Microsoft reuses its OpenAI playbook with Inflection takeover

Let’s say you want to buy a company. Said company wants to sell, and you could afford it. But there’s one big problem: regulators really don’t like when you buy companies. You know they’ll fight like hell to block you from buying this one. What do you do?

You do what Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella just did to Inflection, a would-be OpenAI challenger that raised hundreds of millions of dollars and is, for all intents and purposes, no more. This week, both companies announced that most of Inflection’s staff is joining a new AI division at Microsoft led by co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, who now reports directly to Nadella. The only co-founder of Inflection who will remain on the startup’s board is noted Microsoft board member Reid Hoffman.