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From Meta and YouTube Lose in Court, Insider Iran Trades, and Sora Shuts Down — Mar 27, 2026
Meta and YouTube Lose in Court, Insider Iran Trades, and Sora Shuts Down — Mar 27, 2026 — starts at 0:00
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Try Odoo for free at Odoo.com. That's ODO. com. Support for today's show comes from The Guardian. The Guardian is a news organization that prides itself on remaining fiercely independent. Being free from outside influence means they can report the whole picture. User values we should expect from our news coverage, but they're harder and harder to find. They connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe, expose corruption fearlessly wherever they find it, and give you a fresh, outside perspective on wellness, sports, culture, and more. And you're free to read it without a payoff. For US and World News Without Compromise or a paywall, read, watch, and listen today at thegardian. com. You know when you text me mean things at two in the morning it's not a good idea and you can't help yours elf Hi everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. What's going down, Scott? What's going down? Just life stuff, all this moving parts around moving back to the US and then my youngest who always causes problems is now like all of a sudden getting A's uh so i i in a school in London here. So that's throwing a monkey wrench into everything. That's kind of good though. That means he's capable of great things. Well we always knew that. We just didn't want him to do it at this moment. Uh well you know what he can do it anywhere. He can do it anywhere kids are very um Malleable. Yes. I moved my I'm gonna read this. Alex is right now taking a signal exam about the Fournier transform. I don't even understand the things he sends me anymore. I I'm like what? He's like, let me explain it you to and I'm not sure flux. Good for him. When I got at eleven thirty on the SAT, I thought that was good. I called my mom and she had no idea what that meant, but she was happy to celebrate with me. She didn't know what the SAT was. Do you know how much things have changed? This is how I found out this is how I found out we were moving. My dad came home. I wasn't even sure what was going on with him and my mom and intro and introduced me to Linda, my new mommy, and Linda told me we had all moved, we were all moving to Columbus, Ohio, because dad got a promotion. That's how I found out not we were moving, but we had already moved and that my parents were in fact divorcing. So and now we literally obsess. You're sensitive to it. Let me say, I I will give you so a story. I moved a lot as a kid too. My mom was restless and so was my stepfather, but and I didn't like it, I I have to say. But we moved a lot a lot. Like of things. How many different schools were you at? Only two, maybe. It wasn't the schools. It was it was houses. Like they were. Oh, but in the same school region. Um it was enough that it was not great. I j I remember thinking not great. But let me tell you my own older kids thing is we moved when when Megan and I were getting a divorce, she got this offer from the Obamas to uh President Obama to be the CTO. CTO of America. Yeah. Again, another flux. And that well sorry, I mean it's what it is. So reticent 'cause she didn't want the kids to have to move from San Francisco where we have had a beautiful house and they liked their school a lot and everything else. And I thought, first of all, it's a great opportunity for you. Second of all, the kids will have a great time in Washington and get to spend time with like Obama and stuff like that. It's like one of those one of the lifetime opportunities.. Yeah And it but it was hard. It was d we got him to school pretty quickly. But it was it was a big shift. And I felt because of my own childhood stuff bad about it. And and I have to say I I could have done some things better. I should have been there a little bit more. Um it's complicated. But uh I have to say they did great and it was they were fine and they really liked San Francisco and this was a shift. Well I think you're I think you're going through the same regrets and dilemmas that the primary breadwinner goes through. And what I would say is hav ing unfortunately in a capitalist society, money opens too many opportunities. So that sacrifice, which was tough for them, you not being maybe as present as you would have liked, was harder on you and paid huge benefits for them. At least that's what I say to make myself feel better about it. No, I you know, by the way, primary bedwinner, my ex-wife was an early Google executive, so no, not no. Just go with it. I'm trying to ther make myself feel better about not being around when my kids were little. They you know, they def there was moving is hard with kids at the same time. I think they really benefited and they ad they learned to adapt and they loved their they ended up loving their school and got to sports and so it was it was definitely not unrocky, but I think you you you have to give your kids more credit for being adaptable than you think. Yeah, I just uh I don't know. I pretend like I have any fucking say in this decision. Anyways. Anyway, America. Gotta get back to America. I always I always go to the reason we're worried about this is because we don't have real problems. It's like Oh, it's a normal thing to be worried about your kid. You want everyone wants no matter where you are in the economic spectrum, you want your kids to do well. Uh for the most part. Most people do. Anyway. Yeah, but what you said about getting a chance to hang out with President Obama and go to all those wonderful museums, I've told my partner that my fifteen-year-old I can get him a fake ID and he can come to Shamar go with me talk to the uh lovely Russian ladies who make eye contact with me because they think he's so old he must be rich. No, you know what? New York's an amazing place to be the age you will be. It'll be really interesting for him. I think. I it's just really a tremendous city. It really is. It just it's I think I've said this before. You never know. It's like you don't know you're in the saladays until you're out of them . Like that, you know, Sunday morning chaos I have to say I love it. Unless my prostate's gonna give birth, I don't think that um something is I don't Ninety percent. You have spent ninety percent. Yeah of all time you're gonna spend with them. And that kills me. I th after I heard that I was like last night my kids were crawling all over me and first I was trying to eat dinner and I was like oh and then I thought, oh fine, fine. It's fine. Yeah my my son's doing orientation at his college and it's a one day thing. I'm like, let's go for four days. We'll just hang out. And he's like, no, I don't want. Yeah, it's Cats in the Cradle, my friend. Anyway, I love that song. Uh we gotta get to news though. There's so much going on about that. Um listen, President Trump plans to install big tech names like Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and Jensen Wong to a technology council to weigh in on AI policies and other issues. We were not invited AI policy. Buy more of my shit. Buy more of my shit. Uh what I need. You know, it's again barest. No regulation and buy more of my shit. That's gonna be their own. That these are the only experts. I would say our invitation is lost. The dog ate our invitation, but he hates dogs, so Trump ate our invitation. I just don't this list is nobody who has any doubt about it, nobody who has any good research, no ones whose interest are not aligned with it, no regulation with with any kind of conflicts everywhere. Everywhere. I justen Huang's a big fan of selling uh being able to sell his chips into China despite the fact that he's Yeah. And Larry Ellison wants more data centers and mi you know. I just this ugh God, these people. Like you think if you were a real president, and I think this guy isn't losing it every single day, including the polls, which are just like look out below. But it's really amazing that he doesn't want other inputs like that may vary from his rich friends. It's just I I find it i it's it's just not good policy not to have people who doubt each other and