- WSJ: OpenAI Completes For-Profit Transition, Pushing Microsoft Above $4 Trillion Valuation (Oct 28, 2025)
OpenAI is now a public-benefit corporation, with Microsoft owning 27%, a move that could lead to an IPO. This new structure allows OpenAI to raise capital more easily and gives its nonprofit parent a stake worth $130 billion. - OpenAI: The next chapter of the Microsoft–OpenAI partnership (Oct 28, 2025)
Microsoft now holds 27% of OpenAI, a cool $135B at today’s valuation. - WSJ: Amazon Lays Off 14,000 Corporate Workers (Oct 27, 2025)
Amazon’s layoffs, the first tranche of 30,000 planned layoffs among corporate positions. This feels like the beginning of a string of corporate cuts related to AI-expenditures and expected productivity gains from new technology. - Maginative: Thinking Machines Claims 30x Cost Cut for Training AI Models (Oct 28, 2025)
“Their latest research introduces on-policy distillation, a hybrid method that matches RL’s results with roughly 10% of the compute. In their benchmark, a math reasoning model hit 70% accuracy on AIME’24 using 1,800 GPU hours instead of 17,920.” - OpenAI: Built to benefit everyone (Oct 28, 2025)
OpenAI has completed a recapitalization, solidifying the non-profit OpenAI Foundation’s control over the for-profit business and granting it significant resources, currently valued at $130 billion, to advance its mission of ensuring AGI benefits humanity. - WSJ: Amazon to Lay Off Tens of Thousands of Corporate Workers (Oct 27, 2025)
Upwards of 30,000 Amazonians (roughly 10% of its corporate workforce) will be laid off in the coming days to conserve cash and spend more on AI. This feels like the start of a cascade of AI-related layoffs for white-collar fields. - The Wall Street Journal: More Big Companies Bet They Can Still Grow Without Hiring (Oct 26, 2025)
Large American companies (JPMorgan Chase, Walmart, etc.) are limiting or reducing hiring, aiming to increase sales and profits without expanding their workforce. - The Wall Street Journal: Tesla Profit Plunges as Musk Turns Focus to ‘Robot Army’ (Oct 22, 2025)
Perhaps a 37% decrease is “plunging,” as the headline suggests. The longer read seems to indicate the company is stabilizing itself after Musk’s foray into politics earlier this year. If anything, the large potential payout for Musk seems likely to channel his energies into constructive developments for the company.