Hello there.

Happy Friday! We’ve got another bombshell model release this week, and the stakes feel higher with that IPO looming.

In this issue:

Hey, I’ve been wondering: chips are a “pick and shovel” kind of thing, right? And that means they’re pretty safe, right? Well, there’s only one way to find out.

OpenAI is making mid-2000’s Apple look like they're moving in slow motion. The company just released GPT-5.5 on Thursday, barely six weeks after dropping GPT-5.4. At this point, keeping track of AI model releases is starting to feel like trying to follow the MCU.

So what's the big deal with 5.5? Basically, it's way better at doing actual computer work without you having to hold its hand through every single step. Writing code, making spreadsheets, browsing the internet, and debugging stuff that breaks. You can throw a messy, complicated task at it and it'll actually figure out what to do next on its own (most of the time). OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman, said this is "setting the foundation for how we're going to use computers going forward," which sounds dramatic, but honestly? Probably true.

The company is calling this another step toward building a "super app" where ChatGPT, their coding tool Codex, and a bunch of other stuff all live in one place. Sounds bold, but OpenAI now has over 900 million people using ChatGPT every week, which is absolutely bonkers. And with the company potentially going public later this year, expect the product announcements to keep coming hot and fast.

One thing worth noting: OpenAI isn't just throwing this out there without thinking about safety. They rated GPT-5.5's cybersecurity abilities as "High" risk, which means it's powerful enough to potentially cause problems if it ended up in the wrong hands. They're being careful about how they roll it out to developers and are working with about 200 partners to test it first. The API (basically the way other apps can use the model) is coming soon at $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens. That's double what 5.4 cost, but OpenAI says it's more efficient, so…probably gonna sell.

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SK Hynix, one of the big memory chip makers out of South Korea, just reported its profits jumped five times higher than last year. Finally, some data to back up the hype around the industry. And it sounds amazing, right? Well, investors aren't totally convinced, and the stock actually dropped after the news came out. Classic "buy the rumor, sell the news" type of thing.

Here's what's happening: AI needs a TON of memory chips to work. Like, an absolutely ridiculous amount. All those data centers that companies like Meta and Amazon are building to run AI models are gobbling up something called HBM (high-bandwidth memory), which is basically the fancy, expensive memory that makes AI go brrr. SK Hynix's CFO said demand will exceed supply for the next three years, and they're planning to spend significantly more money building new factories.

The bulls say we're in a "supercycle" where the normal boom-and-bust pattern of memory chips is finally broken. AI demand is just that strong. The memory chip stock prices have been on an absolute tear. Samsung is projecting a 800% YoY jump this quarter. That is…huge, to say the least.

But here's where it gets interesting. Some very smart people are saying "hold up." Memory prices have been climbing for 11 straight months. Samsung, SK Hynix, and other manufacturers are all scrambling to build more capacity. Chinese makers are planning to multiply their production too. And anyone who's taken even one econ class knows what happens when everyone rushes to increase supply at the same time.

We’ve entered a new era for memory, but no industry is free from market cycles. The party is real, but just don't be the last one to leave.

In this episode of This Week in Tech, the hosts unpack a chaotic moment in tech where the AI boom is colliding with infrastructure limits, legal crackdowns, and rising public anxiety. The conversation explores whether this is a golden age of innovation or the early cracks of something unsustainable.

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That’s all for today. Write us and let us know your thoughts on the market, the newsletter, or the weather—we’d just love to hear from you.

Till next time,
— Brandon and Blake