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OpenAI gives some employees a ‘special’ multimillion-dollar bonus

theverge.com Alex Heath 2025-11-29 17:23:15

Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. The day before the launch of GPT-5, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman surprised employees with a message in the company’s Slack. “As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we have been looking at comp for our technical teams given the movement in the market,” wrote Altman, according to a copy of the message that was shared with me. He announced that OpenAI would give a “special one-time award” to researchers and software engine

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Six arrests over attempted theft of trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process [U]

9to5mac.com Ben Lovejoy 2025-12-02 14:41:57

Six people have been arrested after Apple chipmaker TSMC said that several then-employees tried to steal trade secrets relating to the company’s most advanced chip process. TSMC fired the individuals concerned and is now taking legal action against them. See update at the end about a potential motive. The report relates to the company’s 2-nanometer chip process, which is expected to be used for the A20 chips across next year’s iPhone 18 lineup … TSMC 2nm process expected to debut in iPhone 18

Topics: chip company employees said tsmc

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Three weeks after acquiring Windsurf, Cognition offers staff the exit door

techcrunch.com Rebecca Bellan 2025-12-07 04:24:19

Cognition, the AI coding startup that acquired rival company Windsurf three weeks ago, laid off 30 employees last week and is offering buyouts to the roughly 200 remaining employees on the team, reports The Information. This is the latest bout of whiplash that Windsurf employees have faced after a tumultuous stretch for the company. The startup was initially almost acquired by OpenAI, then lost its CEO, co-founder, and research leads to Google in a $2.4 billion deal known as a reverse-acquihire

Topics: acquired cognition company employees windsurf

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TSMC launches legal action against former employees for allegedly trying to leak 2nm trade secrets

techspot.com Rob Thubron 2025-12-07 14:29:00

What just happened? TSMC says has taken strict disciplinary action and launched legal proceedings against a number of employees over potential trade secret leaks. The world's largest chipmaker said that the discovery was made after it detected unauthorized activities on its network during routine monitoring. TSMC said in a statement that its comprehensive and robust monitoring mechanisms allowed it to identify the potential crime early. It started an internal investigation, which led to discipl

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TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

news.ycombinator.com Ben Lovejoy 2025-12-07 12:53:15

Apple chipmaker TSMC has said that several then-employees tried to steal trade secrets relating to the company’s most advanced chip process. TSMC fired the individuals concerned and is now taking legal action against them. The former employees may also face criminal prosecution. The report relates to the company’s 2-nanometer chip process, which is expected to be used for the A20 chips across next year’s iPhone 18 lineup … TSMC 2nm process expected to debut in iPhone 18 TSMC leads the world i

Topics: chip company employees process tsmc

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TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

9to5mac.com Ben Lovejoy 2025-12-07 18:19:35

Apple chipmaker TSMC has said that several then-employees tried to steal trade secrets relating to the company’s most advanced chip process. TSMC fired the individuals concerned and is now taking legal action against them. The former employees may also face criminal prosecution. The report relates to the company’s 2-nanometer chip process, which is expected to be used for the A20 chips across next year’s iPhone 18 lineup … TSMC 2nm process expected to debut in iPhone 18 TSMC leads the world i

Topics: chip company employees process tsmc

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Tim Cook reportedly tells employees Apple ‘must’ win in AI

techcrunch.com Anthony Ha 2025-12-10 15:21:22

In Brief Apple CEO Tim Cook held an hourlong all-hands meeting in which he told employees that the company needs to win in AI, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The meeting came after an earnings call in which Cook told investors and analysts that Apple would “significantly” increase its AI investments. It seems he had a similar message for Apple employees, reportedly telling them, “Apple must do this. Apple will do this. This is sort of ours to grab.” Despite launching a variety of AI-po

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Fired by video: Atlassian terminates 150 workers using pre-recorded video, sparking criticism

techspot.com Skye Jacobs 2025-12-10 12:31:00

Cutting corners: Receiving a layoff notice is always hard, but the way the message is delivered can make the experience even more painful. The latest example: Atlassian's termination notification to 150 employees through a pre-recorded video. The restructuring not only highlights concerns about impersonal layoff announcements but also reflects the increasing influence of AI on jobs in the technology industry. Australian software giant Atlassian has eliminated 150 jobs as part of a major restruc

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More details emerge on how Windsurf’s VCs and founders got paid from the Google deal

techcrunch.com Marina Temkin 2025-12-10 04:00:00

Weeks after the revelation that Google paid Windsurf $2.4 billion to license its technology, while simultaneously hiring away its CEO and top talent, the deal’s implications are still rattling some founders and startup employees across Silicon Valley. Google’s payment to the startup was effectively split in two equal parts, according to two people familiar with the deal. Investors’ portion was $1.2 billion. The other half was in the form of compensation packages for approximately 40 Windsurf e

