TRICK OR TREAT: OpenAI is for profit, Goldman CEO can’t count women, John Malone “steps down”

Story of the Week (DR):

TRICK OR TREAT EDITION

1. Bill Gates and his 'three truths': 'Climate change will not wipe out humanity'

1. Trick: a gift to MAGA MM

2. Treat: a focus on poverty

3. The 3 truths:

1. "It's a serious problem, but it won't be the end of humanity"

2. "temperature is not the best way to measure progress on climate"

3. "health and prosperity are the best defence against climate change"

4. Bill Gates’ 180 on Climate Change: ‘It’s Not Doomsday’

5. Climate change won't end civilization, says Bill Gates

6. Bill Gates Backtracks on Climate Change Doomsaying: ‘Will Not Lead to Humanity’s Demise’

7. Memo From Bill Gates Warns Against Climate Alarmism

8. Bill Gates now says climate change won't be as serious as he fears - and calls for more spending on vaccines instead

9. Bill Gates Says Climate Change Isn’t So Bad After All

10. Bill Gates Delivers ‘Tough Truths’ on Climate Just Before Big U.N. Talks

11. In surprising turn, Bill Gates pens essay calling to reconsider investments on 'climate change'

12. Bill Gates pivots climate strategy to focus on poverty over carbon emissions reduction

13. We won: Trump claims climate change hoax defeat after Bill Gates' comments

14. But then there’s:

1. Report warns climate change causing millions of preventable deaths each year

2. Annual climate change report finds “planet on the brink”

2. OpenAI completes for-profit restructuring and grants Microsoft a 27% stake in the company

1. Trick or Treat?

1. Trick: OpenAI has completed its for-profit recapitalization and converted its for-profit arm into the OpenAI Group Public Benefit Corporation

2. Treat: The corporation remains controlled by the nonprofit foundation.

3. Trick: Under the deal, Microsoft has gained a 27% stake and retained access to OpenAI’s technology through 2032, including any AGI models verified by an independent panel.

4. Treat: Microsoft has gained a 27% stake

5. The agreement lifts long-standing capital restrictions and ends Microsoft’s exclusive cloud rights.

3. Layoffs are piling up, raising worker anxiety. Here are some companies that have cut jobs recently

1. Amazon 14,000 (4%)

2. Paramount Global 2,000 (10%)

3. UPS 48,000

4. Target Corporation 1,800 (8%)

5. Nestlé 16,000 (6%)

6. Lufthansa Group 4,000

7. Novo Nordisk 9,000 (11%)

8. ConocoPhillips 2,600–3,250 (20–25%)

9. Intel Corporation 24,500 (24%)

10. Microsoft 15,000 (3%)

11. Procter & Gamble 7,000 (6%)

12. Charter Communications 1,200 (1%)

13. Workday 1,750 (9%)

14. Some of the most Halloween-ish phrases in recent  layoff memos:

1. “Building a strong, future‑focused company” Paramount Skydance

2. “Roles that are no longer aligned with our evolving priorities” Paramount

3. “Reducing bureaucracy, removing layers, shifting resources” Amazon

4. “Investing in our biggest bets” Amazon

5. “We need to be organized more leanly … to move as quickly as possible”

6. “We recognize these actions affect our most important asset: our people.” Paramount

7. “Thriving business / success built on bold bets” YouTube

8. The eerie subtext:

1. Paramount: neopbaby David Ellison (daddy is world’s 2nd richest man)

2. Amazon: Jeff Bezos is world’s 3rd richest man

3. YouTube (Alphabet): Larry Page and Sergey Brin are 4th and 6th richest men, respectively

15. Trick: the layoffs

16. Treat: ummmm…. The announcement didn’t happen six days before Christmas??

4. CEOs who are also board chairs are the problem not the solution, says top governance expert

1. Trick: the utter bullshit of the protected class: Charles Elson, founding director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware and a director on several boards over his career: "I well recall the CEO and board chair of a manufacturing company (which I won’t name) telling me smugly he had just bought a corporate airplane for his directors to use. He said he didn’t expect much trouble from them after that."

1. He currently serves on the board of Encompass Health

2. Previously at Circon Corporation*, Sunbeam Corporation*, Nuevo Energy, AutoZone, Alderwoods Group, and Bob Evans Farms

2. Treat: We’re always right MM

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

1. DR: Renewable energy and EVs have grown so much faster than experts predicted 10 years ago and Brazil boasts drop in deforestation ahead of UN climate talks

2. MM: Billionaires are spending big to stop Zohran Mamdani's NYC mayoral bid for this quote: DR

1. “They’re spending more money than I would even tax them,” Mamdani said in an interview with MSNBC Tuesday.

