Weekly Roundup: Failed Coup ❌

Happy Friday, DVC! From the entire Doriot team we wish you a safe and happy holiday weekend 🦃 

We hope your Thanksgiving celebrations are filled with lots of food, laughs, and questions from your relatives about what’s going on with “that Sam Altoid guy and Chad’s GDP?”

Startup News & Weekly Poll:

If you’ve managed to stay up-to-date on the OpenAI drama of the past week, I’m impressed. Alternatively, if you have no idea what I’m talking about and couldn’t care less about Silicon Valley’s “computer word guesser machines", I’m even more impressed.

In short, last week the now-legendary (albeit controversial) leader of OpenAI, Sam Altman, was ousted by the company’s board of directors for not being “consistently candid in his communications with the board”. What followed was days of nonstop drama worthy of a Succession reboot - or at the very least a TMZ exposé.

If you’re looking for some weekend reading, there have been great recaps of the action ranging from Morning Brew’s entertaining reporting to more traditional summaries like Bloomberg’s.

Here’s our abridged timeline:

Last Friday:

• OpenAI’s board stages a coup and fires Sam in an impromptu Google Meet (OpenAI uses Google Meet???)

• Co-Founder Greg Brockman quits in protest & support pours in from the chronically online Twitter tech community

Saturday:

• OpenAI investors & employees threaten the board to resign & reinstate Sam

• Board agrees to resign by 5pm but then totally does not resign by 5pm

Sunday:

• Board installs recently retired Twitch CEO Emmett Shear as OpenAI CEO

• Microsoft announces that Sam and Greg are joining Microsoft to lead a new AI division (basically just OpenAI but hopefully with AI Clippy)

Monday:

• 700 of 770 OpenAI employees, who spent the weekend consuming boba tea & McDonald’s, sign a Google Doc petition saying they’ll quit unless the board resigns

• CEO of mattress startup Eight Sleep posts a creepy tweet showing a 27% increase in San Francisco tech workers sleeping <5hrs per night

Tuesday/Wednesday:

• The board (mostly) steps down, a new board is installed, and Sam & Greg return to their previous roles at OpenAI

• Emmett Shear goes back to retirement as the world wonders WTF happened and if any of this was necessary

No one knows exactly why this coup happened in the first place, but one theory is that the board was concerned about Sam’s alleged lack of concerns over AI safety and its impact on humanity.

Time for the poll! Choose an answer below and see how you stack up next week!

Last Week's Results:

Last week we summarized some of Sam Lessin’s predictions on the state of early-stage VC and asked how you thought it would impact retail investors like us. 66% of you believe it will help retail investors as small, capital efficient teams choose to selectively raise funds from the crowd instead of going the high-pressure and controlling VC route.

There are no guarantees, but we just so happen to agree... We look forward to leading the charge with the DVC community 🏇

Vote for New Deals:

Help select DVC's future deals! Please view the options, upvote your favorites, and suggest your own!

New companies suggested this week:

• The Sepia Coffee Project

Deal Review #70 Summary:

Sadly for Invicta Water, Doriot Venture Club collectively decided not to fund an investment in the company’s current RegCF round.

Opinions were pretty mixed on the deal. On the one hand, many members seemed to agree that PFAS contamination is a serious problem. If you fall into this camp, it’s probably a good thing to have as many companies as possible working on cleanup solutions!

But while our Club usually likes early-stage deals and low valuations, there were some unknowns that raised the perceived risk of the offering. Since the company does not have any active prototypes, it’s hard to fully understand the technical details of its water filtration system. Plus, given its structure as a subsidiary of BNNano, it’s unclear how investors in Invicta Water would receive a return on investment years down the road.

So while it looks like “DVC is out” on this one, the company just extended its round on Netcapital until January 31, 2024! We’ll keep a close eye on positive developments in the meantime 🕵️‍♀️ 

Bonus Links for this Deal:

DVC Portfolio Updates:

Apparently it was a slow startup news week for everyone except OpenAI! There are no DVC Portfolio updates today, so we invite you to spend the extra time on whatever your favorite holiday tradition is. (Mine’s quietly raiding the Thanksgiving leftovers at 2am in the soft glow of the open fridge 🥷)

Thanks for reading & participating! Have a great weekend and see you for a new DVC deal review next week!

Sincerely,

Team DVC