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Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

I really want this to be true, but the founder launching AGI 9 months ago doesn't help their credibility a lot. And drip-marketing test results seems like a super weird thing to do, whether it's real or it's not.

Don't forget that a lot of scams aren't initially on purpose. Eg Theranos by all accounts very gradually morphed from a mild "fake it till you make it" scheme (mild by Silicon Valley standards at least) into a full-blown scam over years of growth and funding, the lies needing to be deeper and deeper over time to cover up the earlier ones.

I guess all I'm trying to say is the fact that it's a bad strategy for a scam, doesn't really mean it's not a scam.

Those Verge motorcycles appear to actually exist and work though, so that's a data point in favour of this being real.

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> the founder launching AGI 9 months ago

Yes, I want this too good to be true battery to be real and that's why I'm looking into such things but this claim is false.

He apparently launched "Artificially Superintelligence", which appears to be a marketing term for some architecture this company was working on. The "AGI" term seems to come from people who are going after this CEO.

I wasn't able to come up with people who claim that they were actually scammed, i.e. paid for a product that wasn't delivered or made an investment into something that doesn't exist.

This appears to be a much cleaner slate than the titans of AI. I'm inclined to believe that those alleged scams are not scams by SV standard.

I don't think you're going to see investors crashing out on the internet that they got scammed. The ASI video by the CEO shows exactly that he has no idea what's happening. Seems like an investor pitch scam. I wish that the battery was true tho. It's always amazing to see progress in the world.

scammed investors sue scammers all the times. I don’t know why you believe otherwise.

I never said that. If I did, prove me by quoting me.

This aside, all I said is that you don't get to hear that on the internet, because such stuff is unpopular and doesn't usually bring attention. And if they signed an NDA, the lawsuit may be not public.

> I wasn't able to come up with people who claim that they were actually scammed, i.e. paid for a product that wasn't delivered or made an investment into something that doesn't exist.

I'm gonna ask the other way around. Name one successful product by the CEO that has reached mass production and you can get it right now.

Well, AppGyver was real. SAP bought it, it's now called SAP Build.

Don't know how successful it was/is as a product though.

See my other comment [1]. There's dozen of failed products. That one AppGyver product is from 15 years ago. Since then, he hasn't created any other product. The motorcycle however is real. The battery may also be. The issue with Solid State Batteries is that it's almost impossible to scale them.

The guy changes the industry he's in as often to match what's currently popular.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47129369

Failed startup isn’t a scam, to be a scam it needs to be presented in a way that is designed to collect money but that money be used for something else.

Otherwise YC would have been scam center, very few of YC companies don’t fail.

That’s ridiculous, neither making your first product nor failing is scamming.

In this particular case you can buy motorbikes and sport cars made using electric motors from the same company that makes this battery. So at least 1 real product that I know of.

You cannot buy them. Have you visited their website? The way this works, you pay a non-refundable fee. And if this motorcycle turns out to be real, then you get to pay the rest amount (or cancel and lose some money). Because they manufactured a few units doesn't mean it's scalable (or profitable).

The motorbikes are not new, there are people who bought them and are using them. Switching to the new battery is new but those bikes with motors from this company exist. I think you need to do your research before arguing further.

If your research is YouTube then I'm sorry to disappoint you but those people are affiliated with Verge (or Donut). I don't think there's a single video where someone gives a review and they paid using all their own money, is there? Have you done your research before you started arguing the CEO is legit?

Your other posts are accusations about people and apparently you go after them on other sites too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46638491

I’m pretty sure if I keep pushing you enough eventually you’ll will make your life about going after me accusing me of who knows what. This means that your opinions should not to be taken seriously as your motivations are unclear.

You should consider having a different hobby.

Yea sure Immich taking zero responsibility for possibly causing damages in hundreds of dollars and not warning their uses is fair, yeah, let them go. Maybe actually read the issues before judging? (oh noes, he blame them so he must be bad!)

[1] https://szmarczak.com/immich.png [2] https://github.com/immich-app/immich/issues/25283

> you’ll will make your life about going after me accusing me of who knows what

I have never accused you of anything but lack of information. I don't get where you're coming from.

I don’t care about immich etc, you just gave me the impression of someone who loves going after people. Your primary participation here appears to be for claiming that people committing scams, so I guess it’s your hobby. Maybe I am wrong but I also don’t see why we should argue as those scam claims are your opinions.

> I don’t care about immich etc, you just gave me the impression of someone who loves going after people

Man I don't want anything else but success for everybody. Once someone fs up, there's nothing bad in improving. Dismissing people because they are pointing bad things out doesn't help (referring to Immich).

> Your primary participation here appears to be fir claiming that are people committing scams

If their website makes fun of their "scam mark" (idonutbelieve.com), then maybe it's not just me? Maybe all other people from YT, Reddit, X are reasonably skeptical? If the battery turns out to actually be real, that's great! (I actually mean it.)

Having said all that, despite our disagreements, have a nice day. Maybe we just set off on a wrong foot and the future will be brighter.

apologies then. have a nice one too.

Have you seen his comments on LinkedIn? Doesn't seem like the type of guy who's honest. He kept covering behind "send an rfq" or "sign an nda" or "we're a business not a newspaper" instead of proving anything. Also, here's some products that weren't delivered: - https://burstlive.io/ - https://stingbase.com/ - https://venturebonsai.com/ - https://shadowcapital.com/ - https://kaseygroup.com/ - https://www.definancetechnologies.com/

All links were obtained from the CEO's LinkedIn page. The last one is definitely a scam. They ask for your money and promise that their magical algorithm will give you profit.

The first one has fake "featured in", Privacy Policy does not exist and almost all those websites were using Wordpress (perhaps made by the same guy?).

I don't think you actually did research on him.

Any examples of scammed people? lawsuits?

Failed startups aren’t scams by default. You need someone who not only lost their money but lost it because they were misled.

I don't need a lawsuit to know that the latter is a Ponzi scheme. If you don't think so, feel free to try it out, not a financial advice tho.

You are free to have opinions

The founder reminds me of Kim "Dotcom", which worries me. I hope this thing is legit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom

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