Transcript of Google Nest's Surveillance Secret, Bondi's Epstein Meltdown, Meta & YouTube in Court

Support for today's show comes from Atteo, the AI CRM. If you've ever used a CRM and thought, why does this feel like a second job? Atteo is worth a look. Atteo is the AI CRM that builds itself. You connect your email and calendar and it pulls in every company, every contact, and every interaction already organized in one place. From there, it keeps itself up to date. It understands your customer calls, adapts to how your business works, and the AI agents take action in the background so you can focus on what matters. If you need an intelligent CRM that scales and grows with your business from day one, that's Atteo. You can go to atteo. Com/pivot, and you'll get 15% off your first year. That's attio. Com/pivot.

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, and options, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investible index with AI. Go to public. Com/podcast and earn an unkept 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public. Com/podcast. Paid for by Public Investing, brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory service by Public Advisors, LLC. Sec Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.

Com/disclosures.

Support for this show comes from Indeed. If you're looking to hire top-tier talent expertise in your field, Indeed says they can help. Indeed's sponsored jobs gives your job the best chance at standing out and grants you access to quality candidates who can drive the results you need. Spend more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results, now with Indeed-sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed. Com/voxbiz. Com. Business. Just go to indeed. Com/voxbusiness right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed. Com/voxbusiness. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring? Do it the right way with Indeed. If you want to wear your frilly underwear, I think I... Wait, was that a secret?

I don't wear underwear. Daddy goes Commando.

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York magazine in the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

Scott. We just did a great on with Kara Swisher about Resist and Unsubscribed, but I'd like an update.

Do you have another podcast? I find that out.

I do. You were quite substantive. Where are we right now? Give us a quick update.

It lulled Tuesday and Wednesday. It appears to have come back today because Chelsea Handler, who reached out to me, posted something of all the things she was unsubscribing to. Just to give an example of how much impact one person can have. I went on AI, I went on to my site analytics. I think that one video she did on Instagram, that one post, is going to inspire 6,000 to 7,000 unique site visits, conversion of 5%, that's 300 people unsubscribing, average of two platforms, 600 unsubscribes, average 200. That's $12,000 times, excuse me, $120,000 times 10. So $1. 2 million in market cap getting taken out of these companies because of one Insta post.

Right, exactly. I'm going to see her tomorrow night, I think. Tomorrow night, she's here in DC. We should get them all to do things like that. Let's reach into the celebs we know and get them to do it. I'm going to bug them all.

I like it. Thank you.

Yeah, because if they do that and put even just one thing up, it matters, and it's an easy thing for a lot of them, and they like it.

What people don't realize about economic protests, the most famous one was a Montgomery bus strike. It wasn't the one cinematic moment. It was That organization of thousands of carpools over the course of a year. It takes a while. But any individual who unsubscribes from OpenAI right now is taking $10,000 out of their market valuation.

Which is great, and that adds up.

And there's a substitute, the free ChatGPT.

And also all kinds of other free services, Gemini, all the others. You don't have to pay for it necessarily. And by the way, you can use things for free. You're taking stuff from them without paying them. Paying is the issue, is what you pay for. So just keep that in mind. Everyone's like, Oh, now I can't use Google. I'm like, No, it's free.

Well, just to give an example, how this unsubscribes to these recurring revenue tech platforms or tech companies, T-Mobile just had an earnings call. They were They expected to add 992,000 new subscribers. They added 962, so 30,000 fewer. Their stock declined 6% in after-hour. So it cost $12 billion because they're unsubs or Because 30,000 people didn't show up for subscription. So not only do these actions punch above their weight class in terms of economic impact, if Sam Altman grows his subscriptions seven and a half % versus eight % month on month, he's not going to close his $850 billion round. Yeah, absolutely. So this is literally this is the string. If you don't have the time or the energy to do some of the very other important work, whether it's protests or calling your congressmen, you can have a massive impact by unsubscribing right now.

Yeah, you can. Now, speaking, and something the administration does care about, attorney general Pam Bondi, who we'll talk about more in a minute, was testifying in front of Jan, crazy Jan, was testifying in front of Congress about Epstein. On Wednesday, she made it clear she'd prefer to be talking about other things. What did she zero in on? Let's listen. The Dow is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing. You're a great stock trader, as I hear, Raskin. The Dow is Over 50,000 right now. The S&P at almost 7,000. And the Nasdaq smashing records. Americans 401k and retirement savings are booming. That's what we should be talking about. Well, she's not the Treasury Secretary, but this is what shows what they care about. They really do. The fact that it was inappropriate to bring this up in here given they were talking about victims, sexual abuse victims. But nonetheless, this is what floats their boat, is this money, right? Let's also listen to a great idea one of our listeners sent in. Every child of an elderly person did also go through all of their parents' subscriptions I went through my mother's this weekend and was able to take $125 off of some bills by unsubscribing subscriptions she didn't even know she had.

That is a great idea. I do that with my mom all the time, and I'm trying very hard to take the New York Post off of her subscriptions. I'm going to leave it there.

Two years after my mother died, I found that Geiko was still taking $220 out of her bank account a month for car insurance. Wow, crazy. If you don't, and I've used this example before, when I unsubscribed from AT&T, went to Noble. I'm saving about $20 or $30 a month. But in addition, I found out I had four accounts with AT&T for Blackberries and iPads, which have been in landfills for years because I never went on and unsubscribed them. Even though they know they're not getting a GPS signal these things, and they could send you an email saying, Hey, you know you're paying 70 bucks a month for something you haven't used in five years. You're going to save money. These companies are very good at figuring out a way to get you to subscribe and get you to forget that this money is coming out of your pocket every month.

There's a couple of services, and I don't have the names to show where your subscriptions are and to unsubscribe, but this is a better way to do it. But then you can use those services to find them all over the place. You'd be surprised of what you're... I found an AT&T thing. I was still from when Apple first had the iPhone, when they had unlimited, if you remember. Anyway, it's a great thing to do. Keep going. We're going to do more. Every little thing we can pull on the administration cares about this issue. It's the only thing left is the DAO at this point, the fallout from the She's got $50,000.

She's the fucking attorney general. She clearly knows nothing about economics. What is she talking about the Dow?

I know. Also, calling a Representative Raskin. Who the fuck does she think she is? She's in his house. She's in his house, and he calls him Raskin. I'm going to call you Galloway when I use your house. Hey, Galloway. Anyway, the fallout from the Epstein files continues, speaking of which, as I mentioned, crazy attorney general Pam Bondi, who really needs to be medicated, testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, and things got heated. She soiled herself multiple times. Bondi sparred with Democrats, not just Democrats, over DOJ's handling of the Epstein files and refused to apologize to survivors. She wouldn't even look at them there. It turned out she's never talked to them. She also clashed with GOP congressman Thomas Massey. Massey criticized Bondi and the DOJ for failing to redact victims' names while blacking out the names of a businessman, Les Wexner. Let's listen to the exchange. You can 40 minutes, Wexner's name was added back. Within 40 minutes of me catching you red-handed. There was one redaction. Where he's listed as a co-consider. And we invited you in. This guy has Trump derangement syndrome. You're a failed politician. Really crazy, crazy, craziness, I have to say.

