In the early days of Vice Media, cofounder Shane Smith sent a few copies of the Montreal-based start-up’s fledgling publication to a record store in Miami and a skate shop in Los Angeles so that the company could tell advertisers its readership was distributed across North America—an act befitting the monicker “Bullshitter Shane,” reportedly bestowed on him by a friend and colleague.

在Vice Media成立的初期，共同创始人沙恩·史密斯（Shane Smith）将这家总部位于蒙特利尔的初创企业的几份稚嫩的出版物，寄给了迈阿密的一家唱片店和洛杉矶的一家冰鞋店，这样该公司就可以告诉广告商，它的读者群遍布北美各地——这一行为与绰号“胡说八道的沙恩（Bullshitter Shane）”十分相称，据说这个绰号是一位朋友兼同事给他取的。

Such chicanery is too common in the start-up world. The norms of entrepreneurship encourage founders to be hustlers and evangelists for their companies. Indeed, legendary founders are celebrated for their ability to inspire others, even if that means stretching the truth. Consider Steve Jobs, the quintessential start-up pitchman. Early Apple employees describe him as able to “convince anyone of practically anything.” In the words of engineer Andy Hertzfeld, Jobs had a “reality distortion field, a confounding mélange of a charismatic rhetorical style, an indomitable will, and an eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand.”

这样的花招在初创企业界太常见了。创业实践鼓励创始人为公司充当骗子和传道者。事实上，传奇式的创始人是以其激励他人的能力而闻名的，即使这意味着要言过其实。看看史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）这位典型的初创企业宣传员的例子。早期的苹果员工形容他能够“几乎让任何人相信任何事”。用工程师安迪·赫茨菲尔德（Andy Hertzfeld）的话来说，乔布斯有一个“现实扭曲力场，令人糊涂、魅力超凡、巧舌如簧的讲话风格，不屈不挠的意志，以及歪曲任何事实来满足眼前目的的急切愿望”。

That’s a vital skill for founders, who must persuade their audiences to temporarily suspend disbelief and see the opportunity the entrepreneur sees: a world that could be but is not now. However, reality distortion is a slippery slope. Enthusiasm can lead to exaggeration, exaggeration to falsity, and falsity to fraud. This descent is embodied in Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos founder and Jobs devotee who allegedly deceived investors and customers by marketing bogus blood tests.

这对于创始人来说是一项至关重要的技能，他们必须努力打消受众的怀疑，让其看到创业家眼中的机会：一个具有可能性但仍未变为现实的世界。然而，现实扭曲有滑坡效应。热情会导致夸张，夸张会导致虚假，虚假会导致欺诈。这种沦落体现在Theranos公司创始人、乔布斯的信徒伊丽莎白·霍姆斯（Elizabeth Holmes）身上，据称她因推销虚假验血方式，欺骗了投资者和客户。

How can we drive deception out of the start-up culture while also encouraging entrepreneurs to take risks and dream big? In this article we first explore why deception is so prevalent among entrepreneurs and then explain why common justifications for it are invalid. Finally, we suggest guidelines for behavior that can help entrepreneurs be both successful and honest—to the benefit of all.

我们如何才能将欺骗逐出初创企业文化，同时又鼓励创业家敢于冒险、大胆梦想？在本文中，我们首先探讨的是为何欺骗在创业家中如此盛行，然后解释为什么为其辩护的常见理由是无效的。最后，我们提出了可以帮助创业家既成功又诚实的行为准则建议——这对所有人都有利。

Why Entrepreneurs Lie

创业家为何撒谎

The Chicago economist Frank Knight was one of the first scholars to study the role of entrepreneurs in the modern capitalist system. In his 1921 book Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, he distinguishes entrepreneurs from other businesspeople by their willingness to act in the face of uncertainty. Of course, established businesses face uncertainty too—but start-ups must navigate through a particularly dense fog. Entrepreneurs often don’t know whether their product will work, how it will be manufactured, who the customers will be, or how they can be reached. For Knight, an entrepreneur is someone who, facing all this uncertainty, acts while others dither.

