Will he or won't he? Drama continues as Altman said to be weighing a return (still) to OpenAI

The news since Friday has been all OpenAI, the hottest company of the year as of last week. Shortly after terminating Sam Altman as CEO, OpenAI's board reportedly reconsidered its decision but was unable to come up with a suitable governance structure that would allow Altman to return. Altman and OpenAI cofounder and former president Greg Brockman subsequently agreed in principle to lead an advanced research lab at Microsoft. That enraged OpenAI employees, 500 or more of whom sent a letter this morning addressed to the board stating that they would quit the company and join Microsoft if OpenAI did not reappoint Altman as CEO. "Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI," the letter reads. Bizarrely, one of the signatories was none other than Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's Chief Scientist and the OpenAI board member who many thought led the effort to oust Altman. (He said on X today that he now "deeply" regrets his role in his former colleagues' ouster.) Although OpenAI announced that it had appointed Twitch cofounder Emmett Shear to be its CEO (after supposedly flirting with the idea of merging the company with Anthropic as a possible way to lure Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to be its new CEO), some outlets are reporting that Altman is still trying to regain his CEO seat. The plot thickens ... 

The Justice Department is offering to settle its case against Binance for $4 billion, but Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao would still be on the hook for possible charges. Bloomberg has more here.

Elon Musk has followed through on his threat to file a "thermonuclear lawsuit" against Media Matters for claiming that X placed ads next to antisemitic content.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has enlisted the help of U.S. marshals to subpoena the CEOs of Discord, Snap, and X to answer charges that their platforms are endangering children's health. 

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Edamama, a three-year-old Manila startup that provides resources, products, and community support to parents, raised an undisclosed Series A+ round led by Active Fund, with GS Group and previous investors Kickstart Ventures, Gentree Fund, and Innoven Capital also chipping in. The company has raised a total of $35 million. Tech in Asia has more here.

Inclusively, a four-year-old startup based in Richmond, Va., whose platform helps to accommodate workers with disabilities at companies such as Apple, Delta, Pfizer, and Barclays as well as offer a more inclusive workplace, raised a $13 million Series A round led by Firework Ventures, with Benson Capital also joining in. Forbes has more here.

VaultSpeed, a four-year-old startup based in Leuven, Belgium, that helps businesses improve the delivery and maintenance of their cloud data warehouse or lakehouse, raised a $15.9 million Series A round led by Octopus Ventures, with Fortino Capital, PMV, and BNP Paribas Fortis Private Equity also contributing. More here.

AppFlowy, a two-year-old Singapore startup that aims to produce secure, open source project management tools for the enterprise, raised a $6.4 million round led by OSS Capital and including angels like Matt Mullenweg (Automattic), Steve Chen (YouTube), Tom Preston-Werner (GitHub), Bob Young (Red Hat), and Amr Awadallah (Cloudera). TechCrunch has more here.

Lasso Security, an Israeli startup founded this year whose mission is to provide organizations with a secure way to deploy LLMs in applications, raised a $6 million seed round led by Entrée Capital, with additional participation from Samsung Next. CTech has more here.

Maia Oncology, a New York startup founded this year that provides virtual cancer care coordination, raised a $4.25 million seed round. Reed Jobs' Yosemite and Takeda Digital Ventures co-led the deal, while the American Cancer Society's BrightEdge, BBG Ventures, and Coalition Operators also invested. Axios has more here.

Medmo, a six-year-old New York startup that helps consumers schedule medical imaging appointments, raised a $9 million round led by Lerer Hippeau and including previous investors Jerusalem Venture Partners, C2 Ventures, and Stone IsraVentures. More here.

Panoptic, a one-year-old Boston startup that is building a decentralized exchange platform for perpetual options, raised a $7 million seed round led Greenfield Capital, with HashKey, gumi Cryptos Capital (gCC), L1D, Heartcore Capital, Comma3, and Zee Prime Capital also pitching in. The company has raised a total of $11.5 million. The Block has more here.

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Private-equity firm Riverwood Capital, formed 15 years ago by former KKR executives, has raised its largest pool of capital to date to invest in mid-size, high-growth tech companies. The firm collected $1.8 billion for its fourth fund, Riverwood Capital Partners IV, and related vehicles. The WSJ has more here.

Kraken, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, was sued today by the SEC, which accused it of illegally operating as a securities exchange without registering with the regulator. As Reuters notes, the "lawsuit in San Francisco federal court is the latest step in SEC Chair Gary Gensler's push to bring cryptocurrency under his agency's purview, by contending that digital assets are investment contracts subject to federal securities laws."

Emmett Shear, OpenAI's new CEO, on the dangers of AI. (He has also had some very un-PC things to say.) 

A profile of Ilya Suskever, OpenAI's Chief Scientists and the board member accused of leading the charge to oust Sam Altman.

Elon Musk couldn't help but revel in the chaos at OpenAI. "Looks like Instability.AI is still available,” he tweeted today, referring to a possible new domain name for the company.

On Sunday, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt announced that he was resigning his post in the wake of the company's failed San Francisco venture. 

Linda Yaccarino is resisting growing pressure from advertisers to step down as the head of X, as big brands pause their spending on the platform over concerns about its antisemitic content.

Generative AI startups globally raised $17.8 billion as of Sept. 19, up from the $3.9 billion invested in all of 2022, according to data provider Dealroom. ("Right now, it's a land grab.")

A Wired report has found that a secret surveillance program is tracking more a trillion U.S. phone records.

OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired. They're both lame.

Famed director Christopher Nolan on the promise and peril of technology.

Has hell frozen over? Snoop Dogg announces that he has "decided to give up smoke." (Hint: where there's smoke, there's fire.) 

Students are now earning college credit for small talk.

For your consideration: United Airlines' new rom-com, Love in Plane Sight.

Thanks to Rihanna, $400,000 ankle watches are a thing.

A coffee table (literally).

Hummer EV.

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