Transcript of Iran War Oil Shock, Anthropic Sues, and Market Wipeout Warning

Support for "On with Kara Swisher" comes from the 2027 Chevy Bolt. Oh, I love the Chevy Bolt. I have mine. How long is 25 minutes? A quick workout or a stop to the grocery store? It's also the amount of time it takes you to charge your Chevy Bolt. As I said, I drive the Chevy Bolt myself, an older version. And now the Bolt is back and better than ever. I may have to trade it in. You can charge from 10% to 80% in just 25 minutes with public DC fast charging. That's about half the length of this very podcast. Explore Chevy's most affordable EV at chevy.com/bolt. Actual charge times will vary. See owner's manual for details and limitations. And let me say again, I love my car. Never had a problem with it. Best car I've ever owned. Buy the Chevy Bolt. Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business takes everything you've got. And a lot of the tools out there that are supposed to make your life easier just aren't great at talking to each other. And that means you end up having to toggle between a dozen different apps and services just to keep the lights on.

Enough of that. Now there's Odoo, the all-in-one fully integrated platform that actually might help you get it all done. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Support for this show comes from Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, now back on Broadway in what The Guardian calls this year's starriest revival. Joe Mantello directs this strictly limited engagement of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece. It is a masterpiece, declared the greatest American play by Kenneth Tynan, and he is right. And now the New York Times says it brings the whole theater alive. Vogue writes, Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf are our foremost theater actors. Christopher Abbott and Ben Ahlers represent the thrilling potential of a new generation. See you at the theater. Now in previews on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theater. It's always late. Literally, I'm like so quantumly more important than he is. It's crazy. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

I'm Scott Galloway.

Scott, did we have a good time in Minneapolis?

Oh, that was wonderful. And thank you to the wonderful people of Minneapolis. I thought it was great. The community, or, you know, maybe we gotta not a representative sample. I'd like to think we got a representative, but community seems very unified right now.

Yeah, absolutely. People drove from North Dakota. There was some—

wherever that is, or Iowa. We had a lawyer from Iowa come.

Yeah, judge.

By the way, shout out, we know who you are. There's this wonderful woman who's a lawyer in family court and she commutes 7 hours a week and she said that— excuse me, she's a judge. Yeah. And she said we're her best friends.

Yeah. Yeah, it was great. And people were great. The audience was great. Again, we have to thank Tame Danger, raised a whole pile a lot of money, which Scott matched, which was very generous of Scott. And it's going to be—

More virtue signaling.

Yeah, that's okay. This is the Scott I like. This is the direction. This is the direction I like.

This is the way.

This is the way. We had a great time and the audience was great. We had a great show. We talked to Governor Walz, who looks amazing.

Very handsome.

As he's leaving.

That's a key.

Everyone looks so much better when they leave things. You know what I mean?

Or they're on Ozempic. That's why we're descending into fascism because Tim Walz should have gone on Wegovy 9 months earlier. 14 months earlier. That's the difference between us and fascism.

Okay.

A GLP-1, a decision. Folks, if you're considering running for vice president and you're thinking about a GLP-1, get on it. The word is now. The word is yesterday.

Anyway, he looks great. We have no idea if he is. Let's just be saying that. But he did also—

Oh, come on.

Okay, fine.

The guy who showed up.

Yes, he was very cute.

The guy who showed up looked like the old Tim Walls could eat him.

That is true. But let me tell you something. He's running too. He told me he was running and it goes along with it. It's a whole life set.

They're always running. They're always running forever. Everything.

They're telling me.

No, actually physically running.

Oh, you mean actually running?

Yes.

He told me about his running. Actually running. You know, I started running again, so we had a little chitty chat about it.

I can't, the idea of you out running. I don't know why.

I don't go outside. I stay inside. I don't, I don't like running outside.

Are you doing it in the, you doing it on a treadmill?

Yeah. I love it. I use my little time for myself. It's my little Kara time. I love it. I do it 3 or 4 times a week. It's really, and actually now I'm hotels, they have to have a nice treadmill. That's it. That's the way it goes. That's why I'm abandoning your apartment. Anyway, are you doing okay? You're in New York. We're headed to South by Southwest, right? We got a lot going on. We got a live pivot. I've got a bunch of things. Prof G has a bunch of things. I'm trying to think what else we're doing. Oh, we're launching my show's trailer goes up today for Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever.

Oh, you have a show? It's funny, you haven't talked much about that. You haven't mentioned it.

Yeah, yeah, it's the secret show. It's not so secret. Anyway, Scott is in it and we're gonna be debuting the part with Scott in at South by Southwest where we go to a sound bath, essentially. But it comes out today, the trailer. So I'm very excited and we're gonna show it off.

With a guest appearance from David Ellison. The new king of Hollywood.

What if he came up to us? What do we say?

We'd say, "Hi, how are you?" We'd kiss his ass. He's very powerful.

No, we don't kiss his ass. He's very aware we're very critical of him. You know, but whatever. I don't care. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. Anyway, we'll be nice to him.

I'll see him on Sunday because I'm going to that big fancy party.

Which— Oh, yes, you are. Oh, go up to him. And I dare you to go up to him and give like a full, like, penis-on-penis hug. Could you do that?

So I'm not a hugger. I don't know if you've noticed that.

Yeah, I've noticed that. I tried.

I'm not a hugger.

You're like Alex, the way Alex hugs. Sideway hug.

Yeah. All right.

I will. I dare you to do something really funny.

Unless I'm giving you $300 and you're doing more than hugging.

Do not touch me.

Do not touch me.

Anyway, you're going to have a good time at that party.

That's a lie. It's a lot more than $100. $300. I'm excited. It's going to be great.

Tell Rico. Maybe we'll run into him.

So I don't know if you heard. This is— I'm pulling a total— Karamu. I'm interviewing him on stage with Jess Tarlov at Raging Moderate.

Oh my God, that's great. Oh, I'm gonna come watch that. That's great. I'm so excited. Yes, I have the cast of Audacity, which is this new, very hysterical Silicon Valley thing in the style of Silicon Valley.

Do you have any questions for Tallarica for me? My first question is gonna be, if Mary gave birth to Jesus and Jesus is the Lamb of God, then did Mary have a little lamb? Little dad joke. I can't go dirty with Representative Talarico.

I like that one. That's good. That's a good one. He'll laugh. He'll go, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. He's kind of a young fogey in my estimation. He feels like older, even though he looks like he's 12. That kind of thing.

I think people at home need to take a shot every time he says the billionaire class.

Yes. Okay. You should do that.

One of my definite questions, I don't know if I want to. Well, I'm going to be like, I'm going to start off with, he and I have something in common, and that is we both, both follow hot women on Instagram. His thoughts.

Okay. All right, we're moving on. Sorry, James. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. I'm gonna dig in. First, the war in Iran is sending oil prices on a wild ride this week and creating what the International Energy Agency says is, quote, "The largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market." Okay, that's kind of something. There we go. As of this recording, oil is still very high, slowly coming down from over $100 a barrel after ships were attacked in the Persian Gulf. There's also attacks still going on. Gas prices continue to climb as well. And just remember, it's not just gas prices. Every price goes up when gas goes up. The IEA's 32 member countries are releasing a record 400 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves to counter the chaos, which means we aren't going to feel this yet. I interviewed Senator Warner yesterday and he was noting that Trump has tried to calm markets. He keeps trying to do this to bring these oil prices down by words, saying the war is, quote, very complete, only to later announce we haven't won enough. Oil prices also plunged after Energy Secretary Chris Wright incorrectly posted that US Navy had escorted a tanker through the Strait of Hormuz.

