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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'?

#191

Post by osigurdson »

bartread wrote: post #167
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 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. Yeeeah... that's a fairly disingenuous take. The difference between every other offshore dev shop backed by developers in India and Builder.ai is that - and I say this as someone who thinks Infosys is a shit company - Inf…

It doesn't matter for customers but investors would be interested if AI is being used or a bunch of devs due to the scaling potential differences.

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

#193

Post by macintux »

apsurd wrote: post #178
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

Except that it's contrary to the site FAQ.

> If a story has not had significant attention in the last year or so, a small number of reposts is ok. Otherwise we bury reposts as duplicates.

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

#194

Post by [deleted] »

osigurdson wrote: post #191
bartread wrote: post #167

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. Yeeeah... that's a fairly disingenuous take. The difference between every other offshore dev shop backed by developers in India and Builder.ai is that - and I say this as someone who thinks Infosys is a shit company - Inf…

It doesn't matter for customers but investors would be interested if AI is being used or a bunch of devs due to the scaling potential differences.

[deleted]

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

#195

Post by mistercheph »

pyman wrote: post #187
bartread wrote: post #167

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. Yeeeah... that's a fairly disingenuous take. The difference between every other offshore dev shop backed by developers in India and Builder.ai is that - and I say this as someone who thinks Infosys is a shit company - Inf…

I don't agree. Even Infosys markets AI as part of their offering, just look at their "AI for Infrastructure" pitch: https://www.infosys.com/services/cloud-cobalt/offerings/ai-i... Every big dev shop does this. Overselling tech happens all the time in this space. The line between marketing and misleading isn't always so clear. The difference is Builder.ai pushed the AI angle harder, but that doesn't make it Theranos-l…

Arguably, Theranos was also somewhere in a gray area between marketing and fraud.

Everyone in the industry incentivizes and participates in this behavior, but once in a while, let's grab a few stand-out individuals to scapegoat once in a while for all the harm caused by/to the entire group with this behavior. Make sure you pick someone big/ugly enough to be credibly dangerous to the whole group, but who isn't too dangerous and well connected so that you can be sure that when the card flips on them everyone around them scatters.

It's the same reason groups of individual humans do it: Scapegoating is a much lower resistance path to follow than the horrifying alternative (self-consciousness, reflection, love)

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

#196

Post by pyman »

mistercheph wrote: post #195
pyman wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. Even Infosys markets AI as part of their offering, just look at their "AI for Infrastructure" pitch: https://www.infosys.com/services/cloud-cobalt/offerings/ai-i... Every big dev shop does this. Overselling tech happens all the time in this space. The line between marketing and misleading isn't always so clear. The difference is Builder.ai pushed the AI angle harder, but that doesn't make it Theranos-l…

Arguably, Theranos was also somewhere in a gray area between marketing and fraud. Everyone in the industry incentivizes and participates in this behavior, but once in a while, let's grab a few stand-out individuals to scapegoat once in a while for all the harm caused by/to the entire group with this behavior. Make sure you pick someone big/ugly enough to be credibly dangerous to the whole group, but who isn't too dan…

Theranos was dealing with people's health. Misdiagnoses, delayed treatments, etc, that's real harm. Imo, comparing that to building web apps isn't the same.

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

#197

Post by TrackerFF »

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.

These kind of scumbags pocket 90% of the cash.

Wouldn't surprise me if the developers were hired from sweatshop staffing agencies, or just working directly for minimum wage - if that even.

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

#198

Post by Retric »

pyman wrote: post #196
mistercheph wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, Theranos was also somewhere in a gray area between marketing and fraud. Everyone in the industry incentivizes and participates in this behavior, but once in a while, let's grab a few stand-out individuals to scapegoat once in a while for all the harm caused by/to the entire group with this behavior. Make sure you pick someone big/ugly enough to be credibly dangerous to the whole group, but who isn't too dan…

Theranos was dealing with people's health. Misdiagnoses, delayed treatments, etc, that's real harm. Imo, comparing that to building web apps isn't the same.

Theranos was using the same testing equipment and techniques as any other lab for most of their diagnostic services. Which is how they avoided being instantly exposed when their results ended up being meaningless. “In October 2015, John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal reported that Theranos was using traditional blood testing machines instead of the company's Edison devices to run its tests, and that the company's Edison machines might provide inaccurate results.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos

They did plenty of shady shit including producing poor results, but that’s largely incompetence independent of fraud vs intentionally putting people’s lives on the line.

IMO, the fraud kind of hides the equally important story where incompetent 19 year old collage dropout shockingly doesn’t know how to effectively setup and manage complex systems.

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

#199

Post by bufferoverflow »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #76
bufferoverflow wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they grifters? Tesla gave us FSD to try for free for a month, twice now. If you don't like its performance, don't pay.

Elon Musk Predicts Level 4 Or 5 Full Self-Driving ‘Later This Year’ For the Tenth Year In A Row (2023) https://www.theautopian.com/elon-musk-predicts-level-4-or-5-... https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/grift ways of getting money dishonestly that involve tricking someone So, they got money dishonestly by tricking someone into buying their cars based on the belief that they'd offer real full self d…

Who cares what Elon says? You can literally try the product and decide. Or you can watch any of hundreds of videos on YouTube or people trying it.

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

#200

Post by moonikakiss »

I did due-diligence on Builder.AI for a venture firm I was interning at (circa 2019). It was extremely apparent (Glassdoor, talking to any employee) it was complete BS.

When I say apparent, it took less than 15 minutes and a couple of google searches to get a sniff of it.

Somehow, you can still raise $500MM ++.

I think about that a lot

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