"Here's a truth from physics that should concern every executive racing toward AI dominance: speed tells you how fast you're moving. Velocity tells you how fast you're moving - and in which direction. A car travelling at 100 mph in circles has tremendous speed but zero velocity. It goes nowhere. It only burns fuel, overheats the engine, and eventually becomes a hazard to everything nearby."
"Sam Altman reportedly issued an internal "code red" at OpenAI in December 2025 - an emergency directive to focus resources on improving ChatGPT whilst delaying initiatives like advertising or Pulse triggered by Google's launch of Gemini 3. The flagship product that triggered the current AI frenzy, deployed to hundreds of millions of users, needed an internal alarm bell. Not because it had fundamentally failed."
Speed measures how fast an activity proceeds; velocity measures speed and direction. Confusing motion with progress leads to rapid activity without meaningful advancement, wasting resources and creating hazards. Executives chasing AI dominance risk accelerating product releases and metrics while losing strategic steering. OpenAI's December 2025 "code red" concentrated resources to consolidate ChatGPT rather than expand into new initiatives, illustrating the need to stabilize flagship offerings before further competition. Researchers note the AI race often lacks defined goals or aspirations, while leadership is judged by releases, funding, model size, and benchmarks — metrics of motion rather than indicators of purposeful progress.
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