> I'm not sure what the solution is, but the fine line between positive framing and intentionally misleading investors is crossed way too much, and in the long run, it hurts both the founder and investor community.

The solution for out-and-out fraud ought to be prison time. This does not sound like a case of "exaggerating metrics"; JPM alleges that the founder knowingly created false metrics and used them to misrepresent the company's value.

To be fair, SV is littered with stories of this tactic being successfully used, too. Two that come to mind immediately are Ashley Madison's lady bots and Reddit's use of fake users in its early days to make the community look larger than it was.