The Sunday Fix: November 19th

F1, CRISPR, Biden, and More

Nov 19, 2023

Good afternoon, everyone! Happy Sunday and happy Thanksgiving week! Cheers to a short work week, lots of food and afternoon naps.

Closing in on the one-year mark of the Sunday Fix. I am still having fun pulling these together, so we keep marchin’ on. If you’ve enjoyed the ride, share the Fix with a friend. Hit that button below or just forward this email along. The more the merrier.

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The Sunday Six

Getting you well-read headed into the week.

1) Sam is Fired Rehired

Fired

The tech world blew up Friday when OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, was fired by the company’s board. It was unclear what prompted the decision, but the company said that Mr. Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications” with the board in a blog post on Friday. Beyond that, we don’t really know much. It appears that Altman, the tech community, and big OpenAI partners (like Microsoft) were all unaware that this decision was coming.

Firings happen, but this one was puzzling for many given the backdrop of OpenAI. With the company’s ascent over the last ~6 months, you’d have to imagine this wasn’t a decision the board made on a whim.

Rehired

But it appears that Altman may have some friends in high places. Late Saturday, reports came out that OpenAI investors were making efforts to get him back in the driver’s seat. The WSJ reported that Microsoft and Thrive Capital, two of the largest OpenAI investors, were leading the charge here. Altman has reportedly said he would consider returning but wants a new board. Can’t blame the man.

As of Sunday, it sounds like Altman is headed back to the CEO role at OpenAI and the board will resign on Monday. Given that Altman likely would have gone on to start his own AI company, Microsoft made every move possible to ensure they didn’t lose “the golden child of AI globally”. Just your typical weekend in the world of humanity-changing technology.

Tech twitter didn’t disappoint either:

2) F1 in Vegas

Max Verstappen won his 18th race of the year at the Las Vegas Grand Prix over the weekend. The win is an exclamation mark on what is being described as the most dominant F1 season of all time.

Verstappen wasn’t very complimentary of Vegas, though, commenting Saturday about the environment:

I understand that fans, they need maybe something to do as well around the track. But I think it’s more important that you actually make them understand what we do as a sport because most of them just come to have a party, drink, see a DJ play or a performance act.
I can do that all over the world. I can go to Ibiza and get completely shit-faced and have a good time. But that’s what happens, and actually people … they come and they become fan of what? They want to see maybe their favorite artists and have a few drinks with their mates and then go out and have a crazy night out. But they don’t actually understand what we’re doing or what we’re putting on the line to perform.

This feels like a man that lost at the blackjack table. Had it out for Vegas.

The comments came after a first-night debacle that stopped a practice session after just nine minutes. A Ferrari car driven by Carlos Sainz was severely damaged after hitting a manhole that had come loose.

Some enterprising lawyers were quick to file a class-action lawsuit Friday morning. The firm is seeking “at least $30K in damages” given the fans were unable to view the Thursday practice race.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - NOVEMBER 16: Track officials repair an area of track surrounding a drain as seen from the McLaren VISTA during practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Las Vegas at Las Vegas Strip Circuit on November 16, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

It wasn’t all bad, though. Many drivers and celebrities were complimentary of the venue. The Vegas strip made for a scenic backdrop and, of course, there was no shortage of celebs in Vegas.

3) CRISPR Approval

The UK medicines regulator became the first in the world to grant approval for a therapy utilizing the CRISPR–Cas9 gene-editing tool.

If you aren’t familiar with CRISPR, here’s a quick summary from Not Boring (as it’s a big deal):

CRISPR works like molecular scissors, allowing scientists to precisely edit specific parts of a cell's DNA. CRISPR turns developing therapeutics into something like a coding challenge.
CRISPR holds enormous potential, but given its relative nascency, regulatory hurdles, and safety considerations, its application in actual treatments has remained limited to clinical trials, until now.

