Lies From Facebook Teen-In-Residence Defects To Google

Micheal Sayman grew up at Facebook. On the right, Mark Zuckerberg and him at 17, while left at his 20 but presently 21

Micheal Sayman at the age of 17, was Facebook youngest employee ever. Having had 5 Apps launched ,he wowed Mark Zuckerberg, and earned a demo spot on stage at Facebook F8 conference, and got a full time engineering gig as the social network's go to teen. Down the past three years, he helped Facebook try to crack the middle school market with apps like the now defunct Life-stage.

But in August he switched sides, leaving to go work for Google. Yet his arrangement hasn’t stopped the now-21-year-old Sayman from tinkering with apps during his off-hours.

Today he launches his latest, a trivia game called Lies where you try to guess the one true fact about a friend amongst an array of fibs. It follows the social mechanics of his first hit, 4Snaps, which was like Pictionary but where you take four photos instead of drawing to get people to guess the right word.

Facebook is constantly accused of copying competitors like Snapchat, but with Lies, Sayman is returning the favor. Lies mimes the interface of tbh, the anonymous teen compliment sharing app Facebook recently acquired after it hit #1. “The idea came to me as an evolution of the past games I had created, as well as what I noticed was becoming popular on the App Store today.”

In Lies, you first upload your contacts, and then take a Tinder-style profile quiz where you swipe yes or no about questions about yourself. Then you’re given tbh-style four-choice questions about friends with the goal of correctly guessing which tribia tidbit about them is true. The statements range from “I’ve gone skinny dipping” to “I’m afraid of crowds” to “I’ve kissed someone on the first date”.

When friends answer questions about you, you get notified. “This game ends friendships” it declares, as you might learn who doesn’t really know you or thinks the worst about you.

That’s about it. Sayman proudly says he built the app over just two weekends before joining Google, so it’s thin and might still be a bit buggy. An Android version is in the works.