So that was a problem. The post was deleted within minutes, was enough to move markets and wipe out million-dollar trades. This is such a taco. This is the greatest taco of all, I think. And even if the war in Iran ends soon, returning the Strait of Hormuz to typical traffic could take 1 to 3 months. We're gonna see reverberations of this ridiculous situation, the way he's handling it and the way he's not It seems all over the place. And also, to, to add to the— this kind of mess there, the initial findings of a military investigation say that U.S. was responsible for that deadly Tomahawk missile strike on the Iranian elementary school. It's actually causing a lot of strife within MAGA, by the way, and everywhere else— normal people and MAGA. The report notes officers likely used outdated information to label the school as a military target. Trump has tried to put the blame on Iran earlier this week, claiming they also have the Tomahawks, which everyone thought was ridiculous. And when asked about military report on Wednesday. Trump said he knew nothing about it. We'll get to the photography scandal at the Pentagon, but talk a little bit about what's going on with oil prices and this school, which is just— I feel like we should take responsibility when we make an error, such a terrible error.

But go ahead.

I'll go in reverse order. When you're handling a crisis, and this is a crisis, the death of civilians, especially children, is obviously pretty ugly. You acknowledge the issue, you take responsibility, and you try and overcorrect. And they've done nothing of the sort. And there is In a war, and this is a war, this isn't military action, this is a war.

Excursion, the word he's using now, it's an excursion.

Whatever that means. Excursion.

I went on a bike excursion.

Like a field trip?

Yeah, exactly. My daughter went on an excursion.

Except he didn't get Congress's approval the day before that he could go on the excursion. Look, this is, you know, it's a tragedy. They just made a bad situation worse. First off, they look incompetent by saying that it might have been a Tomahawk from Iran. Iran doesn't have Tomahawks. It looks like, okay, I'm not willing to own up to this. I mean, there's not a good answer, but there's a reasonable answer here. And that is, we're sorry. Yeah, this, we decided to go on, you know, with military action. This is a, this is a group of people who killed 30,000 of its own people. War is going to have collateral damage. We screwed up. We take responsibility. These are the following steps we're putting in place to make sure it doesn't happen again. And take responsibility for it. And it would've been not over, but it would've been acceptable. Instead, it's like, "No, it was Iran's fault." It just doesn't—

Or, "I didn't know." Yeah. Or, "Oh—" Peg's death was the same way. And was angry when people asked about it, which is everything wrong in the response and everything wrong in the mistake. But you're right. Absolutely.

Yeah. And the real— I mean, we're just starting to see. So I was speaking to a kid and I said, what, what, you know, where do you want to be in 5 years? I always ask young men that. Where do you want to be in 5 years? And this kid said, I'd really love to have my own auto repair shop focusing on EVs. I said, okay, well then let's reverse engineer from those things. Like what kind of skills do you need to acquire? What kind of job certification? What kind of capital or money would you need to How would you start something like this? Have a business plan? What kind of real estate would you need? What would be your, you know, let's reverse engineer everything you need. Basics, right? Let's reverse everything, engineer everything to today around what you would need to be an owner of an EV repair shop. And he lives on the outskirts of Los Angeles, just the loveliest young kid. Anyways, we can't even reverse engineer the tactics because I don't think anyone is really clear yet on what the endgame is, what the end goal is. And that is, if they had said, all right, we're going to diminish their launch capability for missiles, makes all the sense in the world.

And it's more about the launchers and the missiles because you can bury the missiles under—

These are ballistic missiles for people who don't know.

We are going to make sure that the Straits of Hormuz are more secure than they were previous to this. And we're going to work with our Gulf allies to create a series of minesweepers and enforce the border. I mean, and we're going to take out the Navy and we're going to take out the munitions infrastructure builds this stuff, these are the 3 boxes we need to check.

Can I, can I interject? Since I just interviewed Warner about this, one of the things that they've talked about is going in and getting the enriched uranium, but that would actually be, would take, as they say, boots on the ground, and it would be not viable, not feasible, not feasible unless we want a lot of Americans to die.

Yeah, as is, quite frankly, as is regime change. I mean, this regime is sticking pretty strongly.

Oh, they're not collapsing. Yeah, yeah.

No, I think Koushi had the likelihood of regime change at like 10% by the end of March or something like that right now. Anyways, but instead we don't, it's like, well, okay, in war you always have to have plans A prime and plan B because the enemy gets a say in this. But the problem is no one can identify plan A.

No, they ate it. They ate it. The dog ate my homework. Can I ask you about the oil prices? Because I think that's something that's gonna, people don't recognize and And the idea of trying to calm the market by releasing incorrect information, letting it go, you know, whipsaw all over the place. And this release of these 400 million barrels is gonna have repercussions later because that's when the prices will go up, these strategic reserves. And what they're trying to do everything possible to pretend we're not gonna have a real crisis between the Strait of Hormuz and this release. And so it has the second order, problems. Now, Wall Street's sort of sloughing it off a little bit, but these are prices that are going to reverberate through the system, as you have noted.

Oh, so look, the biggest loser here is obviously the people of Iran who are in the wrong place at the wrong time, right? There is no bigger loser than the families who lose loved ones. I also think the reputation of the U.S. and what was an opportunity to create much stronger alliances with moderate nations in the Gulf. So big losers. But what people aren't talking about, the countries that import more than 50% of their oil, Japan, South Korea, India, and most of Europe, have seen their markets hammered, absolutely hammered. Poor countries with no foreign exchange reserves and dollar-denominated debt can't, you know, are, could be thrust into the IMF or effectively what is bankruptcy. Airlines and hospitality companies all over the world, shipping, the bunker fuel costs.

Warner said he's been meeting with airline executives and they said they're fine for now, but it's going to be $25 million a day extra.

I mean, nations who import their oil, especially who get most of it through the Straits of Hormuz, their economy, basically their economies are like fucked for the year at a minimum. So this is having, you know, we have obviously the biggest losers by body count are Iran, but by economic collapse, Middle Eastern oil importers, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and fragile emerging markets, Pakistan.

Guess who's doing great? Russia. Yeah. This gives him the— he was really on the ropes around the million people who've died and also the price of oil. And now he has more money to spend while we ignored help from the Ukrainians on drones. And one of the things Warner was pointing out was that fine, we could take out their battleships, Our real problem is all those small fast boats and their drones. They can just do all manner of damage to us in that with these small $50,000 drones and we use a million-dollar rocket to take it out. I mean, this is the problem is they have an ability to do this and they've been there, you know, the way Warner described it, these, this country is hard, is, is hard enforced, like hard, like hardwired. This, this is not Venezuela. This is Trump lives like he's in some movie where you just do 3 bombs and that's the end of it. But this is a hardwired 150,000 people in this, in this ruling group in Iran. And they're not giving up all this money and all this power for— I don't know, it's a really difficult situation which they didn't think out.

