Latest / Connecting the Dots / Verizon’s New CEO, OpenAI’s Big GPU Deal, and Market Movers

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Verizon’s New CEO, OpenAI’s Big GPU Deal, and Market Movers · Connecting the Dots

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  Today's tech news moves fast, but understanding
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  it shouldn't be hard. That's why Snarful Solutions
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  Group brings you Connecting the Dots, where we
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  break down what's happening in tech and why it
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  matters to you. Now, let's dive in with your
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  hosts. Good morning, everyone, and welcome back
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  to Connecting the Dots. I'm Alex. Hi, Morgan.
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  It is Monday, October 6th, 2025. Hope you had
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  a good weekend. Yeah, I hope so, too. Out here
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  in Sacramento, it's looking like another sunny
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  day, high around 84 later. Pretty nice start
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  to the week for us. Definitely. Though, checking
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  the national picture, it looks like Florida's
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  still dealing with that heavy rain and flooding.
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  And there's a cold front moving through the middle
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  of country, mid -south Ohio Valley, bringing
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  in some storms. So stay safe out there if that's
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  you. Absolutely. Now, looking at the markets,
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  things ended Friday a little mixed, didn't they?
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  Yeah, slightly down the day, the Dow dipped about
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  0 .15%, closed just over $46 ,700. But, you know,
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  it still had a strong week overall, up almost
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  a percent. OK, and the S &P 500? Pretty similar
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  story. Down just a tiny bit Friday, 0 .07%, ending
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  at $6 ,729. But again, solid weekly gain there,
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  too. And Bitcoin. Still climbing. Oh, yeah. Still
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  got that positive momentum up over 1 % since
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  yesterday, trading around $124 ,769. And the
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  weekly gain is pretty impressive, over 9 % since
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  last Monday. Still seeing a lot of interest there.
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  Wow. OK, so a bit of a mixed bag starting the
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  week, but some definite bright spots. Exactly.
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  Now, before we jump into our main stories today,
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  .com. That's pinsandassas .com. Okay, so let's
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  get into it. Today's Morningstar report has three
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  really interesting stories that, well, they really
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  connect, showing some big strategic plays in
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  tech right now. They really do. We're talking
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  about everything from who's running major telecom
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  companies to the absolute gold rush for AI computing
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  power. Exactly. Let's kick things off with story
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  number one. This involves a, frankly, Pretty
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  surprising change right at the top of Verizon.
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  Yeah, big news. Verizon Communications announced
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  that Dan Schulman, who you'll probably know as
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  the former CEO of PayPal, is taking over as their
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  new CEO, effective immediately. Immediately.
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  Wow, so Hans Vestberg is out. He's out as CEO,
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  yeah. Schulman's in and Mark Bertolini is stepping
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  in as the new chairman of the board as well.
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  OK, so Schulman, that's not a telecom background,
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  is it? PayPal is fintech payments. Not at all.
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  And that's what makes this so interesting. Vesberg,
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  you know, he was the 5G guy. He architected that
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  whole strategy, oversaw the huge C -band spectrum
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  purchase. Billions on that spectrum. Exactly.
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  A massive bet on the network build out. And he
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  was also managing the pending Frontier Communications
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  acquisition, that $20 billion deal. Right. The
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  one that's supposed to close, what, early next
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  year? Q1 2026. That's the timeline. Yeah. So
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  the board's rationale seems to be, well, Vestberg
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  did the heavy lifting on building the network
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  infrastructure. Kind of laid the tracks, so to
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  speak. Pretty much. And with that frontier deal
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  moving towards the finish line, they said it
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  was the right time for a transition. So bring
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  in the money guy? Is that the idea? Yeah. Shulman's
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  known for growth, right? He's known for massive
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  growth and, crucially, monetization. The board
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  called him a seasoned and decisive leader. His
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  job isn't really about building the network anymore.
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  It's about redefining Verizon's trajectory. Meaning?
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  Meaning growing market share, definitely cutting
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  the cost to serve customers, and optimizing how
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  they spend their capital. Think about his record
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  at PayPal. It was a tripled revenue. Tripled
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  revenue from like... $8 billion to $30 billion
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  and grew earnings per share five times over.
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  He knows how to squeeze value out of a platform.
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  So if you're a Verizon customer, this could mean
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  more aggressive marketing, maybe changes to plans
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  or service to cut costs. Could be. It signals
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  a really intense focus on customer acquisition
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  and efficiency. They want to regain market leadership,
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  and that might affect prices, plans, how services
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  delivered. It's all about monetizing that network
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  Vesberg built. And Vesberg isn't just gone, though.
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  He's staying on for a bit. Yeah, they're keeping
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  him involved. He stays on the board until the
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  twenty twenty six annual meeting and he's serving
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  as a special advisor for a full year until October
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  twenty twenty six. Makes sense, especially to
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  help with that frontier integration. That's a
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  huge piece to absorb. Absolutely. And interestingly,
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  Verizon was quick to reiterate their full year
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  twenty twenty five financial guidance. So they're
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  signaling confidence that Schulman can step in
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  and execute without, you know. disrupting things
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  immediately. Okay, so a big shift from network
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  building to network monetization at Verizon.
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  That actually leads perfectly onto our next story,
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  which is all about the infrastructure that fuels
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  so much of this demand, AI chips. Right. The
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  race for AI compute is just staggering. And this
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  next story is a huge development in that race,
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  potentially shaking up the dominance of NVIDIA.
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  Story number two, advanced micro devices, AMD.
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  has landed a massive deal with OpenAI. Massive
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  is the right word. It's a multi -year partnership
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  where AMD will supply OpenAI with its Instinct
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  GPUs. Okay, GPUs, the graphics processing units
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  that are essential for training and running these
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  huge AI models. But let's talk scale here. How
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  big is this deal? The numbers are almost hard
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  to grasp. OpenAI is committing to deploy six
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  gigawatts of AMD GPUs over several years. Six
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  gigawatts? That sounds like power plant capacity.
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  How do we even translate that for AI compute?
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  It's an enormous amount of computing power. To
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  give you some context, OpenAI already has a big
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  commitment with NVIDIA, reportedly for around
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  10 gigawatts of their systems. So adding 6 gigawatts
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  from AMD is, well, it's a huge expansion and
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  diversification. So they're not putting all their
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  eggs in the NVIDIA basket anymore. Exactly. OpenAI
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  needs this compute power desperately. Sam Altman
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  keeps saying it's their biggest bottleneck. This
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  deal gives them a second major supplier, which
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  is crucial for security and... Frankly, probably
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  for negotiating power, too. And for AMD, this
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  must be absolutely game -changing. Oh, completely.
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  It's billions of dollars expected to bring in
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  tens of billions in annual revenue just from
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  this deal alone. It's a massive validation of
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  their AI chips, their Instinct line, and their
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  software stack, which has been seen as lagging
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  Nvidia's CUDA platform. Right. The software has
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  been the sticking point for many. This suggests
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  OpenAI is confident AMD can deliver on that front,
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  too. It seems so. And the knock -on effect is
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  potentially even bigger. AMD is projecting this
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  deal could lead to over $100 billion in new revenue
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  over the next four years. $100 billion. New revenue.
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  On top of their existing business. That's what
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  they're forecasting, yeah. From OpenAI and other
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  customers who see this huge endorsement and decide,
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  AMD is a viable, powerful alternative to NVIDIA.
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  Just to put that in perspective, what's AMD's
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  total revenue expected to be this year? Analysts
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  were projecting somewhere around 32 -33 billion
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  dollars for all of 2025. So yeah, 100 billion
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  dollars in new AI chip revenue over four years
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  is... it's transformative. It basically implies
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  they expect to triple the size of the company
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  based on this momentum. Wow. The pressure must
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  be immense internally to deliver on that. Okay,
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  so a huge supply deal. Massive validation for
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  AMD. But there's more to it, isn't there? This
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  isn't just a standard customer -supplier relationship.
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  Not even close. And that brings us straight to
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  story number three. The market reaction and the
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  really unique financial structure of this partnership.
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  Right, so the market obviously loved this news
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  for AMD. Stock jumped over 30 % almost instantly.
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  Skyrocketed, yeah. Predictable reaction. But
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  why this is more than just a sale is how they've
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  tied open AI into AMD success. Tell us about
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  that part, the ownership stake. This is the wild
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  part. AMD issued open AI a warrant, basically
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  the right to buy stock later for up to 160 million
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  shares of AMD common stock. 160 million shares.
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  How much of the company is that? If open AI exercises
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  that entire warrant, it could give them. Roughly
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  10 % ownership of AMD. Get out. So OpenAI, the
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  AI giant valued at half a trillion dollars, isn't
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  just buying chips. They're potentially becoming
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  one of AMD's biggest shareholders. Precisely.
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  They are now financially incentivized, deeply
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  incentivized for AMD to succeed wildly. It completely
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  aligns their interests beyond just getting chips
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  delivered. That's a strategic masterstroke, really.
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  It turns your biggest, most demanding customer
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  into your partner. Exactly. And the way the warrant
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  works reinforces this. It's not automatic. Getting
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  those shares depends on two things. Which are?
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  One, hitting the deployment milestones, actually
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  getting those six gigawatts of GPUs installed
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  and running. And two, meeting specific AMD share
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  price targets that get progressively higher.
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  How high are we talking? What's the ultimate
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  target? The final chunk of shares only unlocks
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  if AMD stock price hits $600 a share. $600. What
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  did it close at on Friday? Around $164 or $165.
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  So they need the stock to basically almost quadruple
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  from here for OpenAI to get the full benefit.
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  Yep. It's incredibly ambitious. It essentially
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  ties OpenAI's reward to AMD achieving massive
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  market cap growth, way beyond just fulfilling
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  the hardware order. This just shows the, I don't
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  know, the intensity, maybe the desperation in
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  the race for AI infrastructure, doesn't it? Companies
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  are willing to trade potentially 10 % ownership
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  just to secure the compute they need. It's the
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  new reality. Securing that core infrastructure
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  is everything. It's the biggest bottleneck, the
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  biggest strategic imperative. This kind of deal
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  structure might become more common as the AI
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  build out continues. You don't just buy from
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  your suppliers, you invest in them. Yeah, it
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  certainly puts Nvidia on notice in a way that
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  just a big sales contract wouldn't have. AMD
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  now has OpenAI literally invested in its success.
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  A powerful alliance. Okay, before we wrap things
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  up and connect all these dots one last time,
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• 10:50
  so let's quickly recap what we've covered. Three
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  big stories, all interconnected. Right. First,
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  we saw that major leadership change at Verizon.
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  Out goes Vestberg, the network builder. In comes
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  Schulman, the monetization expert from PayPal.
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  Signals a shift towards aggressive growth and
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  efficiency. Then the AI infrastructure race heated
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  up dramatically. AMD scored that massive multi
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  -year, multi -gigawatt GPU deal with OpenAI,
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  validating them as a serious competitor to NVIDIA.
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  And critically, that deal wasn't just about buying
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  chips. AMD gave OpenAI warrants potentially worth
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  10 % of the company, tying their futures together,
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  and incentivizing huge growth with share price
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  targets reaching up to $600. So the big picture,
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  the connection here seems to be this intense
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  focus across the tech world on controlling and
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  extracting value from a central infrastructure.
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  Whether it's the 5G fiber networks, Verizon is
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  now looking to monetize heavily, or the AI chips
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  that AMD and NVIDIA are fighting over. Yeah,
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  it's a battle fought with executive changes,
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  massive supply deals, and even unprecedented
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  ownership stakes. It really underscores that
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  the physical hardware layer is absolutely critical
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  right now. Fascinating stuff happening. Lots
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  to keep watching there. Definitely. We're here
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  to help at Snarfles, so reach out on our website
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  if you have any more questions. That's a wrap
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  on today's top stories. Remember, tech doesn't
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  have to be complicated, and we're here to help
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  connect the dots. If you've got questions or
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  want to learn more, visit us at snarful .com.
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  Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next
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  time.