Business

So The Bear Cave, a newsletter popular among shortsellers, is claiming the short-sellers at Hindenburg Research are ripping it off. “This is the essence of plagiarism: taking the heart of someone else’s work without acknowledgement and repurposing it for your own audience.” Nate Anderson of Hindenburg has responded on Twitter, Edwin Dorsey, of The Bear Cave, isn’t having it.

In a long blog post, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei considers the upside of artificial general intelligence (AGI, or as he prefers to call it, “powerful AI”). He pushed back on the idea that he’s a “pessimist” or “doomer” by outlining some grandiose claims for the future of AI:

I think that most people are underestimating just how radical the upside of AI could be, just as I think most people are underestimating how bad the risks could be.

I’d like to point out that the company is reportedly in talks to raise money at a $40 billion valuation.

Here’s his LinkedIn update about prison!

The New York Times reports that documents shown to potential investors in just another tech company have an interesting detail:

Roughly 10 million ChatGPT users pay the company a $20 monthly fee, according to the documents. OpenAI expects to raise that price by two dollars by the end of the year, and will aggressively raise it to $44 over the next five years, the documents said.

The proposed investment could value the company at $150 billion and give it two years to convert to a for-profit business before the funding becomes debt.

The very-online shortsellers published a report about the AI server-making company. Among the allegations: selling products to Russia in violation of sanctions, accounting violations, and transactions with companies controlled by the CEO’s family. Now the DOJ wants to hear more.

The company with the blood oxygen sensing tech causing issues for Apple Watches has announced its CEO — who we just interviewed — is out after investors voted to remove him from the board amid a proxy battle with Politan Capital Management.

In a filing, Masimo said Kiani filed a claim against the company in California state court related to his employment agreement. Michelle Brennan has been appointed interim CEO.

In a post on his blog, Mullenweg called out the rival hosting service — which is built on WordPress — for “strip-mining the WordPress ecosystem” by disabling certain features like revisions. “What WP Engine gives you is not WordPress,” he says.

WP Engine has since responded the post, saying “recent attacks against us are unfair and untrue and clearly designed to harm our business.”

After multiple reports surfaced Friday saying Qualcomm talked to Intel about a possible acquisition, now Bloomberg reports Apollo Global Management has offered to make an “equity-like investment” of up to $5 billion.

Like the Qualcomm rumor, the details are all tentative at best, but until we find out more, I’m trying to think of who else might want a piece of Intel?

We’ve heard rumors about AI chip manufacturing projects in the Middle East linked to OpenAI Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

Now, the WSJ says Samsung and TSMC execs have visited the United Arab Emirates “recently,” discussing projects worth up to $100 billion despite concerns about water sources and building up local engineering talent.

Turns out the SEC doesn’t like it when you no-show on them. Now the regulator is seeking to penalize Musk for refusing to appear and testify in a probe into his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter.

Nike is moving on from CEO John Donahoe less than a week after Bloomberg published its unflatteringly-titled profile of his four-year tenure.

Under Donahoe, Nike de-emphasized retail stores to chase direct sales, flooded the market with retros like the Panda Dunks, and put the RTFKT NFT shoe brand on the same level as the Swoosh and Jordan Jumpman.

Today’s announcement doesn’t include the RTFKT logo.

Last year, rumors emerged that Apple could drop Goldman Sachs as the issuer of its Apple Card in favor of a partnership with American Express.

But now, a report from The Wall Street Journal suggests Apple is in discussions to have JPMorgan Chase handle its credit card. This likely won’t happen anytime soon, though, as the WSJ says a potential deal could be “months away.”

After announcing plans to buy the German sim-racing company in May, Corsair has announced that it has signed a “definitive agreement” to snap up Fanatec. The deal’s expected to close within the week.

The gaming accessories market is starting to become a lot more consolidated, especially with Turtle Beach’s acquisition of PDP, Logitech’s Loupedeck buyout, and Corsair’s acquisition of keyboard maker Drop.