I'd say more importantly, a mocked-up software demo is not fraud. If I show you some new ux element or layout or workflow, who cares what's behind it?
The fraud comes when it's something like theranos that lies about the existence of a technology their product depends on. If their blood test tech was proven and rock solid and they mocked up a UI for it, that would be fine, as there is no magic that needs to come true for it to work.
That's why tech has a big element of "fake it till you make it". Say, Airbnb or uber were obviously doable software-wise, and so if you have an idea like that there's little harm in presenting the software as being as far along as you can, so you can get the signups you need to scale. That's ok in my books (it's obviously still fraud to trick investors, but confidence in low-risk software that's not finished is not really an issue).
The problem occurs when people don't understand the distinction between software tech debt and fundamental tech or research risk, and treat them the same. This is what the author of the article appears to do
The fraud comes when it's something like theranos that lies about the existence of a technology their product depends on. If their blood test tech was proven and rock solid and they mocked up a UI for it, that would be fine, as there is no magic that needs to come true for it to work.
That's why tech has a big element of "fake it till you make it". Say, Airbnb or uber were obviously doable software-wise, and so if you have an idea like that there's little harm in presenting the software as being as far along as you can, so you can get the signups you need to scale. That's ok in my books (it's obviously still fraud to trick investors, but confidence in low-risk software that's not finished is not really an issue).
The problem occurs when people don't understand the distinction between software tech debt and fundamental tech or research risk, and treat them the same. This is what the author of the article appears to do