MSP329. Spin Cycle: The Machine Intelligence Unicorn With A Human Heart

We’re no strangers to flights of fantasy here. So, it makes a change to be explaining scams rather than apologizing for them. Or so Matt keeps telling Richard. 

This week we look at the murky innards of a company that was, until recently, one of Silicon Valley’s billion-dollar unicorns. The LCNC (low-code no-code) app developer Builder.ai filed for bankruptcy in June after a turbulent year. 

But this is no ordinary startup flare out.  Amid allegations of fraud and questions over the efficacy of its core AI technologies, a huge question remains: how did Builder.ai persuade companies like Microsoft to invest hundreds of millions of dollars and develop strategic partnerships that would integrate its services with their own?

And we wonder, how commonplace is fraud in the startup arena?

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