“Fake it until you make it” originated from the positive thinking movement. 

This principle states that individuals can achieve their desired outcomes. They need to project an outward appearance of confidence and competence.

‘Fake it until you make it” is a practice that is used in the technology industry. The founders of startups often make bold assertions to potential investors and customers. Despite a lack of evidence. Or in some cases the claims are outright lies.

For exmaple, Theranos, a failed health tech company, illustrates the dangers of faking it too much. Elizabeth Holmes secured over $700 million in funding for Theranos. She promoting the company’s alleged breakthrough blood test. According to her, the tests required minimal blood samples and produced fast accurate results. Unfortunately, the tests were faulty.  Often, the tests provided false negatives or false positives.

In most cases, tech companies do not mislead investors and customers to this extent. When products are promised to be available soon but are never delivered, this is known as ‘vaporware.’

Certainly there is a culture of over-promising and exaggeration in the technology industry. ‘Buzzword stuffing’ is one example of this.

In summary ‘fake it until you make it’ makes sense in some cases. Announcing a product that will be available in three months is acceptable behavior. Selling product functionality that doesn’t work and will never work. That’s not okay. That’s fraud.