OpenAI Wants Another $100 Billion

Summary

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Motley Fool Money

Episode: "OpenAI Wants Another $100 Billion"
Date: December 19, 2025
Host: Motley Fool investment analysts

Episode Overview

This episode dives into OpenAI's reported plans to raise another $100 billion at an $800 billion valuation, sparking a debate on sustainability, profitability, and the future of AI business models. The analysts examine what this means for both private and public markets, compare OpenAI’s strategies with major competitors, and reflect on wider trends in the tech and investing landscape. Later, as is tradition, they hand out "candy or coal" to prominent executives and discuss stocks on their radar.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. OpenAI’s Massive Fundraising and Its Business Model Crisis

Timestamps: [00:40]–[09:12]

• Escalating Valuations & Trade-offs:

  • OpenAI seeks $100B at an $800B valuation. This is set against their struggle to balance "enough compute to build the next model or serve ChatGPT" (B, [00:40]).
  • The company lacks the "cash-generating machine" of peers like Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet (C, [01:11]).
  • Initial "wow factor" is fading as competition increases; consumer pushback on subscription prices (B/C, [01:57]).

• Lack of Profitable Business Model:

  • Panelists agree—OpenAI must "get their financial house in order" and focus its product offering (C, [02:00]).
  • Asit notes the move away from the "Swiss army knife" model to specialization, citing Anthropic’s enterprise focus and success, particularly in coding (D, [03:04]-[03:55]).

• Monetization Options:

  • Panelists debate if advertising is OpenAI’s inevitable path to profitability, much as it was for TV, radio, and web (B/C/D, [05:23]-[07:19]).
  • "They can't be a consumer company and do something else to make money and expect the types of margins that investors want at these valuation rounds." (D, [06:14])

• Impact on Public Markets:

  • Hot AI infrastructure stocks (Oracle, CoreWeave, etc.) have dropped, as these businesses rely on the circular financing of buying Nvidia chips funded by AI start-ups (B, [07:19]).
  • Uncertainty over whether this is "a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow" or a risk-laden house of cards (C, [08:13]; B, [09:12]).

Notable Quote:

• “If there is a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, none of this is a problem. The question is, is there a pot of gold at the end of OpenAI's rainbow?” – C, [08:13]

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2. Data Center Arms Race: Bubble or New Foundation?

Timestamps: [09:25]–[10:54]

• The massive spend on data centers is predicated on the belief "the more compute that we throw at these models, the better they'll get..." (D, [09:25]).
• Overlooked: energy efficiency and smarter, smaller models—avoiding these “sets up a future in which it has to be like boom or bust for some companies." (D, [09:25])
• Suggestion that smaller, more efficient models (like Google's Gemini Flash 3) may upend OpenAI’s scale-at-all-costs bet.

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3. Alphabet/Google’s AI “Comeback” and Strategic Advantages

Timestamps: [12:20]–[18:08]

• Alphabet’s stock up 60% for the year, driven by efficiency in AI development; their smaller, more cost-effective Gemini models outperform in profitability and execution (B, [12:20]; D, [12:55]).
• Google’s "deep expertise in smaller models" and existing cashflow allows it to price aggressively and “starve the competition,” placing OpenAI and other start-ups at a disadvantage (D/C, [12:55]-[16:33]).
• Example: Duolingo, previously an OpenAI API customer, can now leverage Gemini’s models at a tenth of the cost ([14:35]–[15:09]).
• Overall, the panel suggests this is a positive for users and investors—better, cheaper AI, with winners being established tech giants over start-ups.

Notable Quote:

• “If everyone, if all these models can essentially do the same thing, you're not going to pay for seven of them…Price is inevitably what you're going to look at.” – C, [16:33]

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4. Market Sentiment and the AI-Fueled Rally

Timestamps: [18:08]–[19:42]

• S&P 500 up 16% on the year, but panelists see some AI fatigue, with “just a hint of skepticism” emerging as “the benefit of the doubt, especially among the big AI companies is fading.” (B/C, [18:08]-[18:37]).
• Signs that scrutiny is increasing and the market is moving toward discernment, rather than blanket optimism for “anything AI” ([18:37]-[19:42]).

