Drama(s) in Silicon Valley

TechCrunch Newsletter [TechCrunch Weekend Logo]( Sunday, March 10, 2024 [ image] 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](. [Techstars was in expansion mode for years, but a souring relationship is putting that growth at risk image] 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](. [Denise Dresser says she has a plan to help Slack regain its footing inside Salesforce -- and fight off Microsoft image] 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](. [Change Healthcare's cyberattack-induced outage is raising concerns about millions of patient records image] 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. [Why TikTok just rallied 170M users to call Congress — and what's next image] 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. [What else we're reading image] Image Credits: BMW Before you go Check out the toughest [restaurant reservation]( to get in San Francisco right now. [Read more stories on TechCrunch.com]( Newest Jobs from Crunchboard - [Principal Software Engineer/Developer at Health Research, Inc. (Menands, NY, USA)]( - [Systems Administrator II at City of Newport (Newport, Oregon, USA)]( - [Product Manager at imgix (San Francisco, CA, USA)]( - [Senior Cloud Engineer at imgix (San Francisco, CA, USA)]( - [Engineering Manager at Murmuration (USA)]( [See more jobs on CrunchBoard]( [Post your tech jobs]( and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Youtube]( [Instagram]( [Flipboard]( [View this email online in your browser]( [Privacy Policy]( | [Terms of Service]( | [Unsubscribe]( © 2024 Yahoo. All rights reserved. 110 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103