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

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