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Luke Kawa & Jon Keegan2h

OpenAI teams up with consulting giants to boost its enterprise business

OpenAI has a new sales force to market its enterprise AI tools to big corporations.

In a press release, the ChatGPT maker unveiled a number of “Frontier Alliances” with consulting companies Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, Capgemini, and McKinsey.

“Frontier” refers to OpenAI’s platform introduced earlier this month that “helps enterprises build, deploy, and manage AI agents that can do real work.”

These alliances come amid an industrywide love affair with Anthropic’s Claude Code, which has juiced the startup’s revenue projections.

Companies may want to introduce AI tools, but do not have a good strategy around how to get started. That’s where consulting companies come in.

For companies in that situation, going to one of these consulting firms for AI-related help might now be like going to a financial adviser who gets an extra commission from having you invest in a specific fund offered by the investment arm of their firm.

The consulting industry was a forerunner to software in terms of facing AI disruption and, in the case of Accenture, seeing its share price slump as the market rallied. Employment in the sector peaked right around the time that ChatGPT was launched.

For Accenture, this marks the latest in a series of AI collaborations and builds off its prior partnership with OpenAI. The positive spin on this strategy from Accenture's perspective is that management is accepting that the consulting business will be fundamentally transformed by AI, and wants to be among the first movers in adapting to survive that transition. Uncharitably, as we’ve said, this is “training your replacements.”

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PayPal jumps after report of unsolicited takeover interest

Bloomberg reports that PayPal is the subject of takeover interest, with shares down nearly 90% from their 2021 closing high.

Per the report, management “has fielded meetings with banks amid unsolicited interest from suitors,” citing people familiar with the matter.

After being briefly halted for volatility, shares jumped 8%.

There’s reportedly appetite from “one large rival” to buy the entire company, while other potential purchasers want only certain parts.

Shares of the payments company recently closed at their lowest level since 2016, having lost ground to the likes of Apple and Google in the digital realm.

Earlier this month, shares cratered after the company posted weaker-than-anticipated Q4 results and 2026 profit guidance while announcing its CEO would soon be leaving the company.

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Matt Phillips43m

Sandisk shakes off slide from secondary offering

Sandisk continued to shake off a slump that hit the shares last week after it priced a secondary offering of almost 6 million shares owned by its former parent, Western Digital.

Tomorrow marks a year since Sandisk started trading on its own, after its spin-off from WDC. The stock soared amid a global shortage of memory chips that seemed to catch even experts completely off guard. The stock is up almost 1,300% since it began trading independently.

The company appeared to tease an event or product launch for tomorrow, February 24, in an X post on Friday, but the specifics were not entirely clear.

Sandisk’s gain over that period is the largest of any constituent of the S&P Total Market Index with a market cap of $4 billion or more — and the third-largest increase overall, out of its roughly 3,800 constituents.

Year to date, Sandisk is among the best performers in the Russell 1000 Technology Index and a key driver of the trend that has seen small clutch of hardware manufacturers trounce software shares.

Software stocks crater as independent research piece details potential AI dystopian scenario

The lowlights in this dystopian not-too-distant future: unemployment high despite elevated nominal growth and productivity, and the stock market tumbling as credit stress from companies laid low by AI metastasizes.

Man in desert with robodog and floating tower blocks

BANKROLL ALT RECEIPT

OpenAI’s planned cash burn was unlike anything we’d ever seen — now they’re doubling it

OpenAI is still the molten mass at the center of the AI universe, burning billions as it pulls talent, capital, and companies into its orbit.

OpenAI burning

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Better-than-expected jobs data has Federal Reserve’s standout doves shying away from rate cuts

Surprisingly strong labor market data has the Federal Reserve’s standout doves more willing to stand down from advocating for additional rate cuts.

Governor Christopher Waller said his decision on whether he would be in favor of a rate cut at the Fed’s upcoming meeting in March would be “a coin flip” depending on the jobs market data for February.

“If the labor market data for February are consistent with the stronger job creation and low unemployment rate initially reported in January, indicating that downside risks to the labor market have diminished, it may be appropriate to hold the FOMC's policy rate at current levels and watch for continued progress on inflation and strength in the labor market,” he said in a speech on Monday.

In January, nonfarm payrolls growth of 130,000 came in well above estimates, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly dipped to 4.3%. The unemployment rate had edged down to 4.4% in December.

Prediction markets indicate that the Federal Reserve is seen as a near lock to keep its policy rate unchanged at the March meeting. The prediction market-implied odds of a rate cut in June are a little over 60%.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

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Governor Stephen Miran also recently told The Peg that, in the absence of further data, he would probably move up his expectation for the appropriate level of the federal funds rate at year-end by 50 basis points (to 2.625%).

“The labor market came in a little bit better than I came to expect over the last few months,” he said. “There’s been some signs of even more firming in goods inflation.”

Both Waller and Miran dissented from the US central bank’s decision to keep rates unchanged in January, preferring an interest rate cut.

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Governor Stephen Miran also recently told The Peg that, in the absence of further data, he would probably move up his expectation for the appropriate level of the federal funds rate at year-end by 50 basis points (to 2.625%).

“The labor market came in a little bit better than I came to expect over the last few months,” he said. “There’s been some signs of even more firming in goods inflation.”

Both Waller and Miran dissented from the US central bank’s decision to keep rates unchanged in January, preferring an interest rate cut.

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