芝加哥经济学家弗兰克·奈特（Frank Knight）是最早研究创业家在现代资本主义制度中所扮角色的学者之一。在其1921年的著作《风险、不确定性和利润》（Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit）中，他根据创业家在面临不确定性时采取行动的意愿将他们与其他商人区分开来。当然，老牌企业也会面临不确定性——但初创企业必须穿行于深重的迷雾。创业家们通常不知道他们的产品是否管用，该如何生产，客户是谁，或者如何才能接洽到他们。对奈特来说，创业家就是某个面对所有这些不确定性时会采取行动的人，而此时其他人却犹豫不决。

But action alone is insufficient. An entrepreneur needs others’ help and must therefore be a persuasive cheerleader—when pitching VCs for funding, wooing prospective employees away from cushy jobs, persuading customers to take a chance on a new product, and instilling confidence in the team amid the start-up’s vacillating fortunes.

但仅仅采取行动是不够的。创业家需要他人的帮助，因而必须是有说服力的啦啦队队长——在为争取资金而向风险投资者宣传时，在争取潜在员工放弃轻松工作时，在说服客户尝试某一新产品时，以及在初创企业摇摆不定的命运中给团队注入信心时。

That’s the first reason some entrepreneurs are less than truthful: They transgress because they have many opportunities to do so. More than most other businesspeople, they are always “on.”

这就是一些创业家诚实度不足的第一个原因：他们行为失范是因为他们有很多机会这么做。与大多数其他商人相比，他们总是处于“开机”状态。

The second reason is that entrepreneurs have a lot on the line. As a group they stand to gain great wealth, but it’s unevenly distributed. Research shows that the median entrepreneur has poor risk-adjusted returns—statistically, founders would be better off working at an established company or holding a diversified index fund than holding their own equity. But what the median lacks, the maximum makes up for. A small percentage of entrepreneurs become enormously wealthy. Indeed, entrepreneurs dominate the ranks of the world’s richest people.

第二个原因是，创业家们承担着很多风险。作为一个群体，他们有可能获得巨大的财富，可是财富分配不均。研究表明，创业家的平均风险调整回报率很低——从统计数据来看，相比于持有自己的股票，创始人就职于一家成熟企业或持有一只多元化指数基金会有更优裕的境况。不过，平均数之不足，最大值来弥补。一小部分创业家极其富有。事实上，全球最富有的人群中创业家大多榜上有名。

A thousand things must go right to earn such outsize rewards, and in any one meeting, a founder’s fortunes might balance on a knife’s edge. Failure can mean not just missing an enormous windfall but also letting down friends, family, employees, and investors. With stakes that high, it can be tempting to bend the truth.

要想获得如此丰厚的回报，必须做对千百件事，而在任何一次会议上，创始人的命运都可能难以预料。失败不仅意味着错过一笔巨大的意外之财，而且意味着让朋友、家人、员工和投资者失望。在赌注如此之高的情况下，人可能禁不住要歪曲事实。

The third reason entrepreneurs are prone to deception is that it’s relatively easy for them to get away with it. Entrepreneurship has a great deal of what economists call “information asymmetry.” Typically, founders lead private, closely held companies and possess lots of information that others—investors, customers, employees—don’t have. The leaders of public companies have extensive transparency requirements and are under intense scrutiny; if they tell a lie, many people are in a position to discover it. But even in a venture-backed start-up with board oversight, only a tiny circle of people are privy to the company’s internal workings, so deceptions can easily evade detection or go unchallenged. And because start-ups are, on average, staying private longer than they used to, such opacity is increasingly common and persistent.

