Reuters World News - Altman’s Microsoft move, Argentina’s shock, hostage hopes and TikTok dupes

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

OpenAI’s former CEO Sam Altman joins Microsoft days after being ousted. Hopes for a hostage deal in Gaza. Argentina elects a far-right libertarian. Duplicate products are wooing shoppers on social media who want brand equivalents at low prices. Plus, Napoleon’s hat record.  Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, Microsoft swoops in to hire the ousted boss of OpenAI. Talks to free some of the hostages in Gaza heat up. Argentina elects a radical libertarian as president. And as we gear up for Black Friday, hear how brand duplicates are riding a retail wave on social media. It's Monday, November 20th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front-loaf. lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Kim Vennel in London. It was a surprise move that rocked the tech world. The CEO of OpenAI, the company behind Chat GPT, was fired by his board. And after 48

hours of furious negotiations, Sam Altman is not returning. He's joining Microsoft instead, OpenAI's biggest backer. Here to help us make sense of all this is Jeffrey Dassey. So, Jeffrey, Sam Altman moving to Microsoft. How major is this? This is a huge development in this ongoing saga that started when Sam was ousted from OpenAI on Friday. What this seems to mean is that the team previously running Open AI, or at least part of the team running Open AI, its CEO, Sam Aldman, its president, Greg Brockman and others are going to carry on their AI research work and possibly product development inside Microsoft. It's our understanding that Sotcha, Nadella, and Sam Aldman have had an excellent working

relationship, and there have been reports over the weekend that Nadella was on Team Sam Altman, that he wanted Sam to be back running Open AI after this turn of events. And so when that didn't happen, he seems to have given Sam the opportunity to go to Microsoft. You know, we had heard about Sam maybe launching a new venture, but this appears to be doing that within the context of Microsoft. What do all these changes mean for OpenAI and AI generally? It's not entirely clear still at this juncture what OpenAI as a standalone organization will focus on. What we might see going forward is a shift in the landscape of AI and the major labs that are driving this space, this sector. We are going to see perhaps reorientation and who's doing the most interesting research and who's developing products.

A deal to free some of the hostages held in Gaza could be edging closer. Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Herzog, told ABC this week, efforts to free hostages were serious. We are hopeful that we can get significant number of hostages freed in the coming days. About 240 people were taken during Hamas's deadly cross-border rampage into Israel on October the 7th. The hostage negotiations come as Israel prepares to expand its six-week-old offensive in Gaza. Israel's military is shifting its focus to Gaza's southern half, but the US has warned them to take into account the safety of Palestinian civilians.

Gaza's Hamas-run government says at least 13,000 Palestinians have been killed so far in the conflict, including over 5,000 children. Argentina has a new president. Right-wing libertarian, Javier Millet, wrote a wave of voting. anger to take office over the peronist candidate. Lucinda Elliott covers the southern cone. She was in Buenos Aires last night as the results came in. So Lucinda, a shock to Argentina?

Yes. I mean, indeed, Malé has brought libertarianism to power and pushed the centre left out. I mean, it's important to state how exceptional this is in Argentina. Back in 2019 during the last election that I covered, the libertarian candidate polled maybe less than 5% of the public vote. What's the mood like? So I was down at Malay's bunker tonight outside a hotel, and the mood really was pure relation.

The public was also very mixed. I mean, they were old and young. They had pensioners, a few mothers pushing prams saying how this was really a historic moment of change. But earlier in the day, I'd actually joined those who'd gathered for the perinist candidate, Sergio Massa, and some said how they felt very threatened. and fearful of Millay, what he may do, he's got plans to slice the state budget, reduce subsidies to the poor. So it is very mixed, although obviously the results show that a sizable proportion

of the public are behind him. Tell us about the centrepiece of the economic reform who's been elected on. The centrepiece really is the idea of dollarising the economy and what he calls is sort of blowing up the central bank, although he's really moderated his message in recent weeks. One of the big issues is that prices in Argentina do not reflect the market value of products, which creates these enormous distortions and inefficiencies which he has pledged to eliminate. But undoing this kind of maze of subsidies and quite uncompetitive policies will be very painful. For example, I was reading that one pizza in a restaurant is the same as buying 200 train tickets. A kilo of traditional matte tea, which is cultivated here and in Brazil, is the average monthly

electricity bill in Buenos Aires. So these enormous distortions that he's promised to get rid of, and that's really what investors and locals will be looking at next, how he actually plans to do it and how successful he'll be. Rosalind Carter, wife of President Jimmy Carter, has died, aged 96. Ukraine's president, Vladimir Zelensky, has sacked the commander of the Ukrainian medical forces. Zelenzky's move coincides with debate over the conduct of the 20th. 20-month-old war against Russia, with questions over how quickly a counter-offensive in the east and south is proceeding. Time now for markets and the good times are rolling for Japanese shares. Kamal Krimmins is here. Hey Kim, yes, Japanese equities have hit highs not seen

since 1990. Strong earnings and foreign demand are fueling the winning streak. Corporate profits have hit a record high. They're benefiting from a weak yen and the return of some pricing power for companies after decades of deflation. Inflation expectations are also picking up, which may encourage Japanese households to invest more of their savings. All in, the Nikai is up nearly 30% for the year so far, and Japanese stocks are still very cheap by international standards, so there could be more road to run here. Some of you might have started your holiday shopping already, or indulged in a little self-gifting, but have you paid for a brand product or looked for a dupe? Major retailers are competing with these TikTok popularized replicas. Kate Masters has the story. So Kate, how are people finding these brand

duplicates or dupics as they're more widely known? Big e-commerce companies like Amazon and Shopify have affiliate programs. And so if you're an influencer, if you're big on TikTok, if you're big on Instagram, you can be rewarded for listing links to dupes that you recommend to your followers. And so that's kind of created this cycle where there's this high demand for dupes. but it's also perpetuated by all the folks on Instagram and TikTok who are going on the platforms and recommending them. Have the brands objected to these dupes being sold on marketplaces like Amazon? So I guess one sort of clarification that's often used between dupes and out and out

counterfeits is that dupes sort of operate in this zone where they're completely legal because most of them are not actually using any copyrighted features that would get them in trouble. Amazon says that they strictly prohibit their sellers from using the word dupe or specific brand names when listing their items. And so how far is this impacting the big brands themselves? It's difficult to sort of quantify how much market share they're taking from big name brands. But you can see there are ways that companies are starting to respond. Lulu Lemon, for example, had a dupe swap event in May where the sort of goal or the way that the event was marketed was, hey, turn in your dupe leggings and get a free pair

of our line leggings and you'll be able to see the difference in quality. Other companies seem to be lowering their prices. How effective are any of those campaigns? Is this trend going away or is it only going to grow? I think that this trend will only continue to grow. I mean, obviously in the short term, these cheaper products are taking away sales, but it's difficult to say that there's necessarily deteriorating the value of the original brand because obviously when you buy a dupe, you have some recognition of the original and may actually want the original product and might not just be able to afford it right now. And so there's this idea that maybe dupe shoppers in the short term will eventually become brand shoppers in the long term, but that remains to be seen.

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A hat believed to have belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte has sold for a record $2 million in Paris. Auctionaire Jean-Pierre Osnatt told Reuters

the Black Beaver Bicorne was a trademark for the French general. The record sale comes the same week as Ridley Scott launches his Napoleon biopic. Napoleon is out in cinemas on November 22nd. And that's it for today's episode of Reuters World News. We'll be back on Tuesday with our daily headline show. To make sure you know what's going on in the world, listen in for 10 minutes every weekday. And don't forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.