The Briefing: Leadership Shuffle Season Arrives as Tech Giants Plan Their Next Chapters
Issue #2547.1 / November 17, 2025
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The changing of the guard is accelerating at some of tech’s most powerful companies, and it’s happening faster than many expected. Apple’s board has intensified succession planning for Tim Cook’s potential departure as early as 2026, just as Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway placed a €3.7 billion bet ($4.3 billion) on Alphabet, signaling confidence in tech’s future even as its icons prepare to step aside.
The Apple story caught markets off guard on Friday. Cook, 65, has led the company since 2011, transforming it from a $350 billion enterprise into a $4 trillion juggernaut. John Ternus, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, has emerged as the most likely successor. The acceleration of these plans isn’t tied to company performance (Apple expects its best quarter ever this holiday season), but rather to the practical reality that much of Apple’s senior leadership is approaching retirement age. The company is unlikely to announce Cook’s replacement before its January earnings report, allowing the new leadership team time to settle in before major events, such as the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
The timing is remarkable. Walmart announced Friday that CEO Doug McMillon will step down early next year, while Disney’s Bob Iger continues his own succession choreography. In 2025 alone, approximately 1,650 US CEOs have left their positions, marking what amounts to a generational shift in corporate leadership, as artificial intelligence reshapes entire industries.
Which brings us to Berkshire’s surprise move. The conglomerate revealed it purchased 17.85 million Alphabet shares during the third quarter, representing a significant departure from Warren Buffett’s traditional reluctance toward high-growth tech names. The €3.7 billion stake ($4.3 billion) makes Alphabet Berkshire’s 10th largest holding. While the purchase was likely made by Berkshire investment managers Todd Combs or Ted Weschler (who initiated Amazon investments in 2019), it still represents a meaningful vote of confidence in Google’s AI positioning. The timing is particularly interesting: Berkshire has been a net seller of stocks for 12 straight quarters, trimming even its massive Apple position by another 15% last quarter.
Meanwhile, the AI race itself continues its relentless pace. OpenAI launched group chat capabilities in ChatGPT on Thursday, piloting the feature in Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan. The move transforms ChatGPT from a solo productivity tool into something more collaborative, letting up to 20 users work together with AI in shared conversations. It’s powered by the new GPT-5.1 Auto model and includes the full suite of ChatGPT features: search, image generation, and file processing. The social dynamics are fascinating. OpenAI taught the chatbot to read the room, knowing when to stay quiet and when to jump in, though users can always summon it by mentioning “ChatGPT” directly.
Not everything is moving faster, though. Elon Musk announced Friday that xAI’s Grok 5 model won’t arrive until the first quarter of 2026, pushing past his previous year-end 2025 deadline. The delay affects what Musk has called the “smartest AI on the planet by a country mile,” a model he estimates has a 10% chance of achieving artificial general intelligence. With 6 trillion parameters (double Grok 4’s count), the extra development time appears focused on improving reliability and eliminating misinformation. The postponement gives competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic breathing room, though xAI’s $500 billion in secured chip orders through 2026 (disclosed at late October’s GTC conference) suggests the delay won’t fundamentally alter the company’s trajectory.
In Other News
IBM announced it will cut “thousands” of roles in Q4 as it pivots harder toward higher-margin software, particularly Red Hat, even as the company reported strong Q3 results and raised its 2025 guidance to above 5% constant-currency revenue growth.
European startup funding shows continued momentum, with notable rounds including Dialog’s €3.7 million seed for AI sales agents trained on brand data, Holo’s €1 million pre-seed for AI-powered health monitoring combining lab testing with Apple Watch and Oura integration, and Zilch’s eye-catching €150 million in combined debt and equity.
The US government shutdown ended last week after Senate passage of new spending legislation, reopening the door for delayed economic data releases and providing relief to markets that had grown anxious about fiscal uncertainty heading into year-end.
Bitcoin briefly dipped below $95,000 amid broader tech selling on Friday before bouncing off lows, reflecting continued volatility in crypto markets even as institutional adoption deepens.
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