[oilchange]

> I would be surprised to find any successful company that had no shenanigans in their origin story.

And it's not just in tech. New restaurants hire actors as customers to make the restaurant appear busy and popular. Publishing companies and authors buy their own books to make it appear popular and climb the best sellers list. Clubs give out free tickets. Studios buy seats or entire theaters to make it seems like their movies are selling out. The older you get, the naive idealized world of business recedes as the stark "fake it til you make it" world emerges. Everyone fakes it. But not everyone makes it. Taken to extreme, we get elizabeth holmes and theranos.