Martyn Rhisiart Jones

Brussels, 10th July 2019

Bandoxa, 12th January 2026

Imagine stepping onto a dimly lit stage, spotlight sharp, audience hushed. You lean into the mic and drop this line: “The key to success is sincerity.” Pause. Smile. “And if you can fake that… you’ve got it made.”

That’s George Burns, vaudeville legend, and cigar-chomping centenarian. He nails a truth that’s as old as show business. It is as fresh as today’s latest tech pitch deck.

Welcome to the strange, glittering world of information technology, where sincerity isn’t just optional—it’s optional and highly monetisable.

Think about it. In boardrooms from San Francisco to Shenzhen, a new archetype has emerged: the IT bullshit whisperer.

These aren’t your classic con artists. They’re polished professionals who speak fluent buzzword—synergistic ecosystems, paradigm-shifting blockchain leverage, AI-powered quantum empathy engines. They don’t sell products so much as they sell conviction. The conviction that this slide deck, this demo, this pivot will change everything.

And here’s the wild part: it often works.

Why? Because in the high-stakes casino of venture capital, startups, and enterprise software, people crave certainty. Real certainty is hard. Fake certainty? That’s scalable. It’s in the confident nod during the Q&A. It’s also in the perfectly timed “disruptive” drop. Then there’s the earnest gaze that says, “Trust me, I’ve seen the future—and it’s got our logo on it.”

The industry is full of them. Agile transformation consultants who orchestrate ceremonies without ever shipping code. Thought leaders who tweet 280 characters of profound vagueness and call it strategy. Prompt engineers (yes, that’s a job now) coax magic from large language models. They quietly wonder if anyone notices the output is mostly recycled Reddit.

David Graeber called them “bullshit jobs”, roles so pointless that even the people doing them can’t fully justify them. Tech has turned that into an art form. Entire org charts exist to make other org charts feel important. Perks, nap pods, and unlimited PTO create an illusion of contentment. However, they mask the quiet dread. Maybe, just maybe, the emperor’s new stack is running on vaporware.

But here’s the twist, the hopeful one.

Faking sincerity isn’t the endgame. It’s a signal. In a world drowning in noise, the ability to project belief—even manufactured belief- gets attention. And attention is oxygen.

The real innovators? They take that oxygen and build something genuine. They start quietly. Then they deliver the roar: code that works. They create products that solve real pain. Their teams ship without the theatre.

So next time you spot an IT bullshit whisperer gliding through the conference hall, notice their charisma dialled to 11. Jargon flows like code. Don’t just roll your eyes.

Watch. Learn the performance. Then do what they can’t: back it up.

Because in tech, as in life, sincerity wins… but only when it’s real.

(That’s the idea worth spreading.)

But let’s not knock them too much, right? After all, faking sincerity, knowledge, and experience can be quite helpful. This applies particularly in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Hadoop. It also includes Machine Learning, Cloud, and Data-Driven Enterprise. Additionally, Blockchain and Internet of Things are important. Lastly, Data Lakes and Hubs, along with Agile@Scale, are relevant. These can help to pay someone’s bills, right?

So too is flogging alcopops to kids, fake degrees to gullible young folk and dodgy options to bamboozled pensioners.

Market forces, Babushka!

Anyway, CEO’s and senior executives just love listening to these bozos. They enchant them with stories, fables, and fabulations about the next great thing. They are as vulnerable and receptive to this shit. It’s like children fascinated with shapes, lines, forms, textures, colours, light, and glitter. In short, they are fascinated by mirror balls. It’s great! It’s the stuff of highly-socialised two-year olds. 

The only trouble is that this nonsense comes with negative side-effects.

So why do these CEO’s give these clowns, buffoons and jesters the time of day?

It’s simple. It helps them to divert their attention from significant business challenges. It also aids in the formulation of coherent, realisable, and effective strategies.

It’s far easier to proclaim to the world. We declare that “we’re going to go full-on big data, AI and Agile at Scale.” It’s much harder to ask, “How do we increase our revenues by 10% over the next 18 months?” Additionally, how do we maintain expenditure at the same time?

CEOs who do this resemble political leaders. These leaders suddenly acquire an appetite for international travel and soft-ball TV appearances. They enjoy meeting-up with their peers in unchallenging circumstances. Just leave the difficult thinking for the rest of the C-Suite. If all of these shiny glittery things blow up in our faces, the CEO can always counter. They might say, “more fool them for having listened to me in the first place”.

Wouldn’t it be great to be the fly on the wall? It is better than being the one who gets it in the neck.

CEO: “Oh, but you never told me that Agile@Scale could crash our business!” and “Can’t be having folk around me who just know how to say yes all the time!”

We should really make a concerted effort to keep these charlatans away from the CEOs, even if that means taking to social media in number in order to roundly debunk their patently arrant nonsense… otherwise…

Instant Karma awaits us.

And remember folks, mirror balls are for dancehalls, discos and night clubs… not boardrooms.

Many thanks for reading, and until the next time.

Martyn Jones

goodstrat.com – The Good Strategy Company

Read my books: goodstrat.com/books