Look, if you're talking to investors, you're most likely making a sales pitch. Any competent salesman is going to of course emphasize the positive aspects of what he's trying to sell. If you can say, "We’re operating at X run rate" and investors are going to react positively to that, you'd be stupid not to and it doesn't make you a liar, even if Mr. O'Neill doesn't find it to be a valuable metric.
I agree that there's a fine line between making a legitimate sales pitch for your startup and lying to your investors, but the article doesn't address that point at all.
Agree completely, but I think there's a world of difference between emphasizing the positive and lying. Saying "our revenue is at an annual run rate of $1mm based upon the fact that we booked $83,000 in revenue in this month" is wildly different than fabricating numbers. ARR not being a particular useful metric on its own doesn't change this.
I agree that there's a fine line between making a legitimate sales pitch for your startup and lying to your investors, but the article doesn't address that point at all.