I think that they must teach in business school or something that you never, ever, EVER acknowledge or admit that things have ever or will ever go bad in your business.

I’ve worked for startups that will show massive customer churn, tell us that this is “actually a good thing”, do massive layoffs the next week because of the churn, and even while talking about the layoffs say that they’re stronger than ever.

I’ve been doing this long enough that I am mostly used to the gaslighting, and have just accepted that business people have neither the ability nor desire to ever be honest about anything.

> have just accepted that business people have neither the ability nor desire to ever be honest about anything

Another plausible explanation is survivorship bias: if businesses that are publicly honest when things are going poorly are less likely to survive then eventually surviving businesses are more likely to be dishonest irrespective of the "abilities" or "desires" of individual business people.

Business schools teach advertising, not business management. In modern business it is a crime to tell the truth about the dire situation a business is in, unless a CEO is starting anew to fix a situation left by another, and even then it rarely happens.

> say that they’re stronger than ever.

Well let’s play out the alternative then: a CEO comes out and says everything is not ok and you’re laying off people because you are in dire straits. I admire the honesty, but what do you think happens next?