Some things will never change
I thought a lot of public, high profile, AI adjacent sales were seller financed or financed by the seller investing in the purchaser. Is that the same thing?
Its both a fraud on the third party, whom I have provided incomplete information. But also on you, who have become an unwitting accomlish in my scam, at least from the point of view of the third party.
That must be one of the least helpful new sentences I've read in a while. I thought it just meant they were seller financing all their customers by loaning them the money and they had gotten zero real revenue.
> an associate of Chidambaran, who previously worked as an iLearning vice president, incorporated and opened bank accounts in the names of several purported iLearning customers. Over the course of several years, the defendants transmitted millions of dollars from iLearning to an account controlled by this individual. This individual then sent those funds to other accounts he controlled in the names of other entities, before ultimately sending the money back to iLearning. The aggregate value of these round-trip transactions exceeded $144 million.
They should’ve instead “bought stake” in the customer companies and then asked them to use that money to buy their “product” like the normal trillion dollar companies do.
If you are not into the UK dance scene, this explains some of the music choices https://www.gq.com/story/how-industry-curated-the-best-sound...
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/industry-season-4-episode-7...
https://www.avclub.com/industry-interview-myhala-and-marisa-...
https://www.avclub.com/surreal-watching-industry-epstein-fal...
https://www.indiewire.com/features/interviews/industry-seaso...
This company purported to sell AI transcription service. Raised capital from notable local VCs. Did IPO in Oct 2023.
It turned out that more than 90% of its sales were fake. The CXOs were arrested and the company was liquidated last month.
Personally I never get the appeal of going public on fake sales. By design, the amount you need to fake grows bigger and bigger over time. So the collapse is inevitable.
"Scam"
They sold chips to someone the government is mad at. Thats not really on the same level.
> According to the indictment, the defendants used forged sham contracts to make it seem that iLearning's customers were real, and used "round trip" transfers of investor and lender funds -- meaning they sent money to purported customers, who then returned it to iLearning -- to manufacture revenue.
> At least 90% of iLearning's $421 million of reported revenue in 2023 was fabricated, the indictment said.
> The company went public in April 2024, and its market value on the Nasdaq peaked at $1.5 billion before a prominent short-seller questioned its reported revenue.
For the record the short sellers who blew up the fraud were Hindenburg Research. This is the second AI company they've discovered that is a scam, the other being Super Micro with their chip-selling scam: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2026/03/20/super-mic...