But just thinking about the market, the winners and losers, the hardest hit stock markets are Middle Eastern markets. Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, their stock markets crater. There's a capital flight to safety. I mean, the ironic thing here, is that over the long term our reputation is in tatters. We're probably the least damaged because we're energy independent. We produce more energy than we consume. We have two oceans protecting us, friendly Canada to the north, harmless Mexico to the south. We still have capital inflows. In a weird, I mean, it's just terrible to say, but in a weird way, our markets are probably least damaged by this. Yeah, except the cost.

There'll be costs for airlines, there'll be costs for truckers, there's gonna be costs for home heating. Thank goodness it's not winter, right?

The dollar's already strengthened. I mean, it's ironic, but when you diminish the entire world, there's a flight to safety and flights to safety usually benefit the US. Emerging markets are gonna get the shit kicked out of them. India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico. Capital flowing out to the US dollar for safe havens. The US will likely be down 8 to 10% on a tariff ruling, or was down, but it could be down another 10 to 15%. And that'll be, I'll talk more about that on our prediction. But you're gonna have a pretty big peak to trough, but that, some of that might just be the air coming outta the bubble. But to your point, the least damaged in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia and the UAE. But the big winner here, as you said, is Russia. The oil price spike benefits them. The US is distracted by Iran, so more Ukraine leverage. And oddly, the, the ruble strengthens. So war is literally the agent of unintended consequences. And this is so frustrating because if this had been more like Fordo and less like a rock and they'd set out a series of achievable objectives, this could have been a win.

It could have been the Gulf states coming together. And if they'd said, look, to a couple European nations and to the Gulf states, a stable Middle East benefits all of us. Let's all have a series of objectives and we're going to pay for and execute against most of this. We could have strengthened our alliances.

We've been dragged around by Israel here in a lot of ways. It looks like it. Let me see.

I disagree. I think we're very tightly coordinated with Israel right now.

I talked to Warner, who was in the Gang of Eight. I'm going to go with him over you. I'm sorry to say that, but, you know, I think it was that they were going to attack. You're going with the senator over Scott? Yes. I think they were going to attack and we decided to be the senior partner, like, that's rather than create something else because—

What do you mean that Iran was going to attack Israel? Israel was attacking Iran. No, no, no.

Israel was going to attack Iran. I mean, that's the implication he had.

And Senator Warner feels like we did not have the power to say stop?

Well, he doesn't know why we didn't. That was one of his questions. He's surprised. He seemed more worried. He's usually not a worrywart, but he seems worried about two things: how this was conducted, obviously, and what the real implications are, especially around drones and small boats that could do enormous damage to our battleships and everything else, and also election security. But one of the weirder parts is how the administration has behaved. Donald Trump was dancing last night, or golfing, and stuff like this. The visuals aren't very good. The Defense Department has now barred press photographers from Iran briefings after publishing photos that Hegseth's staff found, quote, unflattering. According to The Washington Post. Hegseth's vanity aside, it just, they just look like, he looks like a fatuous popinjay at all times. But in this case, the lack of seriousness about something that's very serious seems problematic. And it's also causing problems within their own group of MAGA. There's a real shift. There's a real like sort of Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, MTG on one side. And then, you know, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, all this is a real ugliness I wandered over to Twitter, which I shouldn't have done, and the nastiness between them is really quite something.

It's really quite something to watch.

Like imagery is so incredibly powerful. Basically, I think one photograph didn't bring an end to the Vietnam War but expedited it. And it's that incredibly dramatic photo of the young girl running from a napalm bombing. And With the Iraq War, George Bush and the Pentagon, they banned photos of service member coffins because he realized war's so ugly that, that it will lose support. And the notion that these guys can't handle the images of Pete Hegseth in an unflattering— I mean, it's just, uh, it shows you're spending— you're allocating your capital in the wrong places. That's not, that's not what you should be thinking about or worried about. And if you think you can control the imagery of Pete Hegseth, well, okay, just wait till you see the images that are going to come out of Iran. And you can already see that the IRGC is quite frankly organizing again and going on an information campaign. They are.

And they've been very good. Iran in general has been one of the stronger players in those spaces in terms of propaganda and everything else. And so—

Well, when you say good, you mean effective. Effective. I mean, they lie like there's no tomorrow. Yes, of course.

But hello, lots of people do. Lots of governments do.

And it's not a question. No, they do.

But they are, when I say good is they're good at it. They're very, they're all throughout all the various social networks. They're very, they did one the other day, which I was sort of fascinated by where they put up your president as a pedophile, which was interesting. They just, they've been at it for a long, long time. And they have used, often when there's stuff that pops up online, it's either Russia Russia or Iran. China to an extent too, but really Iran has used social media as one of the smaller— I mean, it is a smaller country than Russia, or less powerful, and it has used social media to its advantage in ways that are really, of course, heinous because it's conspiracy theories. And you always find them somewhere in there at the top. Everyone I ever interview in cybersecurity are the top in cybersecurity issues, in propaganda, in conspiracy theories. And they have a very well-oiled machine throughout the world doing this kind of stuff.

So, well, when the actual audit of social media is done, I think we're going to find that somewhere between 10 and 40% of comments and posts— yeah, right— on geopolitical accounts or accounts of influencers is going to have originated from either the CCP, the GRU, or the IRGC. Yep, absolutely. And this is what you do: you see a piece of content and then you look at the comments to evaluate and shape your own view of that content. And when— It's all gamed. Yeah, and it has a huge impact. You don't even recognize how much impact it has on your views of stuff because if someone says, "Oh, the US will be able to escort ships through the Straits of Hormuz," I'm just using an example, and then there's just a ton of stuff saying, "That'll never happen. Oil prices are going to be at $200." All right, where's that comment coming from? And unfortunately, although they could put in places to verify accounts and get rid of fake accounts and fake comments, you know, I mean, just go on these really sensitive pages or sensitive opinions and click on who made the comment, and it's someone with 3 followers.

Okay, that's not a person. And the question is, why would someone be making this comment? Or what entity would have an interest in these comments?

We're going to talk about that in a little bit because there's a major report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate that's really interesting. Around chatbots. This story is going to continue and have reverberations, obviously. We're going to go on a quick break, and when we come back, Anthropic sues the Pentagon and Microsoft comes to Anthropic's defense. Support for this show comes from Quince. If you've ever peered into your wardrobe and felt paralyzed by indecision, then it might be time to build a collection of pieces you don't have to think too hard about. Quince offers elevated fabrics, thoughtful design, and pricing that actually makes sense. Quince makes high-quality wardrobe staples using premium fabrics like 100% European linen, 100% silk, and organic cotton poplin. Their lightweight cotton cashmere sweaters are perfect for the changing seasons, and they work directly with top factories, cutting out the cost of a middleman, so you're not paying a brand markup, just quality clothing. I love Quince. I have to say, I use it all the time. I usually use sort of sports athleisure clothes there, which I find incredibly comfortable, including their athletic bras and things like that, but I just got a cardigan and I'm not a cardigan gal, but it's really comfortable.

It's really attractive and it's very soft and I love it. They also have lots of great seasonal colors and prints for spring that will make getting dressed a breeze. Right now, go to quince.com/pivot for free shipping and 365-day returns. That's a full year to build your wardrobe and love it, and you will. Now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to quince.com/pivot. Quince.com/pivot for free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com/pivot.