Assholiest Seven Deadly Sinnliest of the Week (MM):

1. Wrath: Serious New Hack Discovered Against OpenAI’s New AI Browser

1. Most browsers store passwords or stay logged in to banks and other sites - OpenAI’s browser allows a hacker to inject a prompt into the AI that says something like “send all money in your bank account to this account” without you even knowing

2. It does not allow you to say “depose Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI”

2. Gluttony DR: John C. Malone to Transition to Chairman Emeritus of Liberty Media Corporation

1. Release quote: “effective January 1, 2026, long-standing Chairman of the Board, John C. Malone, will step down from the board of directors”

2. Release reality: “Man with 49.2% voting power over company sits in corner of board meetings he feels like going to and demands to know why the donuts are all plain jelly and not powdered sugar jelly before firing the entire board he’s not technically on.”

3. Sloth: Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon: The bank hasn't made enough progress in hiring women

1. When asked, “Solomon estimated that women make up 41% of Goldman's total workforce on Thursday, although he said he was not certain of the percentage.”

4. Pride: Delta calls on Congress to immediately end government shutdown, pay air traffic controllers

1. 58% of Delta political contributions were to this GOP, with majority of committee lobbying/spending for appropriation committee republicans

5. Envy: Turns Out, Wikipedia Isn't That 'Woke' As Grokipedia Rips Off Most of Its Pages

1. Grokipedia’s Article on the Cybertruck Clearly Shows Why the Whole Project Is Doomed

2. Most of Grokipedia’s 800,000 articles currently are copies of Wikipedia - except when Musk tweets something, then Grok replaces parts of the article with essentially Musk’s thoughts

3. This is what he wants an extra $1tn to accomplish

6. Lust: Meta denies torrenting porn to train AI, says downloads were for “personal use”

1. Strike 3 Holdings discovered illegal downloads of some of its adult films on Meta corporate IP addresses, as well as other downloads that Meta allegedly concealed using a “stealth network” of 2,500 “hidden IP addresses.” Accusing Meta of stealing porn to secretly train an unannounced adult version of its AI model powering Movie Gen, Strike 3 sought damages that could have exceeded $350 million

7. Greed: OpenAI Restructure Paves Way for IPO and AI Spending Spree

1. IPO expected to open at a $1tn valuation - it’s last funding round was a $500bn valuation a month ago

2. The non profit - the part that is expected to create AI for the benefit of all humanity - currently owns 26% of the new for profit structure and “controls” the board

1. The board has on it Bret Taylor (ex boards of Salesforce - co founder, Twitter), Adam D’Angelo (Asana, CEO Quora, ex CTO Facebook), Sue Desmond-Hellmann (Pfizer, ex Gates Foundation CEO, ex Meta board), Zico Kolter (co founder Gray Swan AI, professor, ex Stanford), Gen Paul Nakasone (ex NSA, cybersecurity), Bayo Ogunlesi (Blackrock, Topgolf, Kosmos Energy, ex Goldman board, investment banker), Nicole Seligman (lawyer for Ollie North, ex Sony), and Larry Summers (ex Harvard prez, current douchebag, ex Epstein island, ex Sec of Treasury)

2. So 100% of the board is 100% for profit assholes picked by the 26% non profit entity to offset the for profit motivations of… Microsoft, who owns 27% of the shares

Headliniest of the Week

1. DR: Claim that climate change does not affect bananas lacks context

2. MM: Secret Double Octopus Appoints Former NetApp CEO Dan Warmenhoven to its Board of Directors

1. How are we not taken seriously when this company is a cybersecurity firm that works with banks??

3. MM: Embattled ​Tylenol Maker Kenvue Hires New Marketing Chief

1. Problem solved!

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: climate change deniers

2. MM: Jim Umpleby, current Executive Chair at Caterpillar, who Jim Cramer just called a "visionary", when JUST LAST WEEK we pointed out there are 122 non founder or family exec chairs roaming around (like Umpleby) who have a long history of just below average performance

Predictions

1. DR: Bill Gates’ next billionaire truth: "Pumpkins are not actually orange. And we should be thinking about grapefruits instead."

2. MM: Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon looks up the number of women who work at Goldman