Forbes 30 Under 30 Founder Who Sold AI Chatbot To Schools Charged With Fraud

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: The founder of an artificial intelligence start-up focused on education was arrested and charged with defrauding her investors, lying about the company's profits and falsely claiming that some of the largest school districts in the country, including New York City's, were her customers. The founder, Joanna Smith-Griffin, started the company, AllHere Education, in 2016, with the goal of using artificial intelligence to increase student and parent engagement and curb absenteeism. In the years that followed, Ms. Smith-Griffin, 33, misrepresented AllHere's revenue and customer base to fraudulently raise almost $10 million in funds, according to the indictment. Once the company's valuation had climbed, she sold some of her stake in it and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a down payment for a new home and on her wedding.

Ms. Smith-Griffin was arrested Tuesday in North Carolina, where she lives, and charged with wire fraud, securities fraud and aggravated identity theft. She faces more than 40 years in prison. AllHere is now in bankruptcy proceedings, prosectors said, and all of its employees have been laid off. "Her alleged actions impacted the potential for improved learning environments across major school districts by selfishly prioritizing personal expenses," said James E. Dennehy, the F.B.I. assistant director in New York leading the investigation into Ms. Smith-Griffin. "The F.B.I. will ensure that any individual exploiting the promise of educational opportunities for our city's children will be taught a lesson." Smith-Griffin is the latest Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree to be indicted on fraud. "The Forbes-to-Fraud pipeline includes FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, co-CEO of Alameda Research; fintech Frank founder Charlie Javice; and 'Pharma bro' Martin Shkreli," notes TechCrunch.

NYT paywall removed.

[waspleg]

Can't help you with the horror of that FBI dad joke. [removepaywalls.com]

Re:

[GoTeam]

Can't help you with the horror of that FBI dad joke. [removepaywalls.com]

Thanks for that.

It looks like Forbes needs to get some new evaluators if they want to continue their silly list of under 30 super stars. The people they have doing the job right now seem to be a bit gullible...

3 failures

[david.emery]

1. Failure of startup culture
2. Failure of education, I bet they all have MBAs
3. Failure of oversight from corporate boards and investors

force him to pay off all of the student loans!

[Joe_Dragon]

force him to pay off all of the student loans!

Re:

[GoTeam]

force a coalition of the willing to pay off all of the student loans!

Re:

[Fly Swatter]

Did you read the summary at least about her?

Biden couldn't do it, how could she?

- s/iff/ift/g

Forbes has a fraud problem

[gijoel]

Anyone who makes it onto their Thirty under Thirty list either makes coffee for merchant bank executives or is a complete fraud. [slashdot.org]

The list has changed!

[Gravis Zero]

"Forbes 30 Under 30 is a list published by Forbes magazine, consisting of 1,230 people under 30 years old" of which 30% are going to be charged with fraud.

I think it's an excellent list of people to never associate yourself with.

Cabinet

[evil_aaronm]

Trump immediately reached out and offered her a high-level cabinet position. Quote, "She'll fit right in with this profit-driven organization. Plus, if she's white and blonde, I might make her my girlfriend."

Cardinal sin

[migos]

Her biggest mistake was trying to defraud rich people. Learn from the best, our president elect. Always scam the small fish, the gullibles