The Rundown - OpenAI Declares Code Red, Apple’s AI Chief Steps Down

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Market update for December 2, 2025Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Tuesday, December 2nd. In today's episode, I'll tell you why even Michael Saylor is getting nervous about Bitcoin. I'll also tell you about some huge developments in the AI world. Apple's AI chief is stepping down, and OpenAI is declaring code red. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how much shopping is being. done using buy now pay later this holiday season. We got a great show for you today. Let's go.

The markets kicked off the holiday season with more red than green. The S&P 500 dropped 0.5% on Monday. Well, the NASDAQ was down 0.4%. Both of these indices snapping a five-day winstreet. Honestly, it was a relatively quiet day, though, no major headlines. But historically, December has been a good month for the stock. market. Over the last 20 years, the S&P 500 has gone up 12 times in December, averaging a 0.6% gain over that stretch. That being said, this year we have a critical Fed meeting coming up and also fresh inflation data and jobs data from the government. So this December might be a little more chaotic than usual. Now, speaking of chaos, we have to talk about crypto because Bitcoin dropped

6% on Monday, which was its biggest one day drop since March. Honestly, I was pretty shocked when I read that stat. Bitcoin is now down. down more than 30% from its peak, which was $126,000 back in early October. And some analysts are even concerned that we might be headed for a crypto winter where Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies experience an extended period of falling prices and low liquidity. According to the Wall Street Journal, trading volumes are drying up and inflows into crypto ETFs have slowed way down. Even crypto treasury companies are starting to get pretty nervous right now.

The Bitcoin holding company's strategy, formerly known as micro strategy, hinted at the possibility of having to sell some of their Bitcoin if prices keep falling to meet their dividend and interest payment obligations. Strategy holds roughly 650,000 Bitcoin at an average price of $74,000, which is getting pretty close to the current price of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin keeps falling, strategy could be underwater on their Bitcoin investment. So even Michael Saylor is starting to sweat a bit. So like I said, it's shaping up to be a very interesting and probably volatile December. There's a lot happening in stocks and crypto right now. There's a lot of unknowns. As always, we're going to be staying on top of all the drama, so make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in

every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with Apple. Apple's head of AI, John Ginandrea, aka J.G, is stepping down after seven years at the company. Apple says he'll stay on as an advisor until the spring, but after that, he is officially out. And I got to say, I'm honestly surprised it took this long for Apple to make this move because let's be honest, Apple's AI strategy has been absolutely terrible. What's funny is Tim Cook actually poached JG from Google back in 2018, but it just didn't work out. The Apple intelligence rollout was a disaster. Siri is still hot garbage with revamp efforts behind schedule. So JG is officially out, and Apple is going to be replacing him with another former Googler, Amar Sobramunya. Now, fun fact about Amar,

he was at Google for 16 years where he was the head of engineering for Google's Gemini assistant. But Amar actually left Google earlier this year to work at Microsoft. But now four months later, Apple poached him to be the head of AI. They say it's not great to job hot, but if Apple's calling you to be the head of AI, I think you've got to listen, right? The bigger story here is that Apple's AI troubles continue. They've lost a ton of technical talent this year to meta. So Amar's got a lot of work to do to turn things around.

On paper, though, this seems like a good hire because, Remember, Apple recently did a deal with Google where they're going to be paying Google a billion dollars a year to use Google's AI model to power the revamp Siri, which is expected to launch next year. And since Amar worked at Google and on Gemini specifically, it could make that integration better. On top of that, I'm starting to see this narrative bill that Apple actually might have been right about AI because they're not out here burning hundreds of billions of dollars like these other big tech companies are without seeing much results so far. Hopefully Tim Cook figures out the Siri and AI mess before he retires, because you're not.

