What the hell happened? Unless it was an actual defrauding of investors, but how were the investors so stupid?
The current Gemini canvas implementation is pretty wild and can create you an app or website very very easily. Not as easy as ordering a pizza sure, but still even with just a few iterations you have something truly decent. Occasionally you luck out and the "one shot" is precisely what you want, but that typically requires an extensive prompt so you're beyond pizza range then.
Perhaps they were just too ahead of their time in that regard... But then if they'd waited then Google and OpenAi and Anthropic would have just eaten their lunch anyway (provided Claude was not too busy blackmailing you anyway!)
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805676/engineer-ai-arti...
(same company, before rebranding to builder.ai)
* - with AIStudio at least...
It says a lot when public services are deteriorating pretty much everywhere while investors blow hundred millions on fruit pressing machines and LLM wrappers
Democracy isn't just about showing up every few years and putting a name in a ballot, it's a framework that requires a whole bunch of other things. A lot of EU countries and the US are getting closer and closer to oligarchies
How are UK citizens voting for deteriorating services?
Have a look at lot of founders on linkedin. You'll notice a lot go to the same small set of universities, or worked for same companies. Then there's the odd exception. But they're the exception.
Its silly to think talent is actually that concentrated.
I think everybody knows why some people can get investment to literally throw down the drain on insane moon shots, while others struggle to even survive. I'm sure lots of people have moonshot ideas that might work. Only a very small in group get investment.
If there’s a good growth story contact people who write smaller checks who would also be interested in using the product.
Ultimately the business of VC means that you're dealing with people how have a high risk tolerance but need the potential high payout to balance their risk.
If you have a sustainable, profitable, but small business that needs capital to expand, but likely won't grow significantly, you're better off talking to a family office or individual investors. I'd avoid banks if you can help it.
If you actually do think you have a plausible VC investment then it's a game of networking. Go through every person you know and look for someone who knows someone who can give you an introduction. If all else fails there's cold outreach but those can be difficult. You might need to bring on a partner who can handle that side of things if it's critical to your business.
But, that aside, since I’m just getting into the Lean Startup:
In chapter 12—startups typically need Scarce but Secure Resources:
“too much budget is as harmful as too little—as countless dot-com failures can attest—…”
I suppose this falls under case-and-point. They had too much money and blurring the lines between real customers and early adopters. This whole thing could have probably been figured out for a couple mil I’d imagine (though I’m no expert).
> TikTok (business model: "Uber for Vine") is more popular than Facebook (business model: "Uber for Sino-Soviet Propaganda"), presumably because it bypasses the middleman and delivers the content straight from the source. Hackernews debates whether it's just a matter of time before it turns out to be evil, or whether a social-media application targeted at children and operated by a government full of genocidal monsters is and shall remain "fun." Other Hackernews point out that the app, which is operated by a company in which the murderous, barbaric Chinese government has an ownership stake, is mean to fat people.
> Github (business model: "Uber for README.MD") directs its employees to eat its own dog food. Because of Github's acquisition by Microsoft (business model: "Uber for customer abuse"), it turns out that what Github engineers are eating came out of the dog to begin with. Hackernews tries to figure out whether they, as customers of Microsoft's latest desperate attempt to get anyone to use Azure, have any control over their information, or whether they'd be better off remaining with their existing workstation-as-a-service provider, Apple (business model: "Uber for garden walls").
Seems to be covered already!
You're right. It would be a prime time to launch ZombAI
It just requires lateral thought.
Pay the completely untrained gig-workers peanuts to review AI written code to create a universal blockchain "bank without borders". I mean what could possibly go wrong?
So I reject the notion of throwing the baby out with the bath water as much as the hype bubble around them.
What we do need, as with any novel technology, is oversight and regulation. Which is difficult this time around when the grifters are also the ones in power.
My genuine question--outside of programming-related use-cases (which are remarkable), what has come out of the generative AI "boom" that's a profitable product, or has a viable path to profitability?
What "business transformation" has happened in the private sector as a result of "agents" or whatever? What companies look promising (don't say another VSC fork)?
I'm not into this space, but I also assume that translation work is moving from a writing to an editing job, since an LLM can do that pretty well. I just had an LLM correcting my German mistakes for an email I had to send today.
I'm also not sure that profitability is relevant just yet, as inference costs keep going down. Programming-related use-cases do encompass a lot of why GenAI is useful, simply because they make anyone able to write their mothertongue a programmer. It's fine if LLM-based products bootstrap with high-margin industries like tech, and move into thinner margin ones as costs go down. Of course I'm also not saying the current valuations and hype are justified (I don't know).
I'm not seeing anything like the same level of heads or stack complexity in this wave (Vercel, Firebase etc.), and the vendors involved get cheaper every day ... along with increasing ability to run models locally with no metered costs at all
Now you need to deal with all the traditional infra, plus a bunch of specific infra dealing with LLM apps, even if you’re just a wrapper using vendor APIs.
How are things in any way simplified? I only see more layers of complexity.
> A partner at accounting firm PKF Littlejohn signed off the UK accounts of the artificial intelligence start-up, despite having previously served as a director of another company also set up by Builder.ai’s founder, Sachin Dev Duggal, according to a review of hundreds of filings analysed by the Financial Times.
I mean, if you qualify that question like that, then probably closer to 100%.
What would be more interesting to know, is how many AI founders starts out as "not hype-chasing", but end up self-enriching/capitulate their startups regardless, basically turning into it rather than starting out like that.
A great candidate for the Theranos of AI, even with Microsoft involved as an investor.
We'll see a new wave of fraud(stars) being exposed out of this AI hype.
look at all the awards and brands!
contrary to builder.ai, we now have success stories in this area: lovable, cursor, replit agents and so on
Builder.ai was also a "success" until someone double checked their books and discovered they were inflating their revenue by about 300%. Much to consider.
Flash of the Silicon Valley show.
I think the big and juicy AI applications are just so that GPUs can go brrrr[1]. Just gimmicks.
Real and useful applications will come from SLM that can be run on SoC like phones or Raspberry PIs and LLMs optimized to run on consumer grade hardware like the 3060s, not with those models that require multimillion dollar setups to be able to run.
Aug 2019 - WSJ report that for builder.ai the "AI" means "Actually people in India"
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-startup-boom-raises-question...
FT pick up the trail over a year ago with a series of reports:
Mar 2024 - Men behind builder.ai named in criminal probe
https://www.ft.com/content/7ff3c5fc-e390-4ca8-9c7d-11fd56ab7...
Mar 2024 - The wild ride of a Microsoft-backed tech unicorn
This is a full detailed profile of the CEO and the company detailing their wild spending and fundraising details:
https://www.ft.com/content/11afc46c-b435-489d-a9f1-134ad0c00...
It all falls apart after that report:
May 2024 - CEO steps down
https://www.ft.com/content/f8882c90-ef69-4a62-aecf-9d3725aca...
May 2024 - builder.ai finds auditor had links to previous CEO:
https://www.ft.com/content/26c98590-e8f9-4cd9-83d6-db0d25ad2...
Apr 2025 - builder.ai restates revenues and hires outside auditors to investigate inflated sales
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-31/microsoft...
and this week they folded. The website was up 48 hours ago last I checked, but has now been taken down.
I genuinely think twitter and LinkedIn has ruined the brains of founders who follow fads after losing the goals and visions they had when they first started.
Big tech then swoops in and buys up any _worthwhile_ startup for cheap and consolidation of power continues for tech.
louthy•6h ago