创业家容易骗人的第三个原因是，他们蒙混过关相对容易。创业存在很多被经济学家称为“信息不对称”的东西。通常，创始人领导着非公开的、封闭型控股公司，拥有其他许多人——投资者、客户和员工——所没有的信息。上市公司的领导人有广泛的透明度要求，并受到严格审查；如果他们说谎，许多人都能够发现。然而，即便是在一家有风险资本支持、受董事会监督的初创企业中，也只有很小一个圈子的人对公司的内部运作知情，因此欺骗行为很容易躲过觉察或不受质疑。而且，由于初创企业现在保持私营的平均时间比过去更长，这种不透明性越来越普遍、越来越持久。

None of this is to say that entrepreneurs are less ethical than other businesspeople. What little research is available suggests that on average, they have higher moral standards than corporate managers do. But the pressures that might tempt them to be less than completely truthful are enormous—and decades of psychological study have shown that even people with high moral standards are likely to transgress in contexts in which ethical lapses are common and tolerated.

这并不是说创业家的道德水平不及其他商人。现有的少量研究表明，平均而言，他们的道德水准比公司经理高。可是，可能会诱使他们不那么完全诚实的压力十分巨大——数十年的心理学研究表明，即使道德水准很高的人也有可能在道德过错司空见惯和被人容忍的环境中违背道德。

How Entrepreneurs Rationalize Their Lies

创业家如何为自己的谎话辩解

Most founders who shade the truth under such pressures probably don’t see themselves in a poor light. They often justify their actions through some combination of three rationalizations that are closely related to common ethical theories about what makes actions right or wrong. But each falls apart under even casual philosophical scrutiny.

大多数在这样的压力下掩盖真相的创始人可能并不会从负面的角度看待。他们通常通过对三种辩解理由进行某种组合的方式来自洽，而这三种辩解理由与判断行为对错的常见道德理论密切相关。不过，在经受哪怕很随意的哲学审视时所有理由都会土崩瓦解。

“It’s for the greater good.”In 2018 Entrepreneur interviewed Gary Hirshberg, who built Stonyfield Farm from a two-person (and seven-cow) side hustle into one of the world’s leading purveyors of organic yogurt. Stonyfield’s success didn’t always seem destined. Hirshberg recounted a series of dire moments and the deceptions that saved the company, including lies to vendors and a loan officer at the Small Business Administration. He offered several rationales, all common among entrepreneurs and related to well-known theories of ethics.

“这是为了更大的利益。”2018年，《企业家》（Entrepreneur）采访了加里·赫什伯格（Gary Hirshberg），此人将石原农场（Stonyfield Farm）从两个人（和七头牛）的副业建设成为领军全球的有机酸奶供应商之一。石原农场的成功似乎并非始终是命中注定的。赫什伯格讲述了一系列危急时刻以及拯救了公司的欺骗行为，包括对供应商和小企业管理局（Small Business Administration）的一名贷款官员撒谎。他给出了几条理由，这些理由在创业家中都很常见，且与众人皆知的道德理论有关。

“I think lying, if we want to call it that, which I guess is what it should be called, for the common good, because in the end it didn’t help the vendors for me to go under either, is OK as long as you ultimately do deliver,” Hirshberg explained. This “ends justify the means” rationalization harks back to the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, according to which an action should be judged solely on the basis of its consequences. “It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong,” Bentham wrote.

赫什伯格解释道：“我认为，只要你最终可以说到做到，为了共同的利益而说谎是可以接受的，因为我破产倒闭最终对供应商也没有好处。”这种“为达目的可以不择手段”的辩解理由让人想起了杰里米·边沁（Jeremy Bentham）和约翰·斯图尔特·密尔（John Stuart Mill）的功利主义，根据这种思想，行为应该仅仅依据其后果来判断。边沁写道：“最大数量之人的最大幸福才是对与错的衡量标准。”

Hirshberg is a successful entrepreneur, a prolific philanthropist, and no doubt a well-meaning soul. His comments capture the pressures all entrepreneurs feel and the rationales that can lead them to shade the truth. But they ultimately fail to hold water; they are excuses rather than sound arguments. They shift the responsibility for decision-making onto the supposedly uncontrollable and sometimes immoral norms of abstract institutions. “Business is business,” founders might say, absolving themselves of murky choices. But in our view, the business and start-up domains are no different from the rest of life, and they should be governed by the same ethics.

