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☆ The gloves are off among Silicon Valley CEOs
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-15 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Silicon Valley CEOs are doing battle in public. AdvertisementThe Silicon Valley elite have been at each other's throats a little more than usual lately. AdvertisementThe latest example of this came this week when Mark Zuckerberg derided Apple's Vision Pro headset in an Instagram video. The Vision Pro is a direct competitor to Meta's Quest Pro but Zuckerberg does not appear concerned for now. “If you go back to the PC era, Microsoft’s open model was the winner, and in this next generation Meta is going to be the open model, and I really want to make sure that the open model wins out again.”Zuckerberg has good reason to be on the offense.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, —, Apple's, Zuckerberg, Justin Sullivan, it’s, ” Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s, Bill Gates, ” Elon Musk, Sam Altman, chatbot Grok, Elon Musk, Leon Neal, Satya Nadella, OpenAI, Y, Paul Graham, Tim Cook, Steve Jobs, ”, “ Organizations: Vision, Service, Tech, Meta's, Apple, Reality Labs, Microsoft, Google Locations: OpenAI, Zuck

☆ Conversational AI startup Vocode entered Y Combinator without a business plan. Now, it's raised $3.25 million without a pitch deck.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Vocode, a conversational AI startup, has raised $3.25 million in seed funding. Founded in 2023, by Ajay Raj and Kian Hooshmand, Vocode raised funding at Y Combinator without a formal pitch deck. Vocode's founders are friends from high school who made it into Y Combinator despite opting against pitching their original business plan. With 10 weeks until demo day, the team began interviewing teams across fintech, healthcare, and climate, searching for ideas before landing on conversational AI. The company began making waves in online hacker communities before its demo day pitch session in front of investors.

Persons: Ajay Raj, Kian, Vocode, PrankGPT, Hooshmand, Y Organizations: Business Locations: San Francisco, fintech

☆ Y Combinator-backed trading app Pluto Markets just raised $2.6 million with this 14-slide pitch deck
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-07 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Pluto Markets, a trading app backed by famed accelerator Y Combinator, has raised $2.6 million in fresh funds. The Danish fintech startup, founded in 2021, wants to upend the market for retail trading offerings in Europe. "Companies raised a lot of money to blitz scale across the EU but have now focused on their core markets. Unlike most fintech brokerages, Pluto secured an EU-wide investment license before it had raised $1 million in funding, having bootstrapped and stayed lean. You can check out Pluto Market's 14-slide pitch deck below:

Persons: Joakim Bruchman, Goldman Sachs, We've, Bruchmann, Pluto, Oscar Vingtoft Organizations: Business, Companies, Trade Republic, Saxo Bank, EU Locations: Danish, Europe, Denmark, France, Germany, Berlin

☆ The IRL social startup 222 is moving from LA to NYC as it launches an app and raises $2.5 million
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-05 | by ( Sydney Bradley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

For the founders behind the IRL social startup 222, it's all about the "magic of the backyard." The 222 team then organizes a multi-stage meetup, which includes a restaurant as well as another venue like a museum or a bar. At its events, 222 wants attendees to feel comfortable and leave "judgment at the door," said Hashemi, 222 's COO. "A lot more people are coming around to this idea of in real-life social," Hashemi said. Kazemian, Hashemi, and Roshannai, meanwhile, want to help swing the pendulum back to IRL — back to real relationships.

Persons: Keyan Kazemian, Danial Hashemi, Arman Roshannai, — Kazemian, Hashemi, Roshannai, Kazemian, —, Catalyst, Arash Ferdowsi, Cory, Catalyst's Niko Bonatsos, Sydney Bradley Organizations: Business, Scrum Ventures, Dropbox, University of Southern, YC, Tech, IRL Locations: Los Angeles, California, New York, New York City, University of Southern California, SoHo , New York

☆ Wondercraft wants to be the AI-driven 'Canva of audio.' Check out the 9-slide pitch deck it used to raise $3 million.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-29 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

An AI audio startup founded by former Palantir and Acast staffers has raised $3 million in a seed round backed by investors, including Y Combinator and Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett. London-based Wondercraft, founded in 2022, aims to become the "Canva of audio." Nikolaou said he likened the startup to Canva because he wanted to "empower everyone to be an audio creator." With the fresh funding, Wondercraft will develop the platform further and extend a wider range of features to its users. Check out the 9-slide deck used to raise the fresh funds:

