(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) |
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It’s-a hit! “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” cleared $372.5 million globally over the long weekend, but the special power-up was really the Yoshi popcorn bucket, which pushed “Mario Galaxy” into the second-best merchandising program ever for AMC.
The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 managed to maintain gains on Monday, and oil rose amid a volatile session. Despite the whipsawing, this was statistically the most boring trading day in US stocks since the war began.
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Fresh off booking $122 billion at a valuation of $852 billion, OpenAI’s top brass reportedly have a difference of opinion on how quickly the ChatGPT maker should pursue its highest-profile fundraising — an IPO — as well as how much computing power it should be buying.
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The Information reports that CFO Sarah Friar “told some colleagues earlier this year that she didn’t believe the company would be ready to go public in 2026, because of the procedural and organizational work needed and the risks from its spending commitments,” citing a person who spoke with her.
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CEO Sam Altman wants to go public as soon as Q4, in line with previous press on the matter, with some inside the firm looking to beat fellow chatbot company Anthropic to the punch.
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While there may not be too much daylight between going public in Q4 and not being ready to go public until 2027, the strategic divide between Altman and Friar apparently runs even deeper.
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These frictions have reportedly led to Altman icing out his CFO. Citing people who have worked closely with the pair, the outlet reports that Altman has “excluded [Friar] from some conversations related to the company’s financial plans.” |
- Altman has made gigantic commitments of $600 billion in compute spend through 2030.
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But Friar has reportedly “said she wasn’t sure yet whether OpenAI would need to pour so much money into obtaining AI servers in the coming years or whether its revenue growth, which has been slowing, would support the commitments.”
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OpenAI expects to burn tens of billions per year for the rest of the decade, peaking at $85 billion in 2028, before achieving profitability in 2030.
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The kerfuffle comes at a moment when OpenAI is really trying to paint a picture of a world that will be utterly transformed by its tech.
OpenAI has published a policy paper titled “Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age,” which lays out a list of proposals that would radically shift how our economy works. It also calls for mitigations to help protect against some of the “dangerous systems” that may come about with the advent of artificial general intelligence. The paper projects that people will rapidly see the benefits of AI in the form of lower costs for essential goods, cures for disease, and energy breakthroughs. That might mean a four-day workweek (with no pay cut) and a “Public Wealth Fund” that invests in AI companies, distributing gains back to every citizen.
Hey, maybe the tech will get so good it can smooth over boardroom disputes. OpenAI’s plan for an AGI world |
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Micron, Western Digital, Sandisk, and Seagate Technology remembered what it’s like to lead major indexes on Monday, as Morgan Stanley reiterated its confidence in hard drive disk sellers, with analyst Erik Woodring pointing to “strengthening demand, elongating visibility, and most importantly, a much stronger pricing outlook.” He boosted his price target on Seagate to $582 from $468 and on Western Digital to $380 from $369.
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♟️ FIDE: As we enter round 8 of the FIDE Candidates and pass the halfway mark of the chess tournament, Javokhir Sindarov has climbed to the top of the heap with a 1 ½-point advantage over incoming favorite Fabiano Caruana. Sindarov is now an 83% favorite to win according to prediction markets,* up from just 16% a week ago.
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✨ AI: Claude continues to stave off competition, and has been the favorite to finish the year as the top AI according to LMArena’s Leaderboard for well over a month, ever since it overtook Gemini’s chances at the beginning of March. Markets are now pricing in a 59% chance the Anthropic model finishes 2026 atop the leaderboard, with ChatGPT a distant third at 10.8%.
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*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC. |
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- February durable goods orders
- Earnings expected from Levi Strauss
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