Meta and YouTube Lose in Court, Insider Iran Trades, and Sora Shuts Down

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

What's going down, Scott?

What's going down?

Just life stuff, all this moving parts around.

Moving back to the US and then my youngest who always causes problems

is now like all of a sudden getting A's in his school in London here.

So that's throwing a monkey wrench and everything.

That's kind of good though.

That means he's capable of great things.

Well, we always knew that.

We just didn't want him to do it at this moment.

Oh, well, you know what?

He can do it anywhere.

He can do it anywhere.

The kids are very, you know, yes, I moved my,

I'm going to read just Alex is right now taking a signal

exam about the four-year transform.

I don't even understand the things he sends me anymore.

I'm like, what?

He's like, let me explain it to you.

That's a flux.

Get for him.

Yeah.

He's doing fluid dynamics.

I don't even know.

When I got at 1130 on the SAT, I thought that was good.

I called my mom and she had no idea what that meant.

But she was happy to celebrate with me.

She didn't even know what the SAT was.

Do you know how much things have changed?

This is how I found out.

This is how I found out.

We were moving.

My dad came home.

I wasn't even sure what was going on with him and my mom.

And in introduced me to Linda, my new mommy,

and Linda told me we had all moved.

We were all moving to Columbus, Ohio,

because dad got a promotion.

That's how I found out.

Now we were moving, but we had already moved.

Oh, wow.

And my parents were, in fact, divorcing.

Oh, my God.

And now we literally obsessed.

You're sensitive to it.

Let me say, I will give you some history.

I moved a lot as a kid, too.

My mom was restless.

I was my stepfather.

And I didn't like it.

I have to say it.

But we moved a lot.

Like a lot.

How many different schools do you have?

Only two, maybe.

It wasn't the schools.

It was houses like they were.

Oh, but in the same school region.

It was enough that it was not great.

I remember thinking, not great.

But let me tell you, my own older kids thing,

is we moved when Megan and I were getting a divorce.

She got this offer from the Obama's to President Obama

to be the CTO.

The CTO of America.

Again, another flux.

And that, well, sorry.

I mean, it's what it is.

No, it's true.

It's a flux.

She was reticent because you didn't want the kids to have to move

from San Francisco where we had a beautiful house.

And they liked their school a lot.

And everything else.

And I thought, first of all, it's a great opportunity for you.

Second of all, the kids will have a great time in Washington

and get to spend time with like Obama and stuff like that.

It's like one of those one of lifetime opportunities.

But it was hard.

We got them to school pretty quickly.

But it was a big shift.

And I felt, because of my own childhood stuff, bad about it.

And I have to say, I could have done some things better.

I should have been there a little bit more.

It's complicated.

But I have to say, they did great.

And it was, they were fine.

And they really liked San Francisco.

And this was a shift.

Well, I think you're going through the same regrets

and dilemmas that the primary breadwinner goes through.

And what I would say is having, unfortunately,

in a capitalist society, money opens too many opportunities.

So that sacrifice, which was tough for them,

you not being maybe as president as you would have liked,

was harder on you and paid huge benefits for them.

At least that's what I say to make myself feel better.

No, by the way, primary bedwin or my ex-wife

was an early Google executive.

Just go with it.

I'm trying to make myself feel better about not being around

with my children.

But I have to say, I was, you know,

they were moving his heart with kids at the same time.

I think they really benefited.

And they learned to adapt.

And they loved their, they ended up loving their school

and got the sports.

And so it was, it was definitely not unrocky.

But I think you, you have to give your kids more credit

for being adaptable than you think.

Yeah, I just, I don't know.

I pretend like I have any fucking say in this decision.

Anyways.

But so, yeah, we're, uh, and America,

got to get back to America.

I always, I always go to the reason we're worried about this

is because we don't have real problems.

It's like, no, it's a normal thing to be worried about your kid.

You want to, everyone wants, no matter where you are

in the economic spectrum, you want your kids to do well

for the most part.

Most people do.

Anyway.

Yeah.

But what you said about getting a chance to hang out

with President Obama and go to all those wonderful museums,

I've told my partner that my 15-year-old

I can get him a fake idea and he can come to shame

or go with me.

Talk to the, uh, lovely Russian ladies

who make eye contact with me because they think

he's so old he must be rich.

No, you know what, New York's an amazing place to be

the age you will be.

It'll be really interesting for him.

I think it's just really a tremendous city.

It really is.

I think it's just really a tremendous city.

It really is.

I think I've said this before.

You never know.

It's like you don't know you're in the solid days

until you're out of them.

Like I, I know that the last is I get older.

And I'm already doing this.

I'm already really, like, painfully missing the period

when my kids were like three and six.

Yeah.

That, you know, Sunday morning chaos.

I have to say, I love it.

You just really, like, really long for that.

Like that's the moment.

There's a solution.

You can have more kids.

Like I did.

Unless my prostate is going to give birth,

I don't think that something is,

I don't think that's in the cards.

In any case, one of the statistics that I just read

was you spent, by the time they go to college.

90%.

You have spent 90%.

Yeah.

Have all time you're going to spend with them.

And that kills me.

After I heard that, I was like,

last night, my kids were crawling all over me.

At first, I was trying to eat dinner and I was like,

oh, and then I thought, oh, fine, fine.

It's fine.

Yeah.

My, my son's doing orientation at his college.

And it's a one day thing.

I'm like, let's go for four days.

We'll just hang out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he's like, no, I don't want to hang out.

Yeah.

It's cats in the cradle, my friend.

Anyway, I love that song.

We got to get to news, though.

There's so much going on.

Oh, that.

That.

Listen, President Trump plans to install big tech names,

like Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Olsen, and Jensen Wong

to a technology council to weigh it on AA policies.

And other issues.

We were not invited.

AI policy.

Buy more of my shit.

Buy more of my shit.

US government.

Buy more of my shit.

You know, it's again, breadth.

No regulation.

And buy more of my shit.

That's going to be their recommendation.

The rest of anybody who has a different alternative view

that these are the only experts.

I would say our invitation is lost.

The dog ate our invitation, but he hates dogs.

So Trump ate our invitation.

I just don't, this list is nobody who has any doubt about it.

Nobody has any good research.

No one whose interests are not aligned with it.

No regulation.

With any conflict everywhere.

Everywhere.

Everywhere.

I just.

What do you know?

Jensen Wong's a big fan of selling, being able to sell his chips

into China despite the fact that it's the chips that you do war games

with and track our Ohio class submarines.

Yeah.

And Larry Olsen wants more data centers.

And you know, I just.

Oh, God.

These people.

Like you think if you were a real president.

And I think this guy isn't losing it every single day.

Including the polls, which are just like look out below.

But it's really amazing that he doesn't want other inputs.

Like that may vary from his rich friends.

It's just I find it.

It's just not good policy not to have people who doubt each other and debate it.

I just I don't understand.

Yeah.

We're waiting for an invite.

Even just you.

Even you if he needs the white guys.

Even you.

Well, you're good.

I love that.

Why thank you.

Yeah.

You're the white guy.

They're not going to have me.

I'm irritating to all of these people.

And so you know, I'm just saying.

I'm just saying you a speaking of which someone was someone said.

I don't know.

And one of these many many platforms which are just so good for your mental health.

That care was a total shell for big tech.

And I I I wrote.

Do you realize like I have been on.

When you go on a board and they don't want you on the board.

They stick on the nominating and governance committee.

Oh, I know.

I have to find some really no power information.

Okay.

And your job.

Your job is to find new directors and it's just it's it's literally like.

You know, put him put him at the weird kids table.

Yeah.

And so I've of course served on a lot of nominating and governance committees.

And were you supposed to recruit new board members.

If you were in such a pain in the ass to these people.

You'd be fucking chairman of SpaceX right now.

I would be because over the last 20 years we have correctly started saying.

All right.

Let's try and broaden the aperture and bring in candidates who potentially don't

look smell and feel like us and aren't members of the same country club.

So a journalist.

A gay journalist who's covered tech.

You were built in a factory of lesser.

I'm going to go on a board next year.

Well, let's discuss that.

But the reason I mean this sincerely.

The reason you haven't been invited to be on.

I was invited to one.

I was invited to one.

Okay.

But the reason you haven't been invited to half a dozen.

Is because you get in their face.

And on boards, nobody's going to put.

They don't mind someone who has alternative opinions or whatever.

But ever since quite frankly, I'll be blunt.

Ever since I started becoming more outspoken on podcasts.

Yeah.

I used to get invited go on three or four boards a year.

It's gone way down.

It's interesting.

Because the public see us are like the public see us are like, okay.

No.

Let's call him.

Let's bring him in.

Let's talk to him.

But I don't want him in my board room.

Yeah.

Let me let me address something though this week.

I gave a thing.

It's Syracuse University.

They asked me this amazing tone.

The Orange Man.

The Orange Man.

And you know, I was talking about things that I've talked about a lot about CNN.

And the Ellison's owning it.

And this and that.

And where AI is going.

Ooh, little controversy.

This is getting started.

Yeah.

Little controversy.

I just want to say that I find David Ellison very attractive.

I do too.

And Larry Ellison is a huge big brain thinker.

He's a nice guy.

He makes great movies.

I would absolutely love to work for them.

Yes.

Okay.

Listen.

This is what happened.

I was telling things.

I've said 109 times before.

I don't want to work for a tech mogul.

I don't.

I just never have.

Walt and I didn't take money.

As opposed to a media mogul.

Yes.

Work for media mogul.

Yes.

Yes.

I would take money.

Yeah.

I'm calling Challenger.

I was talking about that.

Used to be an agent.

You couldn't work there.

You could work there.

You could work there.

You have to.

Yes.

You could work there.

Yes.

You can just check there.

As I could get out.

How long are you there?

Hold on.

Hold on.

Just like two years before we could get a few years.

No.

I was there a long time.

But he didn't buy it for a while.

In any case.

Scott, we left news court because of Rubber Murdoch and that behavior around the taping of that dead girl was awful.

Was awful.

We left very soon after.

And we on purpose.

This is the voicemail thing.

Yes.

We took money, we were offered money from Silicon Valley venture capitalists and we took

money from Terry Semmel, who had a media fund.

Yeah, yeah, who CBF?

Yeah.

Anyway, he's a lovely guy, amazing guy, amazing person.

He had a media fund and then we took money from NBC, but we were offered venture capital

money and we didn't take it because I was like, these fuckers, they're going to fuck

me.

Like that, that was real.

And also,

There's a word for that venture capitalists.

Yeah.

Exactly.

But anyway, we didn't take the money.

And then I just don't want to work for tech people.

And I've said that to you on this podcast, it doesn't fucking time, right?

Haven't I?

It doesn't.

So I repeat that again, but what I did was Scott McFarland, who left CBS and is now with

Midas type, which is a very fast-growing thing.

And they're going into news now instead of just news aggregation, which is a cool thing.

And Scott is an astonishing journalist.

He did an amazing job around the January 6th and the Justice Department is astonishing,

very handsome man.

By the way, you would love his handsomeness.

Very tall.

And he went to Syracuse.

And so he was the MC.

And as a joke, he was like, you know, he was talking about going independent.

Oh, no.

Because he looks like an ad for an anchor, a typical TV anchor.

And he was, you know, he's like, oh, goodness, I'm taking a big leap.

And I was like, oh, it's going to be great.

And I said to him, I said, you're, you made the right decision.

And I was looking directly at him and joking.

I'm like, you don't want to work for the elephants.

I mean, he's a terrible person.

I was just like, like, laying it on as a joke.

The whole crowd laughed.

I was not, I don't think Larry Alson's a terrible person.

He's got, he's a, he's actually very funny.

I don't agree with him on a lot of things.

He's an amazing entrepreneur.

He has great aesthetic taste, by the way.

And his ship, his boats are fantastic.

Like, I was joking to Scott McFarland directly.

And somehow these reporters were like,

Cara swish her things Larry Alson's a terrible person.

And it was crazy.

And it's also all the things I've said before many times.

Like, it's, it's kind of weird.

And then it became a thing, whatever.

I like, by the way, let me just be clear.

I like David Alson, he's a nice guy.

Larry Alson is a tough dude.

I'm sorry, he really is.

And people can dislike him because he's had a really,

he's been a tough,

cussed cowboy of over the many years.

That said, I do think he's very innovative

and has done an astonishing things.

And so, but I don't want to work,

I don't want to work for tech people.

I don't.

And I, I think it's perfectly, you know, legitimate.

And frankly, the decisions they've made

have been terrible around stuff that concerns me.

And that worries me of them taking over CNN.

So what?

Big deal.

I think you're being bigoted against wealthy white men.

And, you know, I don't, you know,

you wouldn't have to worry about this

if you weren't living forever.

I know, I'm sure the CNN people are like,

it's premiering soon and you should insult the new owners.

I mean, I'm, I'm being very serious.

I get, I'm speaking in one of these events

tonight.

Anyways, but I get a huge amount of power

for my atheism because I find it very comforting

to know at some point everyone I'm worried about

is going to be dead and so on.

Yeah.

I find it actually quite liberating to realize, okay,

squeeze all the juice you can out of this lemon

called life because we're going to be dead soon

and take risks.

And if you fuck up, it really doesn't matter.

We are on the same way, like, no, in a hundred years,

no one's going to remember us or anybody we care about.

Anyway, moving on, the Pentagon, this is troubling to me,

is sending roughly 2000 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division

to the Middle East as of this recording.

There's been no decision to put,

I hate this expression boots on the ground,

but that's what it is.

Trump is talking a lot of talk this week,

saying the war has effectively been won.

Iran wants to make a deal and negotiations are happening

right now, even as Iran disputes that.

And I hate to say it, but I believe Iran.

And I don't like the people who are running Iran.

And he said he got a gift from Iran

calling it a very big present worth a tremendous amount

of money and tide to oil and gas.

I think he's just making shit up now.

He's also sent Iran a 15 point plan

to end the war, demands including dismantling nuclear sites,

ending enrichment and reopening the state of Hormuz.

We certainly had some of those things in place before.

And as potential talks may or may not be taking shape,

their reports that Iran would prefer to deal with

Vice President J.D. Vance over Jared Kushner

and Steve Whitkov, and wow.

That's a, that's a choice, right?

That's a choice.

But I would agree with the Iranians on that.

And Vance has been the person who, you know,

is going to be running for president

and could possibly be president

and also has been opposed to the war quietly

that he certainly ran on the idea of no more wars

and he's also a veteran.

I don't know.

What do you think about that?

It's all, I mean, I go to the markets,

you know, so there was an unusual amount of futures

that reached hands at 60.

Please talk about this.

Well, I believe that in a digital world

where forensics and AI and investigative journalists

one of the wonderful things about America

is that people see incentive in, in finance

what actually went down.

And I think that's one of the wonderful things

about our society.

I think you're going to see President Trump

for five years post his presidency

sitting in front of a camera in a jury

pretending to be too old

and they just doesn't remember him telling his buddies,

his friends, his family members.

To buy, buy, buy.

That, oh, I think I'm going to announce

that the talks are going really well,

even though according to the Islamic Republic

there are no talks, which will send the markets skyrocketing

and then when it comes out 24, 48 hours later

then in fact there are no talks

and then the markets oil surges again

and the markets go down.

This is an insider trader's,

it's right from the White House.

It's right from the White House.

Ivan Bosky could not have dreamt of the situation.

The ability to trade on these, on near certainty,

the president knows that if he just,

A, he can say any, he believes he can say anything

he fact and wants, it doesn't matter.

I can lie, I can be full of shit.

Just put out press releases, it doesn't matter.

Kind of the, you know, funding secured over and over.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And I know that the markets will respond swiftly

to my comments.

There is now zero day options where you can buy options

that expire by the end of the day.

And I'm going to go out on a limb here

and then say that sometimes the president

doesn't have that much fidelity to rule of law

or conflicts of interest.

I find it like, this has happened over and over again.

They must just, he must just say things

while in the toilet and people then trade or whatever.

And, you know, interestingly, let me,

no, lawmakers are introducing bipartisan bills

to ban prediction markets from listing.

There's a lot of action on this now

from listing sports bets and to prohibit

members of Congress from trading in certain markets.

Facing the heat, cowshee plans to block athletes, coaches

and officials from betting on their sports

and political candidates from trading on their campaigns

and polling market announced finally enhanced market

integrity rules, including banning trading

on stolen confidential information.

I mean, this has happened rather quickly

and quite, it's quite important that this happen.

You know, it's really, it's just grief.

It's just out and out grief that these numbers

and you know that Democrats are prepared.

This is like so deep in the heart of easy to prove, right?

This kind of stuff and who's doing it.

And so I think they better, you know,

they better hope, but they get those pardons from Trump

and he pardons himself because this is just really,

it's, let me break it down for regular people.

They're making money at your expense

and cheating while doing it.

Like, what, I don't know what else to say.

Like the Democrats engage in what I'll call

a small cap corruption and that is,

it's not illegal to trade stocks right now

because if you're a U.S. Congress person,

I think it should be.

And even though there are regulations

and guidelines against it, the fines is a slap on the wrist.

So the incentives are, if I'm sitting in a, you know,

the Senate, if I'm on the defense committee

or the intelligence committee

and we're talking about a $30 billion contract

to Northrop Grumman and it looks like it's gonna go through.

And my guess is Northrop Grumman will put out a press release

in 72 hours, hey, honey, hey, Paul Pelosi,

I really like Northrop and I just want to be even handed here.

I don't get you.

Scott, you do this every time.

This is like massive corruption and a difference.

It's his corruption on a different scale,

but it's still corruption.

It is, but you tend to go right to Nancy Pelosi

who's leaving Congress.

We know we should have passed these days.

Because, because in order to be taken seriously,

we have to be critical thinkers

and apply it to both sides of the aisle.

I understand this is okay.

So, but let's look at the data over the last,

what is it, 20 years, the S&P has tripled

and the Pelosi portfolio is up sevenfold.

And nothing she has done is illegal.

This is a certain type of corruption.

What Trump has done is said, okay, that's small ball.

You're corrupt for millions.

I'm gonna be corrupt for billions

because what he's done, it's, I'm not sure it's illegal,

but we've never, we've been dependent upon

and Barry Goldwater predicted this 50 years ago.

We have been too dependent upon a series of norms

as opposed to laws and slowly but surely seeded power.

You're absolutely right.

So, Trump says, oh, everyone's doing it.

Marjorie Taylor Green was, everyone, not everyone.

Significant number of people in Congress

have been trading stocks and beating the market.

Mark Wayne Mullin was one of them.

They can't, and also in my solution,

I think they should make, I think people in Congress,

I think representatives should make a million dollars a year

and senators should make two million dollars a year.

They make, I think, a 168 or 170 thousand dollars a year.

That's small.

If you have two homes and you're living in DC

and you weren't rich before running for a Congress.

We should pay for their apartments.

I mean, I just, you can't afford,

you can't afford to have these nice apartments for them

that are actually secure, so put, make them more secure.

The Singapore model, the probably the best run

nation in the world, the Singapore model.

They pay the elected officials a lot of money

and they have zero tolerance.

You cannot go to work for a lobbying firm or a power company.

There has to be a sunlight period

or what do they call it, a sunshine period.

You cannot in any way have any insight domain benefit

in any way, we find out you've called your cousin

in the Philippines and he or she is trading stocks.

You're probably gonna get lashed.

That's literally what it's like at Singapore.

And what do you know, there's no corruption.

Anyways, he has taken it to an absolutely new level

but just circling back where I started,

we're gonna find out that the greatest levels volume

of insider trading and history are happening

and originating out of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Absolutely, 100%.

I think there are people talking about whether it's treasonous

or not to release this things

because these are boots on the ground that could get hurt

and everything else.

So there's a whole level of complexity here

because they're betting on possible deaths

of Americans and others.

Sending JD event, where do you imagine this around things?

Because it is going back and forth and back and forth

and the market is trying to grok it

and it feels very whipsaw.

So far they've given, it hasn't suffered that badly.

You had talked about a real decline in the market.

Is this the thing that we'll pull it off for?

The thing that will pull you mean

Jade sending JD events, vice president?

Yeah, like...

But sending vice president events is a signal.

There's a few signals here.

One, the scariest signal is we have amphibious ships

and combat marine, Marines being deployed to the region.

This is either you could argue,

he's just playing poker or in fact, he's planning to put...

In the terminal, I boots on the ground and carg

and maybe do a swap where I'll let the oil flow through carg

if you ensure the straits of hormones are of safe passage.

There's all sorts of game theory going on here.

He has a tendency to lie and then before,

before a quote-unquote surprise attack,

which I think is bad for our brand-long term

America has to be seen as doing what they say

and meaning what they say and what they mean.

Yeah, we're going to do this.

But anyways, sending vans is a signal because...

Well, no, they're not sending vans.

The Iranians want vans.

Well, but the Iranians want vans

and this is quite frankly, this is a signal

that for the people who want this to end

because vans is on the record of saying

for a long time that these types of misadventures overseas

were a bad idea.

He's been really quiet.

Oh, he hasn't.

He's like, I think I won't look.

Send, send, let, let Scott Vicente do that.

He'd, the last thing he wants to do

is get on with Kirsten Welker

and have her bring up about five million tapes

and where he said, under no sir,

World War III under Biden,

we should never get into these quagmires overseas.

There's just, he's trying his best to justify it.

He is literally just doing everything he can

to stay out of the way of mics and cameras.

He's literally hiding behind the curtain.

He's like, don't ask me.

He's done a few like real pretzel moves

that aren't really problematic.

But the IRGC probably believes correctly.

He's more likely to be empathetic,

to want to deescalate.

So this is a good side.

The fact that the Trump administration is entertaining this,

he, both sides, I think he is probably the guy

that can find common ground here.

Not Rubio, well, we'll see.

Barubio has perceived as a bit of a hawk.

A lot of people think he's the shadow president right now.

What has been the most militarily adventurous

administration in a long time?

Incredible.

And they're planning Cuba next,

which is like, oh god, I mean, leave,

let them die themselves.

They're already on their last legs.

Just let them fall and then we'll move in the hotels.

I'm sorry, under the auspices of having an opinion about

shit, I have no domain expertise in.

Let me just say that the smartest thing we could do,

geopolitically, as it relates to Cuba,

would be to be sending humanitarian aid to the right now.

If you want the people to rise up and think,

you know, the Americans aren't that bad.

Maybe we should normalize relations.

At some point, the Castro family will die out.

It would be starting our hat white

and sending power, fuel, and food to Cuba right now.

Yeah, it worked out so well for the county administration.

But what's really interesting is this is all having an effect.

Democrats pulled off a surprising win in Florida,

actually a pair of them, but one that was particularly

surprising, flipping two legislative seats,

including the district that covers Mar-a-Laga,

like he now has a Democratic representative.

Emily Gregory, a first-time candidate with a background

in public health, won by a little over two points,

astonishing, this was a big Trump district.

Trump has taken a social media to support her opponent,

obviously, in President Trump,

who's called voting by male cheating,

voted by male in the election.

I mean, the list of things Democrats have won recently

is really something else.

To see them winning in all sorts of districts.

And from people I know down there, they're just furious at him.

They really are.

These are all his fans, like, or people who voted for him.

And it's really, I'm not sure it's a good, I think, people.

I think they're going to try to steal the election.

I don't think it's going to be possible

giving the overwhelming numbers that are going to happen.

And another thing that's affecting him,

and these are two topics, as we record negotiations

and the five-week DHS shutdown

or stand still with Congress scheduled to go into recess any minute.

The Republicans have brought a number of possibilities

to Trump and he's turned them all down,

and the Democrats are sticking.

The sticking points are still ice-funding

and enforcement reforms, very simple things.

Don't wear masks, bring in judicial warrants and cameras.

TSA officers will miss in their paycheck this Friday

if the deal hasn't reached.

On Tuesday morning, Delta Airlines suspended specialty services

for members of Congress.

They're going to have to wait in line like everybody else,

which I think is great, all of them.

You said, in your last show,

that grounding private planes might move the needle.

And I love that Delta and others are pushing back.

The TSA is pushing back against ice.

Great move by Delta.

Great, great, brand-enhancing brilliant fucking move by Delta.

And no one likes ice there.

Like, the TSA has said, it's useless.

The airlines think it's useless.

There was a pilot that got on social media

where he's like, this fucking sucks people.

And I have to say, this is all at Donald Trump's door

because he's refusing to deal because of the SAV Act

and letting people wait in line.

I love that Congress people have to wait in line.

I love it.

And so talk about this win in Mar-a-Lago

and what's happening with TSA

because besides Iran, this is yet another series of things

that are indicators, leading indicators.

District 87, Palm Beach County, as you noticed,

includes White House Florida.

And a really impressive young woman.

I love this.

Emily Gregory.

Fantastic.

40-year-old small business owner and military spouse

running for office for the first time,

defeated Republican John Maples

who had Trump's complete and total endorsement.

She won with 51.2% with turnout roughly at 29%.

Trump carried the district by 11 points in 2020.

Yeah, that's a lot.

The previous Republican incumbent won by 20 points.

I mean, this is, and then let's go up,

let's go up the coast of the great state of Florida,

Democrat Brian Nathan, a Navy veteran and union organizer,

upset Republican, Josie Tomkow, by just 408 votes,

a margin of 0.5%, which could trigger a machine recount.

But Tomkow outspent Nathan more than three to one.

And Nathan, it looks like Nathan won

and received over 400,000 kind of contributions

from the Florida Republican Senatorial campaign committee.

The previous Republican incumbent, J. Collins,

won the seat by 10 points in 2022.

And this all bubbles up to the most shocking, exciting,

in some way.

I'm almost worried we're peaking to early right now.

No.

The election markets, Kowsha is saying for the first time

that it's more likely than not,

the Democrats take the Senate.

When have we heard that?

Everyone has said, everyone, the narrative so far

from quote, unquote, all the experts is it's likely,

very likely Democrats will get control of the House.

But the map is really difficult for Senate,

really difficult, like looking at the people.

And now people, more people are betting their money

on Democrats taking the Senate.

This is, it's wild.

I think the Democrats are fielding much better candidate.

This woman, it seems, I love her.

I was like, I love you.

She was focusing on maternal health

and affordability issues.

You know, you have Abby Spanberger in Virginia.

You've got Mickey Cheryl.

You've got all, even my dad made their people.

Good candidates everywhere.

Calarico.

Yeah, Calarico.

And not just centrist ones, just really good,

everywhere.

Young people of fresh ideas.

Yeah, fresh ideas.

You know, regular size, prostate,

still childbearing, actually think about kids,

actually have kids at home.

Yeah, I feel, I feel really good about the candidates.

And the Trump ones look like a bunch of cult members

or acolytes that really hate him secretly.

And by the way, let me stress to everybody.

If you hang around Republicans off the record,

they eviscerate Trump on the record.

They suck up to, it makes them so awful.

Like, at least the Democrats fight in public, I guess,

than they do.

But it's really something to see what's happening here.

That was, I think there's the Mar-a-Lago one

is particularly notable, obviously.

But across the country, in places

where Democrats have never won Georgia, Kansas,

all these places, they're knocking up wins.

And so that creates a real opportunity

of Democrats walk into it.

And I think so far, on the local level, like this,

candidates have been speaking, they're listening to voters.

And they're not, I don't think they're just

mouthing things like, I think they actually are concerned

with what do voters want.

This is our customers.

And we're going to give them what they want.

Anyway, Delta, let's give Delta a big old clap.

Oh, this, I'm at the CEO there

and a good friend of mine's on the board.

Whoever, whoever came up with this idea,

that is one of the most brand-enhancing,

thoughtful, egalitarian, American thing.

This was such an amazing corporate move.

And it directly, and again, it flies in the face,

or not flies in the face.

It supports what I believe is the greatest commercial

opportunity I just had a phone call with,

I think one of the most thoughtful business leaders

in America who runs an iconic investment bank.

And I said to him, the greatest commercial opportunity

in a long time has been presented.

And that is in a thoughtful, non-ad hominin,

non-personal attack, discussing values of America

and how they have been so incredibly important

to our capital markets, to do a Dario Modi,

and now to a starting step with Delta Airlines

is saying, and to say, no, this is a direct front

on the Trump administration.

No, it's all Congress people.

It's the people who don't know,

Congress people can sail through security.

Yeah, but what this is saying is,

people don't know that.

The people blame Trump and the Republicans,

mostly for this shutdown.

So by them saying, this is unacceptable,

but Delta saying this is unacceptable,

and our leadership who has fucked this up

by quite frankly demanding that the say back

be a part of this or ice funding,

we are no longer gonna engage in facilitating this.

We're getting back in the line, back of the line,

back of the line, which is great.

All right, we think it's great.

Get back in the line, line suck, by the way.

And it's terrible for the TSA people who deserve to be paid,

and ice people are being paid,

and they're doing nothing but buying coffee

and irritating people.

They handed out water in the line through security.

How stupid can you be?

Anyway, okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

We come back, meta and YouTube are found libel

in the first of the social media addiction lawsuits.

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Scott, we're back with more news.

Metin, YouTube, and found libel of harming a young user

with features that were addictive to her mental health,

a California jury found.

Metin must pay $4.2 million in YouTube, $1.8 million.

It's not very much money she asked for a billion.

The case focused on features like infinite scroll

and algorithmic recommendations.

As a reminder, both TikTok and Snap settled

before the trial began.

Metin has also been found libel for failing to protect young people

from online dangers in a New Mexico case.

They are Metin must pay $375 million a little more,

but still a parking ticket for this company.

The company made 160 times that and revenue last quarter.

These verdicts are the first in social media,

addiction trial, social media impact trials.

As the New York Post cover said, Metacolpa,

which we love, we love Scott.

What do you think?

Here we go.

We're over the edge with Jerry's involved.

Jerry's are tired of social media.

I generally want to get your viewpoint on it,

but my initial instinct is that this is actually a big deal.

It is.

As you said, it's not about the parking tickets

that have been issued.

It's that there's now legal precedent

for what the activities these terms engage in

is makes them civilly, at least liable.

And the other piece of information I got that found fascinating

is their insurance companies are trying to reject the claims

saying that they intentionally,

they knew they were intentionally doing this.

And so they're not covered by insurance.

And my sense is it's not about this case.

It's that the other several hundred or several thousand cases

against these terms just got a lot stronger

because of this decision.

Yeah, there's a real back up.

You know, this has been something you and I've been talking about.

I went back to that.

Oh, you think?

Yes.

I thought I wrote a book on this about 10 years ago.

You did.

I was just saying you wrote a book on this.

And I wrote a book on this and talking about these problems

and how liable they were, lack of accountability,

lack of regulatory scrutiny of anybody,

except some in other countries.

In fact, rolling over for them,

but both by Obama and Trump, of course,

because he takes money from them.

I think their high water mark was standing with Trump

at the inaugural.

I think this was starting to be in place

when people realized after January 6,

they think that the social media has a real impact.

And it's been a slow burn.

That's for sure.

And our regulators have done nothing.

Let me just say, not in states in our federal regulators.

And I don't mean to say Amy Klobuchar

and others have not tried.

I just think they have not been successful

because of the pushback.

And in this case, I think you're going

to see furious pushback by these companies,

even for this small and amount, right?

This tiny amount of money, because they

don't want any accountability for what they're doing.

They want to skate out of responsibility.

And they can't, because now it's in front of juries.

And every person knows addiction is an issue.

Sloppy management is an issue.

And threats to kids are an issue.

I saw you on Anderson Cooper last night.

And I mean, you had it.

I thought it was exactly the right point.

And we've been talking about this.

And that is the nation is actually pretty good

at recognizing externalities and harm.

It just doesn't act crisply.

It took about 30 years at tobacco, 20 years with opiates.

Social went on mobile in 2012.

It feels like that timing's about right

that about at 2032, unfortunately.

And I'm personally aggrieved, quite frankly.

My kids got fucked up on these things.

Your kids, your first generation, your older kids, Alex

and Louis had to endure this.

In my sense, as they've come through a pretty, pretty

unscathed.

They had less of it.

They had less of it.

It wasn't quite, you know, they were,

your kids are the zero ground zero.

I think my kids were near a blast zone,

but not the same quite thing.

I think they like YouTube.

They were a little bit on Snapchat, you know what I mean?

But it wasn't as intense and hateful as it became.

But as big tech always does, this praise on the poor.

Because if I'd had these devices and a mother

who was gone before I got up in the morning

and got home after, sometimes after I was asleep

because she was working.

And I was totally unsupervised.

And I had YouTube and Snap and you porn and meta

and Facebook.

I think I just would have been on these things

all damn day long.

And as I was going through puberty,

my brain would have been wired for constant squeezing

of a dope at bag, which I believe could have very easily

taken me away.

I used to leave my house to go hang out with my friends

because I was so bored.

I'm not sure I would have left my house.

You wouldn't, why would you?

Why would you?

I mean, one of the things that they've done,

I think as these cases come to the discovery

is going to be brutal.

I mean, I think they know it.

There's all kinds of evidence that they know it.

In this case, a lot of stuff came out

that they want to attract tweens

because they're lifelong customers, right?

It's like, it's literally like Joe Camel

when you read this stuff if you put cigarette in there.

And what's incredible here is,

actually believe the cigarette manufacturers

knew exactly the problem of nicotine.

I think these guys think that they're not,

that's not their fault.

It's never their fault.

And then they hide behind the first amendment.

Hey, it's just people talking.

And there was a great story in the Washington Post today

about Republicans worried about young Republicans

being so anti-Semitic, Nazi-focused, sort of hateful.

And where do you think this comes from?

Again, I don't blame them fully.

I don't, I don't think it's fully,

but they've created addictive and necessary features

without any kind of guardrails in place

or any kind of, it's not like they're like,

hey, let everything go.

And I think that's, it's sort of like

they're evil babysitters, right?

In some fashion.

And at some point the babysitter has to get dinged

in some way.

That's, they consider themselves, it's not their fault

if people eat their shitty food.

You know what I mean?

Like, our tainted meat, it's okay, you know?

And of course, everyone else gets regulated with them.

Yeah, I think the argument would be,

we don't get any credit for all the good we,

all the good we, why aren't there parades?

Right, that we, that people do learn,

people do, it helps them with their homework.

They do make connections, you know,

parents of kids with childhood,

rare childhood diseases.

Social media does add a lot of value.

It creates tremendous economic growth,

a lot of high-paying jobs.

They would argue we're a net good.

And I would argue, that's actually true.

The problem is with the word net.

And that is, we're net beneficiaries

from fossil fuels and pesticides,

but we still have, we still have a clean air act.

We still have an EPA, we still have an FDA.

Right.

And this is, this is fossil fuels and pesticides

with absolutely no emission standards.

No, when I lived in L.A., I was talking,

I went on vacation with a buddy of mine,

we grew up in L.A. together.

There were days where by the end of the school day,

you couldn't breathe in.

And they cleaned it up.

They cleaned it up.

And unfortunately.

And unfortunately, that, I thought of it yesterday,

I was trying to think I was asked to go on

and talk about this.

And I instead, I decided to go out and drink.

But Dave, I was thinking, okay,

is this the beginning of the end?

It's not, you know what this is?

This is the end of the beginning.

These, this industry's not going anywhere.

But the era of, we, you know,

we need to do better from Cheryl Sandberg

or Mark Zuckerberg weaponizing thousands of lawyers

and lobbyists to delay and obfuscate

and gloss over the internal research

that showed one out of 12 teens in the UK

was a cited Instagram for their suicidal ideation.

I do think that era is coming to a close.

And the, my favorite part of the case is that

there was an undercover operation,

I think from the Attorney General in New Mexico,

where they posed, they created accounts

posing as an 11 year old girl,

which was almost immediately inundated

with images and targeted solicitations

from wait for it, child abusers.

That's right.

So it took the Attorney General

about 48 hours to figure this shit out.

And we're supposed to believe

that meta wasn't aware of it.

Yeah, we don't believe them.

I neither did the jury, by the way.

We're gonna move on to saying it,

but I gotta say one, I did quote you last night

on Anderson, where you say, you know,

we're bound by the law but not protected by it

and they're protected by the law, not bound by it.

Now they're bound by it.

And they are gonna fight their asses off.

You know what Mark?

Just pay the money and fix it.

Like just stop, like stop.

Because the more they resist,

the more a growing group of people

bipartisan across the country recognizes

the damage these companies in.

And then of course, the same day Donald Trump

names all of these people to a committee on AI

with not nary a critic on it, right?

Everybody with self interest is on that advisory committee

and nobody who's gonna talk about the possibilities

of problem only up and to the right.

And once again, they're gonna try to do it

and let me tell you folks, we need to stop them now

because the damage they have shown no ability

to control themselves.

Any day HK, no one under the age of 18

needs to be on any of these platforms.

And we hate to say that, I have to say,

I hate to say that, but this is where we are.

Okay Scott, moving on.

I wanna start our next story by playing a prediction

you made just last week.

My prediction is open AI, Sora social media app

will be shut down soon.

Oh, Sora, what do you know?

You know something.

No, I don't.

I've done no original reporting, trust me.

Okay, all right.

The pannets release, Sora came out

in number one in the app store

and actually got more downloads out of the gates

than Chatshipy T did.

However, the party's ended.

Downloads fell 32% month over month and December

and another 45% in January.

And some Sora is the little engine that didn't.

And also users continue to drop by flies.

You were right.

I still think you had insight information.

Open AI announced this week that it's discontinuing the Sora app.

This is the video app.

They're doing just months after launching it.

This reportedly one of several steps

the company has taken to refocus the business

ahead of its potential IPO,

Sam Altman says the Sora team will now shift

to prioritizing longer term bets like robotics.

As for the Disney deal they did at the time.

If you remember Scott and I talked about it

a $1 billion investment in Open AI,

which we thought they weren't really gonna give them that

and it was just a little experiment

and included licensing characters for sort of Disney.

Is out, Disney's out.

It was more of a press release than anything at.

So talk about this prediction.

I just so I'll also note Open AI is closing in on a deal

to raise about $10 billion from investors,

bringing its latest funding round

haul to more than $120 billion.

Jesus the fucking wheeze.

Talk about this.

I mean, they've had to shift very quickly.

I don't know what they're doing in robotics,

but they should just focus on their core business seems to me.

But thoughts on this, did you know?

Tell me, tell me the truth.

Kara, Kara, I don't enjoy talking about myself

or taking credit for what is arguably

one of the most prescient predictions of the year in tech now.

Oh my God.

It was so good.

I got to say.

I was like, he was right.

Dammit.

My nipples are hard.

Touchdown Jesus.

I approve this.

I am fucking John Travolta when he was thin and could dance.

Yeah.

This is a ladies for the people tuning in on the YouTube channel,

watch his shoulders.

Watch his shoulders.

Hello.

To resist his futile.

Okay.

The weirdest thing, that was literally the easiest prediction ever.

By the way, why did that?

Why did you cut, like when you said it,

I was like, why is he talking about that?

Like, I get it.

To be honest, this goes on a deeper level.

This goes to the notion,

greatness is in the agency of others.

I have a data and research team that feeds me

with every good idea I ever have.

And this young man named Dan Shalon,

I said, I need a prediction for pivot today.

Any routes, Sora's going to be closed down

and he gave me a bunch of data.

So I can't take credit for this.

As usual, I take credit for it,

but it was my team that they came up with that prediction.

He just saw the down.

It's because a lot of apps go up and down, right?

And it took forever for me to really kill off.

This was easy.

Okay.

Open AI didn't shut down Sora and Thropic did.

Yeah.

Of all the incremental or new dollars being won

by AI companies in the enterprise market,

it used to be 60% of new dollars being spent on AI

from the enterprise we're going to open AI.

It's dropped to 30 cents on the dollar

and then Thropic has screamed to 70 cents

on the incremental dollar being spent

by the enterprise on AI.

Why?

Because see above biggest commercial opportunity

and history say no to the Trump administration.

And also to be fair,

and Thropic's new products are just outstanding.

They are.

I have to say.

They have more momentum right now

than any company in the world.

They're better.

They're better.

It's like when you were using browsers,

I remember using Explorer and then a Mnetscape

and then Explorer was better.

You know, it was like that.

You're like, oh, that's like Google.

There was a lot of search engine

and then it was like, oh, this is better.

This is better.

And to open AI's credit and Sam's credit

and the board's credit, they've said, okay.

The best business strategy

when you're starting to wobble,

quite frankly, is focus.

Moved fast.

I would agree.

Focus.

Okay, folks, and by the way,

it doesn't end with Sora, folks,

in terms of shit that's about to be closed down

and that's going to be my prediction

at the end of the show.

But you knew they were going to have to focus.

You knew this product wasn't working.

It was hemorrhaging money.

The whole visual space around AI

just hasn't panned out the way people would hope.

I'll slap.

It's a slap.

Yeah, it's just not.

It's so interesting.

The one, just one of the most interesting things

about Amazon is it started in books

and books is probably being the least disrupted industry

it's gone into.

The book publishing industry,

although it's been consolidated,

is actually still pretty strong.

Big advances,

agents are still making money.

Independent booksellers are actually making a big comeback.

Anyways, but what's so interesting I find

about if you'd said what's going to happen

to designers 24 months ago,

you would have said,

oh, like customer service and mediocre lawyers,

they're just going to get cleared out by Sora

and I forget Google's one.

And what's interesting is there's a percentage

of the employee base.

The number of designers has actually gone up

at tech companies because it's the coding

that is being commoditized,

but the front end human faced UI design really compelling

is now the point of differentiation.

But because these things,

this AI, I've played with this stuff,

it's just not very good.

It's not good.

You know the only thing I like is when they show,

they like to do all these,

like they have celebrities,

like they did a game of thrones in high school.

Some of it's fun, but it's like,

it's sort of like for a minute and then you're like,

okay, now I want to look at something real.

I think the human eye can see it.

It is.

The human eye is like, hmm, not so much.

I don't think you get used to it either.

Everyone's like, oh, kids will get used to it.

I'm like, it's ruined animal videos.

I don't think so.

Yeah, animal videos.

Remember how amazing animal videos are.

Animal videos who are amazing

because when you saw a norwaal or a beluga whale,

retrieving a nerf football from adventures

or scientists in the Antarctic or wherever the fuck

that was, you're like, this is an incredible moment.

And now I see it and go, is it fucking AI?

Yeah, exactly.

Because they say, I don't care.

I don't, it's not real.

I don't.

Yeah, I know they make weird, I agree.

And that's, it's just, it's not satisfying

in a way that real is.

I have to say, and I do think the human eye can,

it's just years ago when I was at the MIT Media Lab,

when they were having problems with robotics

that talked to you, you know, on a screen.

And it was always the eyes.

There's something wrong with the eyes.

And humans perceive it in the middle.

And the lips, the voice.

I'm telling you though, if AI starts producing cute,

cute pictures of babies seeing or hearing

for the first time, I'm out.

I'm logging off of every platform.

Yeah, I would agree.

That has to be real.

Those things change my day.

Those things are my mood lifter.

Amazing prediction.

Once again, you have to triumphed anyway.

All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, we'll talk about the return

of the Amazon phone.

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Scott, we're back with more news.

Amazon is reportedly getting back into the phone business

working on a new device internally known as,

oh my God, the transformer, according to Reuters.

That's what a bunch of idiots they are.

This would potentially be an AI-driven phone

that syncs with Alexa and could eliminate the need

for traditional apps.

Oh sure, why not?

Details are slim, there's no clear timeline

or pricing and sources to say the project could be scrapped.

Priorities or finances change,

that's a lot of maybes.

But let's not forget Amazon's last phone foray.

I have not forgotten it since I wrote about its creation

and decline, the fire phone, which launched in 2014

and quickly flopped leading to $170 million right down.

And I remember getting sent it.

I was like, it's like the home, the Facebook home.

I kept getting sent these things.

I'm like, what is this?

And I'm calling Steve Jobs immediately

because I need to talk to someone who knows

how to make these things.

Why would Amazon have a phone?

I want you to give me the argument

why it's a good idea despite there.

And I think people fail at things and they come back.

But I don't feel like Amazon is my device place.

I think they got knocked over in the audible space.

I think they got knocked over in the reader space.

I mean, it's still a business,

but it's not on fire.

It got knocked out by the iPad in a lot of ways.

And he thought it's on the phone from Amazon

and why give me the argument.

Well, the argument could be that it becomes

a new piece of the flywheel around Amazon Prime.

And that is if you're an Amazon Prime Plus member,

you get a very competent phone

that perhaps has even better bandwidth

because Project Kuiper starts to pay off

and they have satellite base connectivity.

So what this is is potentially,

I would imagine in the conference rooms

where Amazon Strategy Group person,

incredibly bright people are saying.

Yeah, they need a thing.

Well, why don't we go after Android?

And that is we can offer people.

Oh, okay.

We can offer people an unbelievable phone

for free as part of their Amazon Prime membership

and then say and get off of AT&T

and we'll wrap it all into the greatest loyalty program

in history, which is Amazon Prime.

It is indeed.

So I think there's a really solid argument.

The problem is this all works on a whiteboard

and then people hold these phones,

the Facebook phone, the Amazon fire and they go,

I don't like it.

The Microsoft phones?

Yeah, all the handles.

And by the way, just to shout out a colleague of mine

who teaches brand strategy at another university called me

and said saying that Apple shouldn't go

into a lower price computer is all wrong.

And he said, he said, my views on it were all fucked up

and I just want to give him his props.

He said that look at all the luxury car brands.

They were all shit posted for going into lower end models

and it's expanded their share.

And I thought that was a really good point.

Did they're going to give people a really good version

of it and then you have to buy the shitty Dell version?

Yeah.

Well, all the Porsche purists said they should never launch

an SUV, they did it, sells more than any other car

in the Porsche lineup.

And also Mercedes has an A-Class in Europe.

They have what is it not the E, the C-Class?

Anyways, well, if they don't do it too much, right?

You can't do it too much.

You have to do it just right.

I need to do it just right.

PNW has the three, the two, the one.

Anyways, I just want to acknowledge the point

because when they called me and told me

that's something like, I can't do it.

All right, so this is a good Android.

Now I see, thank you for that.

Android, this could be, in my opinion,

the biggest increase in shareholder value that's fallow

is a function of the friction between silos

of different companies.

The new CO Disney should have something called Disney Plus Plus

and you get Disney Plus videos, you get free merchandise,

you get the princess experience

and most importantly, when you come to the parks,

it's on only Disney Plus members days

where there are no lines.

And it would be the ultimate loyalty program.

In Amazon, if they keep, if they added telco

and a device into Amazon Prime, I think theoretically,

it's worth, you know, it's worth a couple billion dollars

to investigate.

They don't do that.

They don't do that often.

You're right.

Like, here you go free, here's like a club

and you would do that with Amazon

because they do deliver really well.

The thing they do, they're cool.

What I thought about autonomous, like,

the core stuff they do, they do really well.

So, you know.

A preloaded free Amazon music, free Amazon,

do zoos or whatever they're there, their autonomous is.

Those are cool, zoos is cool.

And just say, okay, folks, we're gonna take care of you.

Amazon is, I arguably the most trusted brand

in the world right now.

Yeah, Kuiper, they could offer that for you.

And they say, all right,

you don't need, you don't need to trust us

when you're in front of the TV screen

or the computer screen.

You should trust us as much

when you're in front of the phone screen.

The CEO, the one person running at the vision

I'm supposed to meet with him.

Anyway, one more quick break will be back for predictions.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

I'm going to say very quickly.

Just so you know, at the time of this taping SpaceX

is aiming to file its IPO within a week

and I predict, I will not be asked on the board

as you notice in the beginning, I predict that.

People literally don't, if I was your financial,

your wealth advisor and I kind of have been

for the last few years.

But if I got in a hole the you 10 or 15 years ago,

I would have been like toned down the anti-musk

anti-big tech thing.

And we're gonna make hundreds of millions of dollars

on boards.

I know, I know, I can't do what I just said.

As a joke, there was a terrible person.

I can't help myself, that was a joke.

You know, when you text me mean things

at two in the morning, it's not a good idea

and you can't help yourself.

You literally can't.

Some of them are very good.

You can't help yourself.

I can't.

I can't.

I know I shouldn't drink as much as I do.

By the way, speaking of I was right about these people,

I was right.

Anyway, your prediction, please.

Okay, so what do we have here?

Open AI is in a five car alarm right now.

In the last six months, they have,

and by the way, have you seen the deals

of this financing to top off the round with,

I think it's TPG, they are guaranteeing a 17

and a half percent return.

What?

Yeah, they're guaranteeing to top up the round

in private equity, the deals along the lines of the following.

It kind of makes industrial sense,

but it's more of these circular related party deals.

They're saying to these private equity firms,

if you invest and top up my round,

I'll give you, I'll guarantee you a 17 and a half percent return.

Now, the idea is it makes kind of industrial logic

because all of these firms have massive,

a massive portfolio company of firms,

which likely means they're going to encourage these firms

to adopt at an enterprise level, open AI products.

So open AI goes immediately.

We get, eat the dog food is what you're saying.

Yeah, we get industrial scale here.

And because we're going public and Sam's bankers

have probably said, distinct of the problems,

you're going to get X valuation,

hundreds of billions, or even possibly trillion dollar

plus valuation.

So he said to the private equity guys,

I guarantee you a 17 and a half percent return on your money.

The problem is a guarantee at the top of the capital stack

means that the people underneath them, the investors,

might get squeezed out if a decent amount of returns

has to go to the top.

But it is more of this kind of what I'll call shell game.

And as long as things keep increasing, it's fine.

But this is the kind of thing that get absolutely crushed

or trickled, or if they don't go.

Yeah, people like you, Scott,

that's like a, let me pay you to be my friend.

Well, this is, don't like it.

It's a really, that's the most interesting component

of the deal is a, you never offer,

I have never seen, it's a preferred return

that aggregates.

Would you invest then?

I would, I would want for open AI,

I feel that what I would want to do is the following

of just purely capitalist.

I'd want allocation in the IPO because Sam is smart

and Sam and his bankers will say, okay,

the first trade of this is likely going to be 80 bucks.

So let's price it at 50 so we can say

we're the best performing IPO at the year.

Yeah, that's true, those tricks.

That's nothing new.

It's a once in a lifetime branding event, the IPO.

So the investment banks have an incentive

because they get to buy shares at a discount,

they get to give shares to their buddies

and institutions at a discount and the firm

for a modest delusion, three to five percent delusion

gets a branding event that they're in the news

for the rest of the year is the best performing IPO

of the year or a great performing IPO of the year.

So they leave, quite frankly, they leave money

on the table and it's yet another transfer of wealth

from the lower middle class who don't have access

to pre IPO or to the IPO.

Don't you think SpaceX will leave them in the dust?

SpaceX in terms of an IPO.

Yeah, that'll get all that'll be that'll all be

about valuation because while SpaceX,

while SpaceX has the biggest motes in the history

of business as far as I can tell,

they're talking about a $1.00 trillion valuation

on 13 billion or 14 billion in rent.

I mean, that's a hundred times revenues.

So it's all about pricing.

But anyways, so this, this, where I was headed is the following.

It is a five car alarm and Sam and his board

are smart, they are focusing.

First area of focus, Sora, we barely knew you, you're gone.

The next area of focus, it won't be a headline item.

It'll be euthanized slowly.

It is IO and that is the six and a half billion dollar

acquisition of Johnny Ives company to build hardware.

This is the metaverse on a smaller level.

This is a Mark Zuckerberg's consensual hallucination

cost meta shareholders 70 billion.

This is gonna cost six and a half billion to open AI.

It was an all stock transaction,

but there is no way if I am on the board

and I am Sam Altman and I'm like, okay, playtime's order.

I am losing my core business in an anthropic.

We need to focus that they're not gonna,

they're gonna decide to not play in the traffic of hardware.

So there's been delays, technical difficulty,

unclear product definition, high cost.

I think I'd buy the Amazon phone first.

So that's a bad incident because I wouldn't buy the Amazon.

Brutal category.

And then if you look at what's going on here,

persistent technical problems, all right?

Of course.

Compute constraints, always on AI reliability,

privacy concerns, interaction without screens.

Basically, this isn't, right now IO or the division of,

quote unquote, open AI is hardware products.

It's not just about execution risk.

It's unsolved product physics.

I love it.

And the timeline, the timeline keeps slipping.

I've been tracking this originally expected.

Let me give you a piece of advice

that I heard a long time ago.

Hardware is hard.

Well, it was originally, get this, Kara.

It was originally expected around 2026.

And now they're saying it's not shipping before 2027.

Guess what?

It's never gonna ship.

All right, there's a prediction right there.

All right, we'll see what happens.

Anyway, great job on your prediction.

I like this new one.

And by the way, next week, I just wanted people to know,

speaking in predictions, Jeffrey Epstein's lawyer

and accountant just told Congress they were never interviewed

as part of a formal federal investigation.

We're gonna talk about this next week,

because we're not gonna let Epstein out of the news either.

Trump is making all sorts of hand waving in order to pay it.

But this to me was a malpractice

on the part of federal investigators,

any of you know, that they were not interviewed

as part of a, I mean, you might talk

the lawyer and accountant seems to me.

They might, they might know a few things.

In any case, we'll see where that goes.

We're gonna talk about it next week.

So I wanna get that back.

So can I just have one in them, the cloud

and the silver lining of these democratic wins?

What?

We need a Nancy, a speaker Pelosi like figure

who understands how to tell the children what,

okay, the grown up is here.

This is what you need to do.

Is good as things are for Democrats on a Senate

and on a congressional election level.

We are about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,

and while no one was looking,

we're about to elect a president

of the fourth largest economy

who's gonna be a Republican.

Because of the jungle vote and construct in California.

We'll talk about that Monday.

Let's do that.

We are probably going to elect a Republican

unless Democrats get their heads out of their asses.

Yeah, I'm, I'm gonna do a little report out.

I'll do a little, I've been contacted

by every one of those democratic candidates.

And also Steve Hilton, who I know well,

I haven't heard from Travis Sheriff.

Gavin Newsom and Chuck Schumer,

you need to start promising these Democrats something

and getting them out of the race.

Getting them out of the race.

They also had to cancel a thing.

The whole thing is a fucking mess and it's suicidal.

It's suicidal, it's really weird.

And by the way, Governor Newsom,

who I am a huge fan of,

if you don't show some backroom dealing here

and make sure that the next that your Arab parent

isn't a Democrat, it's really gonna hurt your chances

of getting the nomination.

It is.

Okay, before we go, I just wanna say my brother, Jeff,

who was a friend of our pivot,

had emergency surgery this week, heart surgery.

He had a blocked, I don't know what, I'm gonna say it wrong,

but he had to put a stent put in.

And it was because he was on Kaiser or something like that

and he went on Medicare and the intern has said to him,

you should check your calcium levels.

Turned out he had 80 to 90% blockage.

It's called the Widow Maker, the issue.

And he got it all cleaned out

and he's doing great.

But one of the things he said,

for me to tell you, is make sure you all check

things like that and get it checked up.

I just thank goodness that this didn't have,

because he would have died of this very suddenly.

So I wanted to give him a shout out in any case.

That's the show.

But thanks for listening to Pivot.

Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

We'll be back next week.