December 8th, 2025: Black Friday Cyber Monday- You Devil You! Sam Altman Calls Code Red to Stop Google Threat, Amazon + Visa Partner on Agentic Payments, and Nike CEO Purges John Donahoe’s Lieutenants
It’s December 8, 2025 and this is the Watson Weekly - your essential eCommerce Digest!
Today on our show:
Black Friday Cyber Monday - You Devil You!
Sam Altman Calls a Code Red to Stop Google Threat
Amazon and Visa Partner on Agentic Payments
Nike CEO Purges John Donahoe’s Lieutenants
- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 3 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.
[PAUSE]
BUT FIRST in our shopping cart full of news….
Black Friday Cyber Monday - You Devil You!
So what did we learn? From downtime to discounts, you kept us guessing.
First lesson, we already goddamn knew this folks.
We knew it would be a great holiday season. Walmart told us that several months ago.
The consumer is nothing if not consistent. Upper income continue to carry the economy, and lower income brackets while not experiencing wage gains, are not despondent either.
Second lesson, people need to stop catastrophizing.
We learned this year one thing, a slow trickle of bad economic news, tariffs and trade wars, and other things have been a nothingburger for the consumer. Clearly, it has affected global supply chains - lots of major shifts. Consumer rolled eyes at it, however.
Third lesson, many retailers lost a lot of time.
I would like everyone to count up the number of reforecasts you did from March through May and ask yourself - was it worth it?
I'm betting not. Your staff thinks your time was better spent on innovation.
What didn't we learn? ... at least not yet, anyway:
First lesson: How much of this crap you bought are you are going to keep?
And what margins did you have to give up to hit these numbers?
And will you keep any of these divinely discontented promotion-driven customers?
Second lesson: How do we make proper investment decisions?
The idea that when we get stressed and nervous we stop investing in our brand and in our future... perhaps it needs to stop?
>> closer
[References:]
Our Second Story
Sam Altman Calls Code Red to Stop Google Threat
The Wall Street Journal and the Information has reported that due to the release of the latest Google Gemini 3.0, Sam Altman has called a “Code Red” at OpenAI in order to combat the threat from Google.
Well, well, well.
When the incumbent is sleeping, things are great. When the incumbent is paying attention (and Google is) then times are tough.
Google is the worldwide leader in mobile operating systems. It is the worldwide leader in browsers. It has a worldwide “monopoly that is not a monopoly” on search. Every search on Google essentially now features AI conversations if you want it. Likely this will continue to evolve.
So what is happening? OpenAI is building quite a number of things at the same time:
* datacenters
* a foundational model
* a platform
* a hardware division led by Jonny Ive
* a business & apps strategy led by Fidji Simo
* an ads strategy
* shopping
It looks like a fair amount of this is on lockdown at the moment. Reports are that shopping, advertising, and several other projects have just hit the pause button. Agentic shopping, we hardly knew you.
At any rate, you can kind of understand why. The company is investing in so many different things, but one matters more than anything else — the foundational frontier model. If that is hot garbage, then nothing else matters.
So what do I think about this.
Can I say it out loud yet? Sam Altman is arrogant. Not very self-aware, and that does not bode well for the company's long-term prospects.
The company has already proven that its governance model has been an existential risk which has finally recently changed. Perhaps it's time to remove the real source of the problem -- Sam himself. Too much money is at stake.
With the trillions it is planning to spend, the company requires perfection for anyone to ever make any money here. And the governance of OpenAI has already been less than stellar on multiple occasions.
My questions are simple.
* If OpenAI fails, can agentic commerce truly succeed? -- if Google wins, we are still living in an ads world. Google’s commerce record is uh, suspect.
* If the incumbent has caught up, you know, the one with the world's most perfect business model and cash cow, then is it already game over, or not? Is there a chance to reaccelerate?
* How much leash does Sam have before the sharks start to circle?
A relevant example is Amazon - when they were building AWS, they were absolutely terrified by Microsoft. AWS was launched in 2006. Amazon was stunned that Microsoft did not respond until 2010. Amazon lucked out in some ways here.
