Techmeme
November 19, 2023, 1:55 AM

Top News

The Verge:
Source: OpenAI's board had agreed to resign and let Sam Altman and Greg Brockman return, but has since waffled; Altman would want significant governance changes  —  The OpenAI board is in discussions with Sam Altman to return to CEO, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
More: Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Engadget, Android Authority, Business Today, Ars Technica, CNN, Bloomberg, Windows Central, New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, Marcus on AI, Wired, Cointelegraph, CNBC, TechCrunch, Moneycontrol, Forbes, PaymentSecurity.io, Axios, Fortune, Fast Company, Cryptopolitan, Bloomberg, Fortune, Gizchina, Neowin, SlashGear, The Information, Business Insider, VentureBeat, Android Headlines, TechCircle, NewsBTC, CoinGape, Stack Diary, International Business Times, Daring Fireball, Bankless Times, Semafor, MarketWatch, Bitcoin News, Associated Press, ZDNet, Supervised, Big Technology, Coinpedia Fintech News, Deadline, Australian Financial Review, and Decrypt
Bluesky: @epro.social and @dead.place
Erin Woo / The Information:
Sources: in a memo, OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon told employees that the company is “optimistic” it can bring back Sam Altman and Greg Brockman  —  OpenAI is “optimistic” it can bring back Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and other key employees who departed in the wake …
Forbes:
Sources: OpenAI investors discussed reinstating Sam Altman by threatening OpenAI with mass researcher revolt, withholding Microsoft cloud credits, and a lawsuit  —  With the ousted OpenAI CEO actively discussing a new artificial intelligence venture, investors in his previous company are trying …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Microsoft and Thrive are working to reinstate Sam Altman as OpenAI's CEO; Satya Nadella, blindsided by the board's decision, pledged to support Altman  —  - Board has considered resigning, hasn't made final decision  — Altman has been weighing new venture, but open to returning
Kate Clark / The Information:
Axios:
OpenAI memo: Sam Altman's firing wasn't due to “malfeasance” or related to financial, business, safety, or security practices but a “breakdown in communication”  —  Team - after yesterday's announcement, which took us all by surprise, we have had multiple conversations …
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Source: at an OpenAI all-hands meeting, Ilya Sutskever defended Sam Altman's ouster as necessary to protect OpenAI's mission of making AI beneficial to humanity  —  Everything seemed to be going his way.  Then his time at OpenAI was over.  —  All over Silicon Valley …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Erin Woo / The Information:
Kara Swisher / @karaswisher:
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Sources: OpenAI has received only a fraction of Microsoft's $10B investment, a big portion of which is in cloud purchases, giving Microsoft significant leverage  —  Only a fraction of Microsoft's $10 billion investment in OpenAI has been wired to the startup, while a significant portion of the funding …
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Nothing pulls its Sunbird-based iMessage app Nothing Chats from the Play Store after a researcher found messages are not E2EE, attachments are public, and more  —  Sunbird has been promising iMessage support on Android for about a year now, but the company has always seemed rather sketchy.

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