{"id":3220,"date":"2025-06-18T18:58:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T18:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/easybee.ai\/?p=3220"},"modified":"2025-06-19T00:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T00:30:12","slug":"caught-cheating-went-viral-raised-millions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/easybee.ai\/caught-cheating-went-viral-raised-millions\/","title":{"rendered":"Caught Cheating. Went Viral. Raised Millions."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The ethics may be debatable. But the signal was impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year, two Columbia students were caught cheating during a technical interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of quietly retreating, they leaned in. They built a tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The product, Cluely, listens to Zoom calls and feeds real-time answers. It went viral. It raised millions. And it confirmed what many in hiring already suspected:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can\u2019t tell who is cheating anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not on HackerRank. Not on take-home projects. Not even in live interviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why We Threw Out the Old Playbook<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>At EasyBee AI, we took the message seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We stopped pretending that traditional developer assessments were still effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just four months ago, we proudly used HackerRank. Today, it\u2019s gone from our process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We also said goodbye to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Trivia-style questions about large language models<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Whiteboard prompts that measure cleverness more than competence<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One-size-fits-all take-home assignments<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In their place, we introduced something that better reflects the real job: building agents that work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The One-Week AI Agent Challenge<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Every AI developer candidate now gets a real-world challenge, based on an actual use case from inside EasyBee AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One example is Travel Genie, our internal AI travel assistant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s what the challenge looks like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Build an AI agent from scratch<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use any and all tools at your disposal: GitHub, ChatGPT, Cursor AI, open-source repos, low-code frameworks<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You are encouraged to use what works<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There are no hidden rules, only the task of creating something useful<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no perfect solution. Yes, clean code matters. But what matters more is how fast you learn, how you approach the unknown, and what you manage to build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can take as long as you want. You can iterate. The only thing we care about is the outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What We See<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The moment we hand over the prompt, the process begins to reveal a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some drop out immediately. They expected something theoretical. Instead, they\u2019re asked to build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some submit just enough to get by. Their agents run, but lack creativity. There is no edge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there are the ones who stand out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They ask great questions. They take the brief and stretch it. Some deliver features we eventually use in production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s the signal we\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What Happens After<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Completing the challenge is only step one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once someone joins the team, they enter an environment built to help them grow fast. We call it EZB University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This internal bootcamp includes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>White papers on Agentic AI, retrieval-augmented generation, AI agent maturity levels, and our HexTech framework<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Live code walkthroughs and hands-on architecture sessions<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A full tools database with templates and resources, starting with Cursor AI<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Our developer Net Promoter Score is over 70. That\u2019s significantly higher than many industry benchmarks, including OpenAI\u2019s last reported figure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re also proud of the team itself. Developers from all over the world work together here in Boston. And we\u2019ve built a team that includes more than double the industry average of women in technical roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Building Matters More Than Testing<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>At EasyBee AI, we understand that cheating is easy. Tools make it effortless to look competent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we stopped assessing optics and started assessing output.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We don\u2019t care about resumes or credentials. We care about the ability to think fast, learn fast, and build well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If that sounds like you, we\u2019re hiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if you were planning to cheat on your next coding interview, maybe don\u2019t just fake it. Build something great instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ethics may be debatable. But the signal was impossible to ignore. Last year, two Columbia students were caught cheating during a technical interview. Instead of quietly retreating, they leaned in. They built a tool. The product, Cluely, listens to Zoom calls and feeds real-time answers. It went viral. It raised millions. And it confirmed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3233,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,20],"class_list":["post-3220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-ai-agent","tag-easybee-ai","wpautop"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Caught Cheating. Went Viral. Raised Millions. - EasyBee AI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/easybee.ai\/caught-cheating-went-viral-raised-millions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Caught Cheating. Went Viral. Raised Millions. - EasyBee AI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The ethics may be debatable. But the signal was impossible to ignore. Last year, two Columbia students were caught cheating during a technical interview. Instead of quietly retreating, they leaned in. They built a tool. The product, Cluely, listens to Zoom calls and feeds real-time answers. It went viral. It raised millions. And it confirmed [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/easybee.ai\/caught-cheating-went-viral-raised-millions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EasyBee AI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-18T18:58:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-19T00:30:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/easybee.ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Caught-Cheating.-Went-Viral.-Raised-Millions.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"752\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"364\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dave Peak\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dave Peak\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/easybee.ai\/caught-cheating-went-viral-raised-millions\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/easybee.ai\/caught-cheating-went-viral-raised-millions\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dave Peak\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/easybee.ai\/#\/schema\/person\/c9370e0ab9047119d85311f520289bef\"},\"headline\":\"Caught Cheating. 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