Google more had an approach problem, which AI approach should win? It was less that the company was completely flat-footed, it was more that the company had multiple competing strategies (Google Brain vs DeepMind) which was not enough to respond to a disruptive upstart like OpenAI.
We will see what happens going forward, but declaring the code red after the release just means there is more trouble afoot. ChatGPT 5 was not well received. Gemini3 was.
ChatGPT 6 is now on notice to be something special.
[References:]
Our Third Story
Amazon and Visa Partner on Agentic Payments
I guess there are going to be any number of agentic payment standards out there. First OpenAI and Stripe partner. Then Google and Paypal. Now Amazon and Visa are getting into the mix.
Essentially, Visa wants to create AI-enabled Visa cards that can buy on behalf of consumers. In other words, making the card itself agentic, which is an interesting approach. Of course if you’re a payments company that’s what you do. We’ve seen Paypal try and make noises similar to this in the past few years.
Visa’s own agentic protocol is called the Trusted Agent Protocol. Which is designed to help merchants identify agents and eliminate those that might be malicious. Which it seems to me will be a major problem in commerce going forward. People buy fraud apps for their checkout to eliminate bad buyers with stolen credit cards. What happens when malicious agents outnumber good ones by a factor of 10 or 100 because there is more money in it?
[References:]
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251014974512/en/Visa-Introduces-Trusted-Agent-Protocol-An-Ecosystem-Led-Framework-for-AI-Commerce
[PAUSE]
And Our Last Story
Nike CEO Purges John Donahoe Lieutenants
Nike CEO Elliott Hill who if somehow you forgot took over for former eBay CEO John Donahoe, has decided that a sneaker company doesn’t need a Chief Technology Officer. Role eliminated. This is a big statement. Chief Commercial Officer gone also. That’s quite a streamlining.
Chief Supply Chain Officer Venky Alagirisamy will take on all the technology in the business along with his current responsibilities. I think this is an interesting move because supply chain at Nike should be about how to innovate on shoes faster, which if technology is required great, it will be under one roof. You won’t have technology just creating random products and buying NFT companies like what happened at Nike not that many years ago.
Ultimately it’s not clear what Donahoe was doing here. At the end of the day, if you are a sneaker company your product is something you wear on your feet. Software is not worn on your feet.
At least not until we all enter the metaverse.
[References:]
https://www.retaildive.com/news/nike-cuts-chief-technology-commercial-officer-roles-leadership-overhaul/806913/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202025-12-04%20Retail%20Dive%20Newsletter%20%5Bissue:79489%5D&utm_term=Retail%20Dive
It’s That Time Friends, for our Investor Minute. We have 3 items on the menu today.
First
L Catterton to Invest in Seki Furniture
Private equity fund L Catterton has made an undisclosed strategic investment in Japanese furniture brand Seki Furniture to achieve medium- to long-term growth.
Link: https://www.retail-insight-network.com/news/l-catterton-invest-seki-furniture/
Second
Markup AI Raises $27.5M in Funding
Markup AI, an API-based content governance platform, has announced that it has raised $27.5 million in Series A funding through a combination of equity and debt financing. The funding will be used for product development, expanding developer integrations, and scaling global go-to-market efforts.
Link: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/markup-ai-raises-27-5-million-in-funding
AND FINALLY …
Saks in Talks to Sell 49% Stake in Bergdorf Goodman for About $1B
Saks Global, parent of the department store chain Saks Fifth Avenue, is exploring selling a minority stake, or 49%, in luxury retailer Bergdorf Goodman for $1 billion to help reduce debt.
[PAUSE]
That’s all for this week! Till next time Watsonians.....
[PAUSE]
Hi, I’m Rick Watson, CEO and Founder of RMW Commerce Consulting and host of the Watson Weekly podcast - your essential eCommerce Digest.
To hear new episodes of the show every Monday morning, subscribe now at rmwcommerce.com/watsonweekly and wherever you get your podcasts.
