OpenAI's New Era: Sam Altman Exits Amidst Leadership Turbulence
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In a surprising turn of events, OpenAI, the pioneering AI startup behind technologies like ChatGPT and DALL-E 3, has announced the departure of its CEO, Sam Altman. The news, which has sent ripples through the tech industry, came as a shock to many, including OpenAI's own employees who were informed concurrently with the public announcement.
The company's board, after a comprehensive review, expressed concerns about Altman's lack of candor in his dealings with them, stating this hindered their ability to effectively oversee the company's operations. As a result, they lost confidence in his leadership.
In response to this significant leadership vacuum, OpenAI has appointed Mira Murati, the former Chief Technology Officer, as the interim CEO. Murati, known for her role in overseeing major product launches including ChatGPT, is set to helm the company during this transition. OpenAI has begun the search for a permanent CEO to steer the company forward.
Altman, co-founder of OpenAI and a prominent figure in the tech world, acknowledged his departure in a post on X (formerly Twitter), reflecting positively on his transformative experience at OpenAI and expressing anticipation for his future endeavors. Despite the abrupt end to his tenure, Altman's contributions to the company and the wider AI industry remain significant.
The board also announced that Greg Brockman, another co-founder, will be stepping down as chairman but will continue in his role as the president of OpenAI, now reporting to Murati.
This leadership shakeup occurs amidst a backdrop of OpenAI's increasing prominence in the AI landscape, marked by the virality of its ChatGPT service and significant investments from Microsoft. The company, initially a nonprofit, transitioned to a "capped-profit" model in 2019 to support the escalating costs of developing advanced AI systems.
As OpenAI grapples with these changes, the tech world watches closely. The full impact of this leadership change on OpenAI's future endeavors, especially in its partnership with Microsoft and its role in the advancing field of AI, remains to be seen. The company's board reaffirms its commitment to OpenAI's mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity, a mission that now rests in the hands of new leadership.
The upheaval at OpenAI comes at a time when the field of artificial intelligence is witnessing intense competition and innovation. Among the notable competitors is Grok, launched by X (fromerly Twitter), a rising star in the AI industry known for its cutting-edge developments in machine learning and natural language processing. These companies are not just vying for technological superiority but also for a share of a rapidly expanding market, which includes partnerships with major tech firms, government contracts, and influence over the future direction of AI regulation and ethics.
This Week By the Numbers 📈
Quick Facts:
U.S. inflation drops to 3.2%, surpassing expectations
Oil prices on a downward trajectory for the fourth consecutive week
Leading asset manager Fidelity, with $4.5 trillion in assets, submits an application for a Spot Ethereum Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF)
South Korea’s National Pension Service, the world’s third-largest pension fund, invests $19.9 million in Coinbase shares
BlackRock files an S-1 application for its own Spot Ethereum ETF
Germany’s fourth-largest bank, Commerzbank, receives a license for cryptocurrency custody services
Boyaa, China's premier board and card game company, plans to purchase Bitcoin and Ethereum worth $90 million
South Korea’s share in the global cryptocurrency market reaches 12.9%
Home prices in China experience their most significant drop in eight years
Cryptocurrency lobbying expenditure in the U.S. poised to surpass the 2022 record
Top Stories 🗞️
Apple to pause advertising on X after Musk backs antisemitic post
The move follows Musk's endorsement of antisemitic conspiracy theories as well as Apple ads reportedly being placed alongside far-right content. Apple has been a major advertiser on the social media site and its pause follows a similar move by IBM. Musk faced backlash for endorsing an antisemitic post Wednesday, as 164 Jewish rabbis and activists upped their call to Apple, Google, Amazon and Disney to stop advertising on X, and for Apple and Google to remove it from their platforms. The left-leaning nonprofit Media Matters for America published a report Thursday that highlighted Apple, IBM, Amazon and Oracle as among those whose ads were shown next to far-right posts. Musk posted to X on Wednesday "[y]ou have said the actual truth" in response to an X post that claimed Jewish communities support "dialectical hatred against whites."
Argentina’s Annual Inflation Hit 143% Ahead of Election
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Tether plans major expansion into BTC mining with $500M investment
The stablecoin firm may spend around $500 million in the next six months on the construction of mining facilities and investments in other miners, Ardoino told Bloomberg in an interview. The company will build mining facilities in Uruguay, Paraguay and El Salvador as it grows its computing power to 1% of the BTC mining network. The new sites would have a capacity of between 40 and 70 megawatts (MW). The mining investment includes part of the $610 million debt financing facility extended to German miner Northern Data Group that Tether announced at the beginning of the month. The loan was in line with a pattern of rising loans made by Tether this year, which already made a strategic investment in Northern Data Group in September to back artificial intelligence initiatives.
Singapore to pilot use of wholesale central bank digital currencies in 2024
Come 2024, Singapore will pilot the live issuance and use of wholesale central bank digital currencies, said Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. “We will take our experiments a step further next year,” said Menon at Singapore FinTech Festival 2023 on Thursday, without specifying more details on the timeframe. “I’m pleased to announce that MAS will pilot the live issuance of wholesale CBDCs to instantaneously support payments across commercial banks here,” Menon said. MAS is the city-state’s central bank and financial regulator. Wholesale CBDC is a digital currency issued by a central bank, that’s used exclusively by central banks, commercial banks or other financial institutions to settle large-value interbank transactions. It’s unlike retail CBDCs which cater to individuals and businesses, facilitating everyday transactions.
Vivek Ramaswamy unveils crypto policy platform criticizing mixer sanctions
Republican United States Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy unveiled a crypto policy framework on Nov. 16 at the North American Blockchain Summit (NABS) in Fort Worth, Texas. Called “The Three Freedoms of Crypto,” the framework states that developers of smart contract code should not be held liable for the actions of people who use the code. In the document, Ramaswamy vows to “direct government prosecutors to prosecute bad actors, not the code they use and not the developers who write that code,” if elected president. In an accompanying speech, Ramaswamy specifically targeted sanctions against crypto mixer Tornado Cash, stating, “The case brought against the Tornado Cash folks, for example. […] You can’t go after the developers of code.” In the document, Ramaswamy also promises to provide regulatory clarity that gives new cryptocurrencies “safe harbor” exemptions from securities laws for a period of time after they are launched and to prevent any federal agency from creating rules that limit the use of self-hosted wallets.
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Tatiana Koffman
About the Author: Tatiana Koffman
Hi there and thanks for reading! If you stumble upon my newsletter, you will notice that I write about money, economics, and technology. I hold a JD/MBA and spent my career in Capital Markets working across Mergers & Acquisitions, Derivatives, Venture Capital, and Cryptocurrencies. I write to make financial topics more accessible and create equal opportunity for the next generation of investors. I have personally invested in 20+ companies and funds (👉 my portfolio).