debate it. I just I don't understand. Yeah. We're waiting for an invite. Even just you, even you if he needs the white guys. Even you. Well, you'd be good. I love that. Well, I think you even you If you're the white guy, they're not gonna have me. I'm irritating to all of these people. And so uh you know, I'm just saying. I'm just saying. You uh uh speaking of which someone was someone said I don't know on one of these many many platforms which are just so good for your mental health that care was a total shill for big tech. And I I I wro te do you realize like I have been on when you go on a board and they don't want you on the board, they stick you on the nominating and governance committee, which has absolutely no power. Okay. And your job, your job is to find new directors, and it's just it it's it's literally like, you know, put 'em put 'em at the weird kids' table. And so I've of course served on a lot of nominating and governance committees. Yeah, where you're supposed to recruit new board members. If you weren't such a pain in the ass to these people, you'd be fucking chairman of SpaceX right now. I would be good. Because over the last 20 years, we have correctly started saying, all right, let's try and broaden the aperture and bring in candidates who potentially don't look, smell, and feel like us and aren't members of the same country club. So a a journalist a a gay journalist who's covered tech, you were built in a factory of lesser. I'm gonna go on a board next year. Well let's discuss that. You're in the boy, but the reason I I mean this sincerely, Kara's gonna have me on the reason you haven't been invited uh to be on. I was invited to one. I was invited to one. Okay. But the reason you haven't been invited to half a dozen is because you get in their face. And on boards, nobody's gonna put uh they don't mind someone who has alternative opinions or whatever. But ever since quite frankly, I'll be blunt, ever since I started becoming more outspoken on podcasts, yeah. I used to get invited to go on three or four boards a year, it's gone way down. Wow, interesting. Because the public COs are like the public COs are like, okay, no. Let's call him, let's bring him in, let's talk to him. But I don't want him in my boardroom. Yeah. This week. I gave a thing at Syracuse University. They asked me this amazing tone of the case. Orangemen. The Orangemen. And I you know, I I was talking about things that I've talked about a lot about CNN and the Ellis and zoning it and this and that and where AI is going. I just want to say that I find David Ellison very attractive. I do too. And Larry Ellison is a huge big brain thinker. He's a nice guy. He makes great movies. I would absolutely love to work for them. Yes., okay. All right Listen, this is what happened. I was telling such things I've said a hundred and nine times before. I don't want to work for a tech mogul. I don't. I just never have Walton I didn't take a as opposed to a media mogul? Yes. Yes, yes. So you'd rather work for Rupert Murdoch than Larry Ellison? You did work there. As fast as I could get out, I got out. How long were you there? Hold on, hold on, hold on. How long are you? No, just like two years before we could get two years? Y no, I was there a long time, but he didn't buy it for a while. In any case, Scott we left Newscorp because of Rupert Murdoch and that behavior around the taping of that uh dead girl. We left like very soon after. And we we on purpose. Is this the voicemail thing? Yes. Oh god. I know, exactly. So we did that and we took money. We we were offered money from Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist and we took money from Terry Semmel, who is had a media fund. Yeah, Yahoo, CBS. Yeah. Anyway, he's a lovely guy, amazing guy, amazing person. He had a media fund. And then we took money from MBC. But we were offered venture capital money and we didn't take it because I was like, These fuckers, they're gonna fuck me. Like that that was real and also it was there's a word for that, venture capitalists. But anyway, go ahead. But anyway, I we didn't take the money. And then I just don't want to work for tech people. And I've said that to you on this podcast a dozen fucking times, right? Haven't I? A dozen. So I s I repeat that again, but what but what I did was Scott McFarlane who left CBS and is now with Midas um touch, which is very fast-gingrow thing. And they're going into news now instead of just news aggregation, which is a cool thing. And they've hired Scott is an astonishing journalist. He did an amazing job around the January 6th and the Justice Department. Astonishing, very handsome man, by the way. You would love his handsomeness. Very tall because he went to Syracuse. And so he was the MC. And as a joke, he was like, you know, he was talking about going independent. Oh no, because he looks like an ad for an anchor. He ri uh a a typical TV anchor. And he was, you know, he's like, oh goodness, I'm taking a big leap. And and I was like, oh, it's going to be great. And I said to him, I said, you're, you made the right decision. And I I was looking directly at him and joking. I'm like, you don't want to work for the Ellisons. I mean, he's a terrible person. I was just like like laying it on as a joke. The whole crowd laughed. I was not, I don't think Larry Ellison's a terrible person. He's he's got he's a he's actually very funny. I don't agree with him on a lot of things. He's an amazing entrepreneur. He has great aesthetic taste, by the way. And his ship his boats are fantastic. Like I was joking to Scott McFarlane directly and somehow these reporters were like, Kara Swiss are thinks Larry Ellison is a terrible person. And I it was crazy. And it's also all the things I've said before many times. Like it's it's kind of weird. And then it became a thing. Whatever. I I like by the way, let me just be clear. I like David Ellison. He's a nice guy. Larry Ellison is a tough dude. I'm sorry. He really is. And people can dislike him because he's had a really he's been a tough m cuss cowboy um of over the many years. That said, I do think he's very innovative and has done astonishing things. And so but I don't wanna work. I I don't wanna work for tech people. I don't. And I I I that it's perfectly f uh you know, legitimate and frankly, the decisions they've made have been terrible around stuff that concerns me. And I that worries me of them taking over salmon. So what? Big deal. I think you're being bigoted against wealthy white men. You know, I don't you know you, y wouldn't have to worry about this if you weren't living forever. I know. I'm sure the CNN people are like it's premiering soon and she insults the new owners. I mean honestly. I'm I'm being very serious. I get I'm speaking at one of these events tonight. Um anyways, but um I get a huge amount of power from my atheism because I find it very comforting to know at some point everyone I'm worried about is going to be dead and so am I. Yeah. I find it actually quite liberating to realize, okay, squeeze all the juice you can out of this lemon called life because we're going to be dead soon and take risks. And if you fuck up, it really doesn't matter. No in a hundred years, no one's gonna remember us or anybody we care about. Anyway, uh moving on. The Pentagon, this is troubling to me, is sending roughly two thousand troops uh from the eighty second Airborne Division to the Middle East. As of this recording, there's been no decision to put, I hate this expression, boots on the ground, but that's what it is. Trump is talking a lot of talk this week, saying the war has effectively been won. Iran wants to make a deal and negotiations are happening right now, even as Iran disputes that. And I hate to say it, but I believe Iran, and I don't like the people who are running Iran. And he said he got a gift from Iran, calling it a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money and tied to oil and gas. I think he's just making shit up now. He's also sent Iran a fifteen point plan to end the war, demands including dismantling nuclear sites, ending enrichment and reopening the Strait of Hormuz. We certainly had some of those things in place before, and as potential talks may or may not be taking shape, there are reports that Iran