Elizabeth Lopatto

Bloomberg takes a look at the enterprise software-maker that bought Slack:

We talked earlier this year about what the change in the interest rate environment meant for VC-funded tech companies. Now The New York Times is taking stock of the carnage:

Helen Toner, one of the board members who fired Sam Altman and then ousted herself when Altman returned, has given an interview to The Wall Street Journal. She is unable to give a specific reason for Altman’s firing beyond “Our goal in firing Sam was to strengthen OpenAI and make it more able to achieve its mission.”

Netflix has released a trailer for its new crypto documentary, Bitconned, about the rise and fall of Centra Tech, a scam that was part of the wave of initial coin offerings in 2017. The blowback from the scheme caught DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather, who had promoted it — they were fined by the SEC. Ray Trapani, one of the co-founders, appears to be a key narrator of the Netflix documentary.

Here’s a fun profile of Gary Gensler, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, with a lot of details on his approach to enforcement (“Though you might think otherwise, I don’t spend the majority of my time on crypto,” he says). Don’t worry, there’s even an explanation of his genuinely weird social media antics.

Nothing important happened while I was gone, right?

I am theoretically on vacation (🌴) but this was too good not to share. Please enjoy!

We’ve got the goss on early wake-ups, lawyer fashion, courtroom sketches, and other pressing matters. Go ahead and leave a question here if you’ve got one... [Arnold voice] I’ll be back.

Kevin Dugan’s overview really sums it up: stripped of the affectations, we discovered there wasn’t much to Sam Bankman-Fried at all.