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Sam Altman on Dev Day, AGI, and the Future of Work
Gold Breaks $4,000 for the First Time — Investors Pile In as U.S. Outlook Wobbles
Sam Altman on Dev Day, AGI, and the Future of Work
At Dev Day 2025, we sat down with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to talk through the company’s latest launches, AGI progress, and how AI might completely rewrite what “work” means.
The details:
Altman said AI is beginning to show real novel discovery—scientists across fields are already using it to make breakthroughs that humans alone might have missed.
He predicted that the future of work may look less like work, hinting that society’s current “social contract” around jobs could shift faster than anyone expects.
OpenAI’s Codex, he said, is “not far away” from autonomously doing a full week’s worth of work, calling the recent speed of progress in agentic, time-based tasks “disorienting.”
He even floated the idea of a zero-person, billion-dollar startup—built entirely by AI agents—becoming a realistic possibility.
Why it matters: Dev Day 2025 wasn’t just another product showcase—it marked a clear step toward OpenAI’s agentic future. Altman’s comments gave a glimpse into that future: one where agents can create, build, and operate companies with minimal human input. Still, he remains optimistic that people will find new ways to adapt, collaborate, and thrive alongside increasingly capable machines.
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Gold Breaks $4,000 for the First Time — Investors Pile In as U.S. Outlook Wobbles
Gold just hit $4,000 a troy ounce — a record high that signals investors are running for safety as doubts mount over the U.S. economy and the stability of the postwar dollar system.
The metal’s 2025 surge has been historic — up more than 50% year-to-date, outpacing its rallies during the 2008 crisis and the pandemic. Not since the inflation spike of 1979 has gold jumped this fast without an immediate economic shock driving it.
This time, the anxiety is more political than financial. Markets are reacting to fears that President Trump’s trade moves and pressure on the Fed could rewrite the global economic order. The dollar has had its weakest first half in 50 years, and futures for gold settled Tuesday at $4,004.40, up 0.7% on the day.
“It’s the perfect storm for gold,” said Aakash Doshi, head of gold strategy at State Street. “You’ve got inflation risk, political pressure, and central banks diversifying out of the dollar.”
Central banks are leading the charge. They’ve been buying gold at a record clip — 415 tons in the first half of 2025 — as nations with tense relations with the West shift away from U.S.-denominated reserves. That push has made gold the world’s second-largest reserve asset, overtaking the euro.
Meanwhile, retail and institutional investors have joined the rush. U.S. gold ETFs saw $33 billion in inflows in September alone, their biggest monthly jump ever. From Costco gold bars selling out to New Yorkers cashing in jewelry, it’s turned into a full-scale modern gold rush.
The rally began accelerating in August after Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled readiness to cut rates despite sticky inflation. That, combined with slowing job growth and global trade uncertainty, has kept yields steady and gold prices climbing.
Even gold-mining stocks are benefitting — one mining ETF has doubled in the past year, outperforming AI giants like Nvidia.
Still, some on Wall Street are warning of a top. Bank of America analysts point out that gold’s major rallies since the 1860s have all ended in steep corrections. But history also shows the metal tends to keep rising before it falls — in five of the last six years gold gained 20% or more, it added another 15% the next year.
Goldman Sachs expects the run to continue, forecasting prices to hit $4,900 by December 2026 as central banks and investors keep piling in — and as the Fed potentially cuts rates by another full percentage point.
Bottom line: what started as a hedge against uncertainty is looking more like a referendum on the U.S. dollar itself.
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This newsletter is a publication of Vector Research Partners (v4rp.com), a data and insights firm powering diligence and growth strategies for top operators and investors.
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