would prefer to deal with Vice President J. D. Vance over Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff. I wow, that that's a's a choice. Right. That's a choice. But I would agree with the Iranians on that. Um I and Bance has been the person who, you know, is gonna be running for president and could possibly be president and also has been opposed to the war quietly. Um he that he certainly ran on the idea of no more wars and he's he's also a a veteran. I don't know. What do you what do you think about that? It's all um I mean I go to the markets, you know, so there was an unusual amount of futures that changed hands. Please talk about this. Well I I believe that in a digital world where forensics and AI and investigative journalists, uh, one of the wonderful things about America is that people see incentive in in finding out what actually went down. And I think that's one of the wonderful things about our society . I think you're going to see President Tr ump four or five years post his presidency sitting in front of a camera and a jury pretending to be too old and that he just doesn't remember him telling his buddies, his friends, his family members. To buy bye bye. That, oh, I think I'm gonna announce that the talks are going really well, even though according to the Islamic Republic, there are no talks, which will send the markets skyrocketing. And then when it comes out 24, 48 hours later, then in fact there are no talks. And then the markets oil surges again and the markets go down. This is an insider trader's It's right from the White House. It's right from the White House. Ivan Boskey could not have dreamt of this situation. The ability to trade uh on these uh on near certainty, the president knows that if he just, A, he can say any, he believes he can say anything he fucking wants, it doesn't matter, I can lie, I can be full of shit, just put up press releases, it doesn't matter. Kind of the funding's secured over and over. Yeah. And I know that the markets will respond swiftly to my comments. There is now zero-day options where you can buy options that expire by the end of the day. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that sometimes the president doesn't have that much fidelity to rule of law or conflicts of interest I find it like a st this has happened over and over again. There is they must just he must just say things while on the toilet and people then trade or whatever. And you know, interestingly, let me note lawmakers are introducing bipartisan bills to ban prediction markets from listing. There's there's a lot of action on this now from listing sports bets and to prohibit members of Congress from trading in certain markets, facing the heat Calci plans to block athletes, coaches, and officials from betting on their sports and political candidates from trading on their campaigns and polymarket announced finally enhanced market integrity rules including banning trading on stolen confidential information. I mean, this has happened rather quickly and quite it's quite important that this happen. Um you know, it's really uh it's r it's just grift. It's just out and out grift that these numbers. And you know that Democrats are prepared. This is like so deep in the heart of easy to prove, right? This kind of stuff and who's doing it. And so I think they better you know, they better hope uh they get those pardons from from uh from Trump and he pardons himself because this is just really uh it's let me break it down for regular people. They're making money at your expense and cheating while doing it. Like what o I don't know what else to say. Look, uh the Democrats engage in what I'll call small cap corruption, and that is it's not illegal to trade stocks right now is if you're a U.S. Congress person. I think it should be. And and even though there are regulations and guidelines against it, the fines is a slap on the wrist, so the incentives are if I'm sitting in a, you know, the Senate uh if I'm on the in uh the defense uh committee or the intelligence committee, and we're talking about a $30 billion contract to Northrop Grumman, and it looks like it's going to go through, and my guess is Northrub Grumman will put out a press release in seventy two hours. Hey, honey. Hey, Paul Pelosi. I really like Northrub and I just wanna be even handed here. I think what Trump is. You do this every time. This is like sh massive corruption in a different scale. It's just corruption on a different scale, but it's still corruption. Trevor Burrus It is, but you tend to go right to Nancy Pelosi, who's leaving Congress. Because in order to be taken seriously, we have to be critical thinkers and apply it to both sides of the aisle. I understand this is So but let's look at the data. Over the last what is it, 2 ye0ars? The SP has tripled, and the Pelosi portfolio is up sevenfold. And nothing she has done is illegal. What Trump has done is said, okay, that's small ball. You're corrupt for millions. I'm going to be corrupt for billions. Because what he's done, it's I'm not sure it's illegal, but we've never we've been dependent upon, and Barry Goldwater predicted this fifty years ago. We have been too dependent upon a series of norms as opposed to laws and have slowly but surely ceded power. Absolutely right. Trevor Burrus So Trump says, oh, everyone's doing it. Mar Marjorie Taylor Greene was doing everyone and not everyone. A significant number of people in Congress have been trading stocks and beating the market. Trevor Burrus Mark Wayne Mullen was one of them. And also Also, in in my solution, I think they should make I think people in Congress, I think representatives should make a million dollars a year and senators should make two million dollars a year. I agree. If you have two homes and you're living in DC and you you weren't rich before running for Congress. We should pay for their apartments. I mean I just it's you can't afford you can't afford to be nice apartments for them that are actually secure, so put make them more secure and the the Singapore model, the probably the best-run nation in the world, the Singapore model, they pay their elected officials a lot of money and they have zero tolerance. You cannot go to work for a lobbying firm or a pack company, there has to be a sunlight period, or whatever they call it, a sunshine period. You cannot in any way have any insight domain benefit in any way. We find out you've called your cousin in the Philippines and he or she is trading stocks, you're probably gonna get lashed. Yeah. That's literally what it's like at Singapore. And when do you know there's no corruption? Anyway, so my he has taken it to an absolutely new level, but just circling back where I started, we're gonna find out that the greatest levels, volume of insider trading in history are happening and originating out of Pennsylvania Avenue. Absolutely. 100%. I think there's there are people talking about whether it's treasonous or not to release this things because these are these are peop these are boots on the ground that could get hurt and everything else. So there's a whole level of complexity here because they're betting on possible deaths of Americans and others. Um, uh go sending JD Vant, where do you imagine this Iran thing? Because it is going back and forth and back and forth. The market is trying to grok it and it it it feels very whip-saw. Um so far they've given it it hasn't suffered that badly. You had talked about a real decline in the market. Um, is this the thing that will pull it off or the thing that will pull you mean J sending JD Vance, Vice President Vance? Yeah, like but sending vice president Vance is a signal. There's a few signals here. One, the scariest signal is we have amphibious ships and combat marine marines being deployed to the region. This is either you could argue he's just playing poker or in fact he's planning to put uh in the terminal like boots on the ground and carg and maybe do a swap where I'll let the oil flow through Karg if you ensure the Straits of Hormos are safe passage. There's all sorts of game theory going on here. He has a tendency to lie, and then before before a quote unquote surprise attack, which I think is bad for our brand long term, America has to be seen as doing what they say and uh