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Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

ibtimes.co.uk

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Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#171

Post by profsummergig »

pyman wrote: post #161
rafram wrote: post #7

Article from a slightly better source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/how...

This is fake news. Builder.ai, like any other dev shop, had clients and was building apps using developers in India, pretty much like Infosys or any other Indian dev shop. Nothing wrong with that. From what I read online, the real issue was "Natasha", their virtual assistant powered by a dedicated foundation model. They ran out of money before it got anywhere.

This is so obviously fake news that it's a good litmus test of the people who are boosting it.

There's no way that a team of programmers can ever produce code quickly enough to mimic anything close to the response time of a coding LLM.

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#172

Post by axus »

anal_reactor wrote: post #152

In this whole AI revolution we sometimes forget the power of cheap human labour... and if I recall correctly, that's not the first time such a thing happens. Amazon made a "no-checkout AI automated store" which was a bunch of cameras connected to a bunch of Indians. At this point, I think we should consider "Indians" a valid element of any engineering architecture, because they perfectly fill the niche where you have…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Mechanical_Turk , "conceived by Venky Harinarayan in a U.S. patent disclosure in 2001".

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#173

Post by 1oooqooq »

pyman wrote: post #169
ricardobeat wrote: post #79

So.. where did the $450M go? A team of 700 developers in India built over eight years would have cost a fraction of that.

Elon Musk spent $6 billion training his model. Sam Altman spent $40 billion. Where did Builder AI's $500 million go? Probably into building a foundation model, not even a full LLM.

shhhh. we don't talk about the ongoing scams. those you keep hyping and try to sell your SaaS around it.

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#174

Post by 1oooqooq »

mikestew wrote: post #131
downrightmike wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be shameful, and a complete disgrace, it'd be like adding "bitcoin" to your company name or 10k fillings a few years ago to boost your stock

In case anyone thinks parent is speaking hypothetically: Insider trading charges filed over Long Island Iced Tea’s blockchain ‘pivot’ https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/10/investing/blockchain-long-isl...

worked for GameStop

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#175

Post by darth_avocado »

casion wrote: post #134
CSMastermind wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you figure? $450M / 8 years / 700 developers = $80k / year per developer.

Average salary for a developer in India is about 1/10th of that.

Median salary of a reasonable developer is about 1/2th of that and if you are talking about Microsoft, Uber, Google etc., then that’s the salary of a senior dev.

https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater...

But more importantly, we’re all pretending, the only cost of building anything is salaries. A company that size could blow a million dollars a month just on AWS, and the AI stuff is waaaay more expensive.

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#177

Post by pyman »

ricardobeat wrote: post #170
pyman wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These architectures didn't exist last year. The Chinese are innovating thanks to massive government backing, access to talent, and a clear focus on winning the AI race.

Starcoder was released in 2023, by french/american companies, and there were other coding models before it. That was right around the time this company had a new $250M funding round, so lack of resources to invest in actual AI is a terrible excuse.

StarCoder is an open-source LLM for code, not text. Builder.ai told investors they were building a virtual assistant called "Natasha", not a code assistant.

I'm just telling you what I read online. Builder.ai wasn't competing with GitHub Copilot, Cody, or CodeWhisperer. Those are code assistants for developers. Builder.ai was building a virtual assistant for customers. It meant to "talk" to clients, gather requirements and automate parts of the build process. Very different space.

And like I said before, creating a dedicated, pre-trained foundation model is expensive. Not to mention a full LLM.

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#178

Post by apsurd »

bartread wrote: post #162

This is not news, or at least not fresh news. The FT reported the collapse ~9 days ago and it was discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44080640

news to me buddy. this is perhaps a useless comment but then i think, articles resurface every now and again and it's intentional and welcome for those that missed. and this isn't exactly that of course, rather makes me think it's worth a comment: news is relative. discussion ensues, it's all good

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#179

Post by threeseed »

profsummergig wrote: post #171
pyman wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fake news. Builder.ai, like any other dev shop, had clients and was building apps using developers in India, pretty much like Infosys or any other Indian dev shop. Nothing wrong with that. From what I read online, the real issue was "Natasha", their virtual assistant powered by a dedicated foundation model. They ran out of money before it got anywhere.

This is so obviously fake news that it's a good litmus test of the people who are boosting it. There's no way that a team of programmers can ever produce code quickly enough to mimic anything close to the response time of a coding LLM.

But it’s not just about coding quickly but also correctly.

Coding LLMs do not solve the problem of it hallucinating, using antiquated libraries and technologies and screwing up large code bases because of the limited context size.

Given a well architected component library and set of modules I would bet that on average I could build a correct website faster.

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#180

Post by paxys »

> Less than two months ago, Builder.ai admitted to revising down core sales numbers and engaging auditors to inspect its financials for the past two years. This came amidst concerns from former employees who suggested sales performance had been inflated during prior investor briefings.

I was hoping for something interesting, but it is just plain old fashioned accounting fraud.

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