"...the Venture Predator constructs a pile of shit so large and impressive that investors are convinced that there must be a pony under there somewhere.

"There's another name for this kind of arrangement: a bezzle, which Galbraith described as 'the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it.'"

pluralistic.net/2023/05/19/fake-it-till-you-make-it/#millennial-lifestyle-subsidy