One quick thing: Mamaearth revenue rises 21% to Rs 496 crore in Q2, profit doubles to Rs 30 crore

In today’s newsletter: 

• Sam Altman returns as OpenAI CEO
• Scott Shleifer gone, but 'Tiger zinda hai'
• Binance outcome's India impact

P.S. Get ready for a wild ride into the future of technology (No, we are not talking about the OpenAI chaos!) Scroll down for deets!

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The chaos at OpenAI was no less than a Bollywood thriller movie with twists and turns every hour. But it looks like we finally have a conclusion (At least for now!) 

OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman has been reinstated as the CEO of the ChatGPT maker, just days after his abrupt removal, thereby thwarting a potential coup by the company board. 

• If you were keeping count, OpenAI had four CEOs (including interim ones) in four days! Phew!

OpenAI's board is getting a revamp as part of the agreement. Former Salesforce co-CEO and Twitter (now known as X) board chairman Bret Taylor will assume the role of chairman, while Larry Summers, the former Secretary of the Treasury, will join the board. Quora co-founder Adam D'Angelo is the sole person who will remain from the old board.

• Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner, and OpenAI's chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, will all be stepping down from the board. Sutskever, however, will remain an employee 

• Greg Brockman, who resigned as OpenAI's president following Altman's removal, is also returning to the startup but will not reportedly reclaim his board seat

As part of the settlement, an independent probe will be conducted to examine the events that led to Altman's ouster.

OpenAI's board stunned the tech world last week when it fired Altman for not being "consistently candid in his communications." However, it never provided any evidence to back this claim or consult any of the investors before taking this move.

• Following this, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that Altman and Brockman would join Microsoft's new advanced AI research team after the initial talks failed to reinstate Altman. The board later appointed Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear as the new interim CEO

Then came another twist. More than 700 employees, including Sutskever, signed a letter on November 20 demanding the resignation of the remaining board members, failing which they will leave the company and join Microsoft. 

Also read: A timeline of Sam Altman's ouster and return to OpenAI

Nadella: "We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board. We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance."

Altman: "I love OpenAI, and everything I’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together."

Shear: "This was the pathway that maximized safety alongside doing right by all stakeholders involved."

Tiger's roar from New York today jolted the Indian startup ecosystem awake!

The news is that unicorn maker Tiger Global's Scott Shleifer is stepping down as the head of private equity and will be taking up an advisory role.

The management change at Tiger Global is expected to have a short-term impact on India's startup ecosystem, according to its portfolio companies and other investors.

• This is primarily due to Shleifer (along with Lee Fixel, who left Tiger Global in 2019) being very bullish on India and the growth of its startup ecosystem

However, there is a slight concern that Tiger Global may slow down its investment activities in India and may even consider shifting its focus to other markets.

“Scott was very accessible to founders here and would pick up the phone to talk to them. It is unclear what the path will be as Tiger has set up a committee that will be overseen by Chase Coleman," a top tech executive told us.

That being said, this impact is expected to be only short-lived. Many investors and even founders believe that the firm's bet on India's startups will remain alive and kicking over the longer term.

Investors believe that even if Tiger Global slows down on India investments, it will be due to institutional decisions based on macro trends, not because of a person moving away from a role.

• Tiger Global has seen its investment appetite wane in recent years as rising interest rates have dampened enthusiasm for loss-making tech companies

• It made 28 investments in India in 2021, but that number plummeted to 5 in 2022. This year, Tiger Global has remained on the sidelines, making no new bets on Indian startups

Dig deeper

The world's largest crypto exchange, Binance, made headlines last night after being charged with violating US anti-money laundering laws. And in a not-so-surprising move, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar chimed in.

“Using new technology to break the law does not make you a disrupter. It makes you a criminal,” he said in a post on X.

Industry insiders believe that this will be a short-term setback for the ongoing regulatory discussions between industry players and governments globally.

• Charges against Binance will likely lead to scrutiny of the exchange in other countries, particularly India, according to Kashif Raza of Crypto Kanoon

Late last night, Binance pleaded guilty to charges related to conducting an unlicensed money transmitter business, conspiracy, and breaching sanction regulations, among others.

• The company was offered a settlement of $4.3 billion by a federal court
  
  
• CEO Changpeng Zhao will additionally pay $50 million and has stepped down from the CEO position
  
  
• Richard Teng, the former global head of regional markets at Binance, has been appointed as the new CEO

Indian crypto startup founders view this as a cleanup activity that would boost investor confidence in the future

• Many considered it a resolution to the ongoing uncertainty of the past few months during the investigation

Some even drew parallels between Binance and FTX, which collapsed in November last year, although FTX faced more serious charges of misusing user funds.

Go deeper

For Chennaites, the closure of the Crowne Plaza, an iconic hotel that stood tall for over three decades, marks a bittersweet farewell. The hotel, a go-to venue for business meetings and social gatherings, is set to wind down its operations, leaving many with a sense of nostalgia and loss.

• In its place, a 34-story residential complex will rise, marking a new chapter in the city's skyline

Find out more

• OpenAI and Microsoft are being sued for allegedly using the work of nonfiction authors without permission to train their artificial intelligence models.

• The US Federal Trade Commission has streamlined investigations of AI-related fraud by making it easier for staff to issue document demands.

• Bank of America said in a research report that AI has the potential to enhance banks' efficiency while also bringing risks, and that the industry will need to be comfortable with those risks.

Get ready for a wild ride into how rapid technological innovations could impact our lives (No, we are not referring to the bizarre week at OpenAI!)

• The popular sci-fi dystopian television series Black Mirror is making a comeback for another season

While plot details are still under wraps, it is likely that artificial intelligence could loom large over the season, especially since the creator is "very worried about AI and the use of ChatGPT." 

The show also has a reputation of scarily being prescient sometimes, as evident by the portrayal of computer-generated imagery of actors in a recent episode, which later mirrored the concerns raised during the recent Hollywood strikes.

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