OpenAI Inks Massive Deal with AMD & French PM Quits After 27 Days

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0:29Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, OpenAI continues to spend more cash than a legacy college freshman with their parents' credit card. Then France in 2025 is looking less stable than France in 1789 after yet another prime minister has resigned. It's Tuesday, October 7th. Let's ride.

0:52Good morning and happy Tuesday. I'll get right to it. We're doing another trivia night next Tuesday here in Manhattan, and you're going to want to be there and bring all your friends. Toby and I have been deep in the lab watching hours of game tape on all the greats. Trebek, Philbin, Jennings, Barker, Harvey, and have gotten an hour and a half of bar trivia down to a science. It's been such a blast meeting all of you during previous trivia nights this year, and we can't wait to see more of you next week. Toby, how do people sign up? Ooh, to sign up, you must solve riddles three to get an invite from Neil and me.

1:25First, no, I'm just kidding. Head to the link in the show description. You are allowed to add one person when you sign up, so if you want to roll up with the squad, make sure to toss that signup link in your group chat. In the meantime, develop those prefrontal cortexes. Gentlemen, ladies, you're good and we'll see you all on Tuesday. And now a word from our sponsor, LinkedIn Ads. Toby, have you ever tried to find the best version of something? Yes, and after years of experimentation, I can confidently say I have the world's best paella recipe. My secret ingredients, hot dogs and shrimp. That's the worst thing I've ever heard.

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2:41But there's an ambitious young prince who wants a spot on the small council, and that is the chip maker AMD. Yesterday, OpenAI and AMD announced a massive partnership in which OpenAI committed to buy loads of AMD chips and eventually acquire a 10 % stake in the company. Neither company mentioned dollar amount specifics, but OpenAI said it would purchase six gigawatts worth of AMD chips, and one gigawatt of capacity is estimated to cost$50 billion. So this is potentially a$300 billion deal. AMD's stock soared 24 % on the day because the agreement was seen as a huge victory as it tries to take market share from NVIDIA.

3:21NVIDIA has exploded into a$4.6 trillion company, the most valuable in the world, because it is the dominant supplier of the accelerator chips needed to train and execute AI programs like ChatGPT. AMD has been far less successful in the AI space than NVIDIA because its chips aren't as good. But OpenAI's commitment is a vote of confidence that AMD could become a significant player. For OpenAI, wow, it's another astonishingly expensive spending plan that shows how desperate it is to lock in the computing infrastructure needed to run its AI systems. In an interview about the deal, CEO Sam Altman said, it's hard to overstate how difficult it's become to get sufficient computing power.

4:00We want it super fast, but it takes some time. Toby, help me make sense of this because the AI economy is starting to look like an MC Escher painting. Just two weeks ago, NVIDIA plowed$100 billion into OpenAI. Now, OpenAI is plowing billions into its biggest competitor, AMD. We are going around in circles here. Yeah, the circle economy of AI is becoming a real economic risk at this point because let's just go through all these deals once more. NVIDIA invests$100 billion in OpenAI. OpenAI uses that same capital to buy NVIDIA chips. AMD gives OpenAI warrants for equity. OpenAI's purchases boosts AMD's valuation.

4:39And then Oracle had this big cloud capacity financing as well that OpenAI wants to rent long term. So everyone is kind of looking at the shape of this thing and it really feels circular. There's just this financial circularity underpinning the entire AI trade at this point. And that has a lot of risk because if anyone drops the ball, if anyone can't fulfill their side of the bargain, maybe OpenAI doesn't scale revenue like it is expecting to. Maybe AMD's chips can't compete with NVIDIA like they think they possibly can. Things start to get a little bit shaky here. This used to be something that financial regulators would look at in the past.

5:18Now it's underpinning the entire global economy, it seems like. So that is the word to know is like financial circularity, the circle economy that seems to be dominating the AI trade. And Sam Altman is perfectly fine with this or at least seems to acknowledge it. He said that we are in a phase of the build out where the entire industry has got to come together and everybody's going to do super well. You're going to see this on chips. You're going to see this on data centers. You're going to see this lower down the supply chain so far. OpenAI has signed about$1 trillion in deals this year for computing power.