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5. Candy or Coal: Executive Scorecard

Timestamps: [21:32]–[37:05]

The classic segment awarding “candy” (praise) or “coal” (critique) to notable execs:

• Brian Niccol (Starbucks):
  Mixed. Not a disaster, but failing to recapture brand magic (C/D, [21:56]-[24:42]).
• Jerome Powell (Federal Reserve):
  Gets candy for deftly managing the transition from tightening to easing despite immense pressure ([25:00]-[27:14]).
• Tim Cook (Apple):
  Receives some candy for operational excellence—even with AI and VR misfires the business remains rock solid (C/D, [27:43]-[30:27]).
• Sam Altman (OpenAI):
  Coal for overhyping ChatGPT 5.2 and failing to deliver “magic,” but with understanding that raising capital requires perpetual optimism (D/C, [31:07]-[32:58]).
• Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway):
  Candy for the legacy, but panelists question recent inactivity with large cash reserves (C/D, [33:07]-[35:33]).
• Larry Ellison (Oracle):
  Split (C/D, [35:43]-[37:05]); praised for market sense but with reservations about aggressive, leveraged AI bets.

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6. Stocks on the Radar

Timestamps: [39:31]-[41:58]

• Accenture (ACN):
  • Solid earnings, new business (including large AI contracts); stock down 23% YTD could be an overreaction (C, [39:31]).
  • “If you’re a CEO and you want to do a project, you hire Accenture just so you can blame them if it goes wrong. That's the bull case.” — C, [40:13]
• Embraer (EMBJ):
  • Brazilian mid-sized jet maker with strong backlog and margins, benefiting from industry structural shifts (D, [40:30]-[41:16]).

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• On OpenAI’s fundraising:
  “It's a day ending in Y and that means OpenAI is raising money again.” – B, [00:05]

• On AI models as commodities:
  "You're not going to pay for seven of them … Price is inevitably what you're going to look at." – C, [16:33]

• On Alphabet’s position:
  "It is really lousy for OpenAI because they don't have the existing revenue streams, they don't have ready access to especially corporate customers.” – C, [16:33]

• On Sam Altman/ChatGPT 5.2:
  "He taught that up in a way that we were ready to be blown away … and it was really disappointing." – D, [31:07]

• On Warren Buffett:
  "If you look at this year and you look at the last few years, I do ask myself the question, if it was anyone other than Warren Buffett, what would we be thinking?" – C, [33:16]

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Important Timestamps

• [00:40]-[09:12] — OpenAI’s Funding, Business Model, and Tensions
• [12:20]-[18:08] — Alphabet’s Gemini, Business Moat, and the AI Arms Race
• [18:08]-[19:42] — Market Sentiment and AI’s Effect on the S&P 500
• [21:32]-[37:05] — “Candy or Coal” Executive Scorecard
• [39:31]-[41:58] — Stocks on the Radar

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Overall Tone & Takeaway:
Smart, skeptical but reasoned—the hosts dissect massive AI fundraising with a focus on fundamental business models and real-world profitability. Major tech incumbents with diverse revenue streams are in the driver’s seat, while OpenAI’s next steps are clouded by financial and competitive challenges. The regular “candy or coal” segment offers both informed praise and pointed critique, keeping the episode lively, insightful, and grounded in practical investor concerns.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

It's a day ending in Y and that means OpenAI is raising money again. Motley Fool Money starts now. Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. But you can give them to the.

[C]

Buzz and be from Fool Global headquarters. This is Motley Fool Money.

[B]

Welcome to motley fool money. OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise another $100 billion give or take at a give or take valuation of about $800 billion. This comes after Greg Brockman, one of their co founders, said that the company had to make trade offs about whether it was had enough compute to build the next model or whether it was going to serve ChatGPT. The question is how long can they keep raising money without having a profitable business model? Lou, that seems like a fundamental tension and these numbers are getting absolutely enormous.

[C]

Yeah, no, you're asking the right question and I don't know if any of us know the answer. And that's sort of a scary thing. Right. Just for fun, I asked AI how much money is there in the world? And I was waiting for like it depends on what OpenAI needs, but it feels like, yeah, AI is going to just swallow everything right now. And look, here's the problem. OpenAI doesn't have the cash generating machine that Meta has, that Microsoft has, that Alphabet has, that is turning into a significant disadvantage here. All these companies are doing amazing things. Remember at the beginning of OpenAI when we just marveled at this tool and we're like, wow, this is magic. But now Gemini's giving me that magic. Everybody's giving me that magic. So all these guys and people are.

[B]

Balking at spending $20 a month to get magic in their pocket.

[C]

Right, Right. Frankly, I'm one of those people. I'm having fun with AI. I'm exploring AI, but I'm not going to buy seven different models for this. They needed the wow factor before. If the wow factor is rolling off and they still need all of this money, I don't know where they go from here. I mean, we're seeing pushbacks all over the place. I think this is a real question. At some point, they need to get their financial house in order and figure out either, as Greg said, how to do more with less or what compromises they have to make here.

