Welcome, humans.

Not to start with another Sam tweet, but this one requires some analysis: Sam is out here claiming that ChatGPT added 1M new users in a single hour.

Checking web traffic, we saw no big deal on ChatGPT.com, but OpenAI.com showed a massive boost in March (largely from India—why do you think Sam is tweeting and retweeting stuff like this)? SensorTower also confirmed a spike in Android downloads (again, seemingly from India).

Why?

1. We're visual creatures, and images transcend language barriers—so the new image generator could be ChatGPT's first “global” viral moment.

2. David Sachs, US AI Czar, replied to Sam’s post with an insightful blog from VC investor Chris Dixon: disruptive innovations initially appear as “toys”—like, idk, Studio Ghibli memes?— that seemingly underperform expectations, then improve rapidly.

ChatGPT's new GPT-4o image generator exemplifies this perfectly. While memes seem silly, they're valuable social currency in a world where being first to post earns likes, shares, cultural clout (and increasingly, actual currency).

Could ChatGPT's image generator have improved enough to outperform existing solutions, and now is creating massive growth as it crosses the utility threshold for millions of new users? If OpenAI’s latest fundraise is any indication, perhaps so…

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

• OpenAI closed a $40B funding round, valuing the company at $300B.

• Google’s AI drug-discvoery tool raised $600M.

• Runway released Gen-4, enabling consistent characters in AI video.

• Alexa+ launched along with Amazon Nova Act for automating browser tasks.

OpenAI just closed its $40B funding round… so let’s take a look down memory lane, shall we?

OpenAI just closed the largest private tech funding round ever: $40B, valuing it at $300B. The only private companies worth as much or higher are TikTok ($300B) and SpaceX ($350B).

The deal includes $30B from SoftBank (of which SoftBank will invest $7.5B upfront and $22.5B by the end of 2025) and $10B from other investors including Microsoft.

Now, $18B of this will go towards Stargate, OpenAI’s huge datacenter project, and the rest of the money could shrink by about $10B if the non-profit (yup, OpenAI is still a non-profit) doesn’t finish its transition into a for-profit by December 31st, 2025.

This is a landmark moment, and it comes at a crucial time for the company. The AI boom is in make or break territory. And not only that: a new book excerpt from the WSJ just gave us the first REAL look at what actually happened behind the scenes during OpenAI's wild November 2023 drama—that crazy weekend when Sam Altman got fired, then almost went to Microsoft, then returned to OpenAI. Buckle up!

Let's take a walk down memory land and unpack this drama (for fun, of course):

It all started with allegations of toxic leadership. CTO Mira Murati had been effectively running day-to-day operations since May 2022.

But there was a problem: Greg Brockman (another OpenAI co-founder) would bypass her authority by going straight to Altman whenever she tried to manage him.

Things got so tense that when Murati tried giving feedback to Altman, she says he started bringing HR to their 1:1 meetings. (Yikes.)

Eventually, Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever prompted Murati to share her concerns with the board.

And TBH, the evidence seems damning:

• Slack screenshots showing Altman misrepresenting legal advice about safety reviews.

• Examples of Altman pitting senior employees against each other.

• Documentation of Brockman's alleged bullying.

• Altman telling different leaders they could “lead the research direction.”

This is where it gets WILD AF: The night before Altman's firing, the board asked Murati to be interim CEO. By Friday night, she'd flipped positions, giving the board a 30-minute ultimatum: explain the firing, resign, or face mass exodus.

The catch-22? The board couldn't reveal Murati had provided evidence against Altman. They hoped she'd calm employees while they searched for a new CEO. Instead, she led the revolt.

Here’s a few other previously unknown firing details:

• The OpenAI Startup Fund mystery: Apparently, Sam Altman personally owned it (instead of OpenAI investors).

• An India incident: Microsoft launched an unreleased GPT-4 without safety approval.

• And a safety approval lie: Altman claimed three GPT-4 features passed safety review, when only one had.

And there’s plenty more juicy details where that came from in the full piece!

Our take: This story reads like a Silicon Valley soap opera, and we CANNOT WAIT to read the full thing. The book is “The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future” by Keach Hagey” and it drops May 2025. This one’s gonna be an instant best seller.

Here’s what we found really ironic: Peter Thiel apparently warned Altman that “the AI safety people” would "destroy" OpenAI. Instead, it was just typical corporate drama.

Also, Ilya’s reaction to the employee revolt is fascinating. When employees started signing a letter to bring Altman back (including Murati), he was “astounded.” He expected cheers with Sam gone. Instead, they were worried more about their equity—and with the company now worth $300B, can you blame them?

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Treats To Try.

1. Runway released Gen-4, which now lets you create characters and objects that maintain their appearance and characteristics across multiple scenes, angles, and environments with just a single reference image, essentially solving the “everything looks different every time” problem of genAI video (video).

2. HeroUI Chat turns your prompts or screenshots into polished React UIs instantly, letting you customize and deploy production-ready code with one click.

3. Manus is the viral Chinese AI agent platform that now has an app and a new subscription plan of $39 a month, offering dual task processing, and upgraded Claude 3.7 Sonnet AI capabilities.

   1. Related: Zhipu, another Chinese agent creator, just made its AutoGLM (Github) agent model free to try.

4. Purposewrite creates tailored content for your blogs, emails, and social posts while fixing grammar issues in real-time.

5. Amazon Nova is Amazon’s suite of genAI models, and now there’s Nova Act which controls your web browser to complete tasks like ordering food or booking reservations automatically—try it here.

6. JuliusAI lets you chat with your data files to get expert-level insights and beautiful visualizations (one of the top fave data analysis tools).

7. FindYourAgent is an agent directory of tools to automate your specific work tasks.

See our top 51 AI Tools for Business here!

Around the Horn.

• OpenAI plans to release an actually “open” model “in the coming months”, and is gathering feedback on what kind of model it should be.

• Sesame AI, the “freaky real” voice AI, could raise $200M from major VCs like Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz—Sesame just released its base model btw (HuggingFace).

• Alexa+ is out, but like Apple Intelligence before it, is missing some of the features it demo’d at its reveal last month—and they won’t be out for months.

• Isomorphic Labs (Google’s AI drug-discovery company) raised $600M in outside capital on top of their potential $3B deal with Eli Lilly and Novartis.

• A startup out of Kathmandu claims to have achieved AGI…

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Tuesday Tube

A Cat's Commentary.