meaning what they say and what they mean. But anyways, sending Vance is a signal because Well, no, they're not sending Vance, the Iranians want Vance. Trevor Burrus Well, but the Iranians want Vance, and this is quite frankly, this is a signal that uh for the people who want this to end, because Vance is on the record as saying for a long time that these types of misadventures overseas were a bad idea. Well he hasn't he's like, I think I won't let send send let let Scott Descent do that. He The last thing he wants to do is get on with Kirsten W W Welker and have her bring up about five million hi tapes in where he said, under no sir World War III under Biden. We could should never get into these quagmires overseas. There's just He's trying his best to justify it. He is literally just doing everything he can to stay out of the way of mics and cameras. He's literally hiding behind the curtain. He's like, don't ask me. Um he's try he's done a few like real pretzel moves that are really problematic. But the RGC probably believes correctly, he's more likely to to be empathetic to want to de-escalate. So this is a good side. The fact that the Trump administration is entertaining this, he he b both sides, I think he is probably the guy that can find common ground. Not Rubio? Well, we'll see. But Rubio is perceived as a bit of a hawk. A lot of people think he's the shadow president right now, what has been the most militarily adventurous administration in a long time. And they're planning Cuba next, which is like, oh god, I mean leave let them die themselves. They're already on their last legs. Just let them fall and then we'll move in the hotels. I'm sorry, under the auspices of having an opinion about shit I have no domain expertise in. Let me just say that the smartest thing we could do, geopolitically as it as it relates to Cuba would be to be sending humanitarian aid to them right now. If you want the people to rise up and think, you know, the Americans aren't that bad, maybe we should normalize relations, at some point the Castro family will die out. It would be starching our hat white and sending power, fuel, and food to Cuba right now. Yeah. It worked out so well for the Kennedy administration. But what's really interesting is this is all having an effect. Democrats pulled off a surprising win in Florida, actually a pair of them, but one that was particularly surprising, flipping two legislative seats, including the district that covers Mar-a-Lago, like in he now has a Democratic representative. Emily Gregory, a first time candidate with a background in public health, won by a little over two points, astonishing. This was a big Trump uh district. Trump has taken to social media to support her opponent, obviously, and President Trump, who's called voting by mail cheating voted by mail in the election. I mean, these the dem the list of things Democrats have won recently is really something else, um, to see them winning in all sorts of districts. And from w people I know down there, they're just furious at him. They're they really are. These are all his fans, like or people who voted for him. Um and it's really it's I'm not sure as a g I think people I think they they're gonna try to steal the election. I don't think it's gonna be possible giving the overwhelming numbers that are gonna happen. And and another thing that's affecting him, and these are two topics as we are core negotiations to end the five week DHS shutdown or standstill with Congress scheduled to go into recess any minute. The Republicans have brought a number of possibilities to Trump, but he's turned them all down, and the Democrats are sticking. Very simple things. Don't wear masks, uh bring in judicial warrants and and uh and cameras. TSA officers will miss in their paycheck this Friday if the deal hasn't reached. On Tuesday morning, Delta Airlines suspended specialty services for members of Congress. They're gonna have to wait in line like everybody else, which I think is great, all of them. Um you said in your last our last show that grounding private planes might move the needle. Um and I love that Delta and others are pushing back. The TSA is pushing back against ICE. Great move by Delta. Great, great brand enhancing, brilliant fucking move by Delta. And no one likes ICE there. Like they're you the TSA has said it's useless. The airlines think it's useless. It's there was a pilot that got on social media where he's like, this fucking sucks people and I I have to say this is all at Donald Trump's door because he's refusing to deal because of the SAVE Act and letting people wait in line. I love that Congress people have to wait in line. I love it. And so talk about this win in Mar-a-Lago and the and what's happening with TSA because besides Iran, this is yet another series of things that are indicators, leading indicators. District 87, Palmbeach County, as you notice, includes, you know, White House, Florida, and a really impressive young woman. I love this, Emily Gregory. Fantastic. 40-year-old small business owner and military spouse running for office for the first time. Yep. Defeated Republican John Maples, who had Trump's complete and total endorsement. She won with 51.2 percent, uh, with turnout roughly at 29 percent. Trump carried the district by 11 points in 2020. Yeah, that's a lot. The previous Republican incumbent won by 20 points. I mean, this is and then let's go up, let's go up the you know, let's go up the coast of the great state of Florida. Democrat Brian Nathan, a Navy veteran and union organizer, upset Republican Josie Tomkow by just 408 votes, a margin of 0.5%, which could trigger a machine recount. But Tom Cow outspent Nathan more than three to one. And Nathan, it looks like Nathan won and received over 400,000 in-kind contributions from the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee. The previous Republican incumbent, Jay Collins, won the seat by 10 points in 2022. And this all bubbles up to the most shocking, exciting, and somewhat and almost I'm almost worried we're peaking too early right now. No. The prediction markets. Uh Calci is saying for the first time that it's more likely than not that Democrat s take the Sen ate. We when have we heard that? Everyone's moving. Every the narrative so far from quote unquote all the experts is it's likely, very likely Democrats will get control of the House, but the map is really difficult for Senate, really difficult, like looking at the people. And now people more people are betting their money on Democrats taking the Senate. This is it's wild. I think the Democrats are fielding much better candidates. This woman and seems I I love her. I was like, I love you. She was focusing on maternal health and affordability issues. You know, you have Abby Spanberger in Virginia, you've got Mickey Cheryl, you've got all even Montana, there are people good candidates everywhere. Yeah. Calorico. And not just centrist ones, just really good everywhere. Young people, fresh ideas. Yeah. Fresh ideas. You know. Tough. Regular sized prostates, still childbearing, actually think about kids, actually have kids at home. Yeah. I feel I feel really good about the candidates. And the Trump ones look like a bunch of cult members or acolytes that really hate him secretly. And by the way, let me stress to everybody, if you hang around Republicans, off the record, they eviscerate Trump. On the record, they suck up to them. It makes them so awful. Like at least the Democrats fight in public, I guess, and they do. Um but it's really um it's really something to see what's happening here. That was I think there's th the Mar-a Lago one is particularly notable, obviously, but across the country in places where Democrats have never won, Georgia, Kansas, all these places, they're they're knocking up wins. And so that that creates a real opportunity if Democrats walk into it. And I think so far at on the local level like this, the candidates have been speaking what they're listening to voters. And they're they're they're not I don't think they're just mouthing things like I think they actually are concerned with what what do voters want. This is our customers and we're gonna give them what they want. Anyway, Delta, well let's give Delta big a old clap. I'm I'm uh I met the