This is Nick. This is Jack. And all this time, we’ve been under-stuffed. A NYC high school math class discovered double-stuffed Oreos have only 1.86x the creme of single-stuffed cookies. Oreo says they haven’t touched the ratio. Sounds like non-denial, denial…

🚨 Breaking 🚨: Microsoft has hired Sam Altman and several of his former OpenAI colleagues to lead Microsoft’s new artificial intelligence team. More on this crazily developing drama below.

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1) The Biggest Tech Drama of the Year: Sam Altman Fired… and Unfired?

The first big job taken by AI was the biggest job in AI: CEO of OpenAI.

Friday 5 pm EST: Markets were closed, you were at Happy Hour, and OpenAI shockingly fired its co-founder & CEO Sam Altman. It was a true shocker, as AI is the most powerful tech innovation of the 21st century. And if AI had a $100 bill, Sam’s face would be on it.

• 🚀 Under Sam, ChatGPT became the fastest-growing app in history to hit 100M downloads.

• 🚀 OpenAI’s valuation 6x’d to ~$90B.

• 🪓 So this is the biggest CEO firing since Apple fired Steve Jobs in 1985 — except it’s like firing Steve after he launched the iPhone.

The reason OpenAI gave for firing him?… He was “not being consistently candid in his communications with the board…” But that feels… ambiguous. And it’s not the only shocker:

• Microsoft, the most important investor in OpenAI, had no idea about the firing until moments before it was announced publicly.

• Reminder: Microsoft invested $13B and now owns 50% of OpenAI.

All that was on Friday… Then on Saturday, OpenAI’s Board seemed to realize they made a huge mistake. On Sunday, OpenAI’s Board reportedly asked for Sam to come back. But early Monday morning, Microsoft announced they’d hired Sam to CEO a new internal AI team.

The Takeaway →

Artificial Intelligence is powered by Human Intelligence — OpenAI just found that out. Right after Sam Altman was fired, many of ChatGPT’s top employees quit out of solidarity. Immediately, VCs lined up to hire Sam and his colleagues, who were the most eligible techies in the most booming tech industry. So by firing one person, OpenAI’s Board created its worst competitor. And that competitor now appears to be Microsoft itself, the co-owner of OpenAI.

2) A Drink Won Formula 1

This past weekend, Formula 1 took over the Las Vegas Strip in its much-hyped nighttime Grand Prix race — Max Verstappen got the W for the Red Bull Racing team (to no shock), but the real winner is an energy drink. Pop the…can? 

But first, let’s sprinkle on some context to F1 in the US: It’s popularity boomed with the help of Netflix’s pit crew that created Drive to Survive, the F1 docuseries. 

• 🏁 Super Bowl, who? The US is hosting the most F1 races (3) of any country this year. 

• 🏁 On the NASDAQ: F1 is owned by the publicly traded Liberty Media, which also owns SiriusXM, Live Nation, and the Atlanta Braves. 

• 🏁 And the Red Bull Racing Team (owned by the energy drink brand since 2004) is by far #1 — It’s won 20 of 21 races this season.

Here’s one of our favorite marketing quotes: “Win on Sundays, Sell on Mondays.” Because Red Bull’s win streak on the track is converting drinkers at the store.

• ⚡ Red Bull’s CEO just confirmed they’re seeing “incredible consumption of Red Bull” in markets where they win races, from Dubai to Singapore to Vegas.

And here’s the wildest part: Red Bull acquired this racing team 19 years ago for just $1. That may be one of the greatest ROIs in history. 🏎️

The Takeaway →

Red Bull turned a cost center into a profit center. Each Red Bull racecar features the brand’s big bull logo… but it also includes the logos of Citrix, Oracle, and AT&T. This chassis is rolling in ad revenue in addition to being its own Red Bull ad. Red Bull could have paid another racing team to put its logo on it (at a cost), but instead, it bought its own team for $1. And so Red Bull uniquely turned an expense into a revenue stream.

On the Pod

👕 The Gap’s stock had its best day ever, surging 30% on Friday. To hear more about how Old Navy became New Navy, listen to today’s pod.

Here’s what else you need to know today —

🚘 Kyle Vogt — co-founder of GM-owned Cruise self-driving — resigned in the wake of an accident in San Francisco with an injured pedestrian.

❌ Apple, the EU, IBM, and Disney have pulled ads off of X after Elon Musk supported an anti-semitic conspiracy theory.

🇦🇷 Argentina just elected far-right libertarian Javier Milei as President — His big economic plans include getting rid of the country’s central bank and ditching the peso for the US dollar.

📱 Apple is making it a little easier to text between Androids and iPhones. They’re not inviting all Androids into the blue message club, but they’ll make it easier to group chat. 

🐔 Raising Cane hit $3B in sales with its main focus on chicken fingers. The company recently partnered with Post Malone on a Dallas Cowboys-themed restaurant. 

🎥 The Academy has chosen Jimmy Kimmel to host the Oscars in March. We’ve got next year.

And one more thing. How do you feel about the creme-to-cookie ratio? Are they under-stuffed or double-stuffed? Any other frosting-to-cake ratios we should be worried about?

—Nick & Jack