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"Fake it til you make it" generally refers to acting like you believe in yourself even if you're filled with self-doubt. Not actual fraud.

matte_black 9y ago
You can believe in yourself without faking anything, and it’s healthy to do so. Faking it implies you want to give others the impression you’re already a big shot, and it dilutes out the accomplishments of people who actually made it. The downside should be that if you’re faking it and you don’t make it, your shame should be relentless and brutal, and no one should ever take you seriously again. Also, even if you make it you will feel alone and empty in your success, because everyone will have long thought you already “made it” and you have to continue hiding your true story. There is no one to celebrate with except those who are also in on it. Where as if you would have just been humble and true to where you currently are, people have headroom to express sympathy and support should you encounter a setback.
- gowld 9y ago
  aphorisms have established common meanings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_it_till_you_make_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_it_till_you_make_it
  - matte_black 9y ago
    meanings are not immutable
    - heavenlyblue 9y ago
      No, you just don’t want to admit that you don’t really know the generally-agreed meaning of that phrase.
- mnemonicsloth 9y ago
  > You can believe in yourself without faking anything... I don't think so. Self-doubt is natural. Mandatory, really. Someone who never has moments of self-doubt is a bad investment risk; it means they probably aren't thinking hard enough about what could go wrong. But concealing those doubts is also mandatory: if you can't, it may be a sign that you have more problems than you know how to deal with.
  - matte_black 9y ago
    It is not mandatory, it merely requires courage to go forward knowing you could fail and things could go wrong. If you choose to ignore it and fake your way up, you are not being brave, you are being delusional. I'm not sure if delusional people are good investments.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
As with anything there is the way in which something is offered and the way in which it is consumed. I have encountered many people who have internalized "fake it" to mean "pretend that you are hitting all your milestones and you executing against your plan". These folks see this as a way to keep the questions of why they aren't actually doing all of that at bay because later when they are "making it" those questions will be irrelevant. For example you lie about how your marketing efforts are reaching customers who are signing up in droves while you use mechanical turk and other techniques to make the observable metrics go up. At some point your visibility reaches the point where you actually are reaching your customers and so you can stop doing the shady stuff. By doing this you avoid the inefficiency of the whole "we aren't sure you can do this" discussion which helps no one. On the outside, one clean narrative, traction and growth from day 1, now a multi-million (or billion) dollar business. Or as my Grandfather would say, all yummy sausage and no discussion at all about what not-yummy things are in there too. Everyone should believe in themselves. That is just a given, if you don't (or can't) then you won't reach your expectation. There isn't any "faking" there as far as I can see (unless it is suppressing your own doubts about the effort).
- timr 9y ago
  "I have encountered many people who have internalized "fake it" to mean "pretend that you are hitting all your milestones and you executing against your plan". These folks see this as a way to keep the questions of why they aren't actually doing all of that at bay because later when they are "making it" those questions will be irrelevant." This is 100% correct. I also know a fair number entrepreneurs who engage (or have engaged) in exactly what you describe. Also, it's a short and murky step from many of the "naughty" stories that are lauded in entrepreneur lore, to outright fraud. Too often, we make post hoc rationalizations for unethical behavior, based on outcome. It's a huge dilemma if you want to behave ethically, but you're competing with lots of people who don't have that limitation.
  - pdkl95 9y ago
    > it's a short and murky step ... to outright fraud. Staying vigilant against the normalization of deviance[1] is difficult even in ideal situations. Choosing to normalize deviance as a business strategy is practically guaranteed to rapidly accelerate deviations from acceptable behavior. In any system - including every business - resilience and safety means fixing small problems before they grow into bigger, more damaging problems[2]. > rationalizations for unethical behavior Often, it doesn't even need to be rationalized. When deviant behavior is slowly normalized in small steps, the human mind tends to only see the "small, insignificant problems", and often skips[3] over big changes that should be "obvious". [1] https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_and_the_normalization_of_deviance https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60 [3] https://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/se367/10/presentation_local/Change%20Blindness_files/plane.gif https://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/se367/10/presentation_local...
OrganicMSG 9y ago
I thought it was mainly about lying to others about how well you are doing, given that the central idea is that of giving an impression of success before you are successful, in order to gain access to the people and markets you require in order for you to become actually successful.
SilasX 9y ago
Most who give that advice are very imprecise about which deceptions they're endorsing. Almost like they're asserting a confidence in a belief that isn't really merited -- wish we had a term for that.
siruncledrew 9y ago
Yea, I think people blow up the saying out of context from self-confidence to business. If I say, "We're confident we can develop the machine learning technology to deploy X, even though we are currently using human checking" that's a lot different than saying "We can currently do all these things with this machine learning technology we developed" despite the technology not existing yet. It's essentially someone stating a vision they have as reality, which is fraud.
- sgt101 9y ago
  Yup agree; the gap between "we're confident we can" and actually doing it is.... v.a.s.t....
  - bonesss 9y ago
    And the difference between those whose confidence was justified and those whose plans were 'a bridge too far' is... upwards of $900 Billion. Every building is a blueprint at some point. Some jabroni pointing at the sky and describing what will be is part of the dilemma of innovation and construction.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

matte_black 9y ago

You can believe in yourself without faking anything, and it’s healthy to do so. Faking it implies you want to give others the impression you’re already a big shot, and it dilutes out the accomplishments of people who actually made it. The downside should be that if you’re faking it and you don’t make it, your shame should be relentless and brutal, and no one should ever take you seriously again. Also, even if you make it you will feel alone and empty in your success, because everyone will have long thought you already “made it” and you have to continue hiding your true story. There is no one to celebrate with except those who are also in on it. Where as if you would have just been humble and true to where you currently are, people have headroom to express sympathy and support should you encounter a setback.