CO there and a good friend of mine's on the board. The whoever whoever came up with this ide a, uh except that is one of the most brand-enhancing, thoughtful egalitarian American thing. This was such an amazing corporate move. And it directly, and again, it flies in the face of, or not flies in the face, it supports what I believe is the greatest commercial opportunity. I just had a phone call with, I think, one of the most thoughtful business leaders in America who runs an iconic investment bank. And I said to him: the greatest commercial opportunity in a long time has been presented, and that is in a thoughtful, non-ad hominin, non personal attack discussing values of America and how they have been so incredibly important to our capital markets to do with Dario Modi and now to a certain extent what Delta Airlines is saying, and to say no. This isn't a direct affront on the Trump administration or something. For all Congress people. For people who don't know, Congresspeople can sail through security. Yeah, but what this is saying is People don't know. that But people blame Trump and the Republicans mostly for the shutdown. So by them saying this is unacceptable, but Delta is saying this is unacceptable, and our leadership, who has fucked this up by quite frankly demanding that the Save Act be a part of this or ISE funding, we are no longer gonna engage in facilitating this. Wet in the line, get in the back of back of the line, back of the line. Which is great. All right. Well we we think it's great. Get back in the line. Lines suck, by the way. Um and it and it's terrible for the TSA people who deserve to be paid, and ICE people are being paid, and they're doing nothing but buying coffee and irritating people. They handed out water in the line through security. How stupid can you be? Anyway. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back. Meta and YouTube are found liable in the first of the social media addiction lawsu its Support for this show comes from Vanguard. If you're a financial advisor, then you're probably thinking about how to set up your clients for success. A fixed income strategy like bonds is a good place to start. However, with tricky markets and rate shifts, there may be some unforeseen risks. That's why having a partner with scale and expertise matters. Vanguard brings both. Vanguard bonds are institutional quality. Institutional quality isn't a tagline. It's a commitment to your clients. 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Uh Meta has also been found liable for failing to protect young people from online dangers in a New Mexico case. Their Meta must pay three hundred and seventy five million, a little more, but still a parking ticket for this company. The company made 160 times that in revenue last quarter. These verdicts are the first in social media addiction trials, social media impact trials. As the New York Post covers said, Metaculpa, which we love, we love. Scott, what do you think? Here we go. We're over the edge with juries involved. Juries are tired of social media. Aaron Powell I generally want to get your viewpoint on it, but my initial instinct is that this is actually a big deal. Trevor Burrus It is. And it's not about it's as you said, it's not about the parking tickets that have been issued. It's that there's now legal precedent for what that the activities these firms engage in is makes them civilly at least liable. And the other piece of information I got that I found fascinating is their insurance companies are trying to reject the claim, saying that they intentionally, they knew they were intentionally doing this. And so they're not covered by insurance. And my sense is it's not about this case, it's that the other several hundred or several thousand cases against these firms just got a lot stronger because of this decision. Yeah, there's a real there's a real backup. You know, this has been something you and I have been talking about. I went back to the bigger Oh you think I thought I wrote a book on this about ten years ago. You did, I was just saying you wrote a book on this. And I wrote a book on this and talking about these problems and how liable they were, ha lack of accountability, lack of regulatory scrutiny of anybody except some in other countries, uh in fact rolling over for them, but both by Obama and Trump, of course, because he takes money from them. Um I you know, I think their high water mark was standing in f with Trump at the inaugural. I think this was it was in this was starting to be in place when people realized after January sixth, I think, that social media has a real impact and it's been a slow burn, that's for sure. And our our regulators have done nothing. Let me just say, not in states, in our federal regulators. And I don't mean to say Amy Klobuchar and others have not tried. I just think they have not been successful because of the pushback. And in this case, I think you're gonna see furious pushback by these companies, even for this small an amount, right? This tiny amount of money they're there because they don't want any accountability for what they're doing. They want to skate out of responsibility. And they can't because now it's in front of juries and every person knows addiction is an issue, sloppy management is an issue, and threats to kids are an issue. I saw you on Anderson Cooper last night and I mean and you had it, I thought was exactly the right point, and we've been talking about this, and that is the nation is actually pretty good at recognizing externalities and harm. It just doesn't act crisply. Took about 30 years with tobacco, 20 years with opiate. So she went on mobile in 2012. It feels like that timing's about right that about at 2032. Unfortunately, and I'm personally agriegved, quite frankly. My kids got fucked up on these things. Alex and Louie had to endure this. And my sense is they've come through a pretty f pretty pretty unscathed. They had less of it. They had less of it. It wasn't quite, you know, they were m your kids are the zero ground zero, I think. My kids were near a blast zone, but not the same quite thing. I think they they like YouTube. They were a little bit on Snapchat, you know what I mean? But it wasn't as intense as and hateful as it it as it became. But as as big tech always does, this praise on the poor. Because if I'd had these devices and a mother who was gone before I got up in the morning and got home after sometimes after I was asleep because she was working, and I was totally unsupervised, and I had YouTube and Snap and U porn and Meta and Facebook, I think I just would have been on these things all damn day long. Yeah, they're just like,ing and. as I was going th My brain would have been wired for constant squeezing of a dopha bag, which I believe could have very easily taken me away. I used to leave my house to go hang out with my friends because Right. I'm not sure I would have left my house. You wouldn't. Why would you? Why would you? I mean, one of the things that they've done, and I think as as these cases come to fruit, the the discovery is gonna be brutal. I mean, I think they know it. There's all kinds of evidence that they know it. In this case, a lot of stuff came out that they wanna they wanna uh attract tweens because they're lifelong customers, right? It's like cigarettes. It's literally like Joe Camel when you read this stuff if you put cigarette in there. Um and the what's incredible here is I actually believe the cigarette manufacturers knew exactly the problem of nicotine. I think these guys think that they're not, that it's not their fault. It's never their fault. And then they hide behind the first amendment. Hey, it's just people talking. And there was a great story in the Washington Post today about uh Republicans worried about young Republicans being so anti-Semitic, Nazi focused, sort of hateful. And where do you think this comes from? And again, I don't blame them fully. I don't, I don't, I don't think it's fully, but they've created addictive and necessary features without any kind of guardrails in place or any kind of it's not like they're like, hey, let everything go. And I think that's it's sort of like they're evil babysitters, right? In some fashion. And at some point the babysitter has to get dinged