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Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

news.ycombinator.com Jessica Blough 2025-12-11 12:54:59

Los Angeles-based private equity firm Freeman Spogli & Co. is in the process of buying Philz Coffee for $145 million, according to documents shared with stockholders and obtained by Mission Local. Philz board members, which include former CEO Phil Jaber and his son, Jacob Jaber; representatives from investment firms Summit Partners and TPG Growth; and CEO Mahesh Sadarangani will receive payouts or bonuses from the deal. Those who hold common stock, like employees who bought stock during or aft

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Trump’s AI Action Plan is a distraction

technologyreview.com Asad Ramzanali 2025-12-18 06:15:00

Today’s generative AI is based on the transformer model (the T in ChatGPT), first described by a team at Google in 2017. Six of the eight researchers on that team were born outside the US, and the other two are children of immigrants. This isn’t an exception. Immigrants have been central to American leadership in AI. Of the 42 American companies included in the 2025 Forbes ranking of the 50 top AI startups, 60% have at least one immigrant cofounder, according to an analysis by the Institute for

Topics: ai companies employees google immigrants

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NASA faces brain drain as thousands exit under voluntary resignation scheme

news.ycombinator.com Richard Speed 2025-12-23 09:31:49

Almost 3,900 of NASA's workforce is set to leave the agency thanks to voluntary incentives, with senior staffers among those heading out the door. The figures were reportedly issued by NASA HQ on Friday. About 3,000 employees opted to take part in a second round of the agency's Deferred Resignation Program. Some 870 participated in the first round, earlier this year. The exodus has led observers to bemoan the loss of talent. Former Hubble astronaut Dr John Grunsfeld described the departures to

Topics: agency budget employees grunsfeld nasa

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Nearly 4,000 NASA Employees Quit as Part of Trump Buyouts

gizmodo.com Ellyn Lapointe 2025-12-23 09:10:38

More than 20% of NASA’s civil workforce has elected to leave the agency since President Trump took office in January, the agency revealed on Friday, July 25. In the latest wave of resignations, thousands accepted deals through the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program. In a statement emailed to SpaceNews on Friday, NASA said about 3,000 employees applied for buyouts through a second round of the program. Earlier this year, the first round saw 870 staffers leave the agency. The nea

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella addresses 'painful' layoffs, discusses ambitious AI plans in company memo

techspot.com Skye Jacobs 2025-12-21 02:03:00

What just happened? Microsoft is facing one of the most turbulent phases in its history, balancing massive investments in artificial intelligence and infrastructure with significant job cuts, creating a climate of uncertainty within the company. On Thursday morning, CEO Satya Nadella addressed employees in a memo that directly acknowledged the contradictions they are experiencing. "I want to acknowledge the uncertainty and seeming incongruence of the times we're in. By every objective measure,

Topics: ai company employees microsoft nadella

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Layoffs surge in tech: More than 100,000 jobs cut in 2025 so far

techspot.com Alfonso Maruccia 2025-12-21 10:16:00

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years.TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust Big quote: As Frank Herbert writes in Dune, "Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." We've now entered the second half of the year, and tech-related layoffs have already skyrocketed past the 100,000 mark. The Bridge Chronicle has compiled a list of the most outstanding mass layoffs a

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NASA may lose close to 4,000 employees after latest deferred resignation round

engadget.com Unknown 2025-12-24 09:44:52

The second round of deferred resignations for NASA staff closed on Friday, and the agency says roughly 3,000 employees applied to leave, according to Bloomberg . The Trump administration first offered the deferred resignation program as a buyout to government workers in January as it gutted the federal workforce under the guidance of DOGE — then led by Elon Musk — asking employees to resign while still receiving benefits and pay for a period of time. In the earlier round, 870 NASA employees repo

Topics: 000 employees leave nasa round

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4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

news.ycombinator.com Unknown 2025-12-23 21:17:03

Nearly 4,000 NASA employees have opted to leave the space agency through the Trump administration's deferred resignation program, NASA said on Saturday. The cuts amount to an estimated 20% of NASA's workforce, and will reduce the agency from 18,000 to 14,000 employees, NASA spokesperson Cheryl Warner said in a statement shared with NPR. The total number includes the agency's loss of 500 other workers due to normal attrition, she said. During a second round of the program, which closed at midni