Support for the show comes from NetSuite. Every business is asking the same question: how do we make AI work for us? The possibilities are endless and guessing is too risky, but sitting on the sidelines is not an option because one thing is almost certain: your competitors are already making their moves. No more waiting. With NetSuite by Oracle, you can put AI to work today. NetSuite is a top-rated 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. Now, with NetSuite AI Connector, you can use the AI of your choice to connect to your actual business data and ask every question you ever had from key customers to cash on hand to inventory trends. Plus, you can automate those tiresome manual processes. Let's see your competitor do that. This isn't another bolted-on tool. It's AI built into the system that runs your business. Whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you stay ahead of the pack. If your revenues are at least in the 7 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 this show comes from Indeed. When you're looking for talent, Indeed sponsored jobs can be just the boost you need. It matches you with quality candidates fast, so you don't need to spend months searching for that new hire. According to their data, sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed are 95% more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored Jobs. 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. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners to the show will get a $75 Sponsored Job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/jobs. .com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, do it the right way with Indeed. Scott, we're back with more news. The White House is reportedly preparing an executive order to formally ban Anthropic across the federal government.

Which is likely illegal. The Defense Department CTO, Emile Michael, and let me just say I covered him and he's a toadying bully, just said on CNBC that Anthropic would, quote, pollute the agency's supply chain. We've only done this for foreign companies, just so you know, this kind of behavior. All this comes as Anthropic is officially suing the Pentagon for labeling it a supply chain risk, effectively blacklisting the company from federal contracts. This has never been done to an American company. Anthropic argues the government overstepped its authority and violated the company's First its First Amendment rights. And now Microsoft is getting in the mix. The company threw its support behind Anthropic this week, urging the federal court to temporarily block the Pentagon's supply risk designation in an amicus brief. Microsoft warned that the unprecedented move would have, quote, "broad negative ramifications for the US tech industry," and they're damn right. Scott, before we go further, I want to play a prediction you made last week. Let's listen.

My prediction is no. And that is Dario Amodi has given license and permission to CEOs to say no. And in the next 30 days, you are going to see a raft of CEOs find their testicles and start saying no to this administration.

So you were right, Scott. So let's talk about that, them saying no. And it's not just Microsoft. 37 AI researchers at OpenAI and Google, not the companies themselves, also filed a brief supporting Anthropic. You know, I'm gonna just very quickly comment that what the government's doing here is really unprecedented. It's a disagreement with a company and instead of just disagreeing and moving on, they are attacking them in the most ridiculous ways trying to make an example of Anthropic and really hurt their business. And for you to, I need you all to understand Emil Michael's role here because these people all have other interests and agendas that have to do with their previous jobs previous life in Silicon Valley and their future life in Silicon Valley. And Emil Michael's always, as I said, been a toting bully to powerful men, and this is what he's doing here. And he's not a— he is not a player that is in any way neutral. He's not doing things for you and I in, in this government. He's doing things in his own self-interest, if— would be my guess. And so the, the attacks on Anthropic— right behind him is all manner of competitors at Anthropic that are using the federal government to hurt a company that decided decided not to want to do something.

And I'm glad Microsoft stood up for them.

I think this is the biggest story in tech. And so just a quick recap, Anthropic had basically two asks of the Pentagon, um, and both pretty narrow. They didn't want, uh, Claude to be used for fully autonomous weapons, meaning AI, not humans, making final lethal targeting decisions, which seems reasonable. And the second one was no use of Claude for mass domestic surveillance of Americans. And the Pentagon responded that it does not intend to use Claude for those purposes, but refused to contractually commit to that, arguing that it can't lead tactical operations by exception, and that legality is the Pentagon's responsibility. And then on the, about 2 and a half weeks ago, Trump posted on Truth Social directing every federal agency to immediately seize all use of Anthropic's technology. And then Hexath designated Anthropic as a supply chain risk. Okay, that's a label which has been reserved for foreign adversaries. Yeah, I just said that. And companies linked to the Chinese and Russian government. Well, I'm saying it again, Karen.

All right, okay, fine.

The supply chain risk status, first off, this isn't just the government saying, okay, you don't want to work with us, we don't want to work with you. If they say, if they label them as a supply chain risk, then already 100+ enterprise companies have reached out to Anthropic and said, we may not be able to use you. A financial services company pauses negotiations regarding a $50 million contract. A pharmaceutical firm, financial technology company. I mean, they can't, this really is an existential, when you're labeled sort of an enemy of state, this is the equivalent of like you're a corporate enemy of state or threat. I'd say threat. Anthropic has now filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon saying that Congress's procurement laws don't authorize blacklisting a US company over protected speech. That's what this is. They get to work with or not work with who they want. And the supply chain designation is just not legal and it sets a dangerous precedent for any American company. They will lose.

Most people think— The government will lose. But it will have an effect. Yes, yes, the government will lose, but it'll still have the effect. This is a Trump thing. He creates a real problem, whether it's Anthropic. And companies won't work with them until they figure it out. And then it causes damage, just like they've done at, you know, when they fire all of Voice of America. Now they've lost in court, and Kari Lake is an idiot, but it's already caused damage and caused damage to it. And that's the goal is they're gonna push it legally as far as they can, and then they'll be stopped. But by the time they're stopped, Anthropic Anthropic is badly affected. And if you all don't think this is a Silicon Valley rumble happening here, it's all in the self-interest of private companies who have an interest in slowing Anthropic down. And if you look at the links between Emile Michael and the rest of these, these, these clients—

So they have financial interests in competitors?

Just this, yes, they do. And so this is a way that Silicon Valley, the penny— Silicon Valley used to ignore government for the most part. And then the penny dropped that they're easy to pay for and that they can do their competition with each other in in the federal government by pretending they're working for us as people or getting spots, putting their people in the various spots, right? That will cause it. This is a Silicon Valley corporate beef happening. That is what's occurring here.

The one that's been most outspoken, I'm trying to connect his financial interests, which I'm sure is driving his rhetoric, is David Sachs.

David Sachs, Marc Andreessen. Please understand there are shadow people behind these actions that you need to pay attention to. And Trump is, you know, sort of a useful idiot. I'm sure they make fun of Trump behind his back, but you know, it's all in their economic self-interest to hurt this company. And they couldn't hurt them by being better. So this is how they're doing it. This is what they're doing.

It's real. But it comes down, this is the fulcrum that determines if companies continue to show some backbone. And by the way, good for Satya Nadella showing some backbone here at, again, risk. So Koushy is saying that the likelihood Anthropic wins the case is 72%. In the meantime, companies will say, hey, that site license we were about to sign with you, Anthropic, we're just going to wait. We apologize.

This is terrible. We love you. We think you're technology.

You're great, but we can't sign this contract right now. To your point, Microsoft and a group of 22 retired senior military officers have filed amicus briefs in support support of Anthropic and its lawsuit. But what's interesting is that consumers are speaking. The enterprise is running, but consumers are running towards Anthropic. Downloads of the Claude app spiked more than 75% after Trump prompted federal agencies to stop using Anthropic. And on the flip side, uninstalls of ChatGPT mobile apps spiked roughly 300% the day after Trump's proclamation. So the, the question is, who wins in in the mind of Anthropic's board here? The fear and the stasis that has been created in the enterprise market or consumers running towards a company they think is finally showing some backbone? I think it's damaging.

