Scale AI has long struck me as one of the worst examples of the excesses of the recent startup boom:<p>- An extraordinary amount of hype and handwaving over what is essentially a business process outsourcing operation<p>- Exploitation of gig economy workers in developing economies<p>- Significant data privacy concerns (this article describes how Scale AI data annotation workers openly shared amongst themselves private photos of Roomba customers taken without user consent: <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/amp/" rel="nofollow">https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-i...</a>)<p>- A horrible work culture that has seen Scale AI's founder imploring employees to work very hard and then unceremoniously laying off 20% of its workforce (<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/10/scale-ai-cuts-20-of-its-workforce/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/10/scale-ai-cuts-20-of-its-wo...</a>)<p>- Founders being allowed to take large sums of money off the table before a business has successfully exited or achieved any profit