赫什伯格是一位成功的创业家，一位多产的慈善家，无疑也是一位心存善意的人。他的话说出了所有创业家感受到的压力，以及能够致使他们掩盖真相的全部理由。然而，这些理由最终都经不起推敲；它们是借口而不是言之成理的辩解。他们将决策的责任转移到据说无法控制、有时是不道德的抽象制度规范上。创始人可能会说“生意归生意”，以此为自己不清白的选择开脱。可是，在我们看来，商业和初创企业领域与生活的其他方面没有区别，它们应该受到同样的道德准则的约束。

The Honest Entrepreneur

诚实的创业家

Most entrepreneurs want to engender trust in others and prove themselves worthy of that trust. Few aspire to be scoundrels. Evidence suggests that for the vast majority of people, lying and deception cause considerable stress. For example, studies have shown that stress related to ongoing ethical dilemmas decreases job satisfaction and is a leading cause of burnout.

多数创业家都希望赢得他人的信任，并证明自己值得这份信任。很少有人立志成为无赖。证据表明，对绝大多数人来说，撒谎和欺骗会造成相当大的压力。比如，研究显示，与持续的道德困境相关的压力会降低工作满意度，而且是导致工作倦怠的主要原因。

There is a better way, and it involves fostering virtue in all aspects of life, including the professional realm. In this Aristotelian worldview, actions are right if they are what a good (virtuous) person would do. In what follows we offer two practices from exemplary entrepreneurs whom we’ve had the pleasure of teaching, hosting, or collaborating with.

有一个更好的方法，而它需要在包括专业领域在内的生活各个方面培养美德。在这种亚里士多德式的世界观中，如果行为是一个好（有道德的）人会做的，这些行为就是正确的。以下是我们提供的来自模范创业家的两种做法，我们有幸培训、接待或与他们合作过。

Show your evidence and assumptions. When entrepreneurs paint a picture of what could be, that picture is not fabricated wholesale; it’s an evidence-based guess. The evidence consists of the entrepreneurs’ experiences, primary data collected through experiments, traction gained, and third-party data—in short, things they know. The guesses are things they don’t yet know but believe or hope to be true.

展示你的证据和设想。当创业家们描绘出一幅可能的图景时，这幅图景并不是批量捏造出来的；它是基于证据的猜测。证据包括创业家的经历、通过实验收集的原始数据、计划进展和第三方数据——简而言之，就是他们知道的东西。猜测指的是他们还不知道但相信或希望是事实的东西。

Not everyone draws the same conclusions from such inputs. Entrepreneurs owe transparency and truthfulness to those being asked to commit themselves or their resources to the venture. Of course, they should present a compelling vision. But they should also present the evidence and assumptions that support that vision. The principle is similar to the instructions given by eighth-grade algebra teachers: Show your work. A good venture capitalist will question a founder’s assumptions at pitch meetings—but not all VCs do, especially if they’re courting a start-up that’s in high demand. And prospective employees, partners, and other stakeholders often aren’t given an opportunity to closely examine the evidence and assumptions and form their own conclusions about the company, team, or product they’re being asked to support.