I just don't know what to say. What is wrong with her? Speaking of derangement syndrome, honestly, I don't know what she was doing up there. I know it's an audience of one, but he can't even find this impressive. It's grotesque.

Yeah, it really feels like we have-Wheels are coming off. I mean, it's a shame because it's just so It's a serious issue. Weird. It's the attorney general making a mockery of the institution and just no decorum. But I'm curious what you thought about the hearings, but the moment that I found really chilling was when, I think it was the Representative Jaipal had some of the survivors stand up and asked how many of them have reached out to the DOJ to provide evidence or input. But all these survivors stood up, and it was clear they've reached out to the DOJ, and the DOJ has- Ignored them. Has ignored them. You thought, Let me get this. The Department of Justice investigating what is arguably may go down as the crime of the century to date, and survivors and people with direct knowledge about what happened or what didn't happen. They could also, quite frankly, they might exonerate some people.

Right, exactly.

They don't want to talk to them. Right.

She She wouldn't look at them. That was another moment. She wouldn't turn around. She wouldn't do it. This woman is insane. She's a crazy one. It was so strange. I know this audience of one they always do, but in this case, I was like, wow, you people are desperate and terrified of what's coming next for you. I thought Massey was effective. I thought Vecabalant was effective. I thought Giapal was effective, Raskin. I thought they all... One of the things, someone who works there said, How do you think it went? I The only problem with this thing was you lay down with pigs the only people that like wrestling with pigs are the pigs, right? If you get in the mud with them. But I thought they relatively handle it well. It's just that the craziness is what gets attention and not the victims. It becomes a ridiculous circus. On some level, what was interesting is Fox didn't show it. They're obsessed with the Nancy Guthrie kidnap me, which is a terrible thing, too. But they're not even airing it. They don't want to show you the crazy. Any normal person looking at this would be like, What, honey, you need some therapy, stat, thing.

What happened to you? I thought that was really interesting. This Epstein thing isn't going away, Pam. I'm sorry. It's just not now because it's so very clear that you didn't do your job, and neither did people before you, by the way. But guess what?

It's a valid point.

You're in the chair now. I don't really give a fuck.

It's her DOJ. It's her DOJ. Her boss is mentioned in the Epstein files more times than Jesus is mentioned in the Bible, or the term meth is mentioned in Breaking Bad over eight seasons. I feel like every time yesterday, she claimed that the President had been the most, quote, unquote, transparent president. When she uses the term transparent, I think somewhere there's a thesaurus, Filing for Protective Custody.

Why are you laughing at me? It was It's so weird. It's so weird. It's so culty. It's so strange. One of the things I do think is effective is a lot of these Congress people are going in and seeing unredacted versions, which are very upsetting.

When they come out and they look like they've seen a ghost. I know.

Even since the Alums, who was, I didn't know it was there now. Whoa, folks. Cynthia Lomas, I'm so glad she's leaving politics. But I have to say, even someone like that who literally puts in the least effort possible, same thing. They're looking like, Oh, my fucking God, you're kidding me I got to be honest, I didn't realize it was this bad.

When the more information you read about this in terms of the number of victims, in terms of how many people were involved, how many opportunities there were to stop it, and it just gets the web keeps getting deeper and uglier.

It is, and the lies. Like, Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnik, was on Capitol this week as well. He told the Senate Committee he and his family had lunch on Epstein's Island in 2012, but insisted he'd not have a relationship with him. Of course, he had given this Ha Ha interview with one of these right wing outfits where he said, I never- I was disgusted by him.

I was disgusted by my wife. We're going to have no contact with him again. Here's the thing.

He took his kids. I took my four kids and their nannies, and I got all the kids off the island.

But this is the thing. It's usually not the infraction itself. It's the cover up. If he had said- Why did he say the first thing? But if he had just said right up front, he's a neighbor, he had powerful friends, I didn't do the diligence I should have. I went with me and my kids to his island once because it sounded like fun. Okay, poor judgment, but go along, get along. Instead of trying to wrap yourself in some indignance that you immediately smelled a rat and you're lying and you decided to... I mean, if he just come clean in the beginning, said like, Yeah, it was a bad judgment, took my kids to his island, had a lunch. I'd heard he was a big philanthropist and Who knows? Maybe it was... Okay. All right. Bad judgment. Move along. But again, it's the cover up.

He had to take a lap. He had to take a, I'm so pure lap. That's because he's a moron. Let's be clear, this guy's a moron. People are asking for him to resign. He really is a liar. He's a liar and a moron. It doesn't mean he had to do anything, but he's a liar and a moron. One that's interesting under scrutiny is entertainment executive Casey Wasserman, Chapel Ron, and other artists have cut ties with Wasserman, as is their right. After the latest files showed, he exchanged emails with Julian Maxwell and seemed to have some relationship with her, probably extramarinal, who knows. Wasserman, who serves as chairman of the LA Olympics, organized he appears to be holding on to that role. They're backing him. There were other names floated to take his place. Now, let me be clear for people. I'm not letting him out, but it was 2003 before any of this was known. He may have been able to pick it up. That's different. But this was well before the first conviction in the first Sweetheart deal that Epstein did in Florida. So even he's under scrutiny and people are cutting ties. And again, this is this artist right.

They don't like the cut of his jib. That's perfectly fine. In his case, the blast zone of this is so far, right? It's really interesting.

But it's so indiscriminate. Again, I go to the following. If we had an institution we could trust, including the Department of Justice and the institutions that actually assemble these files, if they could go through it and go, Okay, there are three circles here. There's people who either engaged in, provided infrastructure, or trafficked in facilitated crimes, we are going to release those names in the form of grand jury indictments. We're going to go after these people. That's the headline news here. The Department of Justice isn't supposed to ruin people's careers. It's supposed to create an incentive system where people follow the law by prosecuting criminals and exonerating people who are not guilty. That is what they are there What do we do? Then the second circle, and this is a harder one, is okay, if a cabinet member has clearly lied under their testimony or under oath, should they release that information? Didn't commit a crime. This is Howard Ludnik. Should the President, who is not so far been accused of a crime, if he's mentioned in this thing 6,000 times, should we release that information? I think that is a really important point. The biggest circle, quite frankly, is I have seen on TikTok and on Instagram, people talking about models, how they talked about going to a museum with Jeffrey Epstein, and we should no longer have anything to do.

They're trying to shame all these people, and it's like, You know what, folks? That's just pure gossip. Unfortunately, the ring light shaming of all these courageous, virtuous people when they're behind a keyboard and have much higher standards for other people than they do for themselves, that is distracting from what the Department of Justice is supposed to do. That has put pedophiles in prison. Yeah.

