business

David Crowther8/13/24

Starbucks’ new CEO is a burrito chain expert who investors are implying is worth billions of dollars

Switching from burritos to beans can’t be that hard, right? That’s what the Starbucks board clearly thinks, as the struggling company is swapping CEOs after it came under pressure from activist investors. And, according to the initial reaction in pre-market trading, new CEO Brian Niccol is worth many billions of dollars to shareholders.

At the time of writing, SBUX stock is up more than 12% on the news, which would add more than $10 billion of value to the company’s market cap. Starbucks’ gain is Chipotle’s loss, however, as Niccol is set to join the coffee giant in September 2024 from the burrito chain, where he has had the top job since 2018, with Chipotle’s stock currently down more than 9% in premarket trading. Starbucks’ outgoing CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, had been in the job since he succeeded Howard Schultz in March 2023.

Niccol was previously the CEO of Taco Bell, and had senior positions at Pizza Hut. Just a few more top fast food jobs to go to collect ‘em all.

Exclusive | Starbucks Ousts CEO, Names Chipotle Boss as Replacement

Exclusive | Starbucks Ousts CEO, Names Chipotle Boss as Replacement

At the time of writing, SBUX stock is up more than 12% on the news, which would add more than $10 billion of value to the company’s market cap. Starbucks’ gain is Chipotle’s loss, however, as Niccol is set to join the coffee giant in September 2024 from the burrito chain, where he has had the top job since 2018, with Chipotle’s stock currently down more than 9% in premarket trading. Starbucks’ outgoing CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, had been in the job since he succeeded Howard Schultz in March 2023.

Niccol was previously the CEO of Taco Bell, and had senior positions at Pizza Hut. Just a few more top fast food jobs to go to collect ‘em all.

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Paramount is doing everything except the one thing that could give its Warner Bros. bid a chance of success

Warner Bros. says “more than 93%” of its shareholders have rejected Paramount. That’s probably not going to change substantially unless Paramount boosts its offer.

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Streamers continued retreating from original shows in 2025

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Retail display of Takis snack food in various spicy flavors in Target store, Queens, New York

America’s love for spicy food and mouth-tingling sauces has surged, but are we approaching “peak heat”?

Takis doesn’t think so, as it searches for a “Chief Intensity Officer.”

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Netflix made $1.5 billion from advertising last year, about 3% of its total revenue

The figure rose more than 2.5x last year, per the company.

Netflix Ads x CES 2026

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OpenAI’s ARR reached over $20 billion in 2025, CFO says

Sam Altman’s $500 billion artificial intelligence behemoth hit a major financial milestone last year, according to a new blog post over the weekend from OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, as the company confirmed it had hit a more than $20 billion annual revenue run rate at the end of 2025.

Elsewhere in the blog post, Friar spent time addressing the company’s shifting goals, referencing plans to “close the distance between where intelligence is advancing and how individuals, companies, and countries actually adopt and use it.” As has become customary in the AI company press release genre, the CFO was also keen to tout the unending growth of the business, writing:

“Both our Weekly Active User (WAU) and Daily Active User (DAU) figures continue to produce all-time highs. This growth is driven by a flywheel across compute, frontier research, products, and monetization.”
“Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025: 0.2 GW in 2023, 0.6 GW in 2024, and ~1.9 GW in 2025.”

And, perhaps most importantly for current backers and those keeping an eye on the private company before its rumored mega IPO:

“Revenue followed the same curve growing 3X year over year, or 10X from 2023 to 2025: $2B ARR in 2023, $6B in 2024, and $20B+ in 2025. This is never-before-seen growth at such scale.”

That latest figure has certainly set tongues in the tech world wagging, just as the company announced it would begin rolling out ads to free and ChatGPT Go users. It also puts the chatbot giant a fair way ahead of competitors like Anthropic, the company behind Claude.

OpenAI Anthropic ARR race — Sherwood News

A business that scales with the value of intelligence

A business that scales with the value of intelligence

Elsewhere in the blog post, Friar spent time addressing the company’s shifting goals, referencing plans to “close the distance between where intelligence is advancing and how individuals, companies, and countries actually adopt and use it.” As has become customary in the AI company press release genre, the CFO was also keen to tout the unending growth of the business, writing:

“Both our Weekly Active User (WAU) and Daily Active User (DAU) figures continue to produce all-time highs. This growth is driven by a flywheel across compute, frontier research, products, and monetization.”
“Compute grew 3X year over year or 9.5X from 2023 to 2025: 0.2 GW in 2023, 0.6 GW in 2024, and ~1.9 GW in 2025.”

And, perhaps most importantly for current backers and those keeping an eye on the private company before its rumored mega IPO:

“Revenue followed the same curve growing 3X year over year, or 10X from 2023 to 2025: $2B ARR in 2023, $6B in 2024, and $20B+ in 2025. This is never-before-seen growth at such scale.”

That latest figure has certainly set tongues in the tech world wagging, just as the company announced it would begin rolling out ads to free and ChatGPT Go users. It also puts the chatbot giant a fair way ahead of competitors like Anthropic, the company behind Claude.

OpenAI Anthropic ARR race — Sherwood News

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