Persons: Y Combinator, Steven Bartlett, Dimitris Nikolaou, Youssef Rizk, Oskar Serrander, Nikolaou, Serrander, Wondercraft Organizations: Business, Will Ventures Locations: London, Boston

☆ Has the LA scene fizzled? SoCal has fallen further behind the Bay Area, NYC and Boston for startup funding: 'People deep in AI are just not in LA'
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-23 | by ( Ben Bergman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

But last year, the LA tech scene stalled, according to Carta data. Startup funding plummeted everywhere, but nowhere experienced a steeper decline than LA, where funding declined 65% from 2022. CartaLA's startup funding dropped 65% last year, a steeper decline than the Bay Area, New York or Boston. "They're very deep AI companies, but they're being applied to a vertical, which is one of the strengths of LA," Ingersoll said. Bird goes bust and Snap snaps backThere was more bad news for LA's startup scene in 2023 than just the dismal funding numbers.

Persons: Ethan Aldrich, Aldrich, there's, Andreessen Horowitz, a16z, Katia Ameri, Ameri, VCs, Nikita Bier, Bier, Mark Suster, Suster, LA's, we're, Palmer Luckey, Minnie Ingersoll, Ingersoll, Bird, Zillow, Spencer Rascoff, Evan Spiegel ERIC PIERMONT, Ishan Singh, Singh Organizations: Stanford, Business, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Coatue Management, LA Tech, LA, Carta, Honest Company, New, Boston, Microsoft, Clark, SpaceX Locations: Santa Monica, Southern California, LA, Santa, Hayes, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, New York, Boston, Carta, San Diego, Seattle, Hawthorne , CA, Costa, Bay

☆ Shimmer is using AI to bring ADHD coaching to adults. Here's an exclusive look at the pitch deck the startup used to land $2.2 million in fresh VC funding.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-11 | by ( Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. The startup, which provides digital ADHD coaching for adults, just raised a $2.2 million seed round led by Worklife Ventures and SeedtoB Capital. The startup offers access to live sessions with coaches and an AI program that helps users set goals and stick to them. offers ADHD diagnoses and various treatment options, including medication. The startup offers plans ranging from $140 to $345 per month, all of which include Shimmer's flagship 1:1 coaching sessions, which are all conducted by licensed professionals.

Persons: —, Y Combinator, Shimmer, Gaingels, Y, Megan Hall, Chris Wang, Shimmer's, Wang, Vikram Sreedhar —, she's, monetize Organizations: Service, Business, Worklife Ventures, SeedtoB, Koa Labs, Aglaé Ventures, Honeystone Ventures, CVS, Shimmer, American, of Psychiatry Locations: Alma

☆ Sam Altman's biggest lesson for founders: control freaks win
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-04 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A takeaway for other founders: control matters. A founder's narrative control can wane too if board members disagree with a founder's vision. AdvertisementAltman did not, in practice, start with much control at OpenAI, despite being its CEO and, prior to the blowup, a board member. "A lot of VCs still act as if founders retaining board control after a series A is unheard-of. OpenAI's version of founder control doesn't necessarily look like others: its CEO apparently doesn't hold the majority of stock.

Persons: Sam Altman, Paul Graham, —, Altman, Altman's, Helen Toner, Toner, Y, Graham's, Graham, aren't, Mark Zuckerberg, Bret Taylor, Larry Summers Organizations: Service, Microsoft Locations: OpenAI

☆ OpenAI is paying out $51 million to a chip startup that Sam Altman personally invested in, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-04 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

OpenAI agreed to pay startup company Rain AI $51 million for when its chips are released, per Wired. OpenAI chief Sam Altman reportedly invested $1 million of his own money in the company. Saudi Aramco's VC firm Prosperity7 also invested but sold its sell shares, Bloomberg reported. AdvertisementOpenAI signed a letter of intent to spend $51 million on chip startup Rain AI, Wired reported. Saudi Aramco's investment vehicle Prosperity7 led a funding round last year that saw Rain raise $25 million , Bloomberg recently reported.