in in some way. That that's that they consider themselves it's not their fault if people eat their shitty food. I I you know what I mean? Like our tainted meat, it's okay. Uh you know, and of course everyone else gets regulated but them. Yeah, I I think their argument would be we don't get any credit for all the good Yeah. All the good we aren't parades. Right. That we that people do learn, people do uh it helps them with their homework, they do make connections, you know, parents of kids with childhood, rare herd childhood diseases. Social media does add a lot of value. It creates tremendous economic growth, a lot of high paying jobs. They would argue we're a net good. And I would argue that's actually true. The problem is with the word net, and that is we're net beneficiaries from fossil fuels and pesticides, but we still have we still have a Clean Air Act, we still have an EPA, we still have an FDA. Right. And this is this is fossil fuels and pesticides with absolutely no emission standards. No, when I when I lived in LA, I was talking, I was I went on vacation with a buddy of mine, we grew up in LA together. There were days where by the end of the school day you couldn't breathe in. And they cleaned it up. They cleaned it up. And unfortunately, what's happening here? And unfortunately that I I thought of it yesterday. I was trying to think I was asked to go on and talk about this. And I instead I decided to go out and drink. But the I was thinking, okay, is this the beginning of the end? It's not. You know what this is? This is the end of the beginning. These firm this industry is not going anywhere. But the era of we, you know, we need to do better from Cheryl Sandberg or Mark Zuckerberg weaponizing thousands of lawyers and lobbyists to delay and obfuscate and gloss over the internal research that showed one out of 12 teens in the UK was uh cited Instagram for their suicidal ideation. I do think that era is coming to a close. And um the uh the my favorite part of the case is that uh there was an undercover operation, I think, from the Attorney General in New Mexico, where they posed, they created accounts posing as an 11-year-old girl, which was almost immediately inundated with images and targeted solicitations from wait for it. Yes. That's right. So it took the attorneyal Gener about forty-eight hours to figure this shit out, and we're supposed to believe that Meta wasn't aware of it. Yeah, we don't believe them. And neither did the jury, by the way. Um we're gonna move on to saying it, but I gotta say one of I did quote you last night uh on Anderson um where you say, you know, the we're bound by the law but not protected by it and they're protected by the law and not bound by it. Now they're bound by it. And they are gonna fight their asses off. You know what, Mark? Just pay the money and fix it. Like just stop. Like stop. Because the more they resist, the more a growing group of people, bipartisan across the country, recognizes the damage these companies. And then of course the same day Donald Trump names all of these people to a committee on AI with not narry a critic on it right everybody with self-interest is on that that that advisory committee and nobody who's gonna talk about the possibilities of problem, only up and to the right. And once again, they're gonna try to do it. And let me tell you folks, we need to stop them now because the damage they will do they have shown no w no ability to control themselves. No one under the age of eighteen needs to be on any of these. And we hate to say that. I have to say, I hate to say that, but this is where we are. Okay, Scott, moving on. I want to start our next story by playing a prediction you made just last week. My prediction is OpenAI Sora Social Media App will be shut down soon. Oh. Sora. Really? What do you know? You know something. No, I don't. I I've done no original reporting, trust me. Okay. All right. Upon its release, Sora came out in number one in the App Store and actually got more downloads out of the gates than ChatGPT did. However, like the parties ended. Downloads fell 32% month over month in December and another 45% in January. And some Sora is the little engine that didn't. And also users continue to drop by flies. You were right. I still think you had inside information. OpenA announced this week that it's discontinuing the SOAR app. This is the video app they're doing just months after launching it. This reportedly one of several steps the company is taking to refocus the business ahead of its potential IPOs. Sam Altman says the SOAR team will now shift to prioritizing longer-term bets like robotics. As for the Disney deal, they did at the time, if you remember Scott and I talked about it, a one billion dollar investment in OpenAI, which we thought they weren't really gonna give them that, and it was just a little experiment that included licensing characters for sort of Disney is out, Disney's out. Um it was more of a press release than anything yet. Um so talk about this prediction. I I um just so I'll also note OpenA is closing in on a deal to raise about ten billion dollars from investors, bringing its latest funding around hall to more than a hundred and twenty billion dollars. Talk about this. I mean they've had to shift very quickly. I don't know what they're doing in robotics, but they should just focus on their core business, seems to me. But uh thoughts on this? What did you know? Come on, tell me the truth. Kara, Kara, Kara. I don't I don't enjoy talking about myself or taking credit for what is arguably one of the most prescient predictions of the year in tech now. Well my god was so good. I gotta say. I was like, he was right. Damn it. My nipples are hardd. Touchown Jesus. I I approve this. I am fucking John Travolta when he was thin and could dance. Yeah. This is a ladies, for the for the people tuning in on the YouTube channel, watch his shoulders. Watch his shoulders. Hello. To resist his futile. Okay. The weirdest thing that was that was literally the easiest prediction ever. By the way. Why? Why did that why did you c like when you said it, I was like, why is he talking about that? Like I get it, but what would you think? To be honest, this goes on a on a deeper level. This goes to the notion greatness is in the agency of others. I have a data and research team that feeds me with every good idea I ever have. And this this young man named Dan Shallon, I said, I need a prediction for pivot today. And he wrote store is gonna be closed down and he gave me a bunch of data. So I can't take credit for this. As usual I take credit for it, but it was my team that that came up with the prediction. And m many like took forever for meta to really kill off. Okay . OpenAI didn't Sora. Anthropic did. Yeah. Of all the new of all the incremental or new dollars being being won by AI companies in the enterprise market, it used to be sixty percent of new dollars being spent on AI from the enterprise, we' goingre to open AI. It's dropped to 30 cents on the dollar, and Anthropic has screamed to 70 cents on the incremental dollar being spent by the enterprise on AI. Why? Because see above, biggest commercial opportunity in history, say no to the Trump administration. And also, to be fair, Anthropic's new products are just outstanding. They are got so much. They have more momentum right now than any company in the world. They're better. They're better. It's like when you were using browsers, I remember using Explorer and then uh Netscape and then Explorer was better, but then Surfa you know, it was it was like that, you're like, Oh that's like Google, there was a lot of search engine and then it was like, Oh, this is better. This is better. And to open AI's credit and Sam's credit and the board's credit, they've said, okay, the best business strategy when you're starting to wobble, quite frankly, is focus. Moved fast, I would agree. Focus. We okay, folks. And by the way, it doesn't end with Sora, folks, in terms of shit that's about to be closed down, and that's going to be my prediction at the end of at the end of the show. But you knew they were gonna have to focus. You knew this product wasn't working. It was hemorrhaging money. The whole visual space around AI just hasn't panned out the way people