Tools for Humanity, Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning startup, hired two law firms last year to investigate allegations of financial irregularities at the company and bribery of foreign officials in Thailand, people familiar with the investigations told Business Insider.
One of the probes, Business Insider has learned, looked into Tools for Humanity’s rollout in Thailand with a company linked to a South African businessman whom U.S. and Thai officials have accused of involvement in transnational cyber-fraud scams.
The other investigation reviewed concerns including allegations that senior company leaders approved six- and seven-figure payments to a foreign firm to boost the value of the Worldcoin token, a potential violation of Securities and Exchange Commission rules, people familiar with the investigations said.
As a result of the investigations, Tools for Humanity severed ties with a business partner in Thailand and strengthened its policies and controls, a company spokesperson told Business Insider. Following the investigations, Tools for Humanity said it is not aware of any facts establishing a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a federal anti-bribery law, by the company or any of its employees.
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“When concerns are raised, we take them seriously, engage independent outside experts to review them when appropriate, and take action as warranted based on what we learn, as we are doing here,” the spokesperson said.
Tools for Humanity was cofounded by one of the tech world’s most notable figures. Altman, better known for his role as CEO of OpenAI, is one of three people on Tools for Humanity’s board. Valued in 2023 at $2.5 billion, it has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital, and Khosla Ventures.
The company’s goal: to distinguish humans from AI bots with iris scans performed by a volleyball-sized sphere called the “Orb.”
Altman didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment.
A staffer raises concerns
For one of the reviews, the company said it engaged law firm O’Melveny & Myers. The purpose of that investigation was to look into concerns raised by a company staffer about potential misuse of company funds, the people familiar with the investigations said.
O’Melveny examined allegations of personal expenses and corporate housing charged on company credit cards, the people said. The firm also looked into alleged misclassification of full-time employees as contractors to lower the employees’ tax burden, the people said.
The company’s auditing firm, BDO, also looked into the concerns raised by the company staffer about the startup’s financials, the people said. BDO declined to comment.
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Separately, Tools for Humanity said it hired the law firm Sidley Austin. That firm looked into whether the company’s dealings in Thailand had violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, these people said.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is a federal law that prohibits companies from paying, offering, or promising bribes to foreign officials to obtain or retain business. Civil and criminal penalties can include hefty fines and prison time.
Findings from at least one of the law firm investigations were presented to the company’s board, according to one of the people familiar with the investigations. Tools for Humanity’s directors are Altman, Chief Executive Alex Blania, and Spencer Bogart, general partner at Blockchain Capital.
“We are committed to conducting business ethically around the world and adhering to the law wherever we operate,” the Tools for Humanity spokesperson said. “We maintain robust policies and practices designed to support that commitment, we enforce them, and we strengthen them when we identify areas for improvement.”
Regulatory roadblocks
Tools for Humanity was cofounded in 2019 by Altman and Blania, then a young physics researcher at Caltech. The company builds tools for the Cayman Islands-based World Foundation, which distributes the Worldcoin cryptocurrency token and aims to develop a global identity and financial network.
Until earlier this year, Tools for Humanity offered new participants the option to claim tokens of Worldcoin. Some Tools for Humanity staffers have received token grants as part of their compensation packages. Early investors in Tools for Humanity also received tokens, the company has said.
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The value of the Worldcoin token stood at around 61 cents Sunday, a decline of 95% since its peak of $11.79 in March 2024, according to Coinbase.
As the company tries to recruit users for its World app and network, it has met regulatory roadblocks and questions about its iris-scanning and data collection. The company has been barred, paused, or investigated in many countries, including Spain, India, and Indonesia.
At home, the company has faced criticism for its all-or-nothing work culture, as Business Insider previously reported. A slew of high-level staffers have left over the past year, and in June it announced layoffs. The layoffs affected less than 15% of the company’s global workforce of roughly 500 people, a person familiar with the matter said. Tools for Humanity recently entered a new phase of its plan, focusing on building partnerships with businesses and demonstrating utility to users, the company said in a blog post.
A questionable business partner
Tools for Humanity has drawn scrutiny for its operations in Asia. In 2022, the company told MIT Technology Review that it launched an investigation after the magazine’s reporting showed that the company’s contractor in Indonesia had made payments to village officials, a potential violation of the country’s anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws.
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Last September, Whale Hunting, an investigative journalism project run by the production company Brazen, reported that during Tools for Humanity’s rollout in Thailand, the startup had unwittingly done business with a publicly traded company tied to South African businessman Benjamin Mauerberger, also known as Ben Smith.
Thai courts have seized assets belonging to Mauerberger and issued an arrest warrant for him on fraud and money laundering charges related to an alleged transnational scam network, according to multiple news outlets.
A bill advanced in December by the House Foreign Affairs Committee named Mauerberger on a list of foreign nationals who could be subject to sanctions for alleged involvement in transnational “pig butchering” scams.
Tools for Humanity “entered into business with a partner in the region linked to an individual about whom serious allegations later emerged, but who had provided us with a false name and about whom those allegations were not known at the time,” the company’s spokesperson told Business Insider. “Once the company learned of the allegations, it retained Sidley to look into the matter, severed ties, and implemented more robust due diligence measures for vetting business partners.”
Kimberly White/Getty Images for World
Mauerberger didn’t respond to a request for comment sent through a LinkedIn account listed under his name. His attorney, Witoon Kengngan, told reporters at a press conference in March that the criminal investigation of his client in Thailand was moving unusually quickly and suggested that it could be politically motivated. He said his client wouldn’t return to Thailand.
Thai officials have pursued their own, unrelated, probes into Tools for Humanity.
The company in November said it had halted operations in Thailand because of an order from the country’s Personal Data Protection Committee over concerns around the collection of biometric data. And Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation in January said that its investigation found that some 1.2 million Thai citizens had undergone iris scans and that most of them had been “incentivized by the promise of the cryptocurrency named ‘Worldcoin’ (WLD) while they misunderstood or [were] unaware of the required consent.”
The Department of Special Investigation didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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