5:51And when you compare this to the buildouts in history, I'm thinking railroads or electric grids, this dwarfs all of those in terms of its scale and size and how many few players are concentrated at the top, spending trillions of dollars to build data centers. But you heard this from Mark Zuckerberg at Meta, and you're hearing this from OpenAI as well. They say they are far more worried about failing because of too little compute than too much. And that's why they're opening up their checkbooks and spending an astonishing amount of money amongst each other to build data centers to PowerChat GPT.

6:25You kind of have to say that because what else are you supposed to say to justify this amount of spend? I also want to look at OpenAI as the so-called kingmaker, not just in the AI industry, but just in public markets in general. I go back to last week when they unveiled this instant buy option in chat to BT. What did that do? That sent shares of Shopify and Etsy jumping. These are public companies opening as a private company. And then obviously yesterday when this deal was announced, AMD rocketed. AMD is a very large multi$100 billion company. And yet here is a private company announcing a deal and sending their share price soaring.

7:03So it really is, investors are now looking more closely at a single company and the moves they are making to react to in the public markets, which is just not something we've ever seen. Even if you go back to the biggest startups of all time, the Google, the Facebook days, they weren't moving public equity markets like OpenAI is right now. So we're kind of entering uncharted territory when it comes to one company's influence over the market in general. And more and more leaders are saying, you know what, maybe this is the B word, a bubble. Last week, last Friday, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was speaking on a panel and he called it he called AI a kind of industrial bubble that will mint winners and losers.

7:42And he predicted a sort of shakedown in the public markets when a lot of this capital that's deployed, we know it's trillions of dollars at this point, sort of doesn't have the returns that many investors are expecting. Goldman Sachs, David Solomon said something similar. He said there's going to be some sort of drawdown in the public markets in the next one to two years because the scale of AI spending is just truly hard to wrap your head around. Some estimates suggest that AI CapEx may reach 2 % of GDP in 2025, which would be the equivalent of about$1 ,800 per person in America will be invested this year on AI.

8:20Let's move on. Modern France is making Les Mis seem like a stable time in the country after their latest prime minister, Sébastien Le Cornu, resigned after less than a month in office. That gives Le Cornu the honor of being the shortest serving prime minister in modern French history and the third to fall in just a year. He peaced out less than a day after naming his cabinet, which was full of many of the same ministers from the government that collapsed last month. The snap resignation was surprising, but the problems plaguing France's government are not. It has been running deficits above EU limits for years, currently at 5.8 % of GDP, but any attempts to tighten its budget have failed and usually ended up toppling whatever leadership was trying to do the tightening.

9:04Yesterday's decision spilled into the financial markets almost immediately, with the country's biggest index home to companies like LVMH and Airbus falling at more than 1.4%. Bond yields also spiked as investors demand higher returns after seeing more risk in lending to France. It also led to some existential questions for President Emmanuel Macron, who accepted Le Corneau's resignation without comment, offering only a one-line statement. He now faces pressure to either resign himself or dissolve parliament and call another snap election. Neil, so far, every attempt to reign in France's ballooning deficit and social spending has been met with fierce resistance, both from the left who are defending welfare programs and from the right who oppose tax hikes.

9:46It's more of a disaster than trying to fast cook a beef bourgeon. One of Macron's most loyal supporters, the ecology minister who was appointed less than 24 hours before he had to quit because the prime minister resigned, said, I despair of this circus. And another lawmaker said, We are witnessing an unprecedented political crisis. So they understand sort of the dire straits that they are in. And the key financial market to watch here are bonds and bond yields, because when investors get a little scared of what's going on in your country, it becomes ungovernable. And if people say this is a circus, we can't get anything done.

