Techcrunch blog!: Drama(s) in Silicon Valley

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Image Credits: filo / Getty Images

What a week of surprises it was! Who would have expected carmaker Rivian to unveil a “treehouse” rooftop tent atop a newly introduced hatchback?

It was even more stunning to see titans in the venture world duke it out on social media in a dizzying back-and-forth over the potential dangers of AI. It almost made me miss the days when VCs would carp about one another privately. (One very rare exception, and a precursor perhaps to what happened this past week, was that time Marc Andreessen told the New Yorker of another powerhouse investor, Bill Gurley: "I can’t stand him. If you’ve seen “Seinfeld,” [he’s] my Newman.")

Of course, the biggest bombshell — at least inside of OpenAI, the most valuable privately held company on the planet right now — came from a New York Times story on Thursday. Its big reveal? That Mira Murati, OpenAI's chief technology officer, played a role in the firing last November of CEO Sam Altman, according to the outlet’s sources.

Per the Times, Murati wrote a private memo to Altman, expressing concerns about his leadership. She also shared these concerns with the board, and given that it was also hearing concerns from OpenAI co-founder and board member Ilya Sutskever, it eventually took action.

As anyone not living under a rock knows by now, that decision — to summarily dismiss Altman — did not go over very well with the company’s investors or employees. After two weeks of turmoil, Altman was reinstated as CEO, and two of OpenAI’s board members left.

Sutskever also lost his board seat and has maintained a far lower profile in the ensuing months, raising questions about how long he’ll remain affiliated with OpenAI. What the future holds for Murati is now unclear, too, though following the Times report, she took to X to say that she maintains a strong relationship with Altman, that her interactions with the board were twisted, and that it tried to “scapegoat” her with “anonymous and misleading claims."

Only Altman, who lost his own board seat during the fracas, has fully rebounded from the episode — if not amassed even more power. Indeed, on Friday, OpenAI announced Altman’s return to the board along with the addition of three new board members, saying that an investigation by the law firm WilmerHale into Altman's "conduct did not mandate removal” and that the company has “full confidence” in his leadership.

Whether there’s another twist to come remains to be seen — stay tuned! In the meantime, hope you enjoy these weekend reads. — Connie Loizos

Techstars was in expansion mode for years, but a souring relationship is putting that growth at risk

Techstars, the accelerator program founded 18 years ago in Boulder, Colorado, and that over time developed city-based organizations in many spots, is reversing out of a number of them, including Boulder and Seattle, after falling short on some of its revenue goals. Techstars is hardly alone in having to scale back its earlier ambitions. Still, things could potentially evolve from bad to worse, judging by a detailed new report in TechCrunch that suggests the organization’s relationship with one of its biggest financial backers — J.P. Morgan — has become severely strained. Dominic-Madori Davis has the scoop.

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

Denise Dresser says she has a plan to help Slack regain its footing inside Salesforce -- and fight off Microsoft

It’s not easy being the third CEO of an organization in less than a year, but Slack’s newest CEO, Denise Dresser, plays it cool, telling TechCrunch that it’s “not like it’s a big pull. I think the foundation is already there, and it’s an incredibly well-run organization.” Dresser — who grew up in suburban Boston, attended UMass and wound up at Salesforce in various executive roles — certainly needs as many things to click as possible. She shares part of the game plan with Ron Miller in this weekend profile.

Image Credits: Slack

Change Healthcare's cyberattack-induced outage is raising concerns about millions of patient records

A cyberattack on one of the biggest healthcare companies in the U.S. has left questions about the security of millions of patients’ highly sensitive medical information. Change Healthcare — owned by UnitedHealth Group — said in a filing with government regulators on Friday that it’s making “substantial progress” in restoring its affected systems. But it’s so far refusing to say whether patient data has been compromised in the cyberattack, worrying healthcare executives who fret that the full fallout of the cyberattack is yet to come, Zack Whittaker reports.

Image Credits: Craig Lassig / AP

Why TikTok just rallied 170M users to call Congress — and what's next

The House is planning to vote next week on a recently introduced bill that would effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. unless it’s sold by its Chinese parent company ByteDance. While parents everywhere may be delighting in the prospect, the social media giant isn’t going away without a fight. After the bill’s introduction earlier this past week, TikTok urged its 170 million users in the U.S. to call Congress and “speak up” or risk losing their “right to free expression.” The campaign was a huge success, too, in that lawmakers were inundated with messages from furious TikTok users. Still, as Taylor Hatmaker reports, the fate of social media juggernaut is anything but certain for a litany of reasons.

Image Credits: OLIVIER DOULIERY / Contributor / Getty Images

What else we're reading

Famed VC Jim Breyer tragically lost his wife, Angela Chao, last month in an accidental drowning after she reversed her Tesla X into a pond on their Texas property and was unable to escape it. Now, conspiracy theories about the death of Chao — an American who led her family’s global shipping business, and whose father had business dealings with China for decades — are flying, reports the WSJ.

Most carmakers do everything they can to distinguish their cars as electric vehicles. BMW, on the other hand, makes its EVs on the same assembly line as its other cars, and its customers clearly approve of the familiar look and feel of the products. In this deep dive, the New York Times looks at the German outfit’s playbook and whether other car companies can learn from it.