The Smithian

…during a period of time roughly bounded by the years 1998 and 2002. One of them is a major university. The other is a private, wildly successful venture-capital firm…their most prominent employees—indeed, the two figures central to the success enjoyed by both firms—spent an awful lot of time lying about what went on in the institutions under their control. In the latter case, the person actually seems to have lied about being in control at all…It has to make a man dizzy when he first realizes that he can pretty much lie with impunity, that his success has immunized him against the truth of what he actually is doing. We seem to have incubated an entire universe of out-of-control liars within the various institutions of our society and our culture.