Straight up corruption, bribery and kickbacks, is apparently a sound strategy.

At least it was for the Netskope, Platfora (now owned by Workday), Sumo Logic, and half a dozen other companies who paid hundreds of thousands in kickbacks to a Netflix VP. Didn't work out so well for the former VP, who's been convicted of wire fraud and money laundering, and is facing prison time [1]. But as far as I can tell, none of the companies involved have faced any kind of sanction at all for their involvement.

[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-netflix-executiv...

Apparently he wrote two articles on this, the second of which is paywalled:

https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-todays-fastest-growin...

https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-todays-fastest-growin...

Me too!