&gt;<i>There&#x27;s an obvious startup here.</i><p>Maybe, but the related startup idea that came to mind for me might seem
a bit odd; similar linguistic patters might exist in statements made by
startup founders and they might be indicative of success or failure. The
&quot;excessive positivity&quot; and &quot;unnatural politeness&quot; seen prior to betrayal
may also be present prior to startup failure.<p>The real problem with attempting to prove or disprove this conjecture
seems to be getting the needed data. It might be possible from public
statements from founders, but I think the more significant gems would
only be found private correspondence between the founders and investors
(or possibly customers). I sincerely doubt YC partners or VC&#x27;s like Marc
Andreessen (@pmarca) and Ben Horowitz are going to let &quot;just anyone&quot; do
linguistic analysis against all of their private personal&#x2F;business email
content.