gowld 9y ago
aphorisms have established common meanings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_it_till_you_make_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_it_till_you_make_it
- matte_black 9y ago
  meanings are not immutable
  - heavenlyblue 9y ago
    No, you just don’t want to admit that you don’t really know the generally-agreed meaning of that phrase.
mnemonicsloth 9y ago
> You can believe in yourself without faking anything... I don't think so. Self-doubt is natural. Mandatory, really. Someone who never has moments of self-doubt is a bad investment risk; it means they probably aren't thinking hard enough about what could go wrong. But concealing those doubts is also mandatory: if you can't, it may be a sign that you have more problems than you know how to deal with.
- matte_black 9y ago
  It is not mandatory, it merely requires courage to go forward knowing you could fail and things could go wrong. If you choose to ignore it and fake your way up, you are not being brave, you are being delusional. I'm not sure if delusional people are good investments.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

As with anything there is the way in which something is offered and the way in which it is consumed. I have encountered many people who have internalized "fake it" to mean "pretend that you are hitting all your milestones and you executing against your plan". These folks see this as a way to keep the questions of why they aren't actually doing all of that at bay because later when they are "making it" those questions will be irrelevant. For example you lie about how your marketing efforts are reaching customers who are signing up in droves while you use mechanical turk and other techniques to make the observable metrics go up. At some point your visibility reaches the point where you actually are reaching your customers and so you can stop doing the shady stuff. By doing this you avoid the inefficiency of the whole "we aren't sure you can do this" discussion which helps no one. On the outside, one clean narrative, traction and growth from day 1, now a multi-million (or billion) dollar business. Or as my Grandfather would say, all yummy sausage and no discussion at all about what not-yummy things are in there too. Everyone should believe in themselves. That is just a given, if you don't (or can't) then you won't reach your expectation. There isn't any "faking" there as far as I can see (unless it is suppressing your own doubts about the effort).

timr 9y ago
"I have encountered many people who have internalized "fake it" to mean "pretend that you are hitting all your milestones and you executing against your plan". These folks see this as a way to keep the questions of why they aren't actually doing all of that at bay because later when they are "making it" those questions will be irrelevant." This is 100% correct. I also know a fair number entrepreneurs who engage (or have engaged) in exactly what you describe. Also, it's a short and murky step from many of the "naughty" stories that are lauded in entrepreneur lore, to outright fraud. Too often, we make post hoc rationalizations for unethical behavior, based on outcome. It's a huge dilemma if you want to behave ethically, but you're competing with lots of people who don't have that limitation.
- pdkl95 9y ago
  > it's a short and murky step ... to outright fraud. Staying vigilant against the normalization of deviance[1] is difficult even in ideal situations. Choosing to normalize deviance as a business strategy is practically guaranteed to rapidly accelerate deviations from acceptable behavior. In any system - including every business - resilience and safety means fixing small problems before they grow into bigger, more damaging problems[2]. > rationalizations for unethical behavior Often, it doesn't even need to be rationalized. When deviant behavior is slowly normalized in small steps, the human mind tends to only see the "small, insignificant problems", and often skips[3] over big changes that should be "obvious". [1] https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_and_the_normalization_of_deviance https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Diane_Vaughan_... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60 [3] https://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/se367/10/presentation_local/Change%20Blindness_files/plane.gif https://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/se367/10/presentation_local...

OrganicMSG 9y ago

I thought it was mainly about lying to others about how well you are doing, given that the central idea is that of giving an impression of success before you are successful, in order to gain access to the people and markets you require in order for you to become actually successful.

SilasX 9y ago

Most who give that advice are very imprecise about which deceptions they're endorsing. Almost like they're asserting a confidence in a belief that isn't really merited -- wish we had a term for that.

siruncledrew 9y ago

Yea, I think people blow up the saying out of context from self-confidence to business. If I say, "We're confident we can develop the machine learning technology to deploy X, even though we are currently using human checking" that's a lot different than saying "We can currently do all these things with this machine learning technology we developed" despite the technology not existing yet. It's essentially someone stating a vision they have as reality, which is fraud.

sgt101 9y ago
Yup agree; the gap between "we're confident we can" and actually doing it is.... v.a.s.t....
- bonesss 9y ago
  And the difference between those whose confidence was justified and those whose plans were 'a bridge too far' is... upwards of $900 Billion. Every building is a blueprint at some point. Some jabroni pointing at the sky and describing what will be is part of the dilemma of innovation and construction.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]