I would urge people to read. It was really interesting. Katherine Rumeler, who's the legal head of Goldman, she had a lot of emails there, very chummy emails with Epstein going on for a while. I thought Bill Cohen did a great job talking about why she was in that relationship. Most of it was, in fact, she was professional. She's looking for work, right? And that's a whole different- For business.

A guy who knows the rich guys who can send me AUM for wealth management.

Yes, exactly. I would urge people to read that. Again, one or two of them, and one or two places, when he said, Oh, it was only prostitution, she goes, That's just this abusive Jeffrey. Unfortunately, he kept saying they were gifts. There was a business relationship. I thought it was actually a really complex situation that made me think, God, if she was a guy and she did golf with him, she'd get off because she was a woman who was vaguely flirty. She wasn't. It was a great piece because it made me rethink. I was like, Okay, not great judgment. Should have known better. Should have stopped talking to him after the first thing, but didn't business. It was just interesting. It made me think a lot. I recommend Bill Cohen's column in Park, and I thought this is his area of expertise in finance. I thought, Okay, this is why he was trying to explain why they haven't let her go. I thought that was interesting. Anyway, speaking of power, a Sixth Republic has joined Democrats in the House on, was he to vote for a resolution aimed at ending President Trump's terrorist on Canada. It's a symbolic gesture, even if it clears the Senate, Trump would veto it.

But that didn't stop him from making threats. Trump posted on Truth Social that any Republican who votes against the terrorists would seriously suffer consequences come election time, and that includes primaries. I think he's losing the grip, as they say. What do you think?

Well, there's some new data that shows that about... So the initial notion The question was the tariffs would mostly be paid by either corporations, a populist thing, or the importer, or excuse me, the exporter themselves, the country would absorb it or whoever was sending the products. It ends up, and there's final analysis, 94% of the costs have been borne by US consumers, and then the other 6% have been borne by companies either deciding to take a bit of a hit or the importer themselves, or excuse me, the exporter themselves reducing their prices. You have about 15% of the economy is imports. They thought the tariff's average around 20%, so that's 3%. Some managed to get out of it. So call it a 2% of the economy, But the problem is it's an unnecessary 2% hit to the economy. To be fair, it hasn't had the catastrophic effect a lot of people thought it was going to have. But in a weird way- Prices are higher.

Yeah, it's just why- I feel it myself, and the shelves are emptier. It's weird. I never have noticed that before.

Well, not yet. But why reduce people's prosperity by 2% for no real reason? It doesn't cause growth. It doesn't cause innovation. All it's doing is urging or reconfiguring the supply chain around the United States. The CEO is entering into an agreement with Mercasor. There are all kinds of new trade zones being opened up such that people are not as reliant on the US. A weird thing, though, is that if his tariffs are overturned by the Supreme Court or by the Congress. I actually think the markets will rip. In a weird way, it could end up helping him if these things are turned back. I think the markets will scream if these tariffs are found to be illegal.

Yeah, we'll see. Although, apparently, he's got all these plans to put other kinds of fees in place to take their place, that he'll have to go back to court and stop them for those. He's doubling down. This is something he's talked about for years. I don't know if he's going to back off so and take the victory here. He'd like to take the L, honestly.

Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting.

I don't understand. No, that lunatic, Peter Navarro talks about him. We have a whole bunch of things to happen if the Supreme Court overturns this. What's taking the Supreme Court so long, by the way? Anyway, we'll see what happens. I do think on the broader sense that there's lots more Republicans willing to push back because of their own political survival is not linked to Donald Trump as much anymore. The other thing is it looks like they may lose control of the house.

That's right. Another person is resigning it. Yeah.

They're one sick person away from having the Democrats in control. It's a really interesting time. The power is slipping away, and that's why you're Screamy Pam or this nonsense and stuff. We'll see more of that, I think. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, social media on trial, very important case. The support for this show comes from Quince. Style doesn't come from chasing new trends every season. Real style comes from slowly and intentionally cultivating a wardrobe filled with high-quality staples that will last. And if you're on the look out for a perfect edition in your closet, look no further than Quince. You'll find organic cotton sweaters, polos for every occasion, light jackets that will help keep you warm as the seasons change year after year. Not to mention their famous 100% Mongolian cashmere. If there's anything better than cashmere, I'd love to hear it. Every Quince item is built for everyday wear and made with ethically sourced materials from top factories. And by partnering with manufacturers directly, Quince keeps things affordable, so you're only paying for the quality clothing and not the brand markup. I have finally bought new Quince clothes, not just soft pants that I can wear when I do sports.

I actually bought more of those, but I also bought a lovely cardigan that is so soft. I wear it all the time. I fell asleep in it the other day. I bought a beautiful jacket, and I just love it. I have to say this cardigan I'm wearing is so comfortable. It's really good looking, the fabric, everything else. It feels richer than it was. And the same thing with the coat. It's really good looking, and I really like wearing it. Again, comfortable, simple, and just lovely. I really, really like it. Refresh your wardrobe with Quince. Don't wait. Go to quince. Com/pivot for free shipping on your orders and 365 day returns, now available in Canada, too. That's cuinc. Com/pivot, P-I-V-O-T, to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince. Com/pivot.

Support for the show comes from NetSuite. We all hear all the time how AI can push businesses to new frontiers. If you're still not sure what that actually looks like, particularly for you and your company, then look no further than NetSuite by Oracle. Netsuite is a top AI cloud ERP, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It's a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into a single source of truth. With all that connected data, your AI doesn't throw out its best guess. It actually knows what it's talking about. It can intelligently automate routine tasks, deliver Actionable Insights, and help make fast AI power decisions with confidence. Now with NetSuite AI Connector, you can use the AI of your choice to connect to your actual business data. Plus, you can automate those tiresome manual processes. It's AI built into the system that runs your business, affording you total flexibility. Get ahead of the game and put AI to work today with NetSuite. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get the free business guide, Demystifying AI, at netsuite. Com/pivot. The guide is free to you at netsuite. Com/pivot. Netsuite. Com/pivot.

Support for the show comes from Indeed. Hiring isn't just about finding someone willing to take the job. It's about connecting with someone who can move your business forward. For that, check out Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Indeed Sponsored Jobs boosts your job post for quality candidates so you can reach people that can help your business thrive. People are finding quality hires on Indeed right now as we speak. In the minute I've been talking 27 hires were made on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. Join the 3. 3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results now with Indeed-sponsored jobs. And listeners to this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed. Com/pivot. Just go to indeed. Com/pivot right now and support our show by saying you heard about it, Indeed, on this podcast, indeed. Com/pivot. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, do the right way with Indeed. Scott, we're back with more news. A landmark social media trial got underway this week with Metta and YouTube accused of deliberately designing their platforms to addict young users, you think?

The lawsuit is the first in more than 1,500 similar cases to go to trial. This is something that's been building for a long The plaintiff's lawyer is arguing that his client, a 20-year-old woman, got hooked on these apps as a kid because they were like digital casinos, delivering dopamine heads. Instagram had Adam Messari testify on Wednesday that he doesn't think users can be, quote, clinically addicted to the app. Adam Messari is not a doctor, just so you know. I can't believe he said that. It was a mistake on his part, and also he's wrong. Meanwhile, YouTube is arguing it's not social media. It's an entertainment platform like Netflix, and it's not addictive. That is also not true. The jury, anyone who has kids knows that. It's very different from Netflix. I mean, it's become more like Netflix recently, but it's also an addictive situation. The jury trial is expected the last 6-8 weeks with Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube's Neil Moan expected to testify. This is a really important trial. The big names are coming out and talking about an issue you and I have talked about for years. What are the actual effects and who is responsible for creating an addictive product?

I'm sorry, Adam, I'm not a doctor either, but any fool tell you. It's anyone, not fool, any person will tell you it's addictive. Anyone uses it. There's so much proof that you've designed it like a casino or a cigarette or whatever it happens to be. Thoughts?

Well, imagine you're 14 and someone, you go into your room, and if you were like me, your mom wasn't home until 6: 00 or 7: 00 PM, and you're home alone.

Gilligan's Island.

Yeah, it was Bugs Bunny and Gilligan's Island, and I Dream a Genie for me. But what if in the corner there was a casino? What What if there was an arcade? What if there was Horn? What if there was unlimited music? What if there... And then you say, No, study. What if there was the high school cafeteria where I could say something mean about someone else, or someone could say something mean about me, and all I could think about the rest of the day and night was what they were saying about me, that the high school cafeteria never left. It ends up that about 6% of teenagers are clinically addicted or or meet the clinical definition of addicted to either drugs or alcohol. But under those same standards, 24% are addicted to social media. Just some data, the average American teen spends 4. 8 hours a day using social media. 16% of teens, or one in six, use TikTok almost constantly, 15% for YouTube, 13% for Snap, 12% for Instagram. Roughly half of all teens report feeling addicted to social media. You say, Well, Okay, fine. What's the impact? Teens who are in the highest-use group express two times more suicidal intent or self-harmed than those in the lowest-use group.

The highest-use group also express poor body image at three times more than the lowest-use group. It typically takes a society or it takes America, 20 to 30 years to respond to really negative extra knowledge. It took us 30 years with tobacco, it took us 20 years with opiates. If you think about social People going on mobile in 2012. 20 years is probably the right number. Me, parents always ask me, What should I do with my kids? I say, How old are your kids? If they say three or five, I'm like, We'll have it figured out by then. Because the data here is so overwhelming, and we're up against intransigence and people trying to delay and obfuscate similar to those tobacco executives, and they have more money, and they're more skilled this time. But eventually, the tide, the tsunami of parental concern here, understandable parental concern, is washing over all this bullshit. I would say, we have entire countries now age-gating. Look what Australia is doing. I think another 2-3 years, I'm hopeful the landscape is going to be much different for children.

The remedies would be warnings. There's lots of remedies, like with cigarettes. Age-gating. Age-gating, warning signals, the checking of ages, legal liability. The age checking is harder.

What every other substance company and media company is subject to.

Yeah, they've got to be kidding. They have so many emails of them talking about this. That's the problem. For Adam, sorry to say this, he doesn't think it's politically addictive. Come on, Adam. Come on. We all think it is. The problem is every adult knows this in their bones, right? Because we're addicted. We're addicted. We are. It's a problem. You cannot put it down. It is different from television It is very different. Listen, Gildas Island is addictive enough. I can't believe I watched all that shit. But you can walk away from it in a way. You cannot walk away from this. I find myself, I have to throw the phone across the room, right? Sometimes. I'm like, put it down. Amanda, same thing. It's really interesting. Sometimes I think about it. I'm like, I like news, and I'm mostly reading news, but I don't stop. That's the difference. I put down magazines, I put down newspapers. Papers, and I love news. All this stuff, as it gets out, as you see the emails inside the company talking about it, and especially early on, they knew just what they were doing. Perhaps they weren't meaning to be malevolent at the beginning, but it's malevolent for many young people, and the impact is huge.

Then they just keep doubling down with AI relationships and synthetic relationships and everything else. The time has come round at last for these companies. We'll see how this trial does, but it's going to just uncover more and more about what they knew, very much like the cigarette companies.

When you have hundreds of billions of dollars in shareholder value, trillions of dollars in shareholder value, hundreds of billions in revenue, millions of some of the brightest people in the world, and trillions of data points all aiming towards one thing, how do we get people to spend one more second every day on social and less time somewhere else, whether it's sports, friends, studying, sleep, and they're winning. And young people, especially young men who have this tremendous fall in their brains where they're constantly dope and hungry, they're up against an indomitable foe. And then the other- It's like sugar.

It's the same thing.

And then there's two or three But your kid can take a 10-pound bag of sugar into his bedroom with him. The other two things- That's your kid.

My kid could, but go ahead.

The other two things, it is a cumulative effect that I think have really hurt our youth. Or one, I do I think parents have some culpability here. Absolutely. We have decided that our job is to clear out all borders and obstacles for our kids. We engage in concierge and bulldozer parenting. By the time the kid gets to college, he or she has never had a C or a disappointment. We've created this Princess and P generation with good intentions. We thought we were doing our kids a good thing. Then something that doesn't get talked a lot about, but I absolutely think, is adding up to a generation that at a disadvantage, and that is if you are 21, since the age of 10, the person you are supposed to look up to most in the world is Donald Trump. Performative virality, coarseness and cruelty, Online scams, crypto, doubling down on lies. This has been the role model as kids' brains are being wired during puberty. No matter who is President or what you think of the office, us. President is the person that millions of young Americans look to as the ultimate of success in American values.

What have we done? We've raised a generation of kids who are dope of Hungary, and their primary role model, maybe with a close second, the richest man in the world, are exhibiting values that are very... What do you know? These 21-year-olds are not... It's shocking what good people they are, what they have to deal with.

I would agree. I think they do resist more than you think. Actually, there are a lot of parents. One of the things I spend a lot of time doing with my kids whenever, Can you go get this? Can you talk to that person if they wanted something? I'm like, You need to do it. You figure it out, has became one of my lines with my kids, my older kids. You figure it out. I do it with my younger kids now. With Saul, I'm like, You figure it out. I don't know. I know, but you can do it yourself. It's the best piece of advice you can give to a kid.

I've started giving my kid pounds when he gets good grades. Is that wrong? I slip him a 20 pound. I slip him a note when he gets a day on a test.

No, do not do that.

Well, totally.

No. Anyway, that's called capitalism.

Okay. You get a bunch of money.

Okay. All right. Whatever. Whatever you want to do there, Scott. We should write competing parenting books. In the same genre about surveillance, as you know, that's another thing I go crazy about. Investors in the Nancy Guthrie Abduction case have recovered footage from the Nest doorbell. Nest is owned by Google. It was initially thought to have no video because there was no active subscription. When you sign up for people who don't know, for Nest or any of these things, you can buy a subscription. If you don't, they say they don't keep the video. As it turns out, they do. The incident shows that Nest uploads video to Google's cloud before you decide to keep it with a paid plan so it can linger after it says it's been deleted, it's supposed to be deleted. I'm glad they got these pictures of this guy at the same time. This is an Edge case They're keeping your video, which everyone thought they were doing, and they said they weren't. The FBI working with Google engineers took 10 days to recover the footage from Guthrie's camera. The companies need to spell out in plain English how long deleted footage actually remains on their servers.

And by the way, they're also getting incredible pushback from the Ring ad for the Super Bowl, which is like, We're watching everybody, but only for your dogs. And there's been a million memes about, Only for people we need to take away. The The surveillance of these things and the ease of which they are hacked, by the way, not just taken off the door like this terrible person did, but hacked into, or quite something. A lot of people are getting them hardwired into their house so that they can't do that, and also so that they can't be taken via wireless. There's a lot of wireless activity here, but there are ways to... A lot of these things are open season on your home. When I was speaking of my son My kids, Alex, I had one of them up at one of our houses. When we bought it, it was there, one of these Amazon or ECHO's or whatever. He took them all out. One day, I came back and everything was gone. I was like, Why? He goes, Because they can watch us. I was like, Don't be paranoid. He goes, I'm not. He was right.

Anyway.

I think we have a bit of a different view on this in the sense that I think we gave up our privacy a long time ago.

Yes, Scott McNeely, we did.

What I want to see I remember Scott?

Yeah, he said that. Privacy doesn't exist. Get used to it.

If you are in London or New York, you can't go more than, I think it's 30 feet outside without a camera. The reason they did that was they implemented massive... They have a security headquarters because of 9/11. What I think you need, though, is really, really well thought out laws and institutions that say, We're not going to go fishing unless it's a felony crime, we don't investigate it. In other words, people have the right. You said something I've thought about a lot, and that is people have the right to have secrets. If you want to go into a store, I don't know, you should be able to do what you want. If you murder somebody, then, quite frankly, and there's enough evidence to say that you are a reasonable person of interest Then we are going to utilize cameras, data, video footage.

I agree with you. I just think you buy this product and it says it isn't keeping it. If you don't pay for it, then it's not keeping it. I'm sorry, that's just a deal. That's just the deal when you buy. I have several of these, and I've taken most of them off my house. But they say, and I pay a lot of attention, if you don't pay, this stuff is deleted. This is deleted. If it says it's deleted, it should be deleted. That's all. It's just a deal What do you make with them. I don't think they should keep it if it's supposed to be deleted. Same thing with Echo. It shouldn't be listening if it says it's not listening. If you want it to listen, you can tell it. That's in your home. I'm talking about this. Outside, I think we've lost that battle. Cameras are everywhere. Talk about London. Monte Carlo is really wired. So is the United States of America. That's a good thing when it comes to crime, but it's a very bad thing when it comes inside of your house. Because, Scott, I know if you want to wear your frilly underwear, I think I...

Wait, was that a secret? I back people's privacy in their homes.

Daddy goes, Commando. Big Ed and the Twins want to be free.

But I think in this case, it was good to be able to get the picture of this guy. At the same time, the intent wasn't to. So plain English of what you're doing and how long it remains, and then it should tell you when it's deleted and permanently deleted. If they say permanently deleted, it needs to be deleted. I feel like that's the deal.

At some point, you should be able to have... I have cameras around my house. You can see almost everything. I know.

I try to sneak in all the time.

If someone were to break in. But I think what you want is... This is the hack that I think is coming. Somebody hacks into Uber. With your Uber, if you use Uber a lot, I think you can find out when someone is with a thin layer of AI on top of your Uber trips. They'll be able to know if you just terminated a pregnancy. Or if you're a Russian spy, why is this person continually going to the Russian embassy? Why is this person... Are you having affairs with same sex? A thin layer of AI on top of your ride history, when and where you are going places, it would be very easy to say, Okay, this person is clearly suffering from diabetes. This is why they keep going to this type of clinic. All this surveillance. This person is clearly engaged waged in a love affair with this dude at this address. This person is clearly- This carer swisher is constantly going to Amtrak.

But go ahead.

This person is clearly cooperating with the CIA, as evidenced by the fact they keep going to this one address that is a COVID. They could find out that hack, folks, this is the trade we all make, and we all talk a big game. Anyone who talks about privacy is Basically, over the age of 50 and in Brussels or DC, we consistently trade our privacy for utility. Yes, we do. What I want is massively, okay, unless it's a felony It's a felony, maybe even more than that. It's a felony that has a threat of violence, and there's really strong evidence against one person. All that shit is off limits. No one can use it.

All I'm saying is if they say it's off, it needs to be off.

Or at least give you the power to delete it.

It's like if you buy, I don't know, organic apple, it's not organic. You can't do that. It's the same thing. You're selling a product, you say what it is, stay with what you say it is.

But at the same time, I love the fact, okay, when there's a crime, crime is hitting, despite all the scariness and everyone's saying, whether they're saying it's Eric Adams or Miramam Donny or it's Bedlam in the streets. Crime. The number of shootings in New York last year, I think, hit an all-time low. Violence Violence and crime, violent crime, has consistently gone down the last several decades. Is it because we're a better people? I don't think so. It's because if you commit crimes now, everyone has seen those law and order SUVs that if you go into a 711 in the middle of fucking nowhere and shoot the clerk, ATMs have cameras. So was there any ATMs outside? Then they check the footage on the ATM. I don't like a surveillance state. I like a state. I like a place where if a really strong lawyer, where they consistently say, I get you think a crime is committed here. There's not enough evidence. You do not have access to this video.

Right. I agree. Full stop.

Oh, there's evidence that Are you planning a terrorist attack? Sorry, boss, we're violating your privacy rights in every ring light, every Uber ride.

Well, they're also... But we have Duke process. I still think we have a Duke process. We can't have the wrong people getting a hold of stuff. Anyway, I hope they find Nancy Guthrie, and I hope it helps that they have these, but it brings up a big issue about surveillance, and we should pay attention to it. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the latest in AI news. There's a lot of it.

Support for the show comes from Corewave. Ai isn't just a new tool. It encompasses so much more. It's spurring a revolution across all industries and reshaping itself to become a big part of our future together. Coreweave is at the center, powering some of the biggest names in AI. As the essential cloud for AI, CoreWeave provides an AI platform that combines next-generation infrastructure, intelligent tools, and expert support. It's powering the world's most complex AI workloads, fast and more efficiently, from medical research and diagnosis to education, from complex visual effects from movies to breakthroughs in science and technology. If it's AI, Coreweave is uniquely ready to power it with purpose-built tech. The big idea is the wild visions and what ifs and why nots. Coreweave is working to build what's never been built before. Coreweave is the essential cloud for AI. Ready for anything, ready for AI. To learn more about how Coreweave powers the world's best AI, go to coreweave. Com/readyforanything.

Support for Pivot comes from Anthropic. There are bumps in the road, the ones you can just throw a bandaid on and be done with it, and then there are the bigger problems, the ones where really have to stop and think through, the ones when you finally crack it, it feels unbelievable. For those problems, you're going to need a partner to help you understand where you're at, where you're going, and how you're getting there. Claude from Anthropic is that partner. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's a collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move. Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. Plus, Claude's research capabilities go deeper than basic web search. It can use comprehensive, reliable analysis with proper citations, turning hours of research into minutes. Ready to tackle bigger problems? Start with Claude today at claude. Ai/pivot. That's claude. Ai/pivot. Claudpro. Ai/pivot, and check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all the features mentioned in today's episode, claud. Ai/pivot. So The support for this show comes from Odoo.

Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other?

Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need.

It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier.

Crm, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo. Com. That's odoo. Com. Scott, we're back with more news. Time for rapid fire of AI news. First up, Anthropic is in the final stages of raising $20 billion in new capital at a valuation of $350 billion. Evaluation also at Anthropic. A researcher submitted a resignation letter saying, The world is in peril, saying, Employees constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most. That researcher is going off to write poetry, by the way, which should trouble you. Over at XAI, Elon Musk has lost two cofounders, Jimmy Ba and Tony Wu, both announced their departure as a big restructuring over there, too, as he's brought it into SpaceX. At OpenAI, the company is fired an executive after you opposed plans for an AI erotica feature in ChatGPT, citing sexual discrimination. We don't actually know what happened here. Anthropic raised twice the funding initially, saw it based on investor demand. So thoughts on any of these stories?

Lots of different, lots of stuff happening around AI, again.

Yeah, Why people get fired or why they say they were fired? I don't know. I haven't sorted through that. What I think has already happened, whether it's reflected in the valuations or not, I think Anthropic is now worth more than OpenAI. I think OpenAI- What was their valuation? I think they're trying to close around at 850. Yeah, 850. But that one VC who... If there was a moment where the balloon was burst, if you will, the bubble was burst, it was when that VC had Sam Altman on his podcast and said, You made a trillion dollars in spending commitments on a company with $20 billion in revenue. How are you going to do that? And he got very defensive about it. And they've gone consumer, Anthropic's gone, enterprise. They haven't made crazy commitments. I think there's been the mother of all industrial pivots. I think now, if you will, Avis is now Hertz. I think Anthropic is now worth more or will be soon than OpenAI. But 350 billion?

They are not making money.

Yeah, but they're stronger in the enterprise. Anyways, none of this makes any sense in terms of a multiple on revenues. But I think OpenAI is in real I don't know. Crisis is the wrong word.

And XAI? There's a lot of arguments over on X about that they now do not have me. His big thing was, I have the best AI researchers. Now he does not, right? From what most people, intelligent people are saying about it. But he always does this. He always goes in and shakes the tree and then shakes the tree again. That's his MO, I guess. They're a distant, let's say, a third or fourth, something like that.

Well, these guys are all... Here's A symbol of how easy it is and how difficult or how vulnerable they are. It says, here are some Dario and Daniela Amodi were at OpenAI, now at Anthropic. Ilia Sitzkev OpenAI, now at Safe Superintelligence. Eravind Srinivas, OpenAI, now at Perplexity. Miriam Maradi, OpenAI, now at Thinking Machines. Arthur Mensch, was at Google, now at Mistral AI.

You got all the names.

It's the brightest minds here are I used to work with a lot of luxury brands, and they said the biggest problem they were having in China is that at the biggest malls, if Prada had a store across the street from Bottega Veneta, if the manager of that Prada didn't have people show up. He could go across the street during the lunch hour to the lunch court and offer someone 11 bucks an hour from the Bottega store who was making 10, and they wouldn't even go back after their lunch break. They would go over and work at. It was just so easy to pick off people by offering them a dollar more per hour. It feels so many of these people who have, fairly or unfairly, have established themselves as some of the few minds that really understand this stuff. The amount of money and temptation to go do their own thing or join another firm. Supposedly, wasn't there reports that Zuckerberg was paying some people $100 or $300 million, and then he wasn't? I mean, it just feels like it's total, I don't know, Bedlam right now.

Right. They all think they're going to be the one. I'm going to be the final one standing, and I'm going to own the world, essentially, which is a bet. It's a bet. I think one of the things that continues to plague these companies are these researchers who are Or fucked everybody. They come out and almost they're like, It's going to kill us. I think a lot of people are much more concerned about this than you know.

I think, but quite frankly, Kerry, I think a lot of it is people backfilling the reason why they're leaving with morality sometimes or some victimhood. If you look at, just to go back to musical chairs here, if you look at XAI, the company lost its second co founder in just two days. That means that half of XAI's founding team, six of the twelve, have left the company in less than three years of existence. And Must said, We've reorganized XAI to improve the speed of which required parting some ways with some people. I think for some of these founders, there's legal risk to staying at XAI. The EU is currently investigating the company for its creation of non-consensual sexual deepfakes based on real people, including children. So this really is the Wild West. I don't know. It's so difficult to even keep track of who ends up where and why.

It's like as if Because science people went crazy, right? I do think the warnings are getting really interesting. They're like, I wish someone would just explain, but we're in peril. How?

How are we in peril? Why? How does that manifest? What does that mean?

It's like the people who knew that we were in those movies where a bunch of people know we're about to get hit by a comet or something, and they're not telling us. They're like, I would hug your family. Why?

Is it Arnold Schwarzenegger showing up at your door wearing Oakleys and a lot of leather? What is it? What is happening? What does it look like here? What does it mean? Because the employment destruction that was supposed to be already well underway, I would argue it's not happening yet. I don't know.

But why would someone say we're in peril and set aside what matters most, which is safety, presumably. Then they go off and write poetry. I would like some more information, if you don't mind. If you're going to do that, you need to tell me.

Yeah, exactly. Why are we in peril? Why are we in peril? Save us from what?

Tell me. Tell us. I know there's these legal things, but if it's so terrifying, you need to step out and tell us. Tell us what it is and bring proof, too, by the way. Would love to know when the comet is going to hit us. In any case.

But the VP of Product Policy at OpenAI was fired after she voiced opposition to OpenAI's upcoming erotica features for adult users. Yeah. She did flag that enabling erotica would likely strengthen feelings that users already have for the chatbot. Based on a recent report released by OpenAI, out of ChatGPT's 800 million weekly users, 1. 2 million users are prioritizing talking to ChatGPT over their family, friends, school or work. That's less than what I thought. Roughly 560,000 are experiencing psychosis or mania. This is shitty research as a ratio by 800 million people. Is that normal or not normal? And about 1. 2 million people discuss suicide with ChatGPT. Again, what I want to see is someone to say, All right, is that just a function of people who are depressed thinking they can talk to ChatGPT just as they would talk to a friend or a therapist? Or is it something about talking to ChatGPT?

You get the psychosis.

Insight suicidal ideation or psychosis.

I think the last ladder. You know, interesting. I just did an interview with Cheri Turpel from my Doc series, and she's been saying it for years, and she's like, I've never seen anything like it now. It was before on the sidelines and in the darker places. It was a small group of people. She goes, It's really on mainstream in a way. I would like the information from these people. Would you come out and bring a bag and bring it to me or Scott or something like that? Anyway, I don't bring it to you. Bring it to Kara Swisher. On a separate note, speaking of normal journalism and getting information out. One of the most depressing things is Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai was sentenced this week to 20 years in prison after he found guilt in a sedition and collusion with foreign forces. It's the longest sentence ever handed down under Bayesian- It's a death sentence. Death sentence. Lai's children are saying a potential visit by President Trump, China April, could be crucial in securing the release of their 78-year-old father. This is something Trump should do. Back in December, Trump said he asked President Xi to consider releasing Lai.

But on the campaign trail in 2024, he was a lot more confident, saying, 100% I'll get him out. It'll be easy to get out. He's not so easy to get out. Let's not forget the real surveillance economy, the real control economy. We've talked about these issues around control and the uses of AI for badness. China wins the boats everywhere, and they go after this guy who's a really important figure in this area. If President Trump can do anything, please do it. If anyone can do anything, But Jimmy Lai is a hero, and what's happened to him is, as you say, a death sentence.

Look, I go to the economics. When you start imprisoning journalists, whether it was Turkey in 2012, Soviet Union at the turn of the century, or China taking a very hard-fisted approach to Hong Kong in 2021 as best epitomized by Jimmy Lai being imprisoned. Distinctive the morality of it, distinctive the importance it plays in the society, the nation gets poorer and angrier, it is literally a canary in the coal mine saying, We are about to send a chill across some of the most talented people and scrutiny about what can be said about companies that hurts the economy. The nations get poorer and It's literally a symbol of when an economy is about to move to an authoritarian state, which is really bad for innovation, for attracting outside capital. When you're thinking about investing in Turkey, and all of a sudden they start locking up journalists. If you're googling, you think, Yeah, I'm going to open an office in Istanbul, or you think, I'm going to wait and see if they sort that out. If you're one of the You're the brightest PhDs in the world, and you're doing research on authoritarian governments, or you're doing research on innovation, and you're worried that your research might contradict something that the leadership is espousing to.

Do you go teach at those universities? No, you go somewhere else. China is not a model for... But having said that, I was just supposed to be on with Don Lemon who got arrested. Yeah, exactly.

Why are they arresting Don Lemon? Don Lemon? Give me a break. They shouldn't be arresting any journalist like this. It's just ridiculous. I would agree. Anyway, Jimmy Lai, let's get him out. Let's get him out. He's a hero. I'm going to finish up with something that just happened. Gail Slater, who had hugely respected antitrust lawyer, who was running antitrust at DOJ, just announced she's stepping down. It follows the resignation of a guy named Mark Hammer, who was one of her top deputies. She's had clashes with Pam Bondi over the handling antitrust investigations. I have heard she was in a real bind over the Paramount thing. They're trying to shove through things that are friendly to the Trump administration, and she just can't do it. She can't do it. During 11 months on the job, she found herself in this bind caught between the Trump administration. She was close to J. D. Vance. This is a very respected and well-regarded antitrust version. This should be an enormous signal that Gail Slater is stepping down. I had hoped to talk to her, but Everyone had told me they didn't know what she was going to do about the Netflix Paramount thing.

You cannot be against the Netflix thing if you're not against the Paramount thing. I'm sorry. Of course, she's been put in a bind all over the place. A talented and well-regarded person has put into a bind, and so she's stepping down. I just don't know who they'll put in some idiot, like a Brandon Carr type of person who will just do what they say, but it really brings it down rather significantly. Even making Delrahim for works for Paramount actually now, very well-regarded. They're going to have to put in a village fucking idiot in the Pam Bondi mode. So not a good sign. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back your predictions.

Support for this show comes from Rocket Money. There are very few easy things about managing your money. How many subscriptions is too many subscriptions?

How do I create an easy and effective budget?

How do I keep track of all my accounts? Should I just pour it all my cash and bury it in the backyard? With so many ways to mismanage your money, sometimes it feels like the easiest thing to do is just ignore it. But that's where Rocket Money comes in. It tracks your spending, your accounts, and your subscriptions all in one place, and makes managing your money actually easier than pretending it doesn't exist. Try Rocket Money for free at rocketmoney. Com/vox. Support for this show comes from Wix. You can make a great-looking website with Wix, and you can do it your way.

Whether you want AI to jump in or prefer to do things yourself, get a custom, ready-to-use website in minutes with Wix's AI website builder, or choose from more than 2,000 templates. Get built-in solutions tailored to your business and enjoy easy, fuss-free domain registration, web hosting included.

Wix powers more than 280 million businesses around the world, because with Wix, you can own your individuality, create freely, and scale fearlessly.

Ready to create your website?

Go to wix. Com.

That's wix.

Com. Your business identity is everything, from what customers see to what they don't, like legal paperwork, website security, and state licenses. Well, now you can get more for your business with Northwest Registered Agent. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the US, with over 1,500 corporate guides. Don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand, and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit nordwestregisteredagent. Com/paidvox and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent. Com/paidvox.

Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

I think that what was supposed to be the most anticipated IPO, maybe with the exception of The SpaceX, XAI, Tesla.

Whatever. Tesla is not in there yet.

Probably the most anticipated was the IPO of OpenAI in 2026, sometime this year, or early '27. I don't think that's going to happen. I think that I think this company now has gone into full, I don't call it panic mode, but it feels as if the momentum has a habit of creating more momentum, and I think the momentum is really negative around this company.

What What is that? Where does it go? What does it do?

Well, I think they'll substantially scale back there. Have you ever seen Jensen Wong and Sam Altman, who were bud buddies, are already ship-posing each other? Claiming that the $100 billion agreement was a framework, and they're actually not... The $100 billion investment- May I just say, you said that. Well, that was ridiculous. These circular deals, I'll give you $100 billion. I'll invest $100 billion if you invest $100 billion in our chips. And now, Jensen is backtracking and saying, Well, it was just a framework. They couldn't justify it. Nvidia stock has gone down because people are worried about exposure to OpenAI. So what does OpenAI do? They start ship posting NVIDIA and saying, No, it was because their chips didn't live up to our expectations. When the biggest player in the space, Jensen Wong and the young gun, OpenAI, start ship posting each other, and they back out of this $100 billion investment framework, that is a really bad sign.