I think this is such a Trump way to do this is create—

Well, Anthropic's more enterprise, unfortunately.

I know, create chaos and damage and it's legal, but do the punch even if it's like, I'm not a boxer, but if you do like a kidney punch, you hurt the person And then you're like, "Oh, did I do that? I didn't know I did that." And you use your minions, and I cannot underscore again what a minion Emil Michael is, to do your dirty work and pretend you're working for the government. It's, the whole thing is such a, this is such a fixed fight. I can't even, you need to, and I think reporters should really spend, a lot of people don't know these characters. Again, this was an ex-Uber executive. He's been involved in a lot of stuff in Silicon Valley, but he had to leave Uber Please go look at our reporting on him many years ago. He had to leave Uber under very difficult circumstances around the rape of a woman in India in an Uber. But just go Google the reporters who are covering this and stop acting like Emil Michael is this clean character. In any case, I'm sure he'll come after me, but it's true. So I'll win on that regard.

Anyway, we're going to move on. Another thing that, again, Silicon Valley just can't stop stealing, essentially. Grammarly launched an expert review AI feature that gives editing suggestions supposedly inspired by well-known writers and journalists. Casey Newton discovered the tool was attributing advice to him and others even though they never agreed to participate. The feature even generated advice under the name of a certain tech journalist, Kara Swisher. They've stopped that now. They've pulled back on it apparently, but what an incredible bunch of information and identity thieves. I don't know what to say. Anytime these people can steal, they steal. They're such shoplifters. I don't know your thoughts.

Well, it goes back to this mindset, and I thought one of the— I think there's looking glasses into people's souls. How they treat their pets, how they treat service staff, is sort of a, you know, when is their guard down? When there are certain tells, right? And one of the tells that was really frightening when Sam Altman when Elon was asked about the energy consumption of AI, he said, what people don't take into account is the amount of energy it takes and the amount of investment and resources it takes to get a human to a point where it can make logical decisions and engage in critical thinking. He said, if you look at how much energy and input and resources it takes to raise a child such that it can get to a point where it can make decisions, AI is better. I found that so nihilistic and so inhuman because What Silicon Valley, or at least some of the individuals we talk a lot about, don't realize is that we try and get ROI economically such that we can make low ROI investments in relationships and people we love. I am not getting an ROI back from my children on any sort of economic level.

Well, you use a lot of energy. I'm wondering if we should use as much energy for you as we do, but go ahead.

Well, but the whole point, the whole shooting match of an economy and relationships and satisfaction and purpose and some sort of spiritual sense of calm and like your life mattered is that you do engage in, you know, productive economic or domestic labor such that you can invest that in other people. And you may or may not get a return, but the point is the return you get is you're so invested in something that your life has meaning. The whole point is that you create value such that you can, you can, you can invest that value in relationships. And for most people, the most rewarding place of investment where quite frankly they don't get anything resembling an economic ROI is in children. And to look at it on that level is like, okay, you don't understand what it is to be a mammal or a human. And, and also the notion that you can spend You can spend 50 years of your life professionally working your ass off, staying late, starting in the mailroom at the Washington Post as you did, such that you have a voice, a reputation, a twist of phrase, an ability to string words together that compels people to action or provides insight.

And then they can come in and just adopt that 50 years or piggyback on it.

That piggyback, steal it really.

It is like, if I type in, give me 5 jokes on this or give me a view on the oil price and I put, "In my voice," it does a really good job because what it's doing is stealing from everything I have ever written, said, or done. That is correct. And so the music industry did this correctly. It said, "Okay, if we're KROQ," which is awesome, the best radio station of the '90s in Los Angeles, and they play a bunch of English Beat or Tom Petty or Lloyd Cole and the Comotions or REM, they track how much they're playing, and then they send them a royalty. And what these guys want to do is they want to leverage your years, decades of discipline, schooling, certification, risk-taking, time away from your family, but they don't want to pay you for it. And they see everything. I mean, that's, I think, a felony. But what is double homicide from a mentality standpoint is that these people really look at relationships and humans friends on an economic basis. I just— when I saw that, I thought, I thought, this guy is not— he just had a kid. Well, I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna speak to his children, but what he's gonna find out— and this is, uh, what I tell other dads— it was a dark comment.

It was a dark—

I'm like, don't make the mistake I made and think that right away your kid's going to be super into the shit you're into, and you're going to get all these Hallmark moments, despite what insurance commercials would tell value, you're going to have to invest more in this child in every way. And that's the point, 'cause at some point what you realize is that, that overinvestment in other people gives you purpose and value.

Let me just say, they think everything is for the taking and for them. I just, this is just another example. This, what was happening at the Defense Department. Oh, we have it up on Anthropic. Oh, anything they can take, they take. And they just continue to prove, you know, they keep not meeting my low expectations for them already. And this is kind Managing thing. Researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which has been attacked in all that, and its founder been attacked legally by Elon Musk and the federal government now in his, at his behest, they're keeping going though, they don't care, tested 10 major AI chatbots and found out 8 out of 10 were willing to help plan violent attacks like school shootings, bombings, or assassinations. Researchers posed as 13-year-old boys, as 13-year-old boys, showing how easily minors could get guidance on weapons, locations, and strategies. Only Anthropic's Claude and Snapchat's IAI consistently refused to assist in planning attacks, and only Claude attempted to dissuade the users. Deepseek wished the user happy and safe shooting. And on that note, a lot of you have been writing in about a story in Canada earlier this year.

An 18-year-old gunman opened fire at a school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, killing 8 people. Let's listen to a clip from a listener. I am calling because it seems to be that there is a connection now between the shooter and ChatGPT. The shooter was flagged by ChatGPT several months ago regarding some of their behavior online. ChatGPT didn't report it, which is one of the reasons why I am leaving this message to see what your thoughts are on that. OpenAI is now being sued by the parent of the child who was injured in the shooting. I, as you know, I've been at this for years, especially around kids, but it's jumped into people. The most recent, one of the more recent shootings, it was, this suicide was like an adult, was changed by these chatbots. I cannot, let's stop calling them chatbots. What an adorable word for synthetic beings who don't, who don't, are not bound by legal, like if you're a lawyer and you did this, you go to jail. If you're an analyst, if you're you know, a psychologist and you did this, you'd go to jail. If you were a person and you did this, you would go to jail.

Like, all of the people go to jail. They're willing to assist in violent attacks, and they're not doing anything to rein it in. And it's not just kids, it's, it's everything. And again, the only one that is doing the right thing is Claude. And so, and this is Anthropic, and this is the company. I'm not doing an ad for Claude here, but they have at least some, and I think they should be regulated too. But I I can't tell you how incandescent I am about the way these people try to take every bit for themselves, and they do not care the damage they are creating. And I, I, I'm going to keep talking about this until Congress steps in and does something about it. And you don't work for those rich people. You do not work for them. You— and, and I, I'm with Dan Talarico. Enough with these people.

