"Sam Altman reportedly issued an internal "code red" at OpenAI in December 2025 - an emergency directive to focus resources on improving ChatGPT whilst delaying initiatives like advertising or Pulse triggered by Google's launch of Gemini 3. The flagship product that triggered the current AI frenzy, deployed to hundreds of millions of users, needed an internal alarm bell. Not because it had fundamentally failed."
"Here's a truth from physics that should concern every executive racing toward AI dominance: speed tells you how fast you're moving. Velocity tells you how fast you're moving - and in which direction. A car travelling at 100 mph in circles has tremendous speed but zero velocity. It goes nowhere. It only burns fuel, overheats the engine, and eventually becomes a hazard to everything nearby."
Speed alone creates motion without progress; direction (velocity) determines where effort leads. Rapid feature releases, large funding rounds, and benchmark wins measure acceleration, not strategic steering. The OpenAI "code red" example shows the need to consolidate flagship products before expanding or chasing competitors. An undefined AI race that lacks clear goals incentivises shipping for the sake of appearing to lead rather than achieving meaningful outcomes. When products become the default strategy, organisations risk wasting resources, overheating systems, and creating hazards for users and the broader ecosystem.
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