10:25We need to pass this budget. But they can't because each side is so entrenched. Then you're going to see a little bit of a bond market freak out. And that seems to be what's happening in France. The yield on France's 10-year bonds have risen above Greece's at this point. And Greece is not exactly known for getting its fiscal house in order. But it has compared to France, which has let these deficits and debts balloon. And they're not doing anything to cut it because each side won't give an inch. Yeah, the difference between French and German bond yields, which is usually a proxy for how risky investors believe one country in the EU's debt to be, rose to one of the highest levels it's been in several years.

11:01And it's never good to be in the same sentence as Greek bonds when you're trading at the same level as Greece right now. But any attempts to, you know, rein in this current budget situation has toppled literally three governments in 12 months. Remember, the most recent or I guess the second most recent PM, Francois Bayrou, was ousted over a plan. He wanted to try to rein in spending by getting rid of two national holidays, which to him was this big austerity move. He wanted to say, hey, we're serious about doing this. but it just shows how deeply unpopular that any of these measures actually are.

11:36So right now, investors are looking at France and go, hey, there's a lot of instability here. Like these people cannot get their coalition together. There is no government that wants to see eye to eye, which is a very big flag for the Eurozone's second biggest economy. And so Macron now faces three choices. He could name a new prime minister, which would need to propose a new cabinet. it, but that has sort of failed in the past 12 months. He's tried that four different times. He could call another snap election to get a new parliament in there. This is sort of what sparked the entire chaos in 2024 when he called a new election and they got a new parliament and then it was so fractured that they can't get anything done.

12:16Or he could resign himself. He said he's not going to do that, but a number of his most loyal supporters have come out this morning and say, hey, Macron, I think you got to resign because what we're doing here isn't working and the bond markets are starting to freak out. What does the gigantic multinational consultancy Deloitte and your high school freshman cousin Ethan have in common? They both got nabbed for using AI to cheat on their homework. Yesterday, the Australian government announced that Deloitte will partially refund a contract for nearly$300 ,000 after it acknowledged it was partially made using AI.

12:49Deloitte admitted that some of the footnotes and references it included in the document were false. referencing studies from universities in Sydney and Sweden that simply didn't exist. The contract was for a, quote, independent assurance review that tasked Deloitte with uncovering problems with an automated welfare system that was perhaps too aggressive in punishing job seekers. Deloitte published the review back in July, but after it was found to contain AI-induced errors, it was taken down and a corrected version was uploaded on Friday. The Australian government said that conclusions drawn by the report still stood, AI hallucinations notwithstanding.

13:23But lawmakers lit into Deloitte for taking shortcuts. Labor Senator Deborah O 'Neill said, quote, Deloitte has a human intelligence problem. This would be laughable if it wasn't so lamentable. A partial refund looks like a partial apology for substandard work. She added, perhaps instead of a big consulting firm, procurers would be better off signing up for a chat GPT subscription. And that suggestion strikes at the heart of the existential crisis facing consulting giants as AI gains steam. On the one hand, they see the generative AI revolution as a huge opportunity for them to help companies integrate new technology, their bread and butter.

13:57On the other, if they're using AI to craft their reports, why shouldn't clients cut them out altogether and use AI to save a boatload of money? Toby, it's an interesting time to be a consultant. Yeah, one of the first confirmed cases of a big four consultancy using generative AI in official government work. That is just a lot of flashpoint issues in one single issue. And it has created a lot of discourse around it because even though technically the AI that they use, ChatGPT 4.0, was licensed and it was approved and it was safe, because they failed to mention it in the original report, it's leading to a lot of these question marks of, hey, it is very opaque how professionals are using AI to do work that they are supposedly supposed to be using their minds for.

14:40and they are in this awkward spot because obviously every one of these consultancies want to show that they are a leader on AI, that they know how to be your Sherpa when it comes to adopting AI in your own businesses. But one, they are proving that they're using it far more than they're probably telling you. And two, they're using it very sloppily, like AI hallucinations are something that probably humans should step into the loop and correct. So just a big egg on the face moment right now, even though the dollar amount is probably pennies when it comes to a big firm like Deloitte, but the public perception of it is going to have an outsized impact.