He kept using, what was the word? We're honored to be invited. What was he saying? It was so funny.

But they're both going on background now and blaming each other.

Totally, utterly. Can I just give people a lesson? When you hear sources is close to the situation. If they were any closer to either of them, they'd be on the other side of them.

That's them, right? I think the momentum, the worm has turned. It's not that OpenAI isn't an unbelievable company that could go public at a $50 billion market capitalization. But the problem is when you sell some investors in at $250, $450, and then if he's able to close this round at 850, they're not willing to go public or let you have a liquidity event that cuts there. What happens in an IPO, say he went public at 300 billion next year and said, Okay, the market isn't what we thought. Unless there's a couple of years where the latest round of investors gets so fatigued, they're willing to take a 60% haircut, all of your shares, the last round of investment has a preference, meaning they're the first money out. So the 50 or 100 billion going in at 850 doesn't want to give up their liquidity preference and let them go public if they're going public at less than 850, which I think they would. So your last round of investors become a veto block for going public unless you're going to public at a valuation greater than 850. What do they do?

You haven't answered my question.

In my opinion, they'll dramatically scale back their CapEx, and they'll end up with a much smaller, much less ambitious, amazing company that's only worth 100 or 200 billion. It's only one of the 30 most valuable companies in America. Get bought?

Well, that means everyone else will get collapsed, right? Or not?

I think my opinion, if you look at, and I look at weird signals, the percentage of ads at the Super Bowl, right? Yeah, I know. You If you look at all this, I think there's a ton of anecdotal evidence showing that while AI may live up to its potential, the market cap of the biggest players this year is about to throw up. Which isn't to say that similar in 2000, when the market cap of Amazon went down 95%, it's still not going to be an unbelievable company. But I think we're about to see a dramatic recalibration in the markets, which includes OpenAI's IPO plans getting queered. Now, who's going to take their place? And this is the prediction. The most impressive Passive numbers, hands down, that no one I wasn't expecting, Calshi. Calshi? Calshi? Year on year.

Calshi and not Polymarket, right?

Well, Calshi is actually, of the two, the clean, well-lit space. Of this marketplace. I see, okay. Calshe is CFTC regulated. It's also in the US. It's peer-to-peer trading. It's federally regulated. I don't have moral clarity around these because I do think they tap into the dopa of a young, more risk-aggressive male brain. But just let me go straight to the numbers here. In this Super Bowl, over a billion dollars in trading volume on Calshe. That's up 2,700%. It was up 28-fold this year. You know who's getting absolutely the shit kicked out of them? Is Flutter, is the gambling sites. They're killing these guys. It's the sports market accounted for about 90% of Calshe's activity this month, and it's having incredible impact on traditional gambling and sportsbook. Analysts have noted that Calshi's rise coincides with the underperformance in major sportsbooks, stock prices, DraftKings, Flutter, as traders shift some activity towards prediction markets. With a venue that's easy to access nationwide, which Calshi is, even in states without legal sports betting, the firm is attracting betters who might otherwise I have used traditional sports books. This company, my prediction is the following: OpenAI, way to the downside, doesn't get public.

Calshi is going to be, in my opinion, the IPO we're all trying to get into in Q2 of Q3 of this year.

Calchi it is. All right, well, that's interesting. You've been sounding this alarm for these companies. Interesting. That's a big one. Scott, that's a big one. We'll see, right? That's a big one. Anyway, We want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag. Com/pivot to send a question for the show or call 855-51-pivot. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, this week on Prof. G. Markets, Scott spoke with Eswar Prasad, Professor of Trade Policy and Economics at Cornell University, to discuss why he thinks economics, domestic politics, and geopolitics are stuck in a doom loop. Doomloop. Let's listen to a clip. Globalization used to be seen as a positive game where countries could benefit mutually from trade. That would be an offset to what is intrinsically the zero-sum game of geopolitics, where one country can gain influence only at the expense of another. But now, even globalization has become seen as a zero-sum game, so it isn't offsetting the zero-sum game of geopolitics. And worse, some of the negative dynamics of globalization have started infecting domestic politics, not just in the US, but in many other countries.

God, I feel smarter already.

Professor Prasad, one of the things that struck me, and I said this, we graduated the same year from undergraduate, me from UCLA, him from the University of Madras. I graduated with a 2. 27 GPA with an incredible ability to make bongs out of any household item. He won a scholarship in India that identified one of the 50 smartest kids of a billion kids. What does a guy who's one of the 50 This guy could walk into the Rose Bowl and take the average IQ of those 80,000 people up a couple of points. That's how smart and hardworking this man is. What are we saying to these people now? Can you imagine a kid coming out of the University of Madras right now in 2026? Is he going to go to Brown? No, he's going to go to McGill or he's going to go to Instituto Embresa or he's going to go to INCIAD. Or who knows? Maybe the University of Córdoba in Argentina.

I mean, we are- Speaking of academic dooms.

Were there sports team that used to have access to the number one draft of any college in the world, and we've said, No, we don't want you.

Now we just have Prof G coming back to the United States.

Talk about a bad trade.

He is repatriating himself in the summer. He's coming back. Anyway, it sounds like a great interview. I'll be listening to it. Anyway, that is the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot, and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week.

Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertat engineer this episode. Manola Moreno edited the video. Thanks to Foster Dubrows, Ms. Avero, and Dan Chalan. Nusha Kauras, VoxMedia's executive producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York magazine, VoxMedia. You can subscribe to the magazine, nymag. Com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other?

Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need.

It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier.

Crm, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo. Com. That's odoo. Com. When it comes to sales, efficiency is the name of the game.

Every minute you spend manually entering data and chasing down documents is a lost opportunity to close the deal. That's where Pipedrive comes in. Pipedrive lets you supercharge every sale by automating the process for your entire team, from scheduling sales calls to email marketing, it's a powerful simple CRM built by salespeople for salespeople. Join the over 100,000 companies already using Pipedrive.

No credit card or payment needed.

Just head to pipedrive. Com/vox to get started.

That's pipedrive. Com/vox and get started with a 30-day free trial. Support for this show comes from CoreWeave. Everywhere you look, AI is expanding what we thought was possible, and at the center of it all is CoreWeave. Medical research and diagnosis, education, complex visual effects for movies, science and technology breakthroughs. Coreweave powers AI pioneers around the world with purpose-built tech, building what's never been built before. Coreweave is the essential cloud for AI. Ready for anything, ready for AI. To learn more about how Coreweave powers the world's best AI, go to coreweave. Com/readyforanything.