Good Morning! The Sam Altman saga continues. He is joining Microsoft’s new AI team in what appears to be a big W for Satya Nadella. But it might not last long. More than 700 OpenAI employees are demanding that the board resign, or they'll quit and join Altman at Microsoft.

Nvidia’s earnings report will give investors a peek into AI demand for 2024. The U.S. is seeking more than $4 billion from Binance to squash their legal beef. Private equity is resorting to buying companies again after some IPOs faceplanted. And Ozempic might cause Americans to spend and eat less this Thanksgiving.

We’re always trying to best serve our readers.

_{SQUEEZ OF THE DAY}

Citi's Top Guns Fired

CEO of Citi Jane Fraser is on a mission to simplify the Wall Street giant, and we’re already seeing the casualties. 

Over 300 senior manager roles are getting the boot, and we're not talking about interns or MBA associates. No, these are big shots, two levels below Fraser's executive team. The cuts are hitting about 10% of the workforce at that level.

Fraser has a grand plan to ditch layers of management, get rid of the co-head structures (who really are these co-heads of random product lines?), and turbocharge decision-making across the bank.

And the cuts might just keep on coming. Wall Street has laid off over 20,000 employees so far this year. Citi leads the pack with 7k removals, Goldman has 4k casualties, and Morgan Stanley has shed about 3.5k jobs.

Takeaway: It’s one thing when banks start cutting the mere cogs in the wheel that aren’t really generating revenue. But Fraser just cut hundreds of head honchos - these are the people overseeing teams and groups, in charge of millions of revenue every year. And it’s all part of Citi’s biggest reorg in 15 years.

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_HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Microsoft emerges as big winner from OpenAI turmoil (YF)

• How a hack shook Wall Street’s multi trillion-dollar foundation (WSJ)

• Silicon Valley saw OpenAI with eyes wide shut (Reuters)

• How tensions about OpenAI’s profitability turned into a feud (Axios)

• Wall Street’s favorite bankruptcy tactic gets loans repaid in cash (YF)

• This key element of ESG investing could drive real change (CNBC)

• How the Fed should think about its goals as inflation ebbs (Axios)

• Miami taking Wall Street from NYC won’t be easy (BB)

• Nvidia earnings report to give investors peek into 2024 AI demand (CNBC)

• Bullish crypto exchange acquires CoinDesk (Axios)

_{CAPITAL PULSE}

Markets Rundown

Stocks hit their highest level since August as Nvidia, Microsoft notch record highs.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Penn Entertainment ($PENN) +7% after an upgrade by Bank of America.

• (+) Paramount Global ($PARA) +6% after selling Bellator MMA promotion materials.

• (–) Chegg ($CHGG) -6% after a downgrade by Morgan Stanley.

Private Dealmaking

• Element Energy, a battery management startup, raised $73 million

• Edamama, a Philippines online retailer, raised $35 million

• Route 92 Medical, a medical device maker, raised $31 million

• Puzzle, a generative accounting platform, raised $30 million

• Vida Health, a cardiometabolic services provider, raised $28.5 million

• OfferFit, an experimentation platform for marketers, raised $25 million

For more PE & VC deals, subscribe to Buysiders.

_{BOOK OF THE DAY}

Freezing Order

When Bill Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail, Browder made it his life’s mission to go after his killers and make sure they faced justice. The first step was to uncover who was behind the $230 million tax refund scheme that Magnitsky was killed over.

As Browder and his team tracked the money as it flowed out of Russia through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas, they were shocked to discover that Vladimir Putin himself was a beneficiary of the crime.

As law enforcement agencies began freezing the money, Putin retaliated. He and his cronies set up honey traps, hired process servers to chase Browder through cities, murdered more of his Russian allies, and enlisted some of America’s top lawyers and politicians to bring him down.

Putin will stop at nothing to protect his money. As Freezing Order reveals, Browder’s campaign to expose Putin’s corruption was a factor behind Russia’s intervention in the 2016 US presidential election.

At once a financial caper, an international adventure, and a passionate plea for justice, Freezing Order is “mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand the tactics of modern autocracy.”

“For the first time, it all made sense: one of the main reasons Putin had interfered in the US election was because of the Magnitsky Act.”

_{ENLIGHTENMENT}

Short Squeez Picks

• Use the Ivy Lee productivity method to get more done

• 8 books every entrepreneur needs to read in 2024

• How to spot corporate bullshit

• 8 tips to manage your time for success

• A 48-second hack to calm your nerves before a presentation

_{DAILY VISUAL}

Median Age Of Homebuyers

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_{DAILY ACUMEN}

Rules For A Better Life

1. Wake up early.

2. Say no (a lot).

3. Comparison = unhappiness

4. Get up when you fail.

5. Don’t argue with reality (facts) you don’t like.

6. Take walks.

7. Don’t worry too much.

8. Read as much as you can.

9. Be curious.

10. Go to sleep early.

_{JOB BOARD}

Featured Jobs

• Blackstone - Analyst, Credit Team, New York, NY

• Blackstone - AVP, Private Equity Analytics - New York, NY

• Blackstone - Fund Accounting Manager - Miami, FL

_{MEME-A-PALOOZA}

Memes of the Day