Techmeme
November 21, 2023, 6:45 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Filing: Changpeng Zhao agrees to pay a criminal fine of $50M and can retain his majority ownership of Binance but can't hold an executive role at the company  —  Zhao's crypto exchange will also admit wrongdoing and agree to pay $4.3 billion in fines  —  The chief executive of Binance …
CNBC:
Binance and CZ plead guilty to federal charges as part of a $4.3B settlement with the US DOJ; charges include violating sanctions and anti-money laundering laws  —  - The U.S. Department of Justice has brought criminal charges against Binance and its billionaire founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao.
@cz_binance:
Changpeng Zhao steps down as CEO of Binance, and Richard Teng, formerly the Global Head of Regional Markets, has been named CEO  —  Today, I stepped down as CEO of Binance. Admittedly, it was not easy to let go emotionally. But I know it is the right thing to do. I made mistakes, and I must take responsibility. This is best for our community, for Binance, and for myself. Binance is no longer a baby. It is...
Financial Times:
Sources: 97%+ of OpenAI staff have signed the letter threatening to quit in board standoff; investors explore legal measures to force board to reverse course  —  More than 95% of employees have threatened to quit and join Microsoft if board refuses to resign
Bloomberg:
Sources: OpenAI interim CEO Emmett Shear has told people close to OpenAI that he doesn't plan to remain if the board can't clearly tell him why it fired Altman  —  Sam Altman and members of the OpenAI board have opened negotiations aimed at a possible return of the ousted co-founder …
Kara Swisher / @karaswisher:
Sources: fruitful negotiations between OpenAI's board and Sam Altman's side are taking place; Microsoft is being kept apprised and is likely to get board seats  —  Update on @OpenAI situation: Many sources tell me fruitful negotiations are taking place now between @sama side (he has a crew of well known outside tech pals helping like @bchesky and @btaylor) and the board side, who are repped by @adamdangelo and interim ceo @eshear.
Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:
Matthew Prince / @eastdakota:
Kristi Hines / Search Engine Journal:
Anthropic debuts Claude 2.1, offering a context window of up to 200K tokens, or ~150K words, a claimed 50%+ increase in accuracy, new API integrations, and more  —  Claude 2.1 boasts a 150K word context window to parse long documents, 50%+ accuracy gains, early support for tool integration, and more.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Texas' AG, “troubled” by Elon Musk's claims, probes Media Matters, which calls X's suit “frivolous”; X avoids anti-SLAPP statutes by filing in the 5th Circuit  —  X, formerly Twitter, has followed through with owner Elon Musk's threat to sue the left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Sonos to make a long-awaited push into headphones with a $400 model coming as early as April, is working on a video service and streaming device, more  —  - Company plans to compete with Bose and Apple with headphones  — New Roam speaker, high-end sound bar and video service coming
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Nvidia reports Q3 revenue up 206% YoY to $18.12B, vs. $16.18B est., Data Center revenue up 279% YoY to $14.51B, and net income up 1,259% YoY to $9.2B  —  - Nvidia's results surpassed analysts' projections for revenue and income in the fiscal fourth quarter.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Former OpenAI President Greg Brockman announces that ChatGPT's voice narration feature is now available to all free users  —  Ex-OpenAI president Greg Brockman — who, as far as we're aware, isn't currently employed at OpenAI in any capacity — is posting updates about OpenAI products on X …
Lauren Goode / Wired:
Q&A with Del Harvey, who led Twitter's trust and safety team for 13 years until 2021, on the X rebrand, her role, Gamergate, Donald Trump, January 6, and more  —  From Israel vs. Hamas threats to Donald Trump's “wild” posts, Del Harvey helped make the platform's hardest content moderation calls for 13 years.
Anel Islamovic / Stability AI:
Stability AI releases Stable Video Diffusion in research preview, its first foundation model for generative video based on the Stable Diffusion image model  —  Today, we are releasing Stable Video Diffusion, our first foundation model for generative video based on the image model Stable Diffusion.
Olivia Solon / Bloomberg:
Palantir and Accenture win a £480M NHS contract to overhaul the UK's patient data system; some worry about privacy as patients can't opt out of data sharing  —  - Platform will help hospitals detect patterns in medical data  — Palantir's software managed UK's Covid vaccine rollout
Financial Times:
Filings: Tether deposited $1B+ with Britannia Financial, founded by a Tory donor later charged by the US with bribery, a rare look at its banking relationships  —  Funds from the world's largest stablecoin issuer are at the centre of a High Court battle  —  Tether deposited more than $1bn …
Zaheer Kachwala / Reuters:
Broadcom plans to close its $69B VMware acquisition on November 22, after receiving approval from Chinese regulators, which added new restrictions  —  Broadcom (AVGO.O) said it planned to close its $69 billion acquisition of cloud computing firm VMWare (VMW.N) on Wednesday …
The Information:
Tiger Global Management's Scott Shleifer will transition from his role leading private investments to a senior adviser role, effective January 1, 2024  —  Scott Shleifer, a key architect of Tiger Global Management's aggressive private tech dealmaking during the 2020-2022 startup boom …
Semafor:
Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, one of the most prominent backers of “effective altruism”, now questions the merits of running companies based on the philosophy  —  One of the most prominent backers of the “effective altruism” movement at the heart of the ongoing turmoil at OpenAI …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
The central nervous system of your business  —  Used by 80% of Fortune 100 companies, Airtable combines AI with the scale of an infinitely flexible, no-code system.  With all your data in one place, it's like mission control for your company.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Keep your business moving with delegated signing in Zoho Sign  —  Contracts piling up while you're traveling or stuck in back-to-back meetings?  With Zoho Sign's delegated signing feature, those delays will be a thing of the past.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Access:
Meet Starboy, the alien toy that hates being called AI
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Hard Fork:
A.I. Goes to War + Is 'A.I. Brain Fry' Real? + How Grammarly Stole Casey's Identity
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Great Chat:
What comes after the Girl Boss?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Lenny's Podcast:
How I built a 1M+ subscriber newsletter and top 10 tech podcast | Lenny Rachitsky
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Everybody Goes Home: How technology is helping prevent wildfires from spreading
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Synthesia's Victor Riparbelli: Using AI To Replace Boring PowerPoints With Interactive Video
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:45 PM ET, November 21, 2023.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority:
Washington Post:
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk: