The "Code Red" Playbook
On December 2, 2025, Sam Altman sent an internal memo to OpenAI employees declaring a company-wide “Code Red.”
The phrase was not accidental. Exactly three years earlier—almost to the week—Google CEO Sundar Pichai had used the identical term when ChatGPT threatened to make Google Search obsolete.
The symmetry is poetic. The irony is strategic.
In December 2022, Google was the terrified incumbent, watching a startup’s chatbot go viral with 1 million users in five days. OpenAI was the disruptor, moving fast and breaking things.
Google’s founders came out of retirement. Engineers worked through the holidays. Twenty AI products were rushed to market.
In December 2025, the positions have inverted. Google’s Gemini 3 now tops benchmarks. Its ecosystem has grown from 450 million to 650 million monthly active users in three months. OpenAI is pausing its advertising plans, delaying its AI agents, and reassigning teams to a singular mission: make ChatGPT better, fast.
The hunter has become the hunted.
This reversal is not merely interesting—it is instructive. It reveals something fundamental about how large organizations respond to existential threats, how those responses succeed or fail, and what separates the companies that survive paradigm shifts from those that become cautionary tales.
Code Red is not a metaphor. It is a strategy. And understanding its mechanics is essential for anyone navigating competitive disruption.