Albert Saniger sold a dream — a sleek, AI-powered utopia where online shopping was as simple as clicking one button. His startup, Nate, launched in 2018, promised to do what no checkout tool had done before: fully automate online purchases using advanced artificial intelligence. Just paste a product link, and boom — Nate‘s “AI” would do the rest.
Except… it didn’t.
Behind the curtain of futuristic branding and investor hype was a very human operation. Hundreds of workers in the Philippines were the real engine of Nate, manually completing orders behind the scenes like a digital Wizard of Oz.
According to federal prosecutors, Saniger knowingly misled investors, raising over $88 million on the back of this automation lie — $50M initially, and another $38M in 2021 during the height of AI buzz. But inside Nate’s operations? The actual AI “automation rate” was reportedly less than 0.01%.
The tech wasn’t just underwhelming — it barely existed.
Even worse, Saniger allegedly locked down internal dashboards, calling the true performance metrics a “trade secret” to prevent staff and investors from realizing just how much of a façade the company was. When suspicion grew, he directed engineers to build basic bots — not to fix the product, but to make it look like automation was happening.
In short: the AI was mostly vibes.
The kicker? This wasn’t just an embarrassing startup fumble. It’s now a federal case.
Saniger has been charged with securities fraud and wire fraud, with each count carrying up to 20 years in prison. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York didn’t mince words, calling the entire scheme “a house of cards built on deceit.”
By early 2023, Nate collapsed. The money ran dry. The assets were sold off. And investors — which included major venture capital firms — walked away nearly empty-handed.
But the real sting? The fraud wasn’t some overly complex, Theranos-style deception with fake labs and tech jargon. It was simpler: Say you’re using AI when you’re actually using people. Then keep lying.
This case is also a juicy reminder of the AI gold rush bubble. As billions of dollars chase the next big automation breakthrough, investors are getting swept up by buzzwords, pitch decks, and founder charisma — sometimes with shockingly little due diligence.
And Saniger played the part well. The Stanford-educated founder styled himself as a visionary, a minimalist, a disruptor. His social media showed a life of sleek design, startup grind, and philosophical quotes. But now, instead of leading the next-gen checkout revolution, he might be facing time in federal prison.
As for the workers in the Philippines who were manually clicking through purchases 24/7? They’re likely the only part of Nate that was ever truly functional.