15:12Yeah, they want a slice of this market that's going to be huge. Spending by companies on consulting for generative AI is projected to hit$3.75 billion last year, which is up from$1.3 billion from the year before in 2023. And they want to show that they are adept at AI themselves internally so that they can go to your company and say, hey, we're really good at AI. We want to go to your company and help you integrate AI like we've done. And it's working so seamlessly. And Deloitte clearly doesn't have its ducks in order here. So there was a Wall Street Journal report a few weeks ago that said that a lot of companies that have hired Deloitte, PwC, these other big four consultancies are actually not seeing the returns that they want because these companies don't really know how to integrate AI.

15:58It's still such a new technology. So you have the CIO of Merck saying, we love our partners, but oftentimes they're learning on our dime. So they don't have this playbook in order that maybe they have for legacy technology that they're much more adept at working with companies with. Obviously, that's even still a question about whether they're worth the money. But they seem to have their playbook for those other types of technologies, but are still working it out when it comes to AI. Because a big part of the industry's business model is trust. You need to be able to show like, hey, we have done this before.

16:27We know what works and then we will bring our learnings to you. But when you are a guinea pig as well as a, I'm using the word Sherpa, we are supposed to usher you into the age of AI, but we're figuring it out ourselves. That is a very awkward tension right there. So it really is interesting to see consultancy be this bellwether of how AI is going to be adopted in corporate America in stumbling along the way. Up next, it's Tuesday, which means Toby Strenz. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 answers. It's a bull market. It's a bear market. Rates will rise or fall.

17:04Inflation's up or down. Can someone invent a crystal ball? Until someone does, over 43 ,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one AI cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR all into one fluid platform. With one unified business management suite, there's one source of truth giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. With real-time data insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. When you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next.

17:38Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash brew. That's netsuite.com slash brew. toby and i don't work in accounting so we're shielded from handling company ledgers bank transactions and financial reports but for the pros who do deal with all that fivespan can help make your job easier it embeds your bank right into your accounting software so silo data is centralized and you can get more done and gain better visibility into daily cash positions imagine payments and remittances being sent directly from your accounting software reconciliations that are completed in minutes not hours and financial reports that are consistently accurate and on time you can do more than imagine all that head to f-i-s-p-a-n.com to transform how your firm manages money that's f-i-s-p-a-n.com welcome back to another edition of toby's trends the segment where i take a deep dive into the business world to emerge with a trend that will expand your ability to conversationally woo a partner.

18:51And today's trend is about the beginning of the end for craft beer. Craft beer sales fell 4 % last year, according to the Brewers Association, the first decline in recent history, while more breweries have closed than opened over the last 18 months, also a first for the once red hot industry. As demand falls for craft beers that taste like cardboard smells, big players like Molson Coors are offloading their entire craft beer divisions signaling how quickly you can go from cultural movement to overhyped. A variety of factors have led to craft beer falling flat. Drinking in tap rooms and brew pubs never quite recovered after COVID.

19:28Office workers in craft beer hotspots like SF and DC didn't return in full, killing weekday bar traffic. But more than anything, it's just been a classic oversupply story. Everyone and their mother joined the boom in the last decade to the point where a stroll down the beer aisle started to feel overwhelming rather than exciting. Neil, too much beer, not enough drinkers, a good problem to have when you're in a frat, not so good when you're trying to run a business. Yeah, I call this the Froyo effect. I don't know if you remember 20 years ago when people started to like Froyo and then there decided to be a Froyo store on every single block.

