Techmeme
November 17, 2023, 8:15 PM

Top News

OpenAI:
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman departs the company and leaves its board after a board review found he wasn't “consistently candid in his communications with the board”  —  The board of directors of OpenAI, Inc, the 501(c)(3) that acts as the overall governing body for all OpenAI activities …
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Jay Peters / The Verge:
OpenAI CTO Mira Murati becomes the company's interim CEO  —  “Mr. Altman's departure follows a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities," the company said in its blog post.
Jay Peters / The Verge:
OpenAI co-founder and President Greg Brockman says he has quit the company “based on today's news”  —  Sam Altman isn't the only major OpenAI executive leaving the company on Friday.  Hours after Altman was fired, with the board saying it “no longer has confidence in his ability …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Source: Microsoft learned that OpenAI was ousting CEO Sam Altman just a minute before the news was published  —  Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI, learned that OpenAI was ousting CEO Sam Altman just a minute before the news was shared with the world, according to a person familiar with the situation.
The Official Microsoft Blog:
Satya Nadella says Microsoft has a “long-term agreement with OpenAI with full access to everything” it needs and remains “committed” to their partnership  —  As you saw at Microsoft Ignite this week, we're continuing to rapidly innovate for this era of AI …
Semafor:
Ina Fried / Axios:
Sources: Apple pauses all its advertising on X after Elon Musk's endorsement of an antisemitic X post and a report that Apple ads ran next to pro-Nazi content  —  - The left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters for America published a report Thursday that highlighted Apple, IBM …
Nicholas Vinocur / Politico:
Internal note: the European Commission plans to “temporarily suspend” X advertising over widespread disinformation concerns and to avoid “reputational damage”  —  Ads on Musk-owned social media site risk causing ‘reputational damage’ to the EU, its executive says in internal note.
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Internal memo: Amazon plans to cut “several hundred roles” in its Alexa division as part of a broader shift in business priorities and a focus on generative AI  —  Amazon will eliminate several hundred roles in its Alexa division as part of a broader shift in priorities and a focus …
Martin Coulter / Reuters:
The EU Court of Justice says Apple filed a legal case contesting the European Commission's decisions under the DMA; Meta and TikTok have already filed appeals  —  Apple (AAPL.O) has filed a legal case contesting decisions taken by the European Commission under its recently-introduced Digital Markets Act …
Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Coinbase updates Coinbase Commerce with its new open-source Onchain Payment Protocol, which offers instant settlement, low fees, and broad asset support  —  - Coinbase has built an open source “Onchain Payment Protocol” to improve its Commerce product.  — The protocol currently supports Ethereum, Polygon and Base ecosystems.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple plans to show green bubbles for RCS messages and keep iMessages blue to denote what the company considers is the most secure way for iPhone users to text  —  Earlier today, Apple announced its plans to bring RCS support to the iPhone in 2024.  Since I published my story on the news this morning …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
Recruiters, be that zeroth candidate  —  Welcome again!  Earlier, we looked at how personality assessments are evaluation tools that help look at candidates beyond resumes.  Let's look at how to use …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

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