What venture capital is thinking after a week of high drama and shakeups in tech
Marketplace Tech
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2023
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, the shakeups and confusion at OpenAI have come to a conclusion. Sam Altman returns to his position as CEO at OpenAI after its board fired him, which upset most of the company’s staff as well as others invested in OpenAI’s work in the generative artificial intelligence sector. Plus, Ryan Vogt resigned as CEO of the driverless tech startup Cruise, following a series of traffic collisions and accidents. On top of all that, Changpeng Zhao, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, pleaded guilty to money laundering violations. What do venture capitalists think about all these disruptions and where will their money go now? Marketplace’s Lily Jamali is joined by Jewel Burks Solomon, managing partner at Collab Capital, for her take on those stories.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | After a high drama week, a look at where Silicon Valley investors are and aren't placing |
| 0:07.4 | their bets. |
| 0:08.6 | From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech. |
| 0:12.2 | I'm Lily Dramale. |
| 0:13.2 | It's the Friday after Thanksgiving and there are a host of news leftovers for us to dig into on our weekend review show |
| 0:25.6 | Marketplace Tech Bites. It was a pretty rocky week for Sam Altman, but all is well that ends well. Altman is returning to his position as CEO at Open AI after its board fired him and |
| 0:37.6 | following a huge uproar by the company's staff and several prominent players in tech. |
| 0:43.6 | The C-suite drama there overshadowed another high-profile departure, |
| 0:47.8 | that of Kyle Vote, now former CEO of the driverless tech startup, Cruz, this after the company's license to operate in California was suspended following a series of traffic collisions and accidents, one of which involved a woman dragged by a cruise vehicle after it hit her. |
| 1:06.4 | The startup shakeup got us wondering how venture capitalists are going to invest their money |
| 1:10.8 | in the near future, and to help us we asked Jewel Burke |
| 1:14.0 | Solomon managing partner at Kalab Capital for her take on those stories starting |
| 1:19.2 | with open AI's intense few days. |
| 1:22.8 | Well, it's honestly very unclear at this point still. |
| 1:27.1 | What was the main reason as to why Sam Altman |
| 1:31.2 | was fired in what was a huge shocker to so many in the tech industry and apparently to Sam himself and the other staff and leaders at Open AI. |
| 1:42.0 | There's been talk around transparency. and was enough of a sort of uproar from open AI employees 95% of them signing a letter to say |
| 1:57.7 | that they would also leave if Sam wasn't brought back and it seems that you seems that the company has come to a decision |
| 2:05.6 | to bring him back along with a new board. |
| 2:08.3 | So there's going to be a big change and shift potentially as far as how the company is operating with that new board in place. |
| 2:18.0 | But this is still you know an unfolding situation that I think everyone is you know glue to see what happens next. |
| 2:25.6 | Yeah it really is for a couple of days it looked like he was set to go over to Microsoft |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Marketplace, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Marketplace and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.