Also, there was no “endgame.” They weren’t trying to change the law; they were exclusively breaking it for profit.
But I agree that Delve is a special case and should naturally be held to a higher standard here because their whole business is around being compliant with the law. When most other startups break the law, they do it to get an advantage over competition. Delve did it in a way that sacrificed their core value towards customers.
This is something Airbnb has facilitated for a very long time, no? And Uber, back when it started.
From a legal perspective I don’t see that it matters whether you’re trying to change the law or not. You’re either following it or breaking it.
Huh? In a legal sense I'm pretty sure they're the same thing.
How and why matters, though.
->
You mean like OpenAI, Anthropic and all these other 'unicorns'?
I'm happy we're all clear on how bad Delve is but in essence what they were doing is exactly the same as what these AI companies do.
I'd wager there's some prior art...
But that's just the cherry on top. I don't think they're being thrown out because they violated a license. There are really serious fraud allegations. Allegedly they were rubber-stamping noncompliant customers, leaving them exposed to potential criminal liability under regulations like HIPPA.
https://deepdelver.substack.com/p/delve-fake-compliance-as-a...
I've only skimmed this so I do not endorse these allegations, but I think it's context missing from this discussion.
But Delve themselves can’t really do any of that. They’ve screwed up on a fundamental piece of their own business model. Their core offering *is* Compliance as a Service!
How could I trust their word that they’ll ensure my company is compliant? How could I trust their word that a company I’m doing business with is compliant? They can’t even handle their own Apache 2.0 licensed works, and that’s child’s play- relatively speaking. I’m supposed to trust that they can handle PCI and HIPPA and all the rest for other companies?
This is like having a dentist who doesn’t brush and floss their own teeth. Or a building inspector working out of a moldy office suite with exposed rebar. Or an editor with a personal website full of typos and grammatical errors. It’s a dealbreaker to anyone with common sense.
Unlike Zenefits, which had (allegedly?) committed fraud for part of their business in the interest of moving faster, and then Parker came back with Rippling…
These guys’ entire and actual business model was fraud.
Notably YC hasn't wished them a farewell.
Why do all start-ups say this? I don't think there are many companies publicly saying "We're going to go 'scorched earth' on everybody."
> One interesting observation I’ve noticed is a lot of top founders did oddly strong at math from a young age.
https://x.com/kocalars/status/2027076198002553159
barf emoji
The only next product launch is an investigation.