[B]

Asad, how do you think about this tension? We'll get to the stocks. I want to ask specifically about some of the companies that public market investors may or may not have some exposure to, but how do you think about this business that seems to be sort of holding trillions of value in public markets up right now. Should be we we be worried about their business model, or should it just be about pushing the frontier forward with artificial intelligence as far and as fast as possible?

[D]

I think we should keep an eye on the business model. OpenAI made some really consequential choices which served them well in the last few years. As Lou mentioned, the explosion of interest we had in generative AI and how the world has changed is really due to OpenAI stepping up and pouring so much money into its frontier models. And at the beginning, those models were meant to be everything for everyone. But as time goes on, I think it's become more important that these big models can't be Swiss army knives. They're simply not. You have to focus at some point on your markets and how you're going to monetize. Interestingly enough, competitor Anthropic has openly said, look, we're focusing on the enterprise market. We're not out to get the most retail customers. We see some profits here with deep pocketed enterprise businesses. So that's where we're focusing our model.

[B]

And that's specifically coding. Right. That's where they have kind of been ahead of the game. And even when, you know, it was probably a month ago now when Gemini 3 came out, that beat all kinds of benchmarks, it did not beat Anthropic's Claude on some of the coding benchmarks, which then they even took another step further beyond that. But that does seem like if a mode is building in this business from a, from a model standpoint, Anthropic does have the focus to be able to do that.

[D]

Yeah. In fact, I saw an interesting note on a Reddit thread, some developers the other day which said, okay, if you're prototyping something, Maybe go to ChatGPT for the architecture conversation, go to Gemini for the implementation of it, but go to Sonnet or Opus for the coding of it. You sort of hit this on the head, Travis, that all of these models now are getting better in certain parts, but to be dominant in every category is not something the other businesses still want to chase. OpenAI almost seems like it has to. But of course they're talking now about making the appropriate trade offs. And to me that means they're going to have to focus on that big wide funnel of the hundreds of millions of users that are avidly going to ChatGPT and talking to it every day and figure out how to get conversational commerce going, move in that direction. You have to understand over the long term the cost of your Compute and how you can reasonably sell it. It's a really simple equation right now. They still haven't figured it out.

[B]

They do seem to be leaning more towards that consumer side rather than, rather than the enterprise they don't have. They're not a hyperscaler themselves. Do they have to get into something like advertising or is a new business model and we see this on the Internet, right? New business models come up when new technologies come around. Advertising does seem to be the thing that's kind of a common thread here between all technologies.

[C]

All.

[B]

You know, you could go back to television, radio. Now we're on the Internet where it's all about advertising and that's how you, you take away that pain. Point of somebody actually have to paying to pay for something to watch a football game, for example. But that's fundamentally how they make the business work. Do they have to figure that out or can they be a consumer company and do something else to make money?

[D]

They can't be a consumer company and do something else to make money. And expect the types of margins that investors want at these valuation rounds. At the end of the day they'll have to get margin for somewhere to make the latest entrance that the people coming in with the next tens of billions into the hundreds of billions of investment into OpenAI to make that payout worth it for them to raise more capital. I think behind the scenes, sure. They're talking about how they pull advertising in. We can already see from the partnerships the company's making to bring brands into their funnel. Shopify is one that this is absolutely where they're headed. Now the other stuff that they're exploring, some of it even sketchy, a G rated show, so I won't get into it. But some of that, yeah, they'll be at the margins. Other ways they can monetize the consumer. Every business that we discuss that has margin almost in this space. When we think about clouds, it comes down to that. Right? So Alphabet with YouTube, Meta with any number of its advertising properties, Netflix, so.

[B]

On Lou, the impact on public markets. Obviously OpenAI isn't public. It's possible that they will IPO. You would think if you're raising money at a $800 billion valuation, eventually those investors are going to want liquidity. That means going to the public markets. The companies that are public, Oracle, Cor, Weave, Nebius, these have been kind of the hot names in AI, but they've all dropped precipitously and they're the ones that are actually funding the acquisition of Nvidia Chips. So there's this huge. It's. We've, we talked about circular financing, but it, there is a circular almost business model here and financing model here that is starting to impact these public companies negatively. Is that something that we should be concerned about with OpenAI at that core?

[C]

We should be watching it. I mean, I think it's the same question, though. All of this makes sense if it ends up making sense.

[E]

Right?

[B]

It works until it doesn't.

[C]

Right. I mean, if there is a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, none of this is a problem. I think the question is, and kind of what you guys are getting at is that, is there a pot of gold at the end of OpenAI's rainbow? And how did they get there? I mean, I think if nothing else, it's time to differentiate. Differentiate. It's time to not paint the entire sector with one brush and say AI good. Which. Every trend, every innovation we've had has had winners and losers. The question for OpenAI is back to what you're saying. Consumer business, whatever, Right now they're in a position where they need to look for revenue wherever they can find it, and they need to look for investment wherever they can find it, because they need a lot of money. They need more money than any one single source can do it. So I respect that everything is on the table. However, just because they might be doing what they should, I don't know if that guarantees success.

[B]

Yeah. Do you have, do you have thoughts asit on whether these companies are, are they building a house of cards? Is this a new phenomenal business model, building data centers that we just haven't seen before? Where are you? Where's your head at?

[D]

I think long term the investment in data centers is needed. And some companies are going to have some rough times in the future as demand and supply normalize. And whether that's three years from today or five years from today, or we read the tea leaves much sooner and those companies get punished. I don't know about those timeframes, but everything that we're seeing today is predicated. I mean, a lot of it, let's not say everything, a lot of it is predicated on what Sam Altman thought a few years ago, that the more that of compute that we throw at these models, the better they'll get at different tasks. And so we need to invest lots and lots of money to make way for that compute. Nvidia played into that. Jensen Huang is a firm believer in that. There's some proof in the pudding in that as we Use these models and ask them to reason more. That entails more compute. But we've totally avoided the other side of the conversation, which is how do we make this stuff more energy efficient? How do we make on the algorithmic side this stuff more efficient? How do we make on the development of the models, this side, all this more efficient? By avoiding those conversations, we're setting up a future in which it has to be like boom or bust for some companies. They're going to win on that big scaling model. That's where OpenAI has thrown its chips. There'll be lots of little players too, smaller players who don't need all of that power. And I think something you want to talk about, Travis, is maybe Gemini's smaller models. Those are sort of interesting and we can go there if there's time.

[B]

Yeah, I want to get to that. Next. We need to take a quick break. We will get to the recovery of Alphabet in 2025. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.

[E]

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[B]

Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. Let's get to Alphabet and Gemini. If I told you at the beginning of the year that Alphabet was beginning to be the biggest name in artificial intelligence, the stock would be up 60% for the year and by the way, a hundred and ten percent from its April lows asset, I think you probably would have been surprised. But that's where we are and they seem to be the hottest name in AI and they do have a business model, something that OpenAI doesn't quite yet. And they can kind of starve the rest of the industry by going with those low prices where they don't have to make a ton of money because they got these other cash flow businesses to lean back on.

[D]

Yeah, what a year it's been for Alphabet. And the thing that they're reaping benefit from today is a lot of work that they did years ago. There were some discussions, I think, in the investment community maybe last year or the year before that. Look, Alphabet ought to be able to catch up because it has deep expertise. In fact, Google scholars were the ones who came up with transformer technology that we're all riding off of today. But I would have been surprised if you told me that at the beginning of the year. How is it doing it? It's not having to focus again with these huge scaling laws as OpenAI has done. And they've made those choices and Alphabet has really deep expertise in smaller models and they have the very, very deep pockets to go ahead and experiment and play around. You sent out a tweet and an image to me and Lou this week, which was basically discussing how Good Gemini Flash 3 is. This is a smaller model from Gemini in terms of cost and compute efficiency. And, and I'm not going to get into all the details here except to say that and the 2.5 model from Gemini are really efficient. I mean, you point out one tenth the cost. Now you have to keep in mind this is. You're probably referring to developers who are using the API, but still, let's go there. Maybe a tenth the cost of, say, OpenAI and some of its competitors. What it does, it gives you a lot more intelligence for less money. If I could boil it all down, you may not want a genius level intelligence, but what if you want reasonably good intelligence for something that's efficient? They provide that.

[B]

So, so let's give an example there. Duolingo was one of OpenAI's biggest users, maybe even their biggest user of their API. The example there would be if you have a conversation with their kind of like advanced plan, you can have a conversation in a different language and the AI will, will talk back to you. We'll have a conversation as you learn your learn a language. That conversation may be a tenth of the cost coming out of this Gemini model versus a comparable OpenAI model. Is that kind of the way to think about it? So now, as companies are going, how do we make money on this? That becomes a big piece of the.

[D]

Equation, I think so. It's slightly beyond my pay grade. I will say this, the way I think of it myself is if you're a smaller developer and you've got a database and you need to use the AI to develop a conversational bot, it is a lot cheaper for you to run that through Gemini's model. So what it costs you per token. You get so much more out of these models. So I think we can extrapolate safely. If you're an expert in AI, write back to us if we're wrong. But I think you can extrapolate and say, sure, they could potentially use that model. They are going to get everything that is Duolingo will get everything it needs in terms of reasoning and also real time compute to provide you an excellent tutor, probably using that model. I would guess so for all intents and purposes. That's a good example, Lou.

[B]

When you look at the comeback of Google and Alphabet, is this just where we were headed from the start and they are just using their power to kind of bludgeon the competition or starve the competition, however you want to look at it, it's going to be tough. And I saw something today. They have five of the 10 most downloaded apps, free apps in the Apple App Store.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

It just seems like there is so much power coming out of mountain view and OpenAI is going up against that.

[C]

Right? You know, we love to talk about this as like, you know, competitions, sharks versus jets, whatever, but I think this is just businesses being rational businesses. And you know, I don't think it is like they're going after OpenAI. I think Alphabet is just doing what it should be doing. The fear for a while now is that these models would be commodities, right? That basically if everyone, if all these models can essentially do the same thing, you're not going to pay for seven of them and you're not going. Price is inevitably what you're going to look at. Alphabet has an and I don't think this is a loan to Alphabet. I think, I think it's bad news for OpenAI but I think you're going to see this in a lot of the winners is that they have the ability to, to price competitively and they're doing so it is really lousy for OpenAI because they don't have the existing revenue streams, they don't have the ready access to especially corporate customers. But look, everything we're talking about, this is what ASIT was talking about, efficiency, ASIT was talking about, you know, energy use. This is everything we want to Happen for humanity, for investors, for everything. I mean, I think it could be both bad news for OpenAI but if we are getting to a point where these things are more costly, cost competitive and they can actually be put to use by more companies, this is a good thing. And I don't think it's a surprise that big tech, the ones with all of the resources in the existing business, that they're the ones that can capitalize it over a startup.

[B]

Lou, I want to ask you quickly about the market. We've been basically flat over the past month or so, but we're having a pretty good year, up 16% I think it is for the S&P 500. The interesting thing is the Fed started cutting rates and yet the 10 year is up. How do you think about going into the end of the year and at the start of 2026? Is the market starting to kind of run out of gas or is there something else going on?

[C]

I think there's. Look, we are always just a measure of conventional wisdom. It's always just like how many bulls and how many bears at a given moment. I hate when we try and read into things are going up so they will continue or things are to now so it's a new paradigm or something like that. I think what we've seen is that some of the benefit of the doubt, especially among the big AI companies is fading, that there is just a hint of skepticism. All these things that people have been talking about for a year now, Travis, the build out crypto, all of the expenses, all of these just kind of worrying signs that didn't really resonate in the market now are just inching in. And again, I don't want to predict the sky is falling. I don't want to predict that it goes down from here. Just like I don't think six months ago we should have said it has to go up from here since it's not bothering. But again, back to what I said before, in every wave we've ever had there have been winners and losers and I think there's just more of scrutiny and less benefit of the doubt being given to everyone. And I think that's what's playing out in the markets.

[D]

Yeah, I agree Lou. And I think the support that AI companies bring to the market means that capital is staying put, it's rotating around and we're seeing different themes, get money and then being sold. But overall perhaps this keeps the markets at least level next year. I'm terrible at predicting these things, but we'll see 20, 26 is almost here.

[B]

We'll be back in a moment. You're listening to Motley Fool Money.

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[B]

We'd like to have a little fun in this segment today. I want to have Lou and Assit hand out candy or coal for some of the most important executives or people in finance throughout the year. Lou, I want to start with you. Brian Nickel has been one of the most important people in food retail now running Starbucks. Does he get candy or coal in his stocking this year?

[C]

So the key here is this year because Nickel has had a heck of a career and I'm taking that away from him. But this has not been the year that he is going to want at the top of his Wikipedia page. I don't think he's getting coal from me. Look, Starbucks is. I worry about these yesterday's brands kind of becoming growth stocks again. In general, I struggle with that. But look, the China joint venture. I think there's at least questions there. There's operational issues with what he's trying to do. Back to Starbucks. There's been employee action and Starbucks is a really tough company to get its mojo back. The jury's still out. It's early, et cetera, et cetera. I'm not going to declare it a failure, but there has been more question than answers for this year and so I am not praising the Brian Nichols 2025. I'm sorry, I can't asset.

[D]

I'll give him. Spot him another year. I think this is a really difficult business to try to turn around. I do.

[B]

Like he did kind of go from king of the world to massive project with moving from Chipotle to Starbucks.

[D]

Yeah, it's easier to stay king of the world. I'm not sure I agree with all of the capital decisions that Starbucks has made, but I love at least the sort of push to reinvigorate the brand, to bring it back to what it used to be. I'm not sure that's still possible, but I'll spot him a little bit of candy, like one peppermint candy cane, and ask me next year and we'll see whether that turns a little more coaly or I'll give some more candy.

[B]

Lou, do you think that a brand like Starbucks can get back that magic can? I just think about my. I don't go to Starbucks particularly often, but when I do, you walk in there and there's a counter with 50 cups of coffee and people randomly grabbing them. It's just very, very different from 10, 20 years ago when it was a place that I would go do homework in college and people would just go hang out at Starbucks. That doesn't even seem to be possible in a lot of Starbucks today.

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

So this is a theme that I'm thinking a lot about. Maybe it's just old age, but like, you know, companies that I think will do fine, but the stock, separating out the company and the stock, I think there's a place for Starbucks. I think you can kind of get the magic back. And I still don't know if that pays off for investors as a real, wow. Growth investment. So I think it's possible, but I'm getting more and more skeptical about what worked before and inherits the earth up ahead. And I think about that with Starbucks, Nike, so many of the brands that I'm so in love with over the years.

[B]

Yeah. It will be interesting to see what we look back on those brands being starting kind of at the pandemic. I mean, that was a real turning point for. For a lot of the ways that we live. Asad, I want to start with a name that you can have a lot of opinions about. That's Jerome Powell. Is he getting candy or coal in his stocking from you?

[D]

Yeah, he's. He's getting candy. I mean, whatever you think of Jerome Powell, I mean, he and I both know what it's like to do your job well when your boss is constantly telling you, I just want you to the heck out of here. I'll walk that back. I think our managers and leaders at the Motley fool love all three of us. So that was a little bit of a joke. But look, tremendous pressure went from a tightening cycle to an easing cycle this year. Ended the year with one more bit of quantitative easing. And I think doing this against the backdrop of the enormous pressure of the interest rate environment, we've been in the inflation environment. Also, the supply didn't have a lot.

[B]

Of data the last couple of months.

[D]

Didn'T have data to work off of the supply imbalances in trade due to tariffs. There's a lot going on there. And I wonder if he didn't adopt some of the methods of one of his earlier predecessors, Alan Greenspan, who famously used to lie in the bathtub to relax, read economic figures. I would guess Jerome did a little bit of that this year, but he held up. His term, I believe is up in May of next year. So I'm going to give him some high marks. The man deserves a little bit of candy in his stocking.

[C]

I'll give him a lot of candy because everything else had said and more. Not just that his boss or the person who would like to be his boss giving him flack. But look, the market's got used to money being free, and the markets became convinced that the only way we can benefit is if money was free. And so he was not only putting up with or trying to navigate pressure from above, but also, I think, pressure from retail and pressure from New York and Wall Street. And I think. I mean, I'm showing my bias here, but I think his take on it, that, no, we want to kind of preserve our firepower and not run too fast. I agree with him on that. And I think it took a ton of courage to not give and to kind of take all that and, yeah, nothing but candy for me and bathtub or wherever. Enjoy your retirement, Jerome, because you've earned it.

[B]

Let's move back to tech and the company that's kind of AI adjacent. We've been waiting for them to get into the AI game. Apple's Tim Cook seems like he's missed a lot in 2025, the VR headset was not a hit. Their AI strategy, I don't know what's going on, and yet they're selling a ton of phones, and at the end of the day, that's what drives the business. Lou, where is your head at with Tim Cook? Candy or cool?

[C]

He's getting candy now. He might not get as much Candy as Jerome. I might take some of Jerome Powell's candy and give it to Tim Cook. But look, multiple things can be true. I don't buy the idea that Apple didn't fail at AI because Apple always comes in and innovates. Apple spent a lot of money trying to get AI right and they didn't. It didn't go to script. So I don't think we can give them a pass on that. That said, everything we talked about, commoditized models, the importance of having revenue, of having a customer base. I think Apple ends up a winner in AI just working with Gemini or working with it. I don't think they have it turns out they didn't have to come up with their own model. I think they're fine. The next big thing is still a real question. And you're right, they haven't solved it. I'm not Tim Cook, but I don't know the answer there. So that is lingering over them. But if nothing else, one of the best run companies in the world gets a solid B this year, even if not an A. And that's got to be worth some candy.

[D]

I'll agree with that. For me, Tim Cook gets two really small peppermint candy canes. So there's 24 packs that come. Let's give him 1 12th of those. Tim Cook did Tim Cook this year.

[B]

That's like a night for the kids at my house.

[D]

Yeah, right. But he did what we expected of him. So he is sort of this operational genius. Doesn't matter what the environment is. I mentioned tariffs just a moment ago. He navigated all of that pretty flawlessly. And even look at the latest Apple models. They're starting to get traction in China again, which was a market I thought they were going to have to at some point just not write off, but.

[B]

Wouldn'T have the dominant position they had for a long time get used to.

[D]

Being maybe a number two. So they're still competitive there and people still want their phones. The question, though becomes the key question for Apple is who succeeds? Tim, can we get someone who executes to the level he does or do we need a visionary? Because the IP at Apple, all the billions that have been poured into their IP is sitting there, but has not been successfully monetized outside of its phones and its content. They've tried so many things over the years like the Apple car, they made a stab at AI. But I agree with, with Lou, maybe just partnering up is the way for them to go. There's so much that Apple could do as A company beyond their phone monopoly, near monopoly for high end phones. And I think that, look, this is the question, could you get someone who has a little bit of the Steve Jobs visionary capability in him or her with a lot of Tim Cook's operational excellence? It's a really tough question.

[B]

Have we ever seen a company do that? Go from visionary to operating person back to someone who is visionary but at this scale, I mean, that's the other thing is you're talking about one of the biggest companies in the world. Somebody young, vibrant, coming in and going, hey, hey, Tim, get out of the way, I'm coming in. I got ideas.

[D]

I mean, with all this AI, you could construct an avatar that sort of blends the two together. I have no idea how they're going to make this work.

[B]

It will be very interesting to see what happens with Apple over the next couple of years, especially with that succession planning. That seems like it's going to be a huge topic. Asad, I'm going to start with you with the next one. Sam Altman, Candy or coal in his stocking?

[D]

I've been talking this around the margins. My opinion of Sam Altman this year. It's slightly some coal, a lump of coal. But for a more surprising reason after everything we've discussed before, I think Sam really whiffed this year with chat GPT 5.2. He taught that up in a way that we were ready to be blown away as we were in earlier years whenever they released a great new model. And it was really disappointing. In fact, I still go back sometimes to my 4.0 setting because that model of GPT just understands me so well. I love it so much. Are you listening? What did you do? Why did you do this? Why did you not understand that talking up a product that works was not going to change the world is not a great strategy when you're going out competing in this battlefield, sir. Anyway, so there's a little bit of coal that I have for him in his stocking, Lou.

[C]

I think I have the answer to that or a potential answer to that. And that's because that's what he needs to do.

[B]

He's got to raise that next hundred million dollars.

[E]

Right?

[C]

Again, I mean he had the most, he had the most success raising funds when OpenAI was magic. He needs OpenAI to be magic, whether it is or not. Look, but I give him credit for doing what I think he has to do now. I don't know if that will end up working out for him and I don't know. It's A tough thing. At the end of the day, I went to ChatGPT and I found out that the price a pound of candy canes is worth 7 to 15 bucks. A pound of coal is worth about 15 cents. Given the way OpenAI needs money, I'm going to give him candy canes and not coal just so he can sell the things and raise. Just need a little less money to raise. How about that?

[D]

Fair enough.

[B]

All right, let's go to someone who is in his final days officially as the CEO, Warren Buffett.

[A]

Lou, I.

[B]

You got to give him candy, right? This is. This has been quite a run.

[C]

But. But are we doing it for this year?

[B]

Wow.

[C]

You know, this is the thing.

[B]

Yeah, let's do this year.

[C]

But, yeah, Brian Nicholas had a great run. Travis. So here's the thing. I. I mean, who am I to question Warren Buffett? And I mean that sincerely, and I'm a shareholder. But if you look at this year and you look at the last few years, I do ask myself the question, if it was anyone other than Warren Buffett, what would we be thinking? I mean, you know, I get, outside.

[B]

Of that Apple investment that they made about a decade ago, not a lot of great wins over the past decade.

[C]

And, you know, you can walk and chew gum at the same time. I get saving your investment capital for better markets, and I get that. I mean, I kind of agree with Warren. A lot of the markets, to me, have looked overvalued. I've still found ways to place dog, but they have, what, a third of a trillion dollars in cash? I feel like you can deploy some of that and still have an ample reserve. I don't think they're going to deploy $350 billion into a down turd. So I'm going to give him candy because it's going to be See's candy. Of course. Right. It has to be. But. But I do think, and we can talk about Greg Abel, too, but I do think that, man, the pressure is on because at some point, the benefit of the doubt of, oh, it's just, I think if we took the label off this company and looked at their actions over this year and the last few years, I don't think there'd be a lot of people rushing to buy in.

[B]

Dasen.

[D]

Yeah. So I'm going with 24 of those small candy canes. I want to give Warren the whole box. I think he deserves it. I think his message implicitly is, hey, shareholders, I gave you about a third of a trillion bucks on the balance sheet cash. I gave you this amazing assemblage of operating companies. I present to you Greg Abel, who I have trained, I have built the culture that we needed. I've done many of these deals on handshakes and I hope my successors can do the same when they acquire companies. We've been one of the most successful vehicles, investment vehicles on earth. And I'm going out on top with no regrets. I still have my health. I'm still drinking one can of coke or more every day. So what more do you want? I don't know.

[B]

Give me the candy. I don't know how.

[D]

I don't know. I don't know how he has any insides left, right?

[B]

All right, quickly Lou. Larry Ellison. Candy or cole?

[C]

I mean, I guess he needs to get candy because every, every son should have a father so supportive if nothing else for that, right?

[B]

Hey Dad, I want to take over media.

[C]

Larry has always been someone who knows the way the wind is blowing and who can position himself and I don't mean that as a backhanded compliment. I. It has worked out for him well, I think he has done that well this year. And I know there's questions about Blue Owl. I know there's questions about everything right now I'm not going to bet against Oracle coming out. If nothing worse than fine from this too just because Larry, Larry knows how.

[B]

To work the asset quickly. What do you think about Larry Ellison in 2025?

[D]

Yeah, I mean I think Lou did such a great job of hitting his highlights I. I want to give him a little bit of coal. An admirer of Larry Ellison own some Oracle have recommended it in a service I just didn't like at the end of the year with all that debt and I, I understand the argument that it's staggered out there that they are just pitching more into leveraged position position and placing such a concentrated bet on their role in AI which could be a great role. Their technology is amazing so it colored my view of Larry. But you know, he's a wild guy, he's an adventurous guy. We know that he's always been this way and so we see it manifest in his business dealings and the risks he takes.

[B]

When we come back, we're gonna get to stocks on our radar. You're listening to Motley Fool.

[G]

Holiday. But all this year's been a busy blur. Don't think I have the energy red Am I already mad rush just cause it's Disney season? The perfect gift for me would be completions and connections left from last year. Ski shop encounter Most interesting add US number, but never the time. Most of anyone has along those lines. So deck those halls, trim those trees, raise up cubs on Christmas trees.

[A]

Here.

[G]

I just need to catch my breath.

[A]

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[B]

As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows the Motley Fool's editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show Notes. We like to end the show by asking each analyst for a stock on their radar and gets questions from Dan Boyd behind the glass. Lou, you're up first. What's on your radar this week?

[C]

So, Dan, consulting giant Accenture, they released earnings this week. Numbers look pretty good to me. Revenue up 6% year over year, earnings per share up 10%. Both topped Wall street estimates. Look, investors have been down on consultants this year. Kind of worried that the tough economy would limit new business talk of AI replacing consultants in the future. But Accenture booked $21 billion in new business in the quarter, a lot of that AI related and 33 new clients or 33 CL bookings greater than $100 million. Stock is down 23% for the year. Dan I think that's a market overreaction. Accenture looks really interesting to me.

[B]

Dan what do you think about Accenture?

[H]

Is there anything going for Accenture other than AI right now?

[C]

Lou yeah, they do a lot of work that isn't AI it's just AI is all anyone wants to talk about. Look, Dan, at the end of the day, if you're a CEO and you want to do a project, you hire Accenture just so you can blame them if it goes wrong. That's the bull case.

[B]

Asit, what's on your radar this week?

[D]

Okay, so I'll make this short and sweet. I'm looking at Embraer. This is the Brazilian jet maker symbol EMBJ. This is a business I wrote about 13 years ago and the stock did nothing. But here we are. The aerospace industry has changed. Now the company has a tremendous backlog. It has a number one position in 76 Cedar planes. So the type of plane that I take when I have to fly from Raleigh to Washington, it also is a leader in the small and mid sized business jet category. It's a business that's operating at pretty good margins for an aerospace manufacturer, about 9%. And also, Embraer is really great for its maintenance services. It's getting a lot of incremental revenue from maintenance and repair.

[B]

Dan, what do you think about small jets?

[H]

I don't know anything about small jets, Travis. I. I am kind of worried about investing in a small jet company. I mean, it seems like I don't need a small jet. I can't afford a small jet. Are people buying small jets?

[D]

Well, Dan, the bulk of their business, actually. You've probably flown on an Embraer and didn't know it in a small market. But we understand from before the show you don't fly to small cities. You only fly to big cities.

[H]

No, Asad, I'm big time. I'm big time. Dan Boyd.

[B]

All right, Big time Dan Boyd, which stock is going on your watch list?

[H]

Yeah, I don't know. Again, I'm. I'm getting a big time off it here. And I'm going to go with Accenture. So sorry.

[B]

Jets or Lou Whiteman. Asit Sharma. Dan. Boy behind the class and the entire Motley fool team, I'm Travis William. Thanks for listening to Motley Fool Money. We'll see you here tomorrow.

[C]

Sam.