Techmeme
November 20, 2023, 3:29 AM

Top News

Amir Efrati / The Information:
Sam Altman will not return as OpenAI CEO; OpenAI names Emmett Shear as interim CEO, per OpenAI board director Ilya Sutskever  —  Sam Altman won't return as CEO of OpenAI, despite efforts by the company's executives to bring him back, according to co-founder and board director Ilya Sutskever.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Satya Nadella says Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and some OpenAI staff will join a Microsoft “advanced AI research team” and Microsoft remains committed to OpenAI  —  Sam Altman and Greg Brockman and many of their former OpenAI colleagues will join Microsoft, the software conglomerate's chief Satya Nadella said Monday.
The Atlantic:
Sources describe how ChatGPT's success widened ideological rifts at OpenAI, and Ilya Sutskever began behaving like a spiritual leader expecting AGI's arrival  —  Sam Altman's weekend of shock and drama began a year ago, with the release of ChatGPT.  —  To truly understand the events …
Bloomberg:
Sources: before his ouster, Sam Altman was trying to raise money in the Middle East for a venture, codenamed Tigris, to produce TPUs and compete with Nvidia  —  - Altman was fundraising in the Middle East for new chip venture  — The project, code-named Tigris, is intended to rival Nvidia
Amir Efrati / The Information:
Source: dozens of OpenAI employees internally announced they are quitting after Ilya Sutskever told them that Sam Altman won't return  —  Dozens of OpenAI staffers internally announced they were quitting the company Sunday night, said a person with knowledge of the situation …
Bloomberg:
Source: a number of announcements at DevDay infuriated OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, like custom GPTs that OpenAI has said may one day run autonomously  —  The company couldn't balance nonprofit goals with an expensive business and billions in commercial ties
James Ball / Techtris:
How the very unusual governance structure of OpenAI, born out of effective altruism, led to the firing of Sam Altman, as the philosophy clashed with reality  —  What has happened looks incomprehensible unless you know the strange history of OpenAI, its philosophy, and how that is now clashing with reality.
Greg Brockman / @gdb:
Greg Brockman describes OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever's role in Sam Altman's firing, Brockman's removal from OpenAI's board, and Mira Murati's foreknowledge  —  Sam and I are shocked and saddened by what the board did today. Let us first say thank you to all the incredible people who we have worked with at OpenAI, our customers, our investors, and all of those who have been reaching out. We too are still trying to figure out exactly...
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Kara Swisher / @karaswisher:
Steve Mollman / Fortune:
More: CNN, Axios, Wired, and Axios
X: @alexeheath and @nxthompsonLinkedIn: Scott CunninghamForums: Hacker News
TechCrunch:
Cruise co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt resigns, a month after California's DMV suspended Cruise's permits to operate self-driving cars on public roads  —  Kyle Vogt, the serial entrepreneur who co-founded and led Cruise from a startup in a garage through its acquisition and ownership by General Motors …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A look at Apple's quest to build key device components in-house, including a cellular modem and other wireless chips, displays, batteries, and camera sensors  —  This week, we go inside Apple's quest to replace every major part of the iPhone with an in-house design.
Forbes:
Sources: leading ad execs told Linda Yaccarino that she is risking her reputation and suggested she step down as X CEO to make a statement about antisemitism  —  In the aftermath of IBM, Disney, Apple and others pausing spending on X, formerly known as Twitter, top advertising executives made a personal appeal to CEO Linda Yaccarino.

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Will Douglas Heaven / MIT Technology Review:
Andreas Rinke / Reuters: