Not by being great programmers and free thinkers, but by being greedy businessmen and, later, buying tons of lobbyists.
This piece of shit company is ... well... just being a normal company.
The problem is these companies are trying to hire top notch talent - the 5% of the population that is least likely to be happy about dishonesty. Especially when it comes to a major decision like a new job. It's simply a mistake and the marketing is unneeded - if you're a YC company, the HN crowd has at least read your announcement in techcrunch and knows what you're trying to do.
Unfortunately, dishonesty sells. How did all the
large megacorporations get to where they are now?
Not by being great programmers and free thinkers,
but by being greedy businessmen and, later, buying
tons of lobbyists.
This piece of shit company is ... well... just being
a normal company.
As far as "dishonesty" in business that is determined many times by when the consensus actions of a particular industry is. Behavior in one industry in many cases means you have to play the same game or perish. Each industry works differently.
[1] Add: In which case a citation would be appropriate.
I think that in this case this is
clearly one persons opinion
Big oil doesn't cause global warming because that would make a bunch of rich powerful people bad guys, and they can't have that.
And, sales, marketing, and advertisers aren't sleazy liars because that would make them bad guys, and they can't see that. They can't. It's impossible. Can't be true. No way.
Advertisers are just showing people what they want to see. What they demand to see. They demand to be lied to, so it's okay.