Introduction
Welcome to the Week in Review (WiR), a regular summary of the past few days’ events in the tech field. News headlines have dominated – in fact, taken full control – of the unfolding events at the AI startup OpenAI, but much else has happened in the middle days leading up to Thanksgiving. It’s not a quiet time before the holiday!
Sam Altman Returns to OpenAI
After a tumultuous weekend and changes, Sam Altman, who was the CEO of OpenAI until Friday morning, is returning to be CEO again. The board that ousted him realized that perhaps terminating his contract wasn’t the best choice – after immense pressure from OpenAI members, investment company heads, and a close partner, Microsoft, among others. For more details on how all this happened, you can check out our event timeline.
Apple Adopts RCS
Apple plans to support the RCS standard on iOS next year, according to what the smartphone manufacturer announced last Thursday, which will address the messaging compatibility issue between iPhones and Android phones. However, as Manish noted, the company did not eliminate what is popularly known as the “green message bubble”; messages from Android phones will still appear as green bubbles on iOS.
Guilty Verdict in Fraud Case
Mike Rothenberg, a former Silicon Valley investor known for throwing lavish parties, was found guilty late last Friday of defrauding investors. This verdict, issued by a jury in Northern California, ended a 10-year journey for Rothenberg, who emerged in the Bay Area scene in 2013 at the age of 27 with a $5 million investment fund and a lot of charm to convince TechCrunch that his solo venture deserved coverage.
Kyle Vogt Resigns from Cruise
Kyle Vogt, the serial entrepreneur who co-founded and led Cruise from its startup beginnings in a garage to its acquisition and ownership by General Motors, resigned last week – along with fellow Cruise executive and co-founder Dan Kan. This shake-up comes less than a month after California’s vehicle administration suspended Cruise’s permits to operate self-driving vehicles on public roads following an incident where a pedestrian was hit and dragged 20 feet by the self-driving car.
Lawsuit Over Hate Ads
Media Matters published an article last Thursday showing footage of ads from IBM, Apple, Oracle, and others appearing next to hate content on Elon Musk’s former platform Twitter. Musk filed a lawsuit alleging defamation by the news organization. However, the lawsuit seems to confirm the very things he claims are defamatory, according to a report from Devin.
Secret Deal Between Google and Spotify
A Google official testified during the Epic vs. Google trial that the deal with Spotify allows the audio company to bypass Play Store fees, as first reported by The Verge. Don Harrison, head of Google Partnerships, stated that Spotify does not pay any fees when it processes its own payments and only pays a 4% fee when Google processes them – and both companies are committed to putting $50 million into a “success fund.”
Binance CEO Faces Federal Charges
Changpeng Zhao, also known as “CZ,” founder and CEO of Binance, is resigning and pleading guilty to a number of charges brought against him by the Justice Department and other agencies in the U.S. The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has agreed to pay around $4.3 billion to settle Justice Department investigations, according to a press release issued late Tuesday.
Cost
Privacy
The end-to-end encrypted messaging application Signal has provided an overview of the costs required to develop and maintain its privacy systems that protect user data from tracking by default. The blog post, written by Signal’s CEO Meredith Whittaker and developer Joshua Lund, reveals that the company is currently spending about $14 million annually on infrastructure to operate its private messaging service and nearly $19 million annually on employee costs. This adds up to a total of $33 million to keep the service running.
Podcast
With Thanksgiving arriving this week, you may need a podcast to drown out the sound of family disagreements and sports games. (I know I do.) Fortunately, there are plenty of podcasts in TechCrunch’s selection to choose from.
Conclusion
In conclusion, startups can benefit from hiring a part-time AI officer to integrate technology into their strategies and improve their performance. These part-time officers can provide their expertise and knowledge in AI to multiple companies at the same time, giving them an edge over their counterparts working full-time for a single company. These part-time officers can help startups effectively adopt technology and achieve the desired return on investment.
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