because it's one of the few mistakes he's made as CEO. Now, sticking with the AI theme here, let's talk about OpenAI, because they are starting to panic a bit. CEO Sam Altman has declared code red at the company, according to reporting from the information. Sam Altman wants the employees at OpenAI to focus on making chat GPT better after the progress and traction that Google has made with Gemini. A couple weeks ago, Google launched Gemini 3,

which has been crushing most of the benchmarks. You know, I don't really blame Open AI for freaking out, because Google recently said that Gemini now has 650 million monthly active users as of October, which is a huge jump from the 450 million users they had back in the summer. So Gemini is putting up huge growth numbers. Now, ChatGPT still has more users at around 800 million, but the CFO of OpenAI recently admitted that growth for ChatGPT had slowed down. So if Google continues to grow at this pace, they could soon end up catching ChatGPT,

which is pretty crazy. So that's why Sam Altman has initiated Code Red. And what that means is Open AI will now delay working on other projects like AI agents or integrating ads in the chat GPT. And instead, the entire team will now focus on improving chat GPT's responses, speed and reliability. But what I'm wondering, though, is if chat GPT is pausing the rollout of ads, how are they going to make more money? And can they keep raising money from investors if investors see Google as a legit threat to Open AI? Open AI recently said they'll need to raise another $100 billion or so to pay for all the money. massive AI data centers and GPU costs.

If they keep delaying making revenue, they might have a hard time doing that. I guess the one bright spot for OpenAI is that they plan to launch a new reasoning model next week, which Sam Altman says is better than Gemini 3. But I mean, I don't know, man, after the disappointing GPT5 rollout earlier this year, it's hard to get too excited about what Open AI does anymore.

It's also crazy how fast the narratives are changing in the AI world. Six months ago, everyone thought that chat GPT would destroy Google and now Open AI is in code red because of the threat from Google. I know we talk a lot about AI, but I mean, there's a good reason for it. There's just so much happening at all times. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of Credo are rallying this morning after the company just posted record earnings.

Now, Credo isn't a household name, but it's become an important player in the AI infrastructure story. They make high-speed electrical cables and connections that link together. AI servers and data centers. And no surprise, business is booming right now. The company's revenue serves 272% year over year to $268 million, blowing past Wall Street expectations. The company also swung to a profit and even raised its outlook for next year. As a result, shares of Credo are up more than 15% at the open, and it's up more than 140% for the year. So some AI names still got some juice left in them. Now, on the flip side, Shares of Janix Therapeutics are getting crushed today after the pharma company released early

trial results for its prostate cancer drug. And as I've said in the past, pharma stocks are just wild to me because the headline was that these results were positive. But I guess it wasn't enough for investors and the stock is tanking right now down more than 40% this morning. Farma investors must have ice water in their veins because like how do you deal with jumps like this? Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. 38% of shoppers used Buy Now Pay Later for at least one purchase over Black Friday weekend. That's more than one in three Americans. We've had a record-breaking start to the holiday shopping season.

Americans spent over $43 billion online in the five-day period, including Thanksgiving. Turns out the concerns around a slowing economy and a slowing labor market hasn't stopped Americans from shopping. But it looks like a decent chunk of that shopping is happening on debt and services like Buy Now Pay Later. In fact, Adobe estimates that American shoppers will spend more than $20 billion online through Buy Now Pay Later between November 1st and December 31st. That's an 11% increase from last year. So, you know, we know that Buy Now Pay Later has become more and more popular as an alternative to credit cards.

But it really makes you wonder how Q1 is going to look for consumers once these Buy Now Pay Later bills start coming due in January. On a side note, I did do some Black Friday shopping myself. And it's funny how my shopping has changed over the years. Back in the day, I was buying all the classic, you know, TVs, video games, electronics. This year, I got shoes, socks, and a vacuum cleaner. And honestly, I couldn't be happier. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today.

Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you are listening on Spotify, don't forget to vote in today's Spotify poll. Leave us a comment on Spotify. All that engagement really does help us out, and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching, and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.

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