I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving Holiday shortened week. This week's newsletter will be short because I was far more focused on making sure I had a Food Coma and ignored the news for the most part. So enjoy this chibi version of the Rambling Mind Newsletter Market Update.
Topics Covered:
OpenAI (creators of ChatGPT) DRAMA that puts Hollywood to shame
Stats of The Week:
$60 Million in Medical Debt Wiped Away
$5.6 Billion Spent on Thanksgiving Day
$10 Billion Spent on Black Friday
Man U Won a Game
College Football Rivalry Week was insane, especially the Iron Bowl
My Food Coma is still in effect
Markets
This newsletter is 1,072 words a 5 min read
Tale of the Tape
🤯😱TL;DR of OpenAI Drama
😮How it Started: Sam Altman the CEO of OpenAI, better known as the company that created ChatGPT, was fired by the OpenAI Board of Directors on Friday, November 17th. Completely out of nowhere.
When I say out of nowhere, I mean NO ONE knew about it. Even the investors in the company did not know this was about to happen. The largest investor in the company, Microsoft*, found out about the firing literally 1 minute before a statement was made public. Very important to note Microsoft because they have invested/is investing over $10 billion in the company and is really the only source of income and revenue for the company. So typically courtesy would be to let your largest investor and customer know when you are changing things up and why.
Speaking of which, it has been a week and we still have no idea why the board fired Sam in the first place.
😤How it Went: Satya Nadella, being the absolute Chessmaster that he is, hires Sam Altman and another top executive from OpenAI to be the new CEO of Microsoft’s AI ventures at 2 am on Sunday, November 19th. After trying to get the board to rehire Sam, which they refused to do. While at the same time publicly stating that they still support OpenAI (meaning: we are about to pillage you for all you are worth if you do not do as we say.)
Monday, November 20th, a letter signed by 700 of OpenAI’s 750 employees demanded Sam Altman be rehired and the board step down. Or they would all be going to work for Microsoft. Microsoft announced at the same time that it is making space available for any and all OpenAI employees who want to work for Microsoft.
😏How It Is Going: On Tuesday, November 21st OpenAI Board of Directors all stepped down. Sam Altman is rehired and creates a new board of directors.
👑Takeaway: IF you gonna come for the king, YOU BEST NOT MISS! Sam being fired was like Steve Jobs being fired except after Steve Jobs just announced the iPhone and Apple is flying high. It is that unexpected and shocking.
If you are going for a Coup D’Etat, you gotta have allies. You cannot do things in a silo and hope everyone will agree with you. Sam had all the power on his side: the money, the employees, and public opinion. If the board had done a better job with messaging, maybe they would have been able to pull it off. But with vague and empty statements, they dug their own grave and gave Sam all the leverage.
If you want more on this Soap Opera, check out these links:
For a quick video breakdown check out my guy Admani_explains
For a detailed day by day reenactment using memes check out Trung Phan:
A few of my fav from Trung:
Stats of the Week
The amount of Medical Debt that was wiped out by a "debt Jubilee" campaign by a 38-year-old book publisher named Casey McIntyre. She was not alive to witness it. Her husband started the campaign through a nonprofit called RIP Medical Debt after she died of Ovarian cancer as a way to memorialize her. The initial campaign goal of $100,000 was completely smashed through. As of Monday, the campaign had almost $700,000 in donations.
RIP Medical wipes out $10,000 of medical for every $100 donated. So the $673,386.40 donated so far translates to close to $70 million. SO AMAZING!!
The amount spent on Thanksgiving Day. A 5.5% growth from last year, according to Adobe Analytics. Almost double the amount spent in 2017.
We spent another $10 billion online during Black Friday. The American Superpower will never be limited. The sales season is when it shows up in full force.
Looking Ahead
Honestly, I have no idea what might be happening this week. I know Crowdstrike (my third largest single stock position, 2% of my entire net worth) will be reporting earnings on Tuesday but that is about it.
Gonna be a rough week getting back into the swing of things. Still having residual effects of the Food Coma from Thanksgiving.
Sports I Love
Man U Won A Game
and it was not by luck. Yeah I am just as shocked as you are. Then again Everton is pretty trash so not much to get excited about there. But a win is a win, I will take it! Also, Garnacho did the DAYUM THING!
Iron Bowl
That ending was INSANE!! Still cannot believe that Auburn did not win this game. They had it in the bag and Bama was actively trying to lose the game. I didn’t believe that in a rivalry game what you have done up to that point does not matter. I thought Bama would wipe the floor with Auburn but I was wrong. It was the same in almost every single rivalry game on Saturday.
Washington barely beat Washington State. Washington on paper is much better than Washington State.
Louisville lost to Kentucky. On paper, Louisville should have bet down Kentucky
Florida State barely beat Florida, again Florida State is the 4th ranked team in the country it should not have been close.
I expected more games to be like the Georgia vs Georgia-Tech game where it was initially close but Georgia dominated in the 2nd Half. Or Oregon vs Oregon State where Oregon did what they have done to every other team and beat them down.
Guess Rivalry games some years are just different. Emotions get into the mix and the whole game changes.
*I am a tiny shareholder in this company.