不是每个人都会从这些信息中得出相同的结论。创业家们应该对那些按要求将自己或他们的资源投入企业的人给予透明度和真实性。当然，他们应该提出一个引人入胜的愿景。但他们还应该拿出支持这一愿景的证据和假设。其原则类似于八年级代数老师给予的指导：展示你的作业。一个好的风险投资人会在推介会上质疑创始人的假设——但并非所有的风险投资人都会这样做，尤其是当他们在向一家十分抢手的初创企业示好时。而潜在的员工、合作伙伴和其他利益相关者通常未得到机会仔细检查证据和假设，并对他们支持的公司、团队或产品形成自己的结论。

Being compelling and being forthright can seem at odds with each other. In some contexts, caveats and discussions of risks are inappropriate. A founder who lucks into an elevator ride with an investor simply conveys the compelling story. And in casual conversation, what’s relevant is the vision. Leaving out the risks and the downside potential is expected and not in any way deceptive.

有说服力与直截了当可能看上去是相互矛盾的。在某些环境中，警示和讨论风险不合时宜。碰巧与投资者一起搭乘电梯的创始人仅需讲述有说服力的故事。在闲谈中，重要的东西是愿景。风险和潜在的下行趋势应该避而不谈并不算是欺骗。

But in a context where analysis and evaluation of the opportunity are the focus, such as a formal pitch or a conversation with a potential hire, entrepreneurs must articulate evidence and assumptions and yet still be persuasive. We propose a “conclusion sandwich.” The best entrepreneurs begin and end with their conclusion—the extrapolation— and place their evidence and assumptions in the middle. A founder might say, “We’ll make about $X million next year in gross revenue. Let me show you the evidence we have and the assumptions that support this.” After running through the calculations, the founder might finish by asserting, “Therefore, we believe $X million is a reasonable estimate.” Listeners won’t miss the takeaway but are free to reach their own conclusions.

然而，在机会分析与评估成为关注重点的情况下，比如正式推介或与潜在员工的交谈，创业家必须清楚表明证据和假设而依然保有说服力。我们推荐一种“结论三明治”的方式。最好的创业家都以结论开始，以结论告终——外推法——将他们的证据和假设置于中间。一位创始人可能会说：“我们明年将创造X百万美元左右的总收入。让我向你们展示一下我们拥有的证据和支持这一点的假设。”在经过计算之后，创始人最后可能会声称：“因此，我们相信X百万美元是合理的估计”。听众不会错过其中的要点，但可以自由得出自己的结论。

Surround yourself with people who will help you be your best. A mountain of psychology research shows that our social circles influence our morality. Acts that those around us commit or condone become acceptable to us over time, while acts they condemn become unacceptable. So wise entrepreneurs surround themselves with cofounders, mentors, board members, and investors who will help them become their best selves.

要与那些会帮助你做最好的自己的人为伍。大量的心理学研究表明，我们的社交圈子会影响我们的道德品行。我们周围的人所犯下或纵容的行为久而久之会成为我们可接受的事情，而他们谴责的行为则变得不可接受。因此，明智的创业家会与共同创始人、导师、董事会成员和投资者为伍，这些人会帮助他们成为最好的自己。 

Investors are particularly important in this regard. An entrepreneur might launch a handful of ventures in a lifetime, but the most experienced investors participate in hundreds. They witness the ordeals of many founders in many markets over many years and accumulate wisdom that founders can’t replicate. A good investor is able to “pattern match,” is sensitive to the moral dimensions of particular ordeals, and knows what courses of action are “right” and have the best outcomes. The best investors help entrepreneurs heed the better angels of their nature.

就这一点而言，投资者尤为重要。创业家一生中可能会发起好几个风险项目，但阅历最丰富的投资者会参与数百个项目。多年来，他们见证了许多创业者在许多市场的磨难，积累了创业者无法复制的智慧。一个好的投资者能够进行“模式匹配”，对特定磨难的道德层面很敏感，并且知道什么样的行动步骤是“正确”的且有最佳结果。最好的投资者可以帮助创业家注意到他们本性中更善的一面。

The wrong investors can be a disaster. This is especially apparent among those who prioritize growth above all else. Consider the pairing of WeWork cofounder Adam Neumann with SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son. In their first meeting, Son is said to have expressed dissatisfaction with Neumann’s level of intensity and urged him to be even crazier. Neumann obliged. The ensuing SoftBank-funded expansion of WeWork was outlandish, to say the least; it included self-dealing (Neumann trademarked the word “We” and sold it to the company for nearly $6 million) and extravagant expenditures (a $60 million private jet).

