Microsoft Loses Control of OpenAI Over $500 Billion

THE BOMBSHELL OF THE WEEK

On September 11, Satya Nadella signed something he didn’t want to sign. Microsoft has authorized OpenAI to restructure as a for-profit company. Its most powerful partner just became its biggest threat.

While Microsoft believed it was in control, OpenAI moved infrastructure to Oracle and Google Cloud, built an army of institutional investors, and lined up a valuation of 500,000 million euros - the highest in history for a startup.

Microsoft has 12-18 months before OpenAI reaches artificial general intelligence. When that happens, Microsoft loses all exclusive access. Altman knew it. Nadella knew it. The clock was ticking.

Collaborate in its own destruction, or wage legal war while OpenAI left them behind. Nadella chose diminished influence over total exclusion. With this, Microsoft has authorized the birth of its biggest competitor.

Altman has pulled off the most elegant corporate coup of the decade.

POWER MOVES

Dell Technologies: CFO Yvonne McGill leaves after 30 years. CFO Yvonne McGill left Dell on September 9 after nearly 30 years at the company and 2 years as CFO. David Kennedy (27 years at Dell) steps in as interim CFO. The departure isn’t tied to financial or operational problems, but the stock dropped on the news.

SpaceX: a massive 17 billion buy for EchoStar’s spectrum. SpaceX will acquire EchoStar’s AWS-4 and H-Block spectrum licenses for up to 17 billion dollars ($8.5B cash + $8.5B in SpaceX stock + $2B in interest payments). The deal gives SpaceX exclusive mid-band spectrum rights across the entire United States to expand Starlink “Direct to Cell” - allowing mobile phones to connect directly to satellites without traditional cell towers.

MONEY TALKS

Top investments (September 7-13):

PsiQuantum: €1,000M Series E (quantum computing) - BlackRock leads at a €7,000M valuation
Perplexity AI: €200M at a €20,000M valuation (AI search) - second round in 2 months
Diana Health: €55M Series C (women’s health) - HealthQuest Capital leads
Koi: €48M seed and Series A (cybersecurity) - Battery Ventures leads
Motion: €38M Series C at a €550M valuation (AI work tools) - Scale VP leads

The IPO window opens: Klarna listed on September 9 at a €14,000M valuation and trading began September 10. The other 4 major listings scheduled for this same month:

Figure Technologies: Blockchain banking (€2,200-2,800M valuation)
Gemini: The Winklevoss crypto exchange (€2,100M valuation)
Legence Corp: Infrastructure (€2,800M valuation, backed by Blackstone)
BlackRock Coffee: Pacific Northwest coffee chain

PRODUCT SECRETS

Apple gives itself away: a massive leak reveals secret 2025-2026 products

Apple’s engineers messed up: they included references to unannounced products in their apps’ code. Analysts found clues about Vision Pro 2 (the virtual reality headset) with an M5 processor for late 2025, a refreshed iPad mini, a new upgraded Studio Display for 2026, and an Apple TV beefed up for artificial intelligence and gaming. It’s Apple’s biggest accidental leak in years - they’ve essentially revealed their entire roadmap by mistake.

Just what they needed.

Samsung declares war on Apple in health: its watch detects illnesses without medical clearances

On September 11, Samsung revealed a strategy I like: its Galaxy Watch 8 will diagnose health problems without waiting for medical approvals.

Detecting sleep apnea in just 2 nights, measuring vascular health while you sleep, and analyzing antioxidant levels in your skin.

While Apple is tied down by US healthcare regulations, Samsung sidesteps the restrictions and ships medical features straight to market.

REAL NUMBERS vs REALITY

Reddit survived the Google AI Overviews attack and grew 78%

“Explosive revenue growth of 78% to 500 million proves our strength”

The CEO admitted that “Google traffic was a headwind in Q2 due to AI Overviews” (Google drives 40-50% of their traffic), although there’s been a class-action lawsuit for not warning investors earlier.

Reddit offset the Google hit with: a strong brand (“Reddit” is a top search term on Google), direct users (+21% to 110M daily), revenue per user (+47% to €4.53), data licensing (+24% to €35M), and its own AI tool (6M weekly users).

Reddit had armor. The media, e-commerce, and SaaS companies that depend 100% on Google don’t. When the axe falls on them, there will be no offsetting it.

Meta keeps burning money on the metaverse

“Significant advances in immersive technology”

The reality is that Reality Labs, which belongs to Meta, lost 4,530 million euros against just 370 million in sales. Its accumulated losses since 2019 exceed 50,000 million. The Ray-Ban glasses saved the quarter.

VALLEY DRAMA

The hack that has the Valley in a panic was a sophisticated attack compromising 327 GitHub developers and stealing 3,325 corporate secrets from San Francisco startups.

Multiple Bay Area CEOs are calling emergency security meetings. The attack exposes critical vulnerabilities in the software supply chain, affecting everything from source code to API keys at companies valued in the billions.

WHAT TO WATCH NEXT WEEK

OpenAI and its countdown: A countdown to December 2025 to complete its restructuring or lose funding
Quantum computing war: How IBM and Google will respond to BlackRock’s mega-investment in PsiQuantum
Search battle: What Google will do about Perplexity’s 20 billion valuation
Microsoft: Will it keep laying off employees every month?

MY TAKE

The OpenAI-Microsoft situation was coming from a mile away. Microsoft has already started talks with Anthropic to have options for its Copilot product. OpenAI is genuinely scary, because its CEO leaves bodies along the road. First Elon, now Satya. He’s my favorite villain, surpassing Zuckerberg.

“The next big thing” will be quantum. To me, a billion-euro round led by BlackRock means taking this out of universities and labs and into commercial reality. And of course AI will help us get those quantum computers much sooner than we thought 5 years ago, when it seemed like a utopia.

Perplexity… I love it. It’s the David versus Goliath story — proof of how a very well-built product can do what BING never managed. Dethrone Google. We’ll see how it plays out, but that extra round usually signals things may be going far better than expected in terms of traction.

Bringing internet directly to phones via Starlink satellites will put internet within reach of any point on the globe, and I still need to think through the full implications, but it will undoubtedly be another milestone. Neuralink, Starlink, Tesla Optimus. Elon is making the 21st century actually look like what he dreamed of as a kid.

And one more thing.

I woke up today genuinely excited. Writing a weekly newsletter that nearly 300 people like you now read is magical.

It’s awkward to ask, but it’s worse to stop writing.

This is where I ask you: if you enjoyed it, share it everywhere you can and leave comments with your questions or contributions.

It’s the only way more people will read me, and the only way I can refill that tank of emotional fuel you need to keep going.

Thank you

VERIFIABLE REFERENCES AND SOURCES WITH LINKS