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you
believe it".