Persons: OpenAI, Sam Altman, Prosperity7, —, Gordon Wilson, Wilson, Daniel Gross, Altman, Joe Biden's, didn't Organizations: OpenAI, Saudi Aramco's VC, Bloomberg, Service, Wired, Foreign Investment, Business Locations: San Francisco, Saudi, United States

☆ Who’s Who Behind the Dawn of the Modern Artificial Intelligence Movement
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-03 | by ( J. Edward Moreno | More About J. Edward Moreno | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

While artificial intelligence has taken the limelight over the past year, technology that can appear to operate like human brains has been top of mind for researchers, investors and tech executives in Silicon Valley and beyond for more than a decade. Image Credit... Jim Wilson/The New York TimesSam AltmanMr. Altman is the chief executive of OpenAI, the San Francisco A.I. lab that made the chatbot ChatGPT that went viral over the past year and ushered in recognition of the power of generative artificial intelligence. Mr. Altman helped start OpenAI after meeting with Elon Musk about the technology in 2015. At the time, Mr. Altman ran Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley start-up incubator.

Persons: Jim Wilson, New York Times Sam Altman Mr, Altman, San Francisco A.I, Elon Musk Organizations: New York Times, OpenAI, San, Elon Locations: Silicon Valley, San Francisco

☆ The Who’s Who Behind the Modern Artificial Intelligence Movement
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-03 | by ( J. Edward Moreno | More About J. Edward Moreno | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

While artificial intelligence has taken the limelight over the past year, technology that can appear to operate like human brains has been top of mind for researchers, investors and tech executives in Silicon Valley and beyond for more than a decade. Here are some of the people involved in the origins of the modern A.I. lab that made the chatbot ChatGPT that went viral over the past year and ushered in recognition of the power of generative artificial intelligence. Mr. Altman helped start OpenAI after meeting with Elon Musk about the technology in 2015. At the time, Mr. Altman ran Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley start-up incubator.

Persons: Jim Wilson, New York Times Sam Altman Mr, Altman, San Francisco A.I, Elon Musk Organizations: New York Times, OpenAI, San, Elon Locations: Silicon Valley, San Francisco

☆ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman went on an 18-month, $85 million real-estate shopping spree — including a previously unknown Hawaii estate
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Katherine Long | Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

AdvertisementYears before the recent drama at OpenAI turned CEO Sam Altman into a household name, the former Y Combinator president went on an extraordinary 18-month, $85 million real-estate shopping spree, according to records reviewed by Business Insider — including a previously unreported $43 million Hawaii estate on land that locals describe as historically significant. AdvertisementSam Altman's Hawaii estate is immediately adjacent to the reconstruction of the royal temple of King Kamehameha I. Maxar TechnologiesA $43 million estate in HawaiiIn July 2021, Altman bought a twelve-bedroom estate in Kailua-Kona, on the big island of Hawaii, for $43 million. Altman's purchase of the Hawaii property has not been previously reported. AdvertisementAnnie had been unaware that her oldest brother owned property in Hawaii until Business Insider asked her about it, she said. A $27 million San Francisco homeAltman's weekday residence is a home on San Francisco's Russian Hill that was once described — inaccurately — as the most expensive home in San Francisco.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, —, OpenAI, he's, He's, Sam Altman's, King Kamehameha I, King Kamehameha, Jennifer Serralta, Serralta, Jack, Max, — Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Marc Benioff, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Annie Altman, Annie, Sam's, Napa Altman, Cade Metz, Bob Dickinson Organizations: Service, Business, Bloomberg Tech Summit, Wall Street Journal, YouTube, Altman, LinkedIn, Apollo, Opportunity Fund, Silicon Valley, Business Insider, San, SEC, 9Point Ventures, Uncommon Ventures, New York Times, Capital Management, San Francisco Chronicle, New Yorker, Israeli Defense Force, Tesla Locations: San Francisco, Napa, Hawaii, Napa , California, Sam Altman's Hawaii, Kailua, Kona, wakesurfing, Kauai, Lanai, San, Russian, California, Hollywood, Big Sur

☆ Scott Shleifer steered billions into startups for Tiger Global. With his reign now over, the industry wonders what's next.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-29 | by ( Bradley Saacks | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Few investors are more emblematic of the no-interest-rate private market frenzy than billionaire Scott Shleifer. Tiger's venture approach in 2020 and 2021 — constantly described as unsustainable by rivals — included maneuvers such as offering start-ups more money than they were asking and emailing founders term sheets after a single meeting. Shleifer's reputation and personal wealth grew with Tiger's venture success. As Tiger was fundraising late last year, investors learned of a $10 million settlement Tiger Global made to a former female employee. At least one Tiger investor was surprised to hear about it from Coleman and not Shleifer himself.

Persons: Scott Shleifer, —, Chase Coleman, Donald Trump's, Michael Gross, Tiger, Bain, John Curtius, Shleifer, Eric Lane, Evan Feinberg, Griffin Schroeder, Coleman, Sarah Samuels, Samuels, Scott, OpenAI's, Sam Altman's, Altman, Paul Graham Organizations: longtime Tiger Global, Business, Tiger, Walmart, The, Washington Post Locations: Florida, India, Flipkart, New York

☆ Sam Altman enters his power era
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-25 | by ( Michael Cogley | Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

A failed coup at OpenAI saw Sam Altman return as CEO and stronger than ever. The botched coup of OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has seemingly reinforced his power. Even more astonishingly, Altman lacks the one obvious lever of power that keeps founder-CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg in power: controlling shares in his company. "He's really, really, really good at both being understood, but also understanding and asking thoughtful questions." They acted in their best interest," one OpenAI staffer posted on Blind, a social network site where employees can post anonymously.

Persons: Sam Altman, Altman, —, Mark Zuckerberg, Eduard Cristea, — Mira Murati, Satya Nadella, Greg Brockman, Vinod Khosla, Dan Siroker, Paul Graham, Holofy's, Cristea, Sam, OpenAI, would've, Altman OpenAI, Ilya Sutskever, we've, — Ilya Sutskever, Sutskever, Ilya, we'd, it's Organizations: Service, Microsoft, Stanford, New York Times Locations: OpenAI, Silicon Valley, Silicon

☆ OpenAI’s Cast of Characters
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Jennifer Korn | Paul Glader | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +12 min

Before OpenAI, Altman was president of Y Combinator, mentoring a host of founders and expanding his network in Silicon Valley. “We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” he wrote on X on Wednesday. Mira MuratiNamed by the OpenAI board as Altman’s interim successor on Friday, Murati was replaced by Shear before the weekend was done. In September, she joined the board of directors of Shield AI, a defense technology company building AI pilot technology for aircraft. Will HurdAfter joining the OpenAI board in 2021, Hurd was the third director to exit in 2023.

Persons: OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, Elon, Satya Nadella, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Kiko, Emmett Shear, Y, Nadella, ”, Mira Murati, Murati, Shear, “ Mira, ” Nadella, Ilya Sutskever, Brockman, Sutskever, “, we’ve, Adam D’Angelo D’Angelo, Mark Zuckerberg, D’Angelo, Forbes, ” Bret Taylor, Bret Taylor, Elon Musk, Taylor, Justin Kan, Tasha McCauley McCauley, Joseph Gordon, Levitt, McCauley, Greg Brockman Greg Brockman, Peter Thiel, Musk, Helen Toner Toner, AI’s, Toner, Joshua Kushner Kushner, Kushner, Jared Kushner, Karlie Kloss, Charles Kushner, Donald Trump, Larry Summers Summers, Obama, Clinton, Summers, Shivon Zilis, Zilis, Walter Isaacson, Will Hurd, Hurd, Nikki Haley, Reid Hoffman, Hoffman, OpenAI . Hoffman, He’s Organizations: CNN, Stanford University, Microsoft, OpenAI, Colby College, Dartmouth University, Tesla, Time, Phillips Exeter Academy, California Institute of Technology, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yale University, Justin.tv, GeoSim Systems, Rand Corporation, Centre, Bard College, University of Southern, Harvard University, MIT, Elon, Georgetown’s Center for Security, Emerging Technology, Open, Oscar Health, Memphis Grizzlies, Harvard College, Harvard Business School, Republican, CIA, Allen & Company, Texas, M University, Reid Hoffman LinkedIn, PayPal, LinkedIn, Greylock Partners, SpaceX, Boring Company Locations: Silicon Valley, St, Louis , Missouri, OpenAI, Seattle , Washington, Israel, University of Southern California, North Dakota, Beijing, Georgetown, Canada, United States, Texas, Oxford

As Open AI employees celebrated the return of CEO Sam Altman with a five-alarm office party , OpenAI software engineer Steven Heidel was busy publicly rebuffing overtures from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Heidel was one of more than 700 OpenAI employees who's threatened exodus halted a would-be mutiny at one of Silicon Valley's most important AI companies. He was previously a scientist at Facebook AI Research and worked as a member of Google Brain under supervision of Prof. Geoffrey Hinton and Ilya Sutskever. Alec Radford: Radford was hired in 2016 from a small AI company he founded in his dorm room. Tao Xu : technical staff, worked on GPT4 and WhisperChristine McLeavey : technical staff, with contributions to music-related productsChristina Kim : technical staffChristopher Hesse : technical staffHeewoo Jun : technical staff, researchAlex Nichol : technical staff, researchWilliam Fedus: technical staff, researchIlge Akkaya: technical staff, researchVineet Kosaraju : technical staff, researchHenrique Ponde de Oliveira Pinto : technical staffAditya Ramesh : technical staff, developed DALL-E and DALL-E 2Prafulla Dhariwal : research scientistHunter Lightman : technical staffHarrison Edwards : research scientistYura Burda : machine language researcherTyna Eloundou : technical staff, researchPamela Mishkin : researcherCasey Chu : researcherDavid Dohan : technical staff, researchAidan Clark : researcherRaul Puri : research scientistLeo Gao : technical staff, researchYang Song : technical staff, researchGiambattista ParascandoloTodor Markov : Machine learning researcherNick Ryder : technical staff

Persons: Sam Altman, Steven Heidel, Marc Benioff, Heidel, Altman, Mira Murati, Murati, Brad Lightcap, Lightcap, Jason Kwon, Kwon, Wojciech Zaremba, Geoffrey Hinton, Ilya Sutskever, Alec Radford, Radford, OpenAI, Peter Welinder, He's, Github Copilot, Anna Makanju, Andrej Karpathy, OpenAI's, Michael Petrov, Petrov, Greg [ Brockman, Miles Brundage, Brundage, John Schulman OpenAI, Srinivas Narayanan, Scott Grey, Grey, Bob McGrew, Research Che Chang, Lillian Weng, Safety Systems Mark Chen, Frontiers Research Barret Zoph, Peter Deng, Jan Leike Evan Morikawa Steven Heidel Jong Wook Kim, Tao Xu, Christine McLeavey, Christina Kim, Christopher Hesse, Heewoo, Alex Nichol, William Fedus, Henrique Ponde de Oliveira Pinto, Aditya Ramesh, Hunter Lightman, Harrison Edwards, Yura, Tyna, Pamela Mishkin, Casey Chu, David Dohan, Aidan Clark, Raul Puri, Leo Gao, Yang, Giambattista Parascandolo Todor Markov, Nick Ryder Organizations: Business, BI, OpenAI, Khosla Ventures, Facebook, Research, Google, Tesla, U.S . Department of Energy, Oxford University, Safety Systems, Frontiers Research Locations: Albania, Canada, OpenAI

☆ VCs didn't care about OpenAI's weird board structure. It was all about investing in Sam Altman and its 'transformative' tech.
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | Vishal Persaud | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

OpenAI's venture capital investors weren't thinking about its mission to serve "humanity" by developing artificial intelligence. After Altman's ouster, Vinod Khosla, an early investor in OpenAI, came to his defense despite the criticism. OpenAI's complex and unique corporate governance structure meant that VCs could invest in the capped profit entity, but never earn any influence over the nonprofit board of directors, all of whom were either cofounders or appointed outside AI experts. The board structure and its governance are all likely to change as part of the deal to bring Sam Altman back as CEO of OpenAI. The purpose of the newly formed OpenAI board – consisting of current board member D'Angelo, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor – is to vet and potentially appoint an expanded board of up to nine people, and that Microsoft and Altman want board seats, The Verge reported.

Persons: Sam Altman, OpenAI, Altman, VCs, Sam, Altman's, Vinod Khosla, Yunus, Khosla, Wesley Chan, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Tasha McCauley, who's, Joseph Gordon, Levitt, Helen Toner, Adam D'Angelo, Karthee Madasamy, it's, David Sacks, D'Angelo, Larry Summers, Bret Taylor – Organizations: Business, Tiger Global Management, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Microsoft, FPV Ventures, Rand Corporation, Georgetown's Center for Security, Emerging Technology, MFV Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Ikea, Bosch, Novo Nordisk Foundation, Bertelsmann Foundation, Carlsberg Foundation, Craft Ventures Locations: OpenAI, Silicon Valley, Hollywood

☆ OpenAI's interim CEO once described meeting Sam Altman and immediately recognizing his business superpower
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Aaron Mok | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

OpenAI's interim CEO Emmett Shear praised Sam Altman's dealmaking skills in a podcast interview. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. AdvertisementSam Altman, the ex-CEO of OpenAI who got ousted from the company, is more than just the face of ChatGPT. He's also known for his business superpower as a savvy dealmaker, at least according to Emmett Shear, now interim CEO of OpenAI. "Sam Altman is really good at raising money," Shear said on the podcast.

Persons: Emmett Shear, Sam Altman's, Shear, OpenAI CEO's, Altman, —, Sam Altman, OpenAI, He's, Twitch, Logan Bartlett, Sam, Bartlett, Altman's, Y, Kevin Bacon, Peter Thiel, Rahul Vohra, Sundar Pichai, Lachy Groom Organizations: Microsoft, Service, Sprint, Verizon, Financial Times, Google Locations: Helion, Silicon Valley

☆ Who is Emmett Shear, OpenAI's new interim CEO replacing Sam Altman?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Twitch CEO Emmett Shear speaks in a still image taken from a video interview with Reuters in San Francisco, U.S. which was broadcast in May 2018. REUTERS TV via REUTERS/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsNov 20 (Reuters) - ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has named ex-Twitch boss Emmett Shear as its interim chief executive officer after the startup ousted former head Sam Altman in a move that rocked the tech industry. Shear, who was part of the first batch of startup accelerator Y Combinator along with Altman, is known as an outspoken advocate of safety in the development of artificial intelligence. Some facts about Emmett Shear:* Shear, 40, stepped down as CEO of Amazon.com (AMZN.O)-owned Twitch this March after more than 16 years at the live video streaming platform* The platform was co-founded by Shear as Justin.tv in 2006, before its name was changed to Twitch in 2011. The platform quickly gained traction in the gaming community and was acquired by Amazon for just under $1 billion in 2014.

Persons: Emmett Shear, OpenAI, Sam Altman, Altman, Shear, Justin Kan, Emmett, Aby Jose Koilparambil, Anil D'Silva Organizations: Reuters, REUTERS, Amazon, Yale University, LinkedIn, Forbes, Thomson Locations: San Francisco , U.S, Seattle, Bengaluru

☆ Who is Emmett Shear, the new CEO of OpenAI?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —A sudden and seismic leadership crisis at OpenAI has led to a revolving door of CEOs at the artificial intelligence company, with tech entrepreneur Emmett Shear becoming the latest to take the helm on Monday. But by Monday morning, Altman had accepted a job at Microsoft, the tech giant with a sizable investment in OpenAI, Shear was named interim CEO and hundreds of OpenAI employees — including Murati — were calling for the board’s resignation and threatening to follow Altman to Microsoft. Now, picking up the pieces at OpenAI will be Shear, the 40-year-old co-founder of the video-game live-streaming company Twitch. On Monday, Shear announced he had accepted the job of interim CEO because he believes OpenAI “is one of the most important companies currently in existence.”Whether it can remain so depends on what Shear does next. But with Altman and his allies working in-house at Microsoft, Shear — and whomever succeeds him as OpenAI’s permanent CEO — may forever be overshadowed.

Persons: Emmett Shear, Sam Altman, Mira Murati, Altman, Shear, Murati —, OpenAI “, ” Shear, “, He’s, “ You’ll, ”, OpenAI Organizations: CNN, Microsoft, Twitch, Amazon, Yale, Bing Locations: OpenAI, “

☆ Who is new interim OpenAI CEO Emmett Shear? All you need to know about the man replacing Sam Altman
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

After a weekend of rumor and speculation, Emmett Shear — former co-founder and CEO of Twitch — confirmed he will take the top job at probably the most high-profile AI company in the world. watch nowTwitch was acquired by Amazon for $1 billion in 2014 and Shear stepped down as CEO of Twitch last year. Before Shear started Twitch, he was the co-founder of Kiko Calendar, a calendar app he worked on through the 2005 Y Combinator program. As head of OpenAI, Shear will likely face pressure from regulators who have been heavily scrutinizing AI model companies given the risks the technology poses around misinformation and potential displacement of jobs. Earlier this month, the U.K. held a pivotal summit on AI safety, attended by major foundational AI companies, to discuss some of the most pressing issues in the field.

