Gm. Happy belated Thanksgiving, and happy Black Friday! This year, I’m grateful for a few things. My health, my girlfriend, Aldi, and, of course, all of you for continuing to tune in newsletter after newsletter. Without you, I wouldn’t have a job…literally.

— Stephen Flanders

I intentionally avoided an OpenAI lead story on Wednesday, but much like Sam Altman, we are so back.

This story is just too good to pass up.

The big mystery surrounding Samas firing was always “why?”. Why fire the face of your company with no warning right before you’re about to raise a boatload of money? Unfortunately, the board decided to go zero-dark thirty and keep their reasoning private.

However, it appears we now have some answers.

According to reports, OpenAI had developed a model known as Q* (Q-Star) which was able to solve basic math problems it had not seen before. This was something that models were not able to do before because math isn’t like writing. You can’t just predict the next word. You have to be able to reason your way to the answer.

So, Q* is a model with at least some elementary ability to reason. Which would add some context to comments Sama made recently:

Couple that reasoning breakthrough with OpenAI’s ability to predict how intelligent a model will be based on compute, and you can at least begin to form a roadmap for AGI.

If you’re a little bit freaked right now, you’re not alone. Some of OpenAI’s researchers were as well, so they sent a letter to the board which pretty much said “holy crap”, and next thing you know Sama is out of a job.

Is this really the breakthrough that leads to AGI? I have no idea, but I’m pretty confident with Sama back at the helm and more powerful than ever, we’ll find out sooner or later.

Survey Says: Betting markets have the date for AGI as February 10th, 2031. That’ll be an interesting Valentine’s Day.

Raise: Aether Biomedical, a bionic hand startup, raised $5.8M.

Stat: 51.6%: The amount of tech workers that think AI is just hype.

Rabbit hole: Why I Quit Full-Time Roles (Elena Verna)

The best resources we recently came across that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

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This Final Jeopardy! question stumped every contestant. Can you get it right?

Category: Television

Clue: This series grew out of a screenplay titled “Murdoch”

How do you do this move?

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Succession