Forbes 30 Under 30 Founder Who Sold AI Chatbot To Schools Charged With Fraud (nytimes.com) 24
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.
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. (Score:3)
Can't help you with the horror of that FBI dad joke. [removepaywalls.com]
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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...
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say they're doing their job really well. Qualifications to become a superstar entrepreneur include a desire to make lots of money as quickly as possible, a willingness to break rules to do it, and a lack of moral inhibitions. Like it or not, that's what our system rewards. Forbes seems to be doing a good job of spotting people with those traits.
Whether we should be rewarding those traits is another question.
3 failures (Score:2)
1. Failure of startup culture
2. Failure of education, I bet they all have MBAs
3. Failure of oversight from corporate boards and investors
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She has a BA in social sciences and liberal arts from Harvard.
Other notable Forbes Fraudsters under 30:
Bankman-Fried: BSc, physics and math, MIT
Holmes: bachelors, electrical and chemical engineering, Stanford (dropped out)
Javice: bachelors, finance and legal studies
Shkreli: bachelors business admin; interestingly, might have been expelled from high school before graduating
Milton: dropped out of college after one semester (*12 under 40, not 30 under 30)
Not an MBA in the bunch and Shkreli the only one with a
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks, surprised by that information.
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She has a BA in social sciences and liberal arts from Harvard.
Other notable Forbes Fraudsters under 30:
Bankman-Fried: BSc, physics and math, MIT
Holmes: bachelors, electrical and chemical engineering, Stanford (dropped out)
Javice: bachelors, finance and legal studies
Shkreli: bachelors business admin; interestingly, might have been expelled from high school before graduating
Milton: dropped out of college after one semester (*12 under 40, not 30 under 30)
Not an MBA in the bunch and Shkreli the only one with a bachelors of business admin. If you think MBAs have the monopoly on fraud or that a degree that's not an MBA somehow makes someone uncorruptable, you're dreaming.
OTOH, all of them are capitalists.
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Whatever that means. The common factor seems to be that, except for Milton, they're all dumb kids who got put in positions of power without sufficient supervision. And they redistributed a hundred billion dollars or so of venture capital into the pockets of workers.
One of the big problems with both Soviet and Chinese communism was people lying to gain or maintain their positions of power. I don't think that's quite the solution you think it is.
Hypenated last name (Score:1)
force him to pay off all of the student loans! (Score:2)
force him to pay off all of the student loans!
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force a coalition of the willing to pay off all of the student loans!
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Biden couldn't do it, how could she?
- s/iff/ift/g
Forbes has a fraud problem (Score:2)
The list has changed! (Score:4)
"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.
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Seems like the FBI should use it as a 'next up' list for who to go after - if you're on the list, they should probably be arresting you.
Cabinet (Score:2, Interesting)
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Well, she isn't.
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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."
I don't know, 33 is a bit old for him. His current limit seems to be [indiatimes.com] 31 [wikipedia.org].
Cardinal sin (Score:2, Insightful)
Where? (Score:2)
I've worked inner city public K12 for well over a decade and a half. I'm not a teacher. Cameras are in hallways and on buses but not in lockers or classrooms. There are no automatic locks on bathrooms in my district. Yes they have to bring metal detectors for football games now.
You're not wrong about the attitudes though. Principals are literally dictators are their schools, and are treated like feudal lords. It's a political position, which means when a regime changes a lot of teachers and/or office
It's only wrong... (Score:2)
...if you get caught by the people that can do something about it.
most schools (Score:2)
Most schools need to be charged with abject stupidity.