So go ahead. Well, I think it's important to draw a distinction between potentially creating some sort of psychosis that leads to self-harm or harm against others through overuse of AI or any other digital platform. I think that's a separate study that needs to be done and without the interference of the massive money and lies and owned bot research that these firms will do. I think this is different. I think this is whether the federal government needs to put in place laws and incentives such that if a private organization or corporation receives information that this person might be on the verge of committing an act of violence, if they have a responsibility to report it to the authorities immediately. And I think they do. I'm not a privacy person. I'm not suggesting we go to Minority Report where we arrest them before they've committed the crime. But at my school, or so my school in Florida where my kids went, At another school, and we all shared information when I was involved with the school about these very difficult situations, a kid was drawing very disturbing images of gun violence. And so the school felt like it had an obligation to report it.

And then the FBI went to the house and the FBI said, "Are there any guns in the house?" And I think that was the right thing to do. You're right. That seems to make sense. And if you notice, there was a video that went viral on Snap. A teacher put out a Snap on an app saying that she wanted to kill these kids, and it immediately, the cops showed up and said, did you put, did you say this? Are you having any sort of mental issue right now? You need to go home and we need to understand what is going on with you and if you have access to guns before we let you back into a school. And the same is true here, that if you are going to monetize this type of information and you understand it so you can interpret it so well that you can create prompt that keeps them on another second, another minute, or serves them the exactly right auto insurance ad, then in exchange for that economic benefit and what is clearly demonstrated ability to know what's going on with that person, if you see any evidence that that person might be capable of creating this type of crime, you have an obligation.

You bartenders, the bar In a bar, if a bartender continues to serve people alcohol, observing that that person is really drunk, and then that person gets in a car and kills someone, the bar is liable.

A very good analogy.

So if they have such incredible targeting, such unbelievable information, they can clearly tell that, okay, this individual is getting maps and identification and information, is basically digitally casing— This is worrisome.

We should investigate, is what you're saying. Of course.

A school, then immediately, Immediately, a message goes out to the local authorities saying, "Here is exactly what this person said. We have a judge involved. You get the order." And boom, they're in the house asking this person questions. I'm not saying they arrest them. They haven't done anything yet.

They would argue this is surveillance. But of course, they don't mind selling surveillance. They're surveilling us. They're surveilling us. I know. I know. That's the thing is, you know, I'm just saying a human being in this situation would be arrested We're not liable, right? These people are giving— I agree, you should separate the two, but they're related, Scott. It's the same mentality of let us extract all the good stuff. Let us not protect anybody. And we are not liable for what we're doing. You know, Mark Benioff once called them cigarette companies. It's worse. It's worse than a cigarette company. They were just selling cigarettes and using Joe Camel. That sucks. Something demented. Like, I think they've— they've— they— they're demented. I don't— that they think this is okay and that they don't say to themselves, should we really— is this the way we want to make our money? We want to make our money by poisoning children's minds? We want to make our money by letting people who are mentally disabled become more so and then give them— again, that's a different issue. I agree, but they're giving people plans. And if you're going to give people plans on how to shoot a school, you have a responsibility to say, you might want to check this out police.

I get, but for the purposes of remedies, I think you need to separate the two. Character AI may, in fact, be leading people into a state of psychosis where they believe the right thing to do is to find their stepfather's gun and kill themselves because they're going to get to hang out with Daenerys in the afterlife. That is shifting their psychological state. My understanding of this, the shooter, here was that she was already in an awful psychological state and was using ChatGPT as a tool to execute violence. Both require some sort of regulation, responsibility, and action. Different. You're right. Yeah. You've done a lot of good work interviewing parents around the rabbit hole and psychosis that the character AIs can lead people to, which, by the way, has an average usage time of 75 minutes versus AI at, like, 13 or 15. At the same time, If these organizations can very easily use the same technology to not only alert them at the right moment to serve them an ad for a dating app or for a cryptocurrency trading platform, to say this person is clearly going through something and potentially a threat to the community and others, they have a responsibility to immediately notify the authorities.

All right, we're going to finish this up, but they don't have a community responsibility. One of the things that always struck me—

When you say they don't have a community They don't feel like they, like— No, I'm saying they should. I think we're in agreement here.

I think they never did is the point I was going to make. When I, when they were building their, their headquarters, I remember Twitter building its headquarters and they had the most beautiful cafeteria. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it was gorgeous.

I've never been invited to Twitter's cafeteria.

This was pre-Elon. And I was thinking— Pre-Lon? Pre-Lon. I was thinking they don't care about all the businesses around. Like, you know what I mean? Like they kept the people captive in this beautiful, everything is here, don't go anywhere. And I thought they don't give give a fuck about San Francisco. It's just like, they just want to be here. But they didn't care about the surrounding delis. They didn't care about people going out in the street and creating a street life. They didn't back the, you know, they don't have to back the opera, but they didn't back any civic organizations ever. And I was always like, huh, what a group of people. They don't really care about anything but themselves. Like, I remember being struck by that cafeteria and thinking they really could give fuck. And it was the same, it's the same idea. They could give a fuck about our government. They could give a fuck about all these things except for what's in their interests. And so I could go, I'm gonna, I'm moving into, speaking of psychosis, I'm moving into one.

It comes down to one sort of basic algorithm. And that is all corporate, you could argue that big tech is worse than most, but generally speaking, it's safe to assume that all corporations care about is shareholder value and are earnings and getting to those earnings within the confines of the law. What unfortunately is different nowadays, I don't think that's changed. I think General Motors would still be pouring mercury into the river if there wasn't— I would agree— wasn't an EPA. The failure of the glitch in the matrix is that we used to have checks and balance in the form of leadership that prevented a tragedy of the commons. But because of Citizens United, now the only thing that elected officials care about is getting reelected. And the only thing you need to get reelected is more money than the next person. And Silicon Valley has connected the dots here. And it said, "We can compromise inch by inch their ability to regulate us and prevent a tragedy of the commons by throwing money at them." And now billionaires, the 900 billionaires in the United States, are responsible for 19% of the PAC giving.

00:53:39

I know. Was that number— So I think you should ask Tallarico about this. I'm sorry. You should let him talk about this issue. I mean, ultimately, Really, it's, this is not a good situation for all of us. And they, someone came up to me the other day and who had been critical of my book being too hard on Silicon Valley, Burn Book. And they said, I have to apologize, you weren't hard enough. And I was like, you're absolutely fucking right. But anyway, all right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, what Barry Diller is saying about CNN. 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 investable index with AI. Go to public.com/podcast and earn an uncapped 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 Your financial 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 with expertise in your field, Indeed says they can help. Indeed 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/voxbusiness. 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.

This is advertiser content brought to you by Stonyfield Organic. Our cows, them going out to pasture, they love it. They're so excited to go out every day. They wait right at the door. In fact, we milk them and we just open up the laneway and let them just go right out to pasture. I'm Rhonda Miller Goodrich, and I'm a dairy farmer in Cabot, Vermont. Our farm is Molly Brook Farm. We're an organic dairy farm, and we are a supplier to Stonyfield. Molly Brook Farm has been in my husband's family since 1835. We started our organic transition in 2015. We had 53 acres of corn ground, and of course we had to use herbicides and pesticides, and the soil was dead, really, for all intents and purposes. We stopped growing corn and stopped using herbicides and pesticides, and we seeded that down to perennial grasses. After that, we began to see biodiversity in that soil again. To be organic certified, our cows need to be in pasture at least 120 20 days. I think the organic practices really benefit our animals. You know, having good feed, good water, a nice light area, that's what's important to us and that's what's important to Stonyfield.

