Chris Lehane, Tech’s Weather Vane; Google (Finally) Gets Some AI Respect

Chris Lehane is beginning to look like the weather vane of tech. As we scooped today, the Clinton White House veteran is likely to join OpenAI, giving the ChatGPT creator some political muscle. Notably, Lehane is jumping to OpenAI after two years at crypto-focused venture capital firm Haun Ventures, which he joined in January 2022 as the crypto bubble was peaking. He took that job after six years at Airbnb, during a period in which it went from a hot startup to a publicly traded success story. Lehane is like the fictional film character Zelig, making an appearance in many of tech’s biggest stories.

Elsewhere in AI, investors got a wake-up call today about the prowess of Google in the sector, which the market has been arguably underestimating in its discounting of Google shares. A Bloomberg report that Apple was in talks to license Google’s Gemini chatbot for the iPhone sent stocks of both companies rallying. Google stock, which has been badly lagging that of rival internet-ad giant Meta Platforms, jumped as much as 7.8%, while Apple stock rose as much as 3% early on, although the rally for both diminished throughout the day. The Bloomberg report suggests Google’s deep roots in AI will enable it to build a lucrative business, even if it was slower off the mark than OpenAI to launch a chatbot.