20:03And then eventually there was retrenchment. There was a market correction because how many people could possibly eat Froyo? I think we have the same thing here with super hoppy beer, 10 years ago, there were 4 ,800 craft breweries in the United States. Today, there are nearly 10 ,000. So the number of craft breweries has jumped and demand for super hoppy beer and sours and different types of more specialty beer has declined at the same time. Smaller breweries are facing higher costs across the board, whether it's for ingredients or labor or real estate. And I do think that it is the worst of all worlds when you're kind of this mid-sized player where you're too big to just focus very locally and just be your local brew pub or something like that.

20:51But you're also not big enough to have the economies of scale that Molson Coors, that these giant brew conglomerates have. And so you get squeezed when things like aluminum prices go up, when tariffs come into play. So you're in the worst of all worlds right there. And then also just a lot of cultural shifts have been happening. We're kind of entering into a wellness era where alcohol consumption is on the decline. A lot of young people are opting either not to drink or going for non-alcoholic options, THC options. Even kombucha was eating in at one point, a very similar kind of crowd right there.

21:25And it is funny. We started the show talking about a bubble potentially brewing in OpenAI, but it seems like the bubble already brewed and then was burst in this particular industry because there's just too many brands chasing too niche of an audience. Yeah, I mean, these are so caloric, too. It doesn't seem to fit in with what people want these days. When you get this very big IPA, you're, you know, drinking a meal, essentially. And what's the number one beer in the United States now? Michelob Ultra, which really hangs its hat on being lower calorie and lower carb. And if you look, you mentioned these deals of selling the breweries at the beginning.

21:58And you can kind of see the boom and bust here because Tilray, which is a cannabis company, bought the four breweries from Molson Coors, Terrapin, Hop Valley Revolver, and Atwater for $23 million, which was a fraction of what they paid for it. And then if you go back a couple years or 10 years ago, independent breweries were selling for so much money. Ballast Point, which is a great brewery out of San Diego, sold for$1 billion in 2015 to Constellation Brands. A sign of the times is that they just got rid of their biggest manufacturing facility, in San Diego to who? Athletic Brewing, which is a non-alcoholic beer brand.

22:36And Dogfish Head, the pride of Delaware, sold to Boston Beer for$300 million almost a decade ago. So the times, they've gotten a little tough for craft breweries. And I'm a little worried about certain local economies. But if you go to smaller towns all around the United States, a lot of them have grown a huge brewery base and that runs their local economy. And if these things start to go of the business. It could have some knock on effects there. So, you know, go to your local brew pub and have a few pints to save this struggling industry. OK, let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines.

23:10The impact of the government shutdown is beginning to spread far beyond Washington, D.C. Several airports, including Newark, Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas and Burbank are experiencing delays after an uptick in air traffic controllers calling in sick, The FAA said on Monday, more than 4000 flights were delayed, including 29 percent arriving flights at Denver, 19 percent at Newark and 15 percent at Las Vegas. During shutdowns, air traffic controllers and TSA agents are not paid but still must show up for work. Their first paycheck post shutdown is scheduled for October 14th, but that won't show up in their bank account if the government fails to open in time.

23:47Toby, the longer this goes on, the worse it's going to get for American travelers. Yeah, I think back to the last big government shutdown we had, 2018, 2019. That was a 35-day shutdown, the longest we've had. And part of the reason why that ended was just 10 air traffic controllers didn't show up for work, which caused this cascading effect with delayed flights. We all have been there. Whenever there is air traffic control issues, it does balloon into a much larger issue. So that essentially helped usher the end of that particular government shutdown. So it just shows how important these people are in the cogs of the aviation system because it is a publicly managed program, but it has such large private market effects.

24:28I mean, the air traffic, air industry underpins a large part of our economy. It's a huge part of the private markets as well. So fascinating that even a minor absence can cripple an entire system that can have much larger cascading effects. The banks, they are emerging. Yesterday, Fifth Third Bank agreed to buy Comerica for$10.9 billion, a tie-up of regional lenders that would become the ninth largest bank in the United States. It's the largest banking deal of the year so far, and it's no coincidence it's happening now. Bank CEOs think it's a more hospitable time to consolidate with the deregulatory air of the Trump administration.