OpenAI tensions show Microsoft’s need to ensure its own AI future

Are Microsoft and OpenAI changing their status from bromance to frenemies? Reports by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal make it clear that Microsoft is doing what it can to chart its own course in AI regardless of its relationship with OpenAI. Read more.

• Read the New York Times article about the fraying partnership between the companies, and the Wall Street Journal piece on the future of Microsoft’s equity stake in OpenAI.

• GeekWire also explored some of these issues this week in our deep dive on Microsoft's history in AI, the opening chapter in our Microsoft @ 50 series. 

• Related: OpenAI is testing a ChatGPT app for Windows (The Verge)

Above, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman greets Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at OpenAI DevDay last year in San Francisco.

The debate over remote work: Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman suggested that if employees don’t like the company’s new in-office requirements, they can quit, according to a report from Reuters, citing an internal all-hands meeting. 

• We interviewed leaders from startups and large companies to learn about the strategy behind their remote, hybrid, and fully in-office policies. Read more.

• GeekWire readers on Instagram shared their policy preferences — 64% said they like hybrid, 29% prefer remote, and 7% want to be in the office everyday.

Want to light a fire under a geeky engineer? Set off a smoke detector in the middle of the night. Longtime startup founder Adam Doppelt (above) was so frustrated by the false-alarm chirps in his house that he and a friend built Fireball.xyz, an exhaustive website full of information about the devices. Read more. 

The space industry is on the rise in the Seattle area, but the down-to-Earth topic of housing affordability for workers in the region was one talking point during a panel discussion in Bellevue, Wash., this week. Read more.

Where to look for life on Mars: Researchers with ties to the University of Washington suggest in a new study that microbes endure just beneath the surface of the Red Planet, in layers of dusty ice exposed to the right amount of sunlight. Read more.

Hot Links:

• LinkedIn is leaning into news with a new banner in its app and advertising programs for videos. (The Information)

• Venture capital firm Maveron wants to help build a “next generation union” for 1099 workers. (Maveron)

• Seattle’s tech industry has lost 6,100 jobs this year, according to state employment data. (Puget Sound Business Journal)

• Seattle-based Benaroya Research Institute announced 11 research grants totaling more than $14 million for immune system disease research. (Benaroya)

Thanks for subscribing to the GeekWire newsletter, and have a great weekend. — GeekWire Editor Taylor Soper, taylor@geekwire.com; GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop, todd@geekwire.com; and GeekWire reporter Kurt Schlosser, kurt@geekwire.com.