Visit Stonyfield.com to find Stonyfield Organic Yogurt near you. Scott, we're back with more news. Barry Diller is speaking out about wanting to buy CNN and what he would do with it in a new interview. Diller says CNN hasn't been managed optimally and has enormous potential to influence. He says he told Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav all this. Let's listen.

Where I've said to him, I don't think your programming— I, I don't think it's being optimally programmed. I don't think it's competitive. Now, by the way, the facts, uh, support I would alter that, meaning that its ratings have declined, its revenue has declined. It's still quite profitable, but— How would you alter it? Oh, in every way. Look, feel, and see. Every way. And I mean, I hope I get the chance. I don't think I will, but I hope I do.

I'm not sure when this was, but I texted him. He said it's not happening. He said, not that now that the Ellisons have it. It. And they, and he quite correctly, and I happen to know this, they're going to combine CNN and CBS. He doesn't think he has a chance. I would love to work for Barry Diller. He's much more conservative than I am. But I would certainly love, he's such a good programmer. He's such an interesting man. He does love journalism, even if he gets mad at it sometimes. He's someone I appreciate in that regard. And it would, I wrote him, I said, can you please? And he said, there's no way. So I can, I can knock this one out of the water. He can't do do it unless, please, Alison, sell it to Barry Diller. Please, that would be great. So any thoughts?

I mean, I would love to see Barry Diller partner with Jeff Zucker and a private equity firm. And I think there's more, a greater likelihood than people believe that the Ellisons might say, this is too big a headache. We might just sell, combine CBS and CNN to someone else. Because I think that, I'm not sure, and maybe I'm being naive here, I'm not sure they're as Machiavellian as people think about trying to control the world. Um, I don't know, but maybe they have some grand vision for how they integrate it into TikTok. But I, I can't imagine Larry Ellison, as smart as he is, isn't going to say this is going to be more headache than it's worth.

Yeah, they wanted the studios. I, I, I agree, they're not quite a Machiavellian. They, they, they're just opportunistic, I would say. I, I, you know, David Ellison was, was democratic.

You're the third richest man in the world by focusing focusing on economics. And I think that anyways, I think there's a shot here.

CNN makes a lot of money. Diller is correct. It makes a lot of money.

It's high margins. But I did some analysis here 'cause I just wanted to show you like one, talk about some numbers of cable news. And I spent a decent amount of time last night on AI looking at ratings and viewership. And essentially what I did was just to give you a sense for the ecosystem and also I never miss a chance to make Pivot look good. It is good. I looked at gross viewership. That is the number, or listenership. That's the number of people who watch a program and then see it on YouTube or on social or download the audio and listen to it. And actually listens are more valuable than views because it's a more intimate experience. And that's why, that's why you get higher CPMs on podcasts right now than you get on cable TV. CPM is the cost per 1,000 viewers an advertiser is willing to pay. So let's look at gross viewership, the number of times time someone, or the number of people that watch the program, see it on YouTube or somewhere else, or listen to the podcast version of it. Fox News averages during primetime, Fox, Fox News during primetime averages 2.1 million in gross viewership.

This is staggering. CNN, 660,000. Fox is kicking the shit out of CNN. Pivot's gross viewership is $375,000. CNBC is $252,000. Now, that's a bit of a misnomer. It's important, but what advertisers care about, they don't care about kids, they don't care about seniors, they care about people aged 25 to 54 who are buying kids, houses, and cars, and in their mating years. This is a single pivot, not two together of the week, right? This is one show.

One show, not because we do two a week, but go ahead.

Yeah. This is one show. So in the core demo, that's adults 25 to 54. Let me start here, which will explain that number. Let's look at the median viewer age. Fox News, the median is 69. CNN at 67, CNBC at 63. Pivot, the median age is 42. 42. So which leads you to believe, as you should, should, that the number, the percentage of viewers in the core demographic for these institutions or for the cable guys and CNBC is somewhere between 20% and 30%. For Pivot, it's 70%, meaning the number of people listening or watching these programs, listening to or watching these programs in the core demo that advertisers care about, CNBC gets 63,000 people on average watching their programming who are in the core demo. CNN gets 135,000 people Fox gets 197,000, and Pivot gets 233,000. So we beat them in the demo. So we're getting more people in the core demo. And then, which leads to the following, our average CPM, according to Ray Chow, ultimate nice guy and new father from Vox, we get a CPM of $45. The word I've heard from CNN is they get between $13 and $17. I don't know what Fox gets.

Guts. So just to give you a sense, oh, and let's talk about median household income.

And cost of doing business, but go ahead, yeah.

You wanna reach wealthy people. Wealthy people are now responsible for 50% of consumer spending. They have more discretionary income, right? Fox News, the average household, the median household income is $60,000. CNN, $65,000. CNBC, $85,000. Mm-hmm. That's not a surprise. Pivot, 150, 'cause we get a very tech-heavy, high-paid audience. So it's pretty obvious why cable news, Fox is actually doing pretty well, but cable news as a whole is dying. It's literally dying. So Barry Diller's saying he wants a new look and a new feel. What I would suggest is unless you can pick it up at distressed pricing and consolidate it with a bunch of other stuff, I think Barry's falling into the same trap that a lot of people fall into follow into, and that is nostalgia is not a strategy. I don't think there's any, I don't think there's any coming back. Really interesting.

They're too expensive. I mean, you didn't even figure in costs. Our costs are basement compared to all their costs.

Oh, the gross margins? Yeah. I mean, then it gets, it goes from ugly to worse. Yeah.

What's interesting is there's, it's still a great brand. And I agree with you about the romanticism. And he happens be even today at his— he's much older, is still the best programmer around. He's been—

He's a legend in the world of media.

But not just that. I don't— I've never seen him think like, oh, I do this.

Yeah, but so has John Malone, and he hasn't been able to figure it out. I agree.

I agree. But I'm just saying, I wouldn't like just say, oh, he's just being romantic. I've had discussions with him. He's got some great ideas. And I agree, it's a real problem. It's— I would spin it off and see what Zucker and Diller could do. Because both of them, very good. They have a lot of ideas and bring in people who have great ideas. And what would you do with it? If they said, here is this, this is what you have, Scott, what would you do with it? I know you have an— CNN? Just an anathema to television. I know that. But I, it's an interesting, I think it's what he knows best. And it would be interesting. I think he would be an interesting owner. He says it's not happening. But, but it's nice that he's bringing it up. I I think. Well, that's right. And by the way, speaking of our demo, of our young demo, 42 means there's a lot of people on the very young side. A lovely young man named Evan last night, I was going into this party for Hank Paulson, was like, "I love Pivot! Say hi to Scott!" And I was like, and Amanda was like, "That is a very young person." I get stopped by very young people, very old people, middle, and most, much in the middle, and very different people.