Topics: agency cuts employees nasa said

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A Top NASA Official Is Among Thousands of Staff Leaving the Agency

wired.com Stephen Clark 2026-01-01 14:00:00

You can add another name to the thousands of employees leaving NASA as the Trump administration primes the space agency for a 25 percent budget cut. On Monday, NASA announced that Makenzie Lystrup will leave her post as director of the Goddard Space Flight Center on Friday, August 1. Lystrup has held the top job at Goddard since April 2023, overseeing a staff of more than 8,000 civil servants and contractor employees and a budget last year of about $4.7 billion. These figures make Goddard the

Topics: employees goddard lystrup nasa space

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Supermassive Games is delaying Directive 8020 and laying off staff

engadget.com Unknown 2026-01-02 22:58:15

Supermassive Games, the developer behind story-driven games like Until Dawn, The Quarry and The Dark Pictures Anthology, is cutting its workforce due to the ongoing "challenging" state of the games industry. The studio says it’s having to adapt its team structure and as a consequence expects to lose up to 36 employees. The current size of the Supermassive’s staff is unclear, but in February last year it cut somewhere in the region of 90 jobs, at which time Bloomberg estimated the studio had mor

Topics: 8020 developer employees games supermassive

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xAI workers balked over training request to help “give Grok a face,” docs show

arstechnica.com Unknown 2026-01-03 14:31:42

Dozens of xAI employees expressed concerns—and many objected—when asked to record videos of their facial expressions to help "give Grok a face," Business Insider reported. BI reviewed internal documents and Slack messages, finding that the so-called project "Skippy" was designed to help Grok learn what a face is and "interpret human emotions." It's unclear from these documents if workers' facial data helped train controversial avatars that xAI released last week, including Ani—an anime compani

Topics: bi data employees grok xai

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Nearly 3,000 people are leaving NASA, and this director is one of them

arstechnica.com Unknown 2026-01-04 14:44:05

You can add another name to the thousands of employees leaving NASA as the Trump administration primes the space agency for a 25 percent budget cut. On Monday, NASA announced that Makenzie Lystrup will leave her post as director of the Goddard Space Flight Center on Friday, August 1. Lystrup has held the top job at Goddard since April 2023, overseeing a staff of more than 8,000 civil servants and contractor employees, and a budget last year of about $4.7 billion. These figures make Goddard the

Topics: employees goddard lystrup nasa space

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EPA Employees Still in the Dark as Agency Dismantles Scientific Research Office

wired.com Molly Taft 2026-01-04 23:26:48

Employees of the crucial scientific research arm of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been left with more questions than answers as the agency moves to officially wind down the office following months of back-and-forth. On Friday evening, the EPA issued a press release announcing a reduction in force at the Office of Research and Development (ORD), citing the move as part of a larger effort to save a purported $748.8 million. On Monday, some employees at ORD, the largest office in

Topics: agency employees epa ord wired

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The Halo Effect

news.ycombinator.com Unknown 2026-01-02 18:57:06

Notes on the recent trend of “Hire and License Out” deals in AI Halos are made when souls leave their companies and ascend to the Clouds Over the last year, a new breed of deal structure has emerged in AI: an alternative to acquisitions and hiring that shares traits of both yet isn’t quite either. Companies like Inflection, Character AI, Adept, Covariant and most recently Windsurf have used this new structure in a common pattern. A core team from the startup–usually including the founders and

Topics: ai companies employees halos people

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Microsoft’s constant layoffs risk creating a culture of fear

theverge.com Tom Warren 2026-01-08 12:00:00

is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. I can’t open LinkedIn without seeing a new post from a Microsoft employee who lost their job in the company’s latest round of layoffs. Around 15,000 jobs have been eliminated at Microsoft over the past couple months — the biggest cuts at the company in more than a decade. I’ve spoken to more than a dozen Microsoft employees in recent weeks, and everyone is concerned about the

Topics: ai employees layoffs microsoft xbox

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60% of managers use AI to make decisions now, including whom to promote and fire - does yours?

zdnet.com Radhika Rajkumar 2026-01-16 14:33:36

Mohamad Faizal Bin Ramli/Getty Images A recent survey from Resume Builder finds that half of managers are using AI to make crucial decisions about their direct reports, including which employees are promoted -- and which are fired. The survey polled 1,342 managers in the US, 60% of whom reported relying on AI to make decisions about their employees: 78% and 77% used the technology to award raises and promotions, respectively, while 66% and 64% used it to determine layoffs and terminations, res