Persons: Emmett Shear, Eoin Noonan, It's, Sam Altman, Twitch —, Shear, Altman, ChatGPT, Emmett, Justin Kan, Michael Seibel, Kyle Vogt, Kan, Twitch, Y, Kiko Organizations: Web, Getty, Amazon, YouTube Locations: LISBON, PORTUGAL, Lisbon, Portugal, Silicon

At OpenAI, Shear has promised to shed some light into Altman’s departure. In his X post, he pledged to hire an independent investigator to look into what led up to Altman’s ouster and write a report within 30 days. Both Altman and Shear know each other as alumni from the first class of startup founders at Y Combinator. In his post on X, Shear wrote he received a call offering him a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to become interim CEO at San Francisco-based OpenAI. In his post on X, Shear said he checked the reasoning behind the changes at OpenAI before he took the job.

Persons: Twitch, Sam Altman, Emmett Shear, “, Altman, OpenAI, Greg Brockman —, —, Shear, Twitch doesn’t, it’s, Y, he’s, ”, Mira Murati, Altman’s, Satya Nadella, Brockman, Sam, “ I’m, “ It’s, ” Shear, Matt O'Brien Organizations: Twitter, Microsoft, Amazon, Yale University, Associated Press, Investors, AIs Locations: Buffalo , New York, Germany, San Francisco, Providence , Rhode Island

☆ Meet Emmett Shear, the new interim CEO of OpenAI, who sold his first startup on eBay for $250,000
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Emmett Shear is the new interim CEO of OpenAI following the ouster of Sam Altman. AdvertisementFormer Twitch CEO Emmett Shear has been named the new interim CEO of OpenAI following Sam Altman's shock firing at the artificial intelligence startup over the weekend. AdvertisementWho is Emmett Shear? In 2014, Amazon bought Twitch for $970 million and Shear stayed on as the CEO of the company. He remained at the tech startup accelerator for five years up until June 2016, according to his LinkedIn account.

Persons: Emmett Shear, Sam Altman, Twitch, —, Sam Altman's, Shear, Emmett, Justin Kan, Kiko —, Elliot Noss, Kan —, Combinator Organizations: Amazon, Service, United Airlines, Yale University, eBay, Google Locations: Seattle, Justin.tv

☆ Emmett Shear, OpenAI's new interim CEO, shares Sam Altman's worry that AI could destroy all life
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Emmett Shear is the new interim CEO of OpenAI after Sam Altman's surprise ouster. AdvertisementEmmett Shear, the man slated to be the new interim CEO of OpenAI, believes artificial intelligence has a very real potential to destroy all life. "That loop will get tighter and tighter and tighter, and faster and faster and faster, until it can fully self-improve itself. There's a 5 to 50% probability that this could actually play out, Shear told Bartlett, though he said there was still "uncertainty" around such estimates. In another interview in September, Shear told podcast host and entrepreneur Shaan Puri that it was his optimism toward AI that made him fear its capabilities.

Persons: Emmett Shear, Sam Altman's, Altman, —, Shear, Logan Bartlett, Bartlett, Shaan Puri, Sam Altman, Shear's, Dall, it's, OpenAI Organizations: Service, Business Insider Locations: There's

☆ Who Is Emmett Shear, OpenAI’s Interim Chief Executive?
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( Kellen Browning | More About Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When Emmett Shear, the former chief executive of the livestreaming site Twitch, was named the interim chief executive of OpenAI on Sunday night, it might have seemed a curious choice. Mr. Shear, 40, an avid video game player, was viewed as a competent leader who steered Twitch through several transitions. Some employees and livestreamers also complained that his focus on maneuvering Twitch toward profitability through cutting costs was eroding the quality of the platform. He also knows Sam Altman, who was forced out of OpenAI by its board of directors on Friday. The two were in the same group at Y Combinator, the start-up fund that invested in both of their early companies.

Persons: Emmett Shear, livestreamers, Sam Altman Locations: OpenAI

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