zlacker

>>kaeruc+(OP)
My ex-employer used Github stars in their job description and during recruitement pitches. They regularly encouraged employees to go and star the firm's repos in Github. In all-hands meetings, the Github stars were one of the items they reported: "we've surpassed X in Github stars" (applause).

(The firm X, however, is a more well-known name than my ex-employer was).

A while ago, I listened to a Freakonomics episode where it was discussed that businesses use proxies to both boost their image and to cover up their incompetency. The example was that a lot of businesses chose fancy names starting with A (like, AAA plumbers), so that they get listed first in business directories. These firms were later proven to be very incompetent and/or even fraudulent.

The relevant paper, also cited in the episode, was "A Business by Any Other Name": https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1667550.

>>pengui+an
The tech version of this is SaaS companies advertising on Reddit.