© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Written by Erin Griffith
Arthur AI, an artificial intelligence company in New York, received a message in April last year from a startup called OneOneThree. Yan Fung, OneOneThree’s head of technology, said he was interested in buying Arthur AI’s technology and wanted a demonstration.
A week later, Arthur AI held a Zoom meeting with Fung to show him its software, according to emails and a video recording viewed by The New York Times. When Fung’s colleague joined the call, the Arthur AI team realized something was off.
Fung said Karina Patel, OneOneThree’s “main engineer,” would dial in. But the name that flashed up in the Zoom call was Aparna Dhinakaran. An Arthur AI employee recognized the name as belonging to a founder of Arize AI, a rival startup. “That’s so strange — I don’t know how they could have possibly gotten the link,” the Arthur AI employee said.
The new attendee quickly logged off, and Fung said he did not know Dhinakaran.
Arthur AI later surmised from online photos that Fung was an employee of ArizeAI named Dat Ngo, a person with knowledge of the situation said. OneOneThree appeared to be an inactive company of his.
The world of AI has become increasingly competitive as big tech companies and startups fight for customers, talent, funding and publicity. As a race over the technology heats up, large companies have raided universities for engineers while some of their top talent have left to start their own AI companies. In recent months, venture capitalists have also dueled ferociously to invest in AI startups by dangling large sums at soaring valuations.
The jockeying among AI startups is particularly intense. Only the ones that strike the right partnerships, land the biggest customers and generate the most buzz have a chance at riding the wave of hype to success.
When AI has attracted interest in the past, some companies have overpromised what they can do. A 2019 study by MMC, a London-based venture capital firm, found that 40% of 2,830 European startups that were classified as AI companies did not use AI technology for any material business reason.
“We know people would do crazy things to get ahead,” said Olivier Toubia, a professor of behavioral economics and entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School. He said the tech industry’s history of cutthroat competition, especially during times of frenzied investment and opportunity, went back to the late-1990s dot-com boom.
Many businesses track their rivals, and tech startups are known for using aggressive and unconventional tactics to grow as quickly as possible. But most draw a line at behavior like using a false identity or another company’s name to pose as a customer.
Arthur AI’s CEO and an Arize AI spokesperson declined to comment. Dhinakaran and Ngo did not respond to requests for comment.
Arize AI and Arthur AI both offer “observability” software, which helps companies monitor and solve problems with AI models. Customers would most likely compare the offerings and choose one.
Dhinakaran started Arize AI in 2020 in the San Francisco Bay Area with Jason Lopatecki, a former executive at TubeMogul, an advertising technology company. The startup has raised $61 million from investors including Battery Ventures, Foundation Capital, TCV and Trinity Ventures, valuing it at $155 million, according to PitchBook, which tracks startups.
In a 2022 presentation, Arize AI listed Uber, eBay and Instacart as customers. The presentation ended with an AI-generated image of the company’s hypothetical initial public offering.
Dhinakaran, 29, is active in the AI startup scene. She speaks at industry events and writes a column about AI for Forbes, which has listed her as a 30 under 30 honoree, an award for successful young people in business. She promotes her experience as “an ML engineer and leader” at Uber, where she worked for three years, and at Apple and TubeMogul, where she was an intern.
In 2020, Dhinakaran competed in the reality television show “The Amazing Race” with her brother. They finished fifth.
“I’m passionate about making AI successful, fair and transparent,” she wrote in a biography for the show. She added that she was a foodie who enjoyed trying new cuisines, with other favorite hobbies including tennis and “hosting board game nights that involve lying.”
On LinkedIn, Ngo is listed as a founder of the OneOneThree Project, which was described as a research provider for autonomous vehicle networks, from June 2020 to July 2021. During that time, he worked as a data scientist at the software company Point Predictive and the tax consulting firm Alliantgroup, according to his LinkedIn profile. He joined Arize AI in January 2022.
Ngo registered a business called OneOneThree in Delaware in April 2021, a year before the Arthur AI meeting and eight months before he started working at Arize AI, according to corporate filings. OneOneThree had no website at the time of the meeting and lists two former employees, including Ngo, on LinkedIn. OneOneThree’s registration has not been active since March, according to a filing and a representative for the Delaware secretary of state.
OneOneThree has also appeared in a customer contact list for WhyLabs, another AI startup that competes with Arize, indicating that OneOneThree signed up for a demonstration or attended an event hosted by WhyLabs, the person with knowledge of the situation said. On the call with Arthur AI, Ngo, appearing as Fung, said that OneOneThree had looked at WhyLabs’ software and liked some aspects of it, but that “it didn’t go deep enough for me.”
Before that Zoom meeting last year between Arthur AI and OneOneThree, the person calling himself Fung explained that OneOneThree was in “stealth mode,” which is why it had no website, the person with knowledge of the situation said.
Arthur AI asked Fung to sign a mutual nondisclosure agreement, which is common among tech companies to protect trade secrets. He asked Arthur AI to “hold off on the NDA,” according to messages viewed by the Times. The company agreed.
During the call, Ngo answered Arthur AI’s questions about OneOneThree, according to the video recording of the meeting. Then he said his colleague Patel would join.
That was when Dhinakaran’s name came up on screen, before quickly logging off. The meeting went silent. An Arthur AI employee asked Ngo if he knew Dhinakaran and why a competing startup’s founder would try to see the demonstration, according to the recording.
“Nope, shouldn’t be anyone I know,” he replied.
Shortly after the call, an Arthur AI employee confronted Ngo in a LinkedIn message, a person with knowledge of the exchange said. Ngo responded by trying to recruit the Arthur AI employee to Arize AI, the person said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
