First Pass

27 stories from 11 sources

Leadership pressure tests AI growth, turnarounds, and corporate control

Day’s Recap

Supporting Articles

The article examines the steady departure of senior OpenAI executives and asks what those exits reveal about the company's leadership structure. It also questions whether co-founder Greg Brockman was a more central stabilizing force than his role suggested.

3:34 PMTechCrunch

Amazon is closing Mechanical Turk, its crowdsourced work platform, after 21 years. The company said it regularly reviews its programs and decided to shut down AWS Mechanical Turk following an assessment.

10:58 AMPYMNTS

OpenAI has brought in Rajic, a 53-year-old enterprise sales leader known for disciplined execution, to strengthen its revenue operation. His mandate is to turn the company’s enormous AI demand and valuation into more durable commercial results.

6:35 AMFortune

Nike CEO Elliott Hill has begun repairing operational and strategic problems at the company, but the brand has yet to fully recover its lost consumer momentum and cultural relevance. The turnaround remains a prolonged effort rather than a quick reset.

3:05 AMFortune

Private equity firms are using structured equity transactions to provide investors with liquidity as they struggle to sell portfolio companies and return capital. The approach offers an alternative to traditional exits during a prolonged slowdown in deal activity.

5:21 PMBloomberg Markets

Jefferies executive Jason Greenberg discussed software investing, artificial intelligence dealmaking, and private equity’s difficulty exiting investments. He said the market contains many so-called zombie investments that remain in portfolios without a clear path to attractive exits.

5:03 PMBloomberg Markets

Other Developments

A curated list of other prominent stories from this day.

Australia’s Future Fund has hired executive-search firm Spencer Stuart to find its next chief executive. The position is one of the country’s most prominent finance leadership roles.

6:56 PMBloomberg Markets

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff rejected fears that artificial intelligence will trigger a broad collapse in software-as-a-service companies. He argued that the technology will change how software is used rather than eliminate the category altogether.

6:47 PMCNBC

Vishal Garg has sued Better over a shareholder-protection measure known as a poison pill. The lawsuit follows Better's separate claim that Garg unlawfully solicited stockholders.

4:57 PMHousing Wire

Ryan Serhant's brokerage is expanding through agent recruitment rather than acquisitions of competing firms. It now operates across 19 states and Washington, D.C., and says agents earn 144% more on average in their first year after switching.

4:32 PMHousing Wire

Chicago-area developers Wingspan Development Group and UrbanStreet Group have joined forces to move more projects into production faster. The partnership is intended to activate projects more quickly, according to the CEO of Nicholas Family of Cos.

3:39 PMHousing Wire

Amazon MGM Studios global TV head Peter Friedlander has appointed Carina Walker to lead the young adult division. Walker has spent 9.5 years at Amazon across drama, international programming and YA development.

3:38 PMVariety

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