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  • Mistymisty@digipres.club
    Oct 19, 2026, 6:01 PM

    This “reverse acqui-hire” has become very common with AI companies in the US, because companies currently believe it’s a way to effectively acquire a company without dealing with antitrust. It gets you the important employees and a license to their tech without *technically* acquiring the company.

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  • Antonio Patriarcaantopatriarca@mathstodon.xyz
    Oct 19, 2026, 7:00 PM

    @misty And without any of the lawsuits. This is disgusting.

    EDIT: Looks like people liked the ‘disguising’, but I meant ‘disgusting’. Stupid iPhone autocorrect…

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  • Mistymisty@digipres.club
    Oct 19, 2026, 6:29 PM

    @donaldball @lrhodes If their goal was always to get acquired, that sounds about right. That was the model of stuff in the app bubble of the early 10s too. Burning $20 to earn $1 is only bad if your genuine goal is to make money and be sustainable.

    It’s the apex players, your Anthropics and OpenAIs, who are in a worrying position if they’re burning money like that. (And their position isn’t good!) character.ai wasn’t founded to earn profit.

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  • Nicole ParsonsNpars01@mstdn.social
    Oct 19, 2026, 7:33 PM

    @misty @donaldball@triangletoot.party @lrhodes

    Much of AI seems to be a tax loss harvesting strategy for a fossil fuel industry that had been promised a few profitable wars & massive windfall profits.

    Middle Eastern petrostate despots are using AI to launder their money for corrupt royal insiders.

    Looting & pillaging national treasuries; similar to how former Soviet oligarchies laundered their cash through real estate.

    Oil oligarchs like Koch see AI as a way to evade pollution controls & trap captive markets

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  • tuban_muzurutuban_muzuru@beige.party
    Oct 19, 2026, 8:38 PM

    @misty

    A 363 sale, where a bankrupt company sells assets through the court, is an old tool. The novelty is bolting it onto an acquihire: hire the people first, license the code through the bankruptcy, leave the husk holding the claims. Whether that dodges successor liability is a real legal question rather than hype, and the former FTC official quoted is making a measured point, not a panic. Money-wise it’s tiny: roughly $20 million all in for most of the staff plus a nonexclusive license, against the $2.7 billion Google paid in 2024. The two things that move the outcome are whether the judge buys the “not a merger” language and whether the states can show the arrangement is a scheme to escape obligations.

    The other thing to keep separate: the allegations underneath are not alarmism. A judge let a claim of Google aiding and abetting go forward, settlements were approved, and forty states filed a notice citing bots coaching minors to hide self-harm. A Chicken Little detector should flag “AI is collapsing” takes built on this bankruptcy, since the filings say the product was fine and the litigation overhang is what made it unbuyable. It shouldn’t flag the underlying safety record, which is documented in court papers.

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  • Taran Rampersadknowprose@mastodon.social
    Oct 19, 2026, 8:49 PM

    @misty tada.

    It could be an indicator, but the character.ai thing looks like Disney, 'business as usual'.

    'We want the tech and IP without the lawsuits'.

    Meanwhile, the Bubble has not been breached.

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  • Felipe :verified420:felipeB@hachyderm.io
    Oct 19, 2026, 11:06 PM

    @misty first domino would be corewave stop receiving loans, they will never be able to pay their debts and nvidia's stock entire AI grow is tied to them

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