I doubt that this is true. Realistically, your loved ones will be more loyal to you than your boss. Which is more common: lying, embezzling employee keeps getting rehired by the same boss, or lying, cheating husband keeps being forgiven by his wife?<p>You'd have to be a pretty shitty human being to exploit this, but it is true. The transactional nature of business means it's the least amenable to long-term relationships, and requires the most aggressive maintenance if you want to optimize it. Most people naturally behave in a way that counteracts this: they <i>could</i> abuse the trust of their loved ones, but they don't.<p>So perhaps he should have said something like "business is a glass ball. The others are all hamster-balls, with little hamsters in them. If you drop the hamster-ball, it's not going to kill the hamster; it might not even seriously hurt it. But don't be an asshole; if you're going to drop something, drop something that won't be hurt."