Topics: ai employees managers tools use

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Cognition to buy AI startup Windsurf days after Google poached CEO in $2.4 billion licensing deal

cnbc.com Ashley Capoot 2026-01-18 23:45:12

In this photo illustration, a man seen holding a smartphone with the logo of US artificial intelligence company Cognition AI Inc. in front of website. Artificial intelligence startup Cognition announced it's acquiring Windsurf, the AI coding company that lost its CEO and several other senior employees to Google just days earlier. Cognition said on Monday that it will purchase Windsurf's intellectual property, product, trademark, brand and talent, but didn't disclose terms of the deal. It's the

Topics: cognition deal employees google windsurf

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Amazon warehouse workers lose jobs after Trump's immigration crackdown: 'We have done everything legally'

cnbc.com Annie Palmer 2026-01-24 18:45:36

In this article AMZN Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT A worker prepares orders at an Amazon.com Inc. fulfillment center. Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images Daphnee Poteau, a Haitian who came to the U.S in 2023, began working for Amazon last year at a returns center in Indianapolis. While packing up boxes, she met her husband Kristopher Vincent, who's been at the site, known as IND8, since 2013. Last month, Poteau was contacted by the Department of Homeland Security, after th

Topics: amazon employees poteau said vincent

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Google’s Sergey Brin Calls U.N. Report on Big Tech’s Relationship With Israel ‘Antisemitic’

gizmodo.com Aj Dellinger 2026-01-27 04:35:03

Last month, the United Nations released a report alleging that many major global corporations, including several Big Tech companies, have profited off of Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza because of their insistence on continuing to do business with the Israeli government and military. In response, according to internal messages seen by the Washington Post, Google co-founder Sergey Brin told employees that the U.N. is “transparently antisemitic.” Cool. Brin’s response came in an intern

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Ingram Micro starts restoring systems after ransomware attack

bleepingcomputer.com Unknown 2026-01-27 18:13:50

Ingram Micro has begun restoring systems and business services after suffering a massive SafePay ransomware attack right before the July 4th holiday. Last Thursday, IT distributor and services giant Ingram Micro suffered a global outage, with their website and ordering systems taken offline, and employees told to work from home. Saturday morning, BleepingComputer exclusively reported that a SafePay ransomware attack was behind the outage, with the company confirming a ransomware attack later t

Topics: attack employees ingram micro orders

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Amazon asked corporate employees to help fulfill grocery deliveries for Prime Day

engadget.com Unknown 2026-01-30 23:10:22

Amazon has asked its white collar employees to help fulfill grocery deliveries for Prime Day, according to The Guardian. The company has reportedly sent out a Slack message to its corporate workers in New York City, asking for "volunteers to help [it] out with Prime Day to deliver to customers on [its] biggest days yet." That message went out to everyone from engineers to marketers. Specifically, Amazon wants its officer workers to "volunteer" their time in two-hour shifts between 10AM and 6PM f

Topics: amazon corporate day employees orders

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Latest Tech News

OpenAI gives some employees a ‘special’ multimillion-dollar bonus

Six arrests over attempted theft of trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process [U]

Three weeks after acquiring Windsurf, Cognition offers staff the exit door

TSMC launches legal action against former employees for allegedly trying to leak 2nm trade secrets

TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

Tim Cook reportedly tells employees Apple ‘must’ win in AI

Fired by video: Atlassian terminates 150 workers using pre-recorded video, sparking criticism

More details emerge on how Windsurf’s VCs and founders got paid from the Google deal

Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

Trump’s AI Action Plan is a distraction

NASA faces brain drain as thousands exit under voluntary resignation scheme

Nearly 4,000 NASA Employees Quit as Part of Trump Buyouts

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella addresses 'painful' layoffs, discusses ambitious AI plans in company memo

Layoffs surge in tech: More than 100,000 jobs cut in 2025 so far

NASA may lose close to 4,000 employees after latest deferred resignation round

4k NASA employees opt to leave agency through deferred resignation program

A Top NASA Official Is Among Thousands of Staff Leaving the Agency

Supermassive Games is delaying Directive 8020 and laying off staff

xAI workers balked over training request to help “give Grok a face,” docs show

Nearly 3,000 people are leaving NASA, and this director is one of them

EPA Employees Still in the Dark as Agency Dismantles Scientific Research Office

The Halo Effect

Microsoft’s constant layoffs risk creating a culture of fear

60% of managers use AI to make decisions now, including whom to promote and fire - does yours?

Cognition to buy AI startup Windsurf days after Google poached CEO in $2.4 billion licensing deal

Amazon warehouse workers lose jobs after Trump's immigration crackdown: 'We have done everything legally'

Google’s Sergey Brin Calls U.N. Report on Big Tech’s Relationship With Israel ‘Antisemitic’

Ingram Micro starts restoring systems after ransomware attack

Amazon asked corporate employees to help fulfill grocery deliveries for Prime Day

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