Crazy Is O.K., But Don’t Lie to Google

A hint for start-ups hoping to be acquired by Google (and what start-up doesn’t?): Don’t try to bamboozle the Internet giant. The warning came from Google’s acquisitions chief, Salman Ullah, during a conference for venture capitalists in Monterrey last week. The Red Herring’s Scott Martin wrote about the event Tuesday on the magazine’s blog.

“If you tell us something is black and it turns out it’s white—we get very irritated,” Mr. Ullah said. “Because we will find out that it’s white during diligence,” and the deal will be off. “And we’ve walked from deals when — even though the issue was very tiny, very small, very insignificant — the target has lied to us.”

While lying and deception are big no-no’s, nuttiness is apparently no problem. Last month, as noted by DealBook, Mr. Ullah said entrepreneurs should not be afraid to bring “really crazy” ideas to the company.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/crazy-is-ok-but-dont-lie-to-google/