[ChuckMcM]

This isn't a "new" thing, there are those who create with technology, and there are those who exploit technology for gain. The original dot.com "boom" was the influx of people who really didn't care at all about what having the "Internet" meant if they all they needed was a good pitch and could get millions by convincing people that revenue wasn't a big deal, it was all about foot print. Those folks really offended the folks who were serious about the technology (or the art if you will) and they nearly all went broke or left in 2000/2001. The other crowd are the folks who use technology to take advantage of others, they rank from actual criminals stealing money out of banks, to the nominally legal adtech startups with "negative" patterns. This group doesn't care about technology either, except as a vector to get to "someone's" money and transfer it to make it "their" money.

This spectrum though is everywhere, from professional sports, to programming, to finance, to dog training.

But from your example, " ... this ... from a guy who has never engineered anything." pretty much defines the term 'poser' people who try to talk the talk and act like people who they see getting a lot of "coolness" or "celebrity" without actually understanding where that coolness or celebrity comes from. There are a lot of them, they are mostly harmless, identify them and move on. If they are trying to recruit you to come work for them, work somewhere else, you will be happy you did :-)