The approved therapy, named Casgevy, is designed to treat sickle-cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta thalassaemia, severe genetic blood conditions. According to the press release, “In two global clinical trials of CASGEVY in SCD and TDT, the trials met their respective primary outcome of becoming free from severe vaso-occlusive crises or transfusion independent for at least 12 consecutive months. Once achieved, these benefits are potentially expected to be life-long.”

Casgevy employs CRISPR to edit genes encoding haemoglobin in blood-producing stem cells, aiming to correct errors that cause misshapen and sticky blood cells in sickle-cell disease and low haemoglobin levels.

tl;dr: People are really freakin smart. Approval to use gene-editing therapy is a game-changer for untreatable illnesses, medicine and humanity.

4) Argentina Elections

Argentines headed to the polls Sunday as the country is in the midst of a closely contested presidential runoff between Economy Minister Sergio Massa and libertarian TV pundit Javier Milei.

The election comes as Argentina has seen inflation of over 130% and sky-rocketing poverty. As polls opened this morning, it appeared that Milei had a slight advantage over Massa, the current Economic Minister who is viewed by critics as responsible for the economic situation.

Milei has been compared to Trump and former Brazilian President Bolsonaro. His controversial rhetoric appealed to many who are upset with the status quo. The former TV personality has said he’d cut ties with Argentina’s two biggest trade partners, Brazil and China, and called the pope a “lefty son of a bitch”.

Argentinian historian, Frederico Finchelstein, told The Guardian his view on how Argentines are thinking of the election. “People think between a terrible thing and a crazy guy, let’s go for crazy, because perhaps it’s better than a terrible thing”.

History repeats itself, so they say.

5) Space X

SpaceX, Elon Musk's spaceflight company, launched its Starship rocket in South Texas, aiming to revolutionize space transportation and support NASA's moon missions. Although the test flight didn't achieve its ultimate goal of a partial trip around the world, it demonstrated progress in addressing issues from the earlier test in April.

The three big wins from this launch

The rocket's 33 engines fired successfully
The rocket’s two stages separated successfully
Despite the booster's post-separation explosion, the upper-stage Starship reached an altitude of over 90 miles before contact was lost.

Musk certainly saw the launch as progress. Mars, here we come. Cool stuff.

6) Counterfeit Handbags

Tough day for the counterfeit handbag and luxury item business. Federal prosecutors made the “largest-ever seizure of counterfeit goods in the US history” last week. The arrests were made Wednesday after agents seized more than “200K counterfeit handbags, clothes and other items worth $1.03B”

Adama Sow and Adjulaj Jalloh were the two arrested. Their counterfeit operation took place out of a storage facility in Manhattan, and they each face up to 10 years in prison.

The US government is auctioning off the handbags at steep discounts given the lack of space at federal facilities.

The Fix’s Picks

Summarizing and linking to some of my favorite reads, podcasts, photos, and clips from the weekend.

College Gambling Addiction

This stat blew me away: three out of four college students have gambled in the past year. So much so that I am not sure I believe it. That said, other data seems to support it: college students are 2x as likely to have a gambling problem compared to the adult population.

As online sports betting becomes more commonplace, are American colleges ready? Jason Osborne argues they may not be.

Full story from The Conversation

Batkid

“Today, Miles Scott is a healthy teenager with a passion for baseball. Ten years ago, the then-5-year-old Miles won hearts both in his hometown and around the world when he transformed into the black-clad superhero Batkid for a day, becoming an instant media sensation”

Awesome ending to Batkid’s story.

Full story from NPR

Freelance Jobs v. AI

We’ve all been hearing about how AI is going to take our jobs - I think the jury is still out on the impact of most of our jobs, but a new study shows some serious impact on the freelancer economy.

In a working paper, “The Short-Term Effects of Generative AI on Employment: Evidence from an Online Labor Market”, Xiang Hui, Oren Reshef, and Luofeng Zhou lay out their evidence for ChatGPT’s impact on the freelancer economy. Graphic from John Burn-Murdoch below (based on the study)