不对路的投资者可能是一场灾难。这在那些认为增长高于一切的人中尤为明显。看一下WeWork共同创始人亚当·诺伊曼（Adam Neumann）与软银（SoftBank）的孙正义的搭配。据说，在他们第一次会面时，孙正义对诺依曼的热切度表示不满，并敦促他更有激情一些。诺依曼满足了他的要求。最起码，随后软银资助的WeWork扩张极不寻常；它包括内部交易（诺伊曼将“We”一词注册为商标，并以近600万美元的价格将其卖给公司）和奢侈的开支（6000万美元的私人飞机）。

WeWork became the United States’ most valuable unicorn, fueled in part by Neumann’s messianic charisma and powerful reality distortion field. It reportedly took just moments for him to persuade investors to fund his vision. He was known, and is now lampooned, for over-the-top claims about the company and what it could accomplish. Still, Neumann’s WeWork nearly reached its IPO before imploding

WeWork之所以成为美国最有价值的独角兽，部分的动因是诺伊曼救世主式的魅力和强大的现实扭曲力场。据报道，他只花了片刻时间就说服投资者为他的眼光提供资金。他曾因对公司以及公司能够取得的成就夸大其词而人尽皆知，现在成了被人挖苦的对象。尽管如此，诺伊曼的WeWork在突然崩溃前差一点实现了IPO。

It may be tempting to think that departures from the truth are just part of doing business—that we operate in a no-holds-barred capitalist arena in which all contestants are responsible for their own welfare and know the rules of the game. Unfortunately, such cynicism feeds on itself; when we encounter dishonesty or scandal, we become disillusioned and are more likely to engage in such behavior ourselves.

人们可能禁不住会想，偏离真相不外乎是经商的一部分，不幸的是，这种犬儒主义自食其果；当我们遭遇不诚实或丑闻时，我们的幻想破灭，自己也更有可能从事这样的行为。

Entrepreneurs face particular pressures to lie. Vying for a fixed pool of VC money, often working to secure returns for friends and family, and chasing dreams of greatness, they may feel they will be disadvantaged if they pursue their ventures with a vigorous dedication to the truth. Understanding the forces that tempt them to lie and the tactics that may help them remain virtuous can reduce the deception that’s all too common in this crucial part of the economy.

创业家面临着必须撒谎的特殊压力。在争夺固定的风投资金池、经常努力为朋友和家人争取回报，以及追逐伟大梦想的时候，他们可能会觉得，如果他们在追求自己的事业时满怀对真相的执着，自己可能会处于不利地位。了解他们撒谎的诱因和可能帮助他们保持正直的策略可以减少欺骗，而这种欺骗在作为经济重要部分的创业活动中实在太常见了。

关键词：创业

凯尔·詹森（Kyle Jensen） 汤姆·拜尔斯（Tom Byers）劳拉·邓纳姆（Laura Dunham） 乔恩·菲耶尔（Jon Fjeld）| 文 

凯尔·詹森是耶鲁大学管理学院高级讲师、副院长及莎娜与艾瑞克·巴斯(Shanna and Eric Bass)创业学主任。汤姆·拜尔斯是斯坦福大学工程学院教授、创业学讲席教授。劳拉·邓纳姆是圣托马斯大学舒尔策创业学院 (Schulze School of Entrepreneurship)副院长、圣托马斯大学奥普斯商学院(University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business)百思买创业学系 主任。乔恩·菲耶尔是杜克大学战略及哲学系教授、杜克大学创新与创业学计划 (Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative)主任。     

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本文有删节，原文参见《哈佛商业评论》中文版2021年8月刊。