Not sure I would consider this cheating. At most if I was reviewing a resume from the person I'd think "coder reused old code, built on it to fulfill a new set of requirement. okay"
Talk about not wanting to hire someone: this person used the word playfully, not in the literal negative doing-something-wrong sense: but you're actually saying you ::like:: cheating in some of your staff as long as it makes you money
I wouldn't want that comment associated with my name.
Not to mention the endless amount of false expectations and customer complaints that causes, wasting engineers or devs & post-sales support staff endless hours dealing with the fallout. And nothing good happens to a company's culture when cheating in one area is fully embraced.
I'd call it more taking advantage of the situation (he did too), which I like in my sales colleagues, and less in my engineering colleagues.
I'd hire him for sales.