Last week I read a story published on 25 September 2026 in the newspaper Valor that caught my attention, headlined: “How Sam Altman ‘broke’ a furniture factory in Indaiatuba”. I immediately began wondering how the terrifying, apocalyptic effects of artificial intelligence had already reached a furniture factory in the interior of São Paulo, since, after all, no small number of people have been proclaiming even the death of a billion people should AI go unregulated — as in the interview the billionaire Bill Gates gave to NBC News today, 27 September 2026, as I write this article.
But the question that lingers is precisely this: how did Sam Altman “break” a furniture factory in the interior of São Paulo?
According to the article, the company Artgetto filed a claim for damages seeking R$ 20 million against OpenAI Brazil, Morgan Stanley and the biometrics company Tools for Humanity (TFH), after they had turned its furniture plant into an assembly line for the support structures of the iris scanners used in the World Foundation’s World ID project.
In fact, it appears that Tools for Humanity was co-founded by Sam Altman himself. The company developed the so-called “Orbs” for collecting eye biometrics and, after registering on a given app, anyone could go to a totem — built by Artgetto — to have their iris scanned in exchange for tokens that ultimately converted into reais.
It all looked like an excellent deal for Artgetto, since the plan was to manufacture and be paid for roughly 2,000 totems at R$ 22,000 each, that is, revenue of R$ 44 million.
After all the investment made in its production line to serve TFH exclusively, came the bombshell: the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) prohibited financial compensation tied to iris collection, on the view that it could compromise the freedom of consent. Following that decision, TFH suspended the project and, consequently, the purchase of the totems.
Doing business means taking risks, and we all share that understanding. I have not examined the terms of this lawsuit, nor have I had the chance to read any contract signed between the parties. Even so, I am ever more convinced of how essential it is to build good contracts, including ones that anticipate the possibility, even indirect, of government interference, as happened in the case described here.
Curiously, although these are not identical situations, over the last 30 days I have been following closely the impact that a state act — whether from the Judiciary or from the Executive — can have on, or even bring to an end, an established market segment in this country. I am referring here to a recent decision by the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region (TRF1), which held that dental surgeons may not carry out invasive aesthetic procedures, and also to the recent provisional measure (medida provisória) issued by the Federal Government prohibiting the so-called “Bets” from operating in Brazil.
Without going into the merits of either of those debates, the fact is that, in doing business in Brazil — whether by accepting an innovative project from a multinational, as Artgetto did, or by trusting the institutions and building clinics and practices based on new competences, as the dental surgeons did, or indeed by structuring and investing heavily in a business until then endorsed by the Federal Government, as was the case with the Bets — what is certain is that a corporate crisis can arise from the most varied origins and in the most varied forms.
Within this chaotic political, economic and business world, I increasingly subscribe to the idea that it is essential to seek skills and expertise going well beyond the technical legal side, because what is needed is a multidisciplinary structure and life experience to support the business owner — and here I mean the individual, not the company — through such adverse situations.
In the end, I confess I was partly “happy” on finishing the article and realising that AI is not yet “destroying” companies as has been trumpeted, but rather that broken agreements and contractual obligations have, sadly, caused a crisis at one more Brazilian company.
Ricardo Petereit
28 September 2026
