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Say this is your financial life. Over time, things can get more complex. With a personalized plan,
Merrill can help you navigate it all. Learn more at ml.com slash bullish. Merrill, a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing involves risk. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., registered broker-dealer, registered investment advisor, member SIPC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America Corp. Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Wednesday, November 27th. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal.
SoftBank Group is doubling down on its investment in OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT. The Japanese tech investment company is starting a tender offer to buy $1.5 billion of OpenAI shares from employees. That's according to a person familiar with the matter. The potential investment would be on top of the $500 million SoftBank invested when the AI startup raised $6.6 billion in a recent round of new funding.
Current and former OpenAI employees will have until December 24th to decide whether to sell their shares. News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content licensing partnership with OpenAI. In a legal victory for crypto advocates, a federal appeals court has rejected the Treasury Department's sanctions on Tornado Cash.
Tornado Cash is a so-called cryptocurrency mixing service that U.S. officials allege was used to launder funds stolen by North Korean hackers. A panel of judges found that the sanctions were in overreach of government authority. They cited with the crypto industry's argument that Tornado Cash's software was not owned by a foreign national or entity, and thereby not an appropriate target for sanctions.
And e-commerce company Shopify is launching a dedicated effort to sign on more big businesses to its platform. Shopify helps companies manage their online storefronts, and its roster of so-called enterprise customers includes Reebok, Overstock, and Barnes & Noble.
Some analysts say the move offers promises of steadier revenue and long-term stability than its typical smaller clients, but it comes at a higher cost since signing on bigger customers is more expensive and time-consuming. Shopify's revenue rose 30% to more than $7 billion in 2023, and according to analysts polled by FaxSet, it's on pace to rise by 28% this year.
We'll be off tomorrow for Thanksgiving, but check back on Friday for a new episode of Tech News Briefing. AI could be the most transformative technology since the advent of the internet itself. So how can we start putting it to work? Find out in the latest episode of AI That Means Business, a new podcast from Google and custom content from WSJ.