had hoped. Yeah, it's just not it's so interesting. The one things just as what's one of the most interesting things about Amazon is it started in books, and books has probably been the least disrupted industry it's gone into. The book publishing industry, although it's been consolidated, is actually still pretty strong. Big advances, agents are still making money, independent booksellers are actually making a bit of a comeback. Anyways, but what's so interesting, I find about if you'd said what's going to happen to designers 24 months ago, you would have said, oh, like customer service and mediocre lawyers, they're just going to get cleared out by Sora and I forget Google's one. And what's interesting is there's a percentage of the employee base, the number of designers has actually gone up at tech companies because it's the coding that is being commoditized, but the front-end human-faced UI design, really compelling, is now the point of differentiation. But because these things, this AI, I've played with this stuff, it's just not very good. It's not good. You know, the only thing I like is when they show they like do all these like they have celebrities. Like they did a Game of Thrones in high school. Some of it's fun, but it's like it's sort of like for a minute and then you're like, Okay, now I want to look at something real. I think the metaverse. It exhausts you. It is. The human eye is like, mm, not so much. I don't think you get used to it either. Everyone's like, oh, kids will get used to it. I'm like, it's ruined animal videos. I don't think so. Yeah, animal videos are pretty. Remember how amazing animal videos were? Animal videos were amazing because when you saw when you saw an a Norwal or a beluga whale retrieving a nerf football from uh adventurers or scientists in the Antarctic or wherever the fuck that was, you're like, this is an incredible moment. And now I see it and go, Is it fucking AI? Yeah, exactly. Because if it is AI, I don't care. I don't it's not real. I don't Yeah, I know. They make weird I agree. I agree. And that's it just it's not satisfying in a way that real is, I have to say and I do think the human eye can it's just years ago when I was at the MIT Media Lab when th they were having problems with robotics that talk to you, you know, on a screen, and it was always the eyes. There's something wrong with the eyes. And uh humans perceive it immediately. I'm telling you though, if AI starts producing cute, cute pictures of babies seeing or hearing for the first time, I'm out. I'm logging off of every platform.. I would agree That has to be real. Those things change my day. Those things are my mood lifter. Amazing prediction. Once again, you have triumphed. Anyway. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the return of the Amazon ph one hi I'm Brene Brown and I'm Adam Grant and we're here to invite you to the Curiosity Shop a podcast that's a place for listening w,ondering, thinking, feeling, and questioning. It's gonna be fun. We rarely agree. But we almost never disagree, and we're always learning. That's true. You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically receive new episodes every Thursda y. When you think of the most influential American politician of the 21st century, you probably think of a man. But there's Then they'd say, well why don't you all just make a list of things that the women want and will do those. What? This is in this century. Really? So the marble ceiling. It's not a glass ceiling anymore. It's a marble ceiling. And they all had it lined up that you go next and I'll go ne at South by Southwest in Austin today explained every weekday and now on saturdays to o this week on version history our chat show of About the best and worst and most important products in the history of technology, we're talking about a gadget that was meant to be used on phone lines and was eventually used by the military, and then finally changed the music business forever. That's right, of course, I mean the Vocoder. The thing that let us all play our voices like an instrument and change the way that we think about our voices. We have a really fun guest, we have a really fun story to tell. All of that is on Virgin History, on YouTube, and wherever you get podc asts. Scott, we're back with more news. Amazon is reportedly getting back into the phone business working on a new device internally known as oh my good God the Transformer. According to Reuters. It's what a bunch of idiots they are. This would potentially be an AI driven phone that syncs with Alexa and could eliminate the need for traditional apps. Oh sure, why not? Details are slim. There's no clear timeline or pricing and sources say the project could be scrap. Priorities or finances change. That's a lot of maybes. Um, but let's not forget Amazon's last phone foray. I have not forgotten it since I wrote about its creation and decline, the Firephone, which launched in 2014 and quickly flopped, leading to $170 million write down. And I And I remember getting sent it. I was like, it's like the home, the Facebook home. I kept getting sent these things. I'm like, what is this? And like I'm calling Steve Jobs immediately because I need to talk to someone who knows how to make these things. Why would Amazon have a phone? I want you to give me the argument why it's a good idea despite their and I I think people fail at things and they come back, but I don't feel like Amazon is the d my device place. I I think they got they got knocked over in the um in in the audible space. I think they got knocked over in the uh the reader space. I mean it's still a business, but it's not does it's not f on fire. It got knocked out by the iPad in a lot of ways. Any thoughts on the phone from Amazon and why? Give me the argument. Aaron Powell Well the argument could be that it becomes a new piece of the flywheel around Amazon Prime. And that is if you're an Amazon Prime Plus member, you get a very competent phone that perhaps has even better bandwidth because Project Kuiper starts to pay off and they have satellite-based connectivity. So what this is, is potentially, I would imagine in n you know, the conference rooms where Amazon Strategy Group or some incredibly bright people are saying Yeah, they need a thing. Well, what if why don't we go after Android? And that is we can offer people Oh, okay. We can offer people an unbelievable phone for free as part of their Amazon Prime membership, and then say and get off of ATT and we'll we'll wrap it all into the greatest loyalty program in history, which is Amazon Prime. It is indeed. So I think there's a really solid argument. The problem is this all works uh on a whiteboard, and then people hold these phones, the Facebook phone, the Amazon fire, and they go, I don't like it. Aaron Powell Yeah, all the all the handhelds. And by the way, just a shout-out, a colleague of mine who teaches brand strategy at another university called me and said, saying that Apple shouldn't go into a a lower price computer is all wrong. And he said, he said, my views on it were all fucked up, and I just want to give him his props. He said that look at all the luxury car brands. They were all shitposted for going into lower-end models and it's expanded the Aaron Powell If they're gonna give people a really good version of it and then you have to buy the shitty Dell version, yeah. Well all the Porsche Purists said they should never launch an SUV. They did They have they have the what is it, not the E, the C class? Well, if they don't do it too much, right? They you can't do it too much. You have to do it just any time The in my opinion, the biggest increase in shareholder value that's fallow is a function of the friction between silos of different companies. The new CO Disney should have something called Disney, and you get Disney Plus videos, you get free merchandise, you get the Princess Experience, and most importantly, when you come to the parks, it's on only Disney Plus Members Days where there are no lines. And it would be the ultimate loyalty program. And Amazon, if they keep if they added telco and a device into Amazon Prime, I think theoretically it's worth, you know, it's worth a couple billion dollars to investigate. They don't do that. They don't do that often. You're right. They just like here you go free here's it's like a it's like a a a club. And you would do that with Amazon 'cause they do deliver really well. They the thing they do. Like the core stuff they do, they do really well. So preloaded free Amazon Music, free Amazon Zooks, or whatever their their their autonomous is. Those are cool. And just say, okay, folks, we're gonna take care of you. Amazon is I arguably the most trusted brand in the world right now. Yeah, Kuiper. They could offer that for And they say, All right, you don't need you don't need to trust us when you're d in front of the TV screen or the computer screen. You should trust us as much when you're in front of the phone screen. The CEO of the the one person running at division, I'm supposed to meet with him. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for predic tions. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led full-body checkup that provides a clear picture of your health today. And may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. A healthier you means more moments to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Medcan. Live well for life. Visit Medcan.com slash moments to get started. This week on Networth and Chill, it's my birthday and I'm turning 32. So I'm sharing 32 life lessons I've learned that have actually changed my perspective. These aren't the picture perfect Instagram infographic versions, these are the real hard, uncomfortable truths about money, career, relationships, and everything in between. I'll explain why choosing a rest day is non-negotiable, or your body will choose it for you, why you should never take advice from anyone you don't want to be, and why nobody is actually looking at you, so you should just go for it. Plus, I'm breaking down why you should always negotiate your salary, why individualism is making you broke, and yes, why you should try eating a popsicle in the shower after a bad day? Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com slash your rich BF F. What's it like to talk to a digital twin of a relative who died before you were born. This week on Solutions with Henry Blodgett, I talked to writer and artist Amy Kurzweil about just that. She helped her father, famed inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil builds a chatbot based on her grandfather. We discuss how increasingly lifelike digital representations of people will change human relationships, especially how we grieve, and how AI is forcing us to reckon with what consciousness even means. Follow Solutions with Henry Blodgett to hear our convers ation. Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. I'm gonna say very quickly, uh just so you know, at the time of this taping, SpaceX is aiming to file its IPO within a week, and I predict I will not be asked on the board, as you noted at the beginning. I predict that people literally don't if I was your financial can your wealth advisor and I kind of have been for the last few years. Yeah, you have but if I gotten a hold of you ten or fifteen years ago, I would have been like tone down the anti-musk, anti-big tech I know. I know. I can't do it. I just said as a joke player as a terrible person. I can't help myself. I was a joke. You know when you text me mean things at two in the morning it's Speaking of I was right about these people, I was right. Anyway, your prediction, please. Okay, so what do we have here? Open AI is in a five-car alarm right now. In the last six months, they have Oh, and by the way, this this fin have you seen the deals of this financing? To top off the round with I think it's TPG, they are guaranteeing a seventeen and a half percent return. What? Yeah, they're guaranteeing the to top up the round. The deal is along the lines of the following. It kind of makes industrial sense, but it's a more of these circular related party deals, they're saying to these private equity firms, if you invest and top up my round, I'll give you seven, I'll guarantee you a 17.5% return. Now, the idea is it makes kind of industrial logic because all of these firms have massive, uh, a massive portfolio company of firms, which likely means they're going to encourage these firms to adopt at an enterprise level open AI products. So open AI goes immediately we get Eat the dog food is what you're saying. Yeah, we get industrial scale here. And because we're going public, and Sam Sam's bankers have probably said uh uh distinct are the problems, you're going to get X valuation, hundreds of billions, or even possibly trillion-dollar-plus valuation. So he said to the private equity guys, I guarantee you a 17.5% return on your money. The problem is a guarantee at the top of the kind of the capital stack means that the people underneath them, the investors, might get squeezed out if they have the first, you know, if if a decent amount of returns has to go to the top. But it is more of this kind of what I'll call shell game. And as long as things keep increasing, it's fine. But this is the kind of thing that could absolutely brushed or trickled. Or if they don't get people like you, Scott. That's not that's like a let me pay you to be my friend. Well, this is a really that's the most interesting component of the deal is a you'd never offer I have never seen it's a preferred return that aggregates and just typically do invest then? Um I would I would want for open AI, I feel that what I would want to do is the following. Just being purely capitalist, I'd want allocation in the IPO because Sam is smart and, Sam and his bankers will say, okay, the first trade of this is likely going to be $80, so let's price it at $50 so we can say we're the best performing IPO at the end of the year. That's nothing new. It's a once-in-a-lifetime branding event, the IPO. So the investment banks have an incentive because they get to buy shares at a discount, they get to give shares to their buddies and institutions at a discount, and the firm for a modest dilution, three to five percent dilution, gets a branding event that they're in the news for the rest of the year as the best performing IPO of the year or great performing IP of the year. So they leave quite frankly. SpaceX is going to leave the table and it's yet another transfer of wealth from the lower middle class who don't have access to pre-IPO or to the IPO. Don't you think SpaceX will leave them in the dust? SpaceX? In terms of an IPO? Yeah. That'll get all that'll stuff. That'll all be about valuation because while SpaceX, while SpaceX has the biggest moats in the history of business, as far as I can tell, they're talking about a one and a half trillion dollar valuation on 13 billion or 14 billion in r. I mean that's a hundred times revenue. So it's all about pricing. But anyway, so this this w where I was headed is the following. It is a five car alarm and Sam and his board are smart. They are focusing. First area of focus, Sora, we barely knew you, you're gone. The next area of focus, it won't be a headline item. It'll be euthanized slow ly. Um It is I.O., and that is the six and a half billion dollar acquisition of Johnny Ives company to build hardware. This is the metaverse on a smaller level. This is uh Mark Zuckerberg's consensual hallucination cost meta shareholders uh 70 billion. This is gonna cost $6.5 billion to OpenAI. It was an all-stock transaction. But there is no way if I am on the board and I am Sam Altman and I'm like, okay, play times order. I am losing my core business now, anthropic. We need to focus. That they're not going to they're going to decide to not play in the traffic of hardware. So there's been delays, technical difficulty, unclear product definition, high cost. Uh I think I'd buy the Amazon phone first. So that's a bad insign, because I wouldn't buy the Amazon. Brutal category. And then if you look at what's going on here, persistent technical problems, all right? Of course compute constraints, OAZ on AI reliability, privacy concerns, interaction without screens. Basically, this isn't right now, I.O. or the division of quote unquote OpenAI's hardware products, it's not just about execution risk. It's unsolved product physics. I love it. And the timeline, the timeline keeps slipping.
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