Sara Hooker, the co-founder and CEO of US-based firm Adaption Labs, revealed that her startup’s official X account has been hacked. Hooker posted about the hack from her personal X account this afternoon, claiming that the Elon Musk-owned social media platform had failed to assist her in any way.
The computer scientist and entrepreneur said that she tried to bargain with the hackers, offering them $500 for the return of the account. The hackers rejected this and made a counter-offer of $3,000, which Hooker refused.
(Also read: US CEO attending AI Summit surprised to see Bata store: ‘Had no idea it was such a universal brand’)
CEO negotiates with hackers
She shared a screenshot of the offer online. The screenshot shows that Hooker, the San Francisco-based CEO of Adaption, advised the hackers to not be “greedy” and to “take what you can get when you can get it.”
“I’m not greedy. I want this money from every account holder,” the anonymous hacker or hackers replied. “But I can’t give you this account for $500; it’s a very nice and active account.”
“I’m in the middle of high stakes negotiation with who hacked our Adaption AI account,” Hooker wrote while sharing the screenshot on X. She added that X had been of little help in resolving the issue.
“I would prefer X Business handled it. But it is the wild Wild West, no response from support at X. Support doesn’t exist,” she wrote. The CEO of the startup further advised her followers to ignore any posts from the official Adaption X account until the issue is resolved.
Who is Sara Hooker?
Sara Hooker is a computer scientist and entrepreneur who co-founder Adaption AI, a startup working on AI that can learn continuously. She launched the AI lab with Sudip Roy.
Previously, she led Cohere Labs (research arm of Cohere) and was a research scientist at Google Brain (now DeepMind) for five years.
(Also read: US CEO attending AI Summit orders room service at 11 pm after getting stuck in traffic for 4 hours)
Hooker had visited India in February for the AI summit. She had posted frequently about her time in India, with her posts receiving widespread coverage and viewership.
Hooker spent her childhood in Eswatini and in Mozambique, graduating with an IB diploma from United World College Waterford Kamhlaba in 2008.
