OpenAI Employees Threaten To Quit, America’s Largest Private Companies And Delayed Retirement

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OpenAI went through its own episode of Succession last weekend when cofounder and CEO Sam Altman was abruptly fired Friday. Like a changing script, I’ve had to update and rewrite this newsletter quite a few times to keep up with the changes at the ChatGPT creator.

In Altman’s place was first CTO Mira Murati, who was then replaced by former Twitch CEO Emmett Shear to be OpenAI’s second interim CEO. Microsoft—an OpenAI investor who was reportedly furious over Altman’s exit—gave Altman and former OpenAI President Greg Brockman, who resigned, jobs to lead its new AI research arm. Microsoft is already seeing some wins out of all of this.

As for OpenAI employees, 95% of OpenAI workers signed an open letter calling for the board’s resignation or they’ll quit. The collective action, though, has foreign work visa holders putting their residence status in jeopardy.

Forbes has been reporting the twists and turns of this evolving story. If you prefer to get your news in video form, senior editor Alex Konrad recaps it here.

As always, read on for more workplace news and career advice. Have a great week. If you’re in the U.S., I hope you have a great Thanksgiving and a nice break from work. See you next!

WORK SMARTER

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FEATURED STORY

America’s Largest Private Companies 2023

Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the Fireball whiskey maker and nine other newcomers rocket into the ranks of Forbes’ annual list of the largest private companies. Cargill comes in at No. 1 for the third consecutive year. Check out the rest here.

TOUCH BASE

News from the world of work

Thinking of retiring?: Demographics are changing in the workforce as Gen Xers start to retire. Contributor Sander van’t Noordende looks at what talent scarcity in the labor market means for workers and companies. For some, it means incentivizing older workers to stay.

OpenAI explores AI in the classroom: In pre-CEO drama OpenAI news, the company said it will likely create a team next year that will solely look into ways AI can be used in education—marking a new undertaking for the company that’s been criticized by some educators for enabling cheating.

Auto workers ratify deals: United Auto Workers union members who work at Ford ratified a tentative contract Friday, shortly after workers at Chrysler parent Stellantis and General Motors approved their agreements. The contracts follow a historic six-week-long strike earlier this fall from workers at the Big Three automakers.

Notion launches “Q&A” AI feature: Notion cofounder and CEO Ivan Zhao sees AI as an opportunity to turn his productivity app into a “magnet tool” for workers. Notion announced a key step in that evolution: a new chatbot called Q&A that can query information from all the documents and databases stored in a user’s Notion workspace. Ask the bot a question, and it returns an answer with links to the relevant pages where it extracted that information.

CHECKLIST

Add these books and videos to your to-do list

In this video, United Wholesale Mortgage COO Melinda Wilner talks about the state of home-buying.

NUMBER TO NOTE

9 cents

That’s how much a loaf of bread cost when President Joe Biden was born.

Marking the president’s 81st birthday this week, Forbes compared what basic groceries cost in 1942 to what they cost now. Biden’s advanced age has become a recurring topic throughout his presidency, particularly his critics, and polling for his 2024 re-election campaign suggests it is among the greatest concerns with voters.

QUIZ

Amid OpenAI’s schism that has more than 700 employees threatening to quit, the CEO of which software company said it will hire and match the salary of any researcher who resigns from OpenAI?