You seem to be saying something along the lines of: 'Hey look people have built these houses on sand and they are fine after 2 years, so its fine to keep building more houses on sand"
Just because something works for a while does not mean its a good long term situation, unless you were saying something else which I failed to decipher.
You are saying these two facts like they are separate.
That's a bit flippant but its no surprise to me that that there are people who know Sam personally and are supportive of him, that's pretty much how people work. Especially when working and living in SV bubble and Sam is a person who had seemingly mastered that world, as someone who can raise billions of dollars etc. Even if they don't consciously associate him with monetary success, they certainly would associate him with success generally.
From my very outside and mostly uninformed perspective, Sam just seems like a very good salesman (some would say grifter) and is far from infallible.
Just because something works for a while does not mean its a good long term situation, unless you were saying something else which I failed to decipher.