And I really, Evan, I really appreciate all the nice things you said. Said about the show. Because we, we like all our different fans. But you're right, an age thing is important. All kinds of stuff. Anyway, Barry, good luck. All right. We're not going to be buying it. And I won't go off on my craziness like I did with the Post. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough. So why make 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 O-D-O-O dot com. If you're running a business, you know the deal with most CRMs. They're packed with endless features you'll never use, interfaces that feel clunky, and you end up spending way too much time just trying to find basic information. Luckily for you, there's Pipedrive. Pipedrive is a simple sales CRM tool for small and medium businesses. Pipedrive brings your entire sales processes in one dashboard so you stay in control and close more deals faster. Right now, when you use the link, you'll get a 30-day free trial, no credit card or payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.com/vox to get started. That's pipedrive.com/vox, and you can be up and running in minutes.

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 U.S., with over 1,500 corporate separate guides. Don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand, and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/paidvox and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/paidvox.

Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Oh, one thing, I predict we're gonna have a great time at South by Southwest. All right, that's my prediction.

That's what you're predicting. As always. All right, so my prediction is essentially I think the markets this year are gonna go down. I think we're on the precipice of like a $10 trillion wipeout. Wow. Really? Oh yeah. Tell all. Well, not, and by the way, I get this wrong all the time. This is not financial advice, but I don't think it's from Iran. It's from what comes after Iran. And this is the chain reaction here. I don't think oil is gonna, I think oil is not gonna be at $150, but it's gonna be sustainably higher. It's gonna be elevated through the rest of the year. And inflation in some markets reignites. The Fed can't cut rates, they're trapped to inspire the economy 'cause they're worried about inflation. I think corporate earnings are really impaired as consumers stop spending because some of them will be paying $5 a gallon for gas and their 401(k) will start to decline. And Q2 earnings season becomes bad. And then what CEOs do when things are sort of bad is they throw in the kitchen sink and they'll make it look like a bloodbath just to get all the bad shit out.

But the real contagion here is going to be from emerging markets. I think there's a decent chance that Pakistan and Egypt default, and as well as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Dollar-denominated debt, very energy-dependent, very fragile economies. Because there's this domino effect in those markets because they can't afford oil imports and their dollar-denominated debt just becomes unpayable. And then the real downward spiral starts. European banks holding that emerging market debt start announcing write-downs. Foreign banks, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, all hugely exposed. Credit spreads blow out and we get sort of a, not this to the same extent, but we get an '08 style, which bank is next moment, except this time, It's happening while the US is fighting a war we started for no reason.

It's an excursion, Scott.

It's an excursion. Well. I'm teasing. Well, that's the mistake here is it should have been a special, it should have been a military combat operation. Instead, they've turned it into a war with no objectives. But anyways, by August, the narrative shifts from transitory war shock to holy shit, we may have broken the global financial system. System. The S&P is off 20 to 40% from its peak. Bitcoin goes to like $30,000. And quite frankly, the only thing that probably goes up is canned goods and ammunition and Chevron. Well, that's a scenario.

Happy South by Southwest.

But it's gonna start, the prediction's the following, it's gonna start, the contagion is gonna start in emerging markets that can't afford export oil and their debt is dollar-denominated. It's just a toxic cocktail. I think this is a very accurate prediction, I have to say. So, and the problem is we've shot so many bullets with our debt and printing money that the ECB and the Federal Reserve doesn't have the same firepower to try and lift us out of this. So in other words, it could be like an '08 shock, but the problem is we, we have less ammunition for a bailout.

Yeah, with the tariffs, with the debt, with everything. I mean, you know, one of the things that— did you hear James Carville saying, I don't have enough Trump Derangement Syndrome, I want more? You know, I'm so furious at this fucker. He was screaming this, what he has done here with this Iran. And it all, as you have noted many times, links back to Epstein again, right? It links back to this guy, the guy in every room. In every room. I think you're absolutely right that this— everything is motivated by either people want to get before— while the getting's good, or for themselves, or an unhealthy need to hold on to power in a demented way. Like, I remember when Elon said that one time, if Democrats— it's an existential crisis for the world if Democrats win. Actually, as I always say, every accusation is a confession. We're in an existential crisis because of these greedy defects and because of the, the need to hold on to power over everything. And it's gonna— it has reverberations around the world.

There's some really interesting tax proposals. Senator Booker proposed basically a tax holiday for young people, which I love. Not that expensive because young people don't make that much money. We need to level up young people who are 24% less wealthy than they were 40 years ago versus old people who are 72% wealthier. And then And for the first time I saw a wealth tax that could potentially make sense. But instead of going after billionaires, they should be going after anybody or everybody that say has a wealth, you know, more than call it $100 million. You get no happiness, your kids don't get no incremental happiness from inheriting that much money.

Yeah, we're helping you billionaires, we're helping you lift your wallets.

And it should be annual and it should be small. Small enough such that people don't have to liquidate assets or move to Florida. Like, yeah, it has to be federal.

Starbucks is just— it has to be federal. You're absolutely right. That's great. Okay. All right. We're going to talk about that. That's going to be one of our big topics at South by Southwest anyway, because you have— we'll have just interviewed Baby Jesus anyway. Uh, Baby Jesus. Call him Baby Jesus. I dare you. Penis hugs. Baby Jesus. That's right.

In Austin, you can't find three wise men and a virgin.

Oh, very good.

And he was You knew it was coming. You knew it was coming. We just heard from the Tallarico team that he has a scheduling conflict.

Yeah. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Stop with the jokes. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe, I'm gonna get serious for a second. Monday, I published a story that I think I'm the most proud of, of anything I've done in a very long time. I sat down with 3 Epstein survivors who've been pushing for more transparency on On with Kara Swisher. Survivor, Liz Stein, who's also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, said her desire to help her younger self fuels her advocacy work. Let's listen to a clip. It would be irresponsible of me to have this position and to not use it so that others did not feel alone in this. Because if I could go back and tell myself anything, it would be to tell someone. And if they don't listen, tell someone else and just keep telling until people listen. Listen to you. And even if you feel like they don't, be proud of yourself because you at least were able to sit in your uncomfortable truth when other people weren't.

And that's really what fuels me doing this advocacy, being the person that I wish was there for me when I needed them most. This is a great show. They actually got to talk a lot about it. Often you get these shorter interviews. It was really very moving. I dare Just listen to it. I know everyone goes, "Oh, goodness." Yeah, you know the emotion in her voice. Such dignity, such incredible strength, such heroic behavior in the face of adversity. And, you know, it was a lot of— I've gotten a lot of feedback that's been, "I really appreciate it." But it was all these women. They were astonishing. It's nothing to do with me, but I let them talk, and you should listen to what they have to say, as she said. Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week.

Today's show was produced by Lara Namensway Marcus and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Urtot engineered this episode. Manolo Moreno edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Brose, Mia Severo, and Dan Shalon. Ishak Khurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at ny mag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. We will see you all in in the great state of Texas.

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 O-D-O-O dot com.

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. Support for the show comes from Retool. Too many companies run critical operations on duct-taped spreadsheets, Slack workflows, and whatever else they could cobble together. Not because they want to, but because building internal tools means weeks of of waiting on someone else's backlog. That's where Retool comes in. Build custom internal tools just by describing what you need. Prompt something like, "Build me a revenue dashboard on our Salesforce data," and Retool actually builds it on your company's data, in your cloud, with enterprise security built in. Go to retool.com/vux. We all need to retool how we build software.