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Just how bad is it to have fake startup employees?


Last week on Growth Quarters we asked, do you really need a sales team to scale? This week we’re asking… do you even need real employees? App-based helicopter and charter flight booking platform, Blade Air Mobility says: nope. After performing a pointless catch-me-if-you-can exercise with reporters from Business Insider, last week the company finally admitted its spokesperson of three years, Simon McLaren, didn’t exist. The “jaded New Yorker, raconteur, college dropout writer, and student of highly driven narcissists” (as his Twitter bio once read) was completely made up by Blade’s team. According to CEO Rob Wiesenthal, “There was no intention…

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