Three years after ChatGPT went live, that quiet Sunday anniversary now sits on top of one of the loudest market shifts in modern history.
Since November 30, 2022, stock prices jumped, office work changed shape, hiring plans flipped, and a giant U.S. infrastructure buildout rolled out across power grids, data centers, and supply chains.
The economy pulled into a hard K‑shape, where capital owners moved higher and wage earners fought gravity. The gap widened on both the corporate side and the consumer side at the same time.
The shift looks even sharper when pinned against the mess the market came from.On October 12, 2022, the S&P 500 hit its post‑COVID bottom after sliding 25% from its January peak.
By the time OpenAI released ChatGPT weeks later, the index had bounced almost 13% but still stayed far from a new record until January 2024.
Inflation ran hot. The Federal Reserve rushed rate hikes. Tech stocks took the direct hit. Nvidia, Meta, and Palantir each sank close to 70% at their yearly lows. Apple dropped almost 30%. Alphabet lost close to 40%. Amazon fell by half.
Investors pile into AI while the market resets
OpenAI introduced ChatGPT with a short six‑sentence product post in November 2022. Eighteen months before that moment, OpenAI carried a private valuation near $14 billion. Today, that figure stands around $500 billion, placing the firm inside a group of fewer than 20 companies worldwide with that size.
The launch text said: “We’ve trained a model called ChatGPT which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. We are excited to introduce ChatGPT to get users’ feedback and learn about its strengths and weaknesses.”
That short release gave no early hint at what followed next. Layoffs spread across major companies. Inflation hit a 40‑year high. Yet that small product drop ended up tied to a full market reset.
As the AI cycle now moves through its fourth year, the quiet origin still shapes how traders read the rally. Doubt stayed glued to the bull run because the rebound came out of a period that, by most measures, looked broken.
A chart that spread across social media after the launch sharpened the divide. Since ChatGPT went live, the S&P 500 surged more than 70%. Over the same window, job openings slid by roughly 30%.
The graphic picked up a dark nickname online, the scariest chart in the world. On the surface, it suggested one story: investors win while workers lose.
Journalist Derek Thompson, who wrote about the chart in his Substack last Thursday, pushed back on that straight‑line reading.
U.S. job openings peaked at 11.5 million in March 2022, the highest count since JOLTS tracking began in 2000. By August 2025, openings dropped to 7.18 million. At the same time, the S&P 500 climbed from about 3,840 in November 2022 to nearly 6,688 by September 2025, a gain close to 74%.
Fed tightening and policy pressure hit hiring
Thompson traced the job drop to interest rate policy, not artificial intelligence.Job openings peaked months before ChatGPT even launched.
The high point landed in March 2022, exactly when the Federal Reserve kicked off its first rate hike in over three years. On March 16, 2022, the Fed approved a quarter‑point increase. That move opened the door to 11 total hikes through July 2023.
The goal stayed narrow and blunt.The Fed aimed to cool demand and crush inflation by making borrowing cost more.Higher rates cut business loans.They slowed consumer spending.They pulled back investment.
Hiring slowed with the rest of the system. By September 2025, the same central bank switched direction and started cutting rates to keep unemployment from rising and to wake a soft labor market.
Trade rules and migration policy stacked more pressure on hiring.President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy pushed costs higher.His immigration crackdown limited labor supply growth at the same time.
A study by the National Foundation for American Policy estimated those immigration rules could cut the future U.S. workforce by 15 million people over the next decade and reduce yearly economic growth by close to one‑third.
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Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/three-years-since-chatgpt-launched/