Microsoft emerges victorious from OpenAI meltdown | Altman to join Redmond tech giant

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (above, with Altman at OpenAI's DevDay earlier this month) appears to have navigated the meltdown skillfully, balancing the company’s multibillion-dollar OpenAI investment against the non-profit board’s stunning decision to jettison Altman — avoiding the harrowing prospect of the former OpenAI leaders joining Amazon or Google, or launching a startup with the ability to partner with its biggest rivals.

By bringing Altman and team aboard, the Redmond company will combine some of the world’s top AI talent with its own computing resources, while maintaining the potential to collaborate with OpenAI on its flagship product, GPT-4, and successors … assuming there’s anyone left to work on those. Newly named OpenAI interim CEO Emmett Shear, formerly of Amazon’s Twitch, just put himself into what promises to be one of the weirdest tech leadership situations of all time.

There’s a lot more to this story, and it’s still unfolding, so read more here and stay tuned for further developments as they happen. 

NanoString stock fell more than 50% in Monday trading after the Seattle-based biotech company lost a patent infringement case against 10x Genomics, which was awarded more than $31 million in damages. NanoString says it plans to appeal and continue selling the products in question. Read more. 

Read, watch and listen with Bill Gates: The Microsoft co-founder (above) is back with one of his seasonal lists, offering up books, a TV show, online courses and a music playlist for gift givers and others during the holidays. Read more. 

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