It still counts as a scam even if someone eventually succeeds. Whether the given thing is a scam depends on whether, at the moment of utterance, the statement is a lie meant to accomplish some goal or not. It doesn't exclude the possibility that success might happen someday. This is what I mean about the bizarre morals of startup hustler types. Lying to extend your runway is still lying and normal people still think its a scam.

Do you use any word to distinguish what google did in my example vs what theranos/FTX did? Or would you put both in the same category as one small lie is same as basing existence of a company on lie.

Is this the same google that raised money under the motto “don’t do evil”?

Google raised money under the motto of:

>Digital Library, “birds of a feather” identified inside sea of information so communities and groups could be tracked in an organized way

"Highlands Forum", DLI (NSF, NASA and DARPA), MDDS program, In-Q-Tel etc

https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo...