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GameStop's eBay Bid, AI and the Midterms, and Senate Prediction Market Ban

1h 13m 36s

GameStop's eBay Bid, AI and the Midterms, and Senate Prediction Market Ban

The transcript explores key developments in AI, technology, and politics, highlighting a growing public distrust of major tech companies despite their economic power. Apple is reportedly preparing to acquire an AI startup like Perplexity to bolster its internal AI capabilities, reflecting a strategic move to maintain dominance in services without relying on third-party platforms. Meanwhile, the U.S. military is advancing AI adoption through partnerships with tech giants, while Anthropic faces exclusion due to its refusal to allow autonomous weapons—placing it at odds with defense officials. On the political front, AI regulation is becoming a central issue, with significant lobbying efforts from both pro-AI and anti-AI factions. A $3.5 million campaign supports Democrat Alex Boris, who champions strict AI safety laws, countering tech-backed initiatives. Public sentiment remains skeptical: 70% of Americans believe AI threatens humanity, and many view AI as job-eliminating and environmentally harmful. The narrative underscores a cultural backlash against tech elites—symbolized by figures like Musk and Bezos—whose perceived arrogance and profit-driven models have eroded public trust. Despite AI’s transformative potential, the conversation centers on balancing innovation with safety, ethics, and equitable access. The episode suggests that without strong oversight, AI could deepen economic and social divides, and that democratic accountability is essential to prevent unchecked technological power.

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Support for the show comes from Atio. There are sales teams out there who never seem to stop moving. How was this step ahead? I was working with a level of precision that doesn't seem normal. It's no secret. They're on Atio, the Agentex CRM. Atio runs the work behind every win. It's built for humans and agents with the guardrails of human software and the scale of agentex infrastructure. This is the frontier of go-to-market, teams like Parallel, Turbo Puffer and Wordsmith are already using Atio to set the pace. Now it's your turn. Try Atio for free by going to atio.com/[email protected]/pivot. Support for the show comes from First Citizens Innovation Banking, formerly Silicon Valley Bank. First Citizens is the Bank of the Innovation Economy. The name may have changed but for over 40 years their commitment to bold ideas for relentless ambition and delivering what's next as strong as ever. So if you're wondering where the road innovation starts, it's here. First Citizens Innovation Banking, at thefirstcitizens.com/innovation to learn more. Support for the 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. It's got stop making sense, please stop. Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. I'm Scott Galloway. So are you going to the Mepple? I was invited. Why were you invited? I'm sorry to ask that. I was in the devil's prada, which may as say, as I predicted, what happened? Oh God, is this your time? 233 million dollars globally. But tell me why you were invited to the Mepple. I'm still not sure, I think it's because I've talked a lot about and got a lot of social media activity when I went to the vanity fair thing, so I think, fuck, I don't know. I think someone, I think some interns somewhere have said, podcasting, what about that crazy professor? I'm not sure. They try to be your pal, right? Aren't they trying to like suck up to you for a minute and a half? I don't know. People are pretty nice. No, the Bezos people, Bezos and his lady friend. Oh, I like them, I mean, I don't know them, but I, my, I've had, you've had more interaction with them than I have, but I find them to be lovely. I was invited, I think I told you this. I was invited to a small dinner with him and another friend and I said, no, I don't, A, I don't like dinners and two, I don't, you know, two, I don't like people in three, I don't, I don't want to know these people because I know what's going to happen. We talk about the slot. I'm going to like them and I'm going to stop speaking my mind. You like everybody from truly low bar for me. It is a pretty low bar. I'm pretty easy. I'm pretty easy. Nice. I'm like, yeah, no, I'm pretty, I'm pretty. I think they're getting the shit kicked out of them. You know, there's protests and like billboards vary some funny things. There was a, you know, like a shopping cart out front with a bunch of empty bottles and said bathroom, the, the, the, they're projecting things onto the buildings nearby. Um, they kind of hijacked the whole thing and it's kind of, I don't know, grass, be and thirsty. I find them. That's it. Vogue, Vogue has so much risk and no money and the Bezos that have just so much money and not a lot of risk. It's a marriage made in heaven. I get the sense, I don't know this, but I get the sense Bezos is pretty self-actualized and Honey Bachelor don't give a shit. I think he's just living his best life quite frankly. I don't, I don't know him. Oh, I have a very different, you might know more than me. I don't. I think they're tongue deaf to what the, what's going on right now. Gas price is nearing $5. I think they're always telling-- I'm telling them. They're not affected. Gas price is-- Well, I get it, but-- That's hilarious. No, I don't want any money. We need to cut back. No more seconds. They're, they're, they're not quiet wealth. Let's just say. I think that he's selling his yacht. Yeah. He's selling his yacht. It's ridiculous. This is so gossipy. I think there's more about anyways. I, I get the sense the guy. I mean, this is, this is the journey of all of them. All of them were like, you know, captain of the chess club. They weren't getting late a lot. They've worked their asses off. They're very smart. They're very talented. They've been working non-stop. And one day, the day of the IPO, they went into a conference room. This, you know, nice, fairly unattractive guy who had no sexual currency their whole life. And they come out and they're the sexiest man alive. I know. I've had these decisions. And they go apeshit. And I don't, you know, and, and I with, with respect to Bezos, I get the sense. You know more about this than I do. I get the sense it's having a great time. I don't know. I don't know. I just think, I think there's, leaders in our, I, I'm more for the quiet. If they're going to be very wealthy, the quiet. There is an argument to be made at this moment in time in it, which is a, keep it to yourself. Keep it to yourself. I agree. So I don't think, I think this doesn't play well. And I know they don't care, but they look like ridiculous. They look like Tom and Daisy. I'm sorry. And it's not a good look right now because things are really shifting. And I don't mean they have to pretend they're like living on the prairie with like one shovel and a, you know, and a bucket. Like that's not what I'm talking about. It's just a, I think the McKenzie Scotts, Lorraine Powell jobs, the Melinda Gates, you know, they speak out appropriately. They're not showing off. I just, I just, I don't think it's going to end well. Okay. We'll see. I'm coming to London, by the way. I'll be there tomorrow morning. Yeah. I know you have some dinner, a big dinner. Yeah. Yes. You were invited as a small dinner, and you refused to come, but that's okay. Well, I was invited to the bed, Paul. You think I said no to the bed, Paul, but I'm coming to you to dinner. Yes. I do. Because of the fuck hairs about them. What would you wear to the bed, Paul, speaking of which? You know, the idea, I get anxiety just thinking about it. That was such an easy no for me. I would wrap myself in like oil and glad wrap. Oh, God. That's crazy. That's crazy. I just ate. What could, what would you wear seriously? What would you, if you had to think of some fantastic costume? I have, I literally have absolutely no idea. I don't. You love to dress up. You dressed up as like a Halloween. You always dress up. Oh, no. I love dressing up in something outrageous. Halloween is, as Deadpool or Starship Commander Jean-Luc Picard, huge crowd, please, sir. Okay. I went as Luke Skywalker. But not like for a costume, Met costume. Any, I went as Ted Lasso. Any opportunity to put on a wig and be someone different. I absolutely love that. But to try and look good. We don't have to. Not all of them do. Sometimes they look kind of crazy. That was the easiest no in the world. That's like the last thing. At some point, at some point I lose all academic credibility and, you know, something that gets much closer to that point is showing up the fucking football. I wish you would go and wear and I don't care. Do you? Sure. Like the Melania shirt. I don't know. I, I don't like that either. I think if you get invited to something like that, you play along and you'd be a good gracious guest. You know, I don't think you wear a dress and tax the rich. I thought that was you. You, I agree with you. I think that's stupid. You don't go. You should go because I need to understand it, I need you to go in there because I would never do such. I'm in London. And plus I really want to hang out with you and your friends here. Not true. You are invited. Not true. Don't say I don't invite you. You are. I have nothing to do. I'm home alone. I've got the boys this way. You're off parting with your fancy friends from the devil whereas Prada and I'm home alone with my dogs. No, all right. That's all I got to say. It's a small dinner you're invited. If you'd like to come, it would be great. Okay. If not, I'm going to find you and see your house. I'm sure you're not staying here. No, they have me at the hotel next to the thing but I would usually but when I come back, I will. Are you staying there now? What's the deal? I don't know. No, okay. The honest answer is a monkey wrench has been thrown into our plans because you told me that. My youngest who as a habit of doing this has likes where he is. There's all of a sudden getting A's and anyways, I'm going to spend much more time in the U.S. There's a lot of moving parts here. All right. Well, let me know. Let me know. Anyway, I will come by and find you somehow. I'll break into your house. Anyway, let's get to the news. This is a weird one. As we record, GameStop and Ebay stocks are responding to real train record of an interview from the GameStop CEO. What a surprise. Ryan Coleman, who's somewhat of a moron sometimes when he talks, announced the deal of the century over the weekend, a $55.5 billion unsolicited offer to buy Ebay at $125 a chair, pitching it as a future rival to Amazon. But then he went on CNBC's Squawk Box, where our good friend, Andrew Ross Sorkin, our famous Canadian friend, pointed out the map wasn't mathing. It was amazingly awkward. Let's listen. You have $9 billion on your balance sheet. Arguably, if you're providing effectively all of your stock, and then the cash that gets you to $20, you have this letter from TD. That's another $20, we're now at $40, but we're still off by, call it, $16. And the $20, as far as I understand, while it's considered a highly confident letter, meaning TV. saying they're highly confident that they provide the financing. It's not locked financing. We'll see what happens. I hear you. I understand that. I'm just trying to understand where the rest of the money would come from. It's half cash, half stock. I hear you. I'm just saying that that math doesn't get you to the price that you're offering. It got more and more awkward after that. This is just, this is a mean stock. This guy is such a moron. He's always trying to get that stupid stock up, the game stock thing and take advantage of people. It reminds me of the story about Polymarket and Kalshi, only the top, whatever 0.1% make money and everyone else loses. But your thoughts on this, ridiculousness. I love Andrew. This is, well, first off, Andrew did a great job. I think Andrew is one of those, you're like this too. It is very difficult to ask really piercing hard questions to make people look stupid while remaining dignified and not coming across as an asshole and Andrew is able to do that. You're able to do that. This is off, off, off, Broadway theater, not strategy. This is just so fucking stupid and such a waste of oxygen and a CEO who has, I looked into this, a compensation strategy that says, if you can get game stop to 100 billion, you get 35 billion in a musk-like compensation strategy. He's trying to memify his stock again. So this is noise. It doesn't pass the most basic smell test. First off, there's a scale mismatch. eBay is a 30 to 40 billion dollar enterprise. GameStop doesn't have the balance sheet to do without massive delusion or leverage. In the stock, they would have to offer. They'd have to issue so much stock that the stock would immediately go into a downward spot. Correct. There's no way they can do this. The strategic fittest then, where both commerce is in a strategy. eBay is a two-sided marketplace with decades of liquidity and tens of millions of customers. GameStop is still figuring out what the fuck it wants to be other than trying to become a mem stock. As Andrew was pointing out, the financing reality here is nothing but a bad ayahuasca trip. Even a partial bid would require issuing a ton of equity, see above massive decline in the stock. That's effectively asking shareholders to fund a ketamine trip. So what's left here? There's nothing he but signaling. To retail investors, he's trying to say, we're bold, we're swinging, start taking, get someone on Reddit, get roaring kid, he fired up. So I can get an irrational compensation for not actually adding any fucking intrinsic value to the market. What he said is we're a melting ice cube and he's also, in my opinion, this is backfired. By the way, GameStop stock, as we record down 9% today. I blame the board here. Board of directors is supposed to be fiduciary. Is there one? That's a fair point. But this should never have even been allowed. Real acquisitions, the real work is done behind the scenes. If you're going to make a hostile bid for a company, you show up with your financing locked and loaded. And it's done. And if you have to go hostile because they reject your initial offer, this should be a one sentence response from the board of eBay. Come on. You are not a serious people period. That's it. So this makes a headline. This is using financial markets and the press as you're taking them for clowns because you got to, you got a trip to the circus in COVID with your meme stock adventure. This is I at least trying to get it going again. It's like that Wall Street Journal piece about who's benefiting from these prediction markets. And if you don't know who the sucker in the room is, it's probably you. This is not a real thing. It is a it was it was showing who makes profits. And it's a small group of people who make all the profits. Everyone else loses thousands and thousands of whoever's using it. And so it's, you know, you're you're a sucker. There's just it's just like, I don't know why this is legal. This kind of nonsense. I just don't sound 10% you're allowed to, I don't know if it should be illegal. I here's the bottom line. The market, the market is doing its job. They say, oh, remember, GameStop. Okay, the CEO's a fucking idiot. And he has no he clearly has no fiduciary oversight. And it's taken to stock down 10% today. One day, right. Except this has gone on for a long time. This nonsense. And people have benefited just like they are doing over on these predictions market. They're the certain people who have who are a little smarter, you know, supposedly, like, I think Jamal was in there. Remember when it was going up and up and up GameStop. Right. It just feels like there's they're just taking more people's money. Like it just is so grotesque that what they're doing here. I think the meme stock movement. I hated it. I got dragged on the internet because I said young mentions spend last time in their phone and trading with this was just stupid. I do think a lot. I'd be curious to know. I mean, quite frankly, the meme stock movement, the whole Gestalt of it was stick it to the man, stick it to rich people. Yeah, but never. And then it became about a con. Right. And when you have the Winkle Vi telling you to stick it to the man, it means you're about to be impaled as a retail investor. Exactly. And so I agree with you that anyone, this is just pure gambling. It's not speculation. And the reality is for younger people are people doing this. If you want to have some fun, it's like Vegas fine. Have at it. But the thing is you got to stay on your phone all fucking day because the moves are so wild here. But this is, in my opinion, I think, and I don't know if there should be regulation here. It's free speech. But the question is, should you be able to have this kind of impact on the markets, which I don't think it has, when you make offers that are not in any way realistic. In other words, is this market manipulation? Is it trying to do something? Right. That's what I mean. Yeah. With absolutely no serious intent of, uh, uh, I wonder what's happened at eBay stock price. God, that's a company that let's just thank Andrew, our favorite Canadian, Andrew Russ Sorkin for like slapping this guy. He's really polite. I'd be like, I'd be like, at this point after he says, have, gosh, I've dug, I go, you fucking moron. That's would be my next line. He's like, the math doesn't work. He starts up 5%. That's really interesting. Well, you know, that's been a long sort of troubled company, right? It seems like an opportunity for someone. Anyway, we'll see. It's a great plan. Everybody knows. I wrote one of the first stories about it. I remember meeting with the venture capitalists. They were at, uh, with that firm benchmark. It was all the handsome benchmark man. It was me across from six tall white men. Yeah, other tall. And they were telling me about eBay. And I know Pierre a little bit who I like very much. Yeah, it's a nice man. Anyway, uh, oh, it's had it. It's had a rocky, it sort of missed a lot of turns. In any case, um, let's move on. The Supreme Court just temporarily blocked a lower court's ban on the abortion pill. Mifaprestown being sent through the mail to pharmaceutical companies had filed an emergency appeal warning lower court's ruling could create chaos and lead Pat patients around the country. And limbo medication is now the method used in nearly two thirds of abortions. The United States, the FDA approved the drug in 2000 experts say it's safe and effective. Um, we're going to be talking more about the midterms in a bit. But is this a fight that Trump, their problem is what I have right now is Melinda French gate set on threads. Everyone deserves health care that's guided by science. Not politics. Melinda, Melinda for the win. F-T-W thoughts? Well, I'm just going to refer to it as an M-town. M-town is an enormous breakthrough. It's used by millions of patients worldwide. It's one of the most studied and safest medications on the market. Serious complications are very rare. The safety profile is comparable or safer than many common prescriptions. It's effective. It reduces the need for more invasive procedures. In all right, it expands access, especially in underserved areas. It, you know, earlier care, safer outcomes. It's consistent with medical authority and standards. The legal consistency argument doesn't hold up here. Other medications with higher risk profiles remain legal. Singling, this one is often just inconsistent. Well, it's because it's working. The anti-abortion activists. That's why. This is what it's done. Again, this is what is so mandatious and un-American. Rich people don't need government. I have benefited enormously from standing on the shoulders of other people and taxpayers, assisted lunch, university, California, rights, rule of law, the SEC, all these things I've benefited from. Now that I have wealth, I don't need the government. I have my own transportation. I have my own security. I have my own schools. I have my own health care. The people who need government the most are the most vulnerable among us. And just when the government needs to step in and protect a 15-year-old non-white woman in the South from something that could impoverse her for her lifetime, traumatize her, put her in real, serious health risk, that's who they go after. This isn't, I've even said, the anti-abortion movement is not a war on women. It's a war on poor women. This is who needs this? Who is this a breakthrough for? The people who don't have the resources are quite frankly this sophistication to get on a plan and go to A clinic to get an abortion in a state where it's legal. Yeah, and then they just stain them when they're born after they're born They can make this illegal You and I would have no problem getting it none the this is This is government at its worst. This is not protecting the people who need Government and laws the most. This is there is there's been no no medical no moral no You get why they want no abortions. I get that but when you But here's the bottom line They want abortions, but only on the down low for if and when it happens to one of their friends What they they're you know, they're very lucky you're not into a portion that don't have an abortion But I think you would find I that that the one of the reasons that people are a lot of people especially wealthy Anti-abortion people to have no empathy for this is they know if shit ever gets real for them or anyone in their family they can figure it out And so I find this I find efforts to do away with I this drug is a gift Yeah, well Supreme Court is just temporarily though. This is just my understanding is as we were speak Just a couple hours ago. They've temporarily halted the ban. Yeah, they did. Yeah, but this also goes temporary block. This also goes back to You know, what I think about a lot about young men and the number one reason a Lot of I think it's most women who have terminated pregnancy go on to have children One of the top reasons stated by women as to why they terminated pregnancy Is lack of partner support and so if you're really serious about reducing the number of pregnancies terminated Then we need economic policies and we need more men my age to get involved in young men's life And then still a set of values such that we produce more economically and emotionally viable men This is true, but they don't like them once they're born Scott. They don't like them They don't like these people once they're born. That's a different issue what I'm saying is well I get that but we're talking past each other right now I'm talking about if you were serious about reducing the number of abortions You would figure out a way such that they were women who felt they had more reliable partners if you want more kids and you want fewer abortions We need to produce a new generation of more responsible economically viable young men and and you're right once The same people who are most Rapidly anti-abortion tend to be the same ones who don't want universal child care or give the money or they Destain them or they're you know everything. It's just it makes no sense It's it makes no and then they're the most for the death penalty and you're sort of like where is the consistency here in any way Well, if I choke if you want to save someone from the death penalty, just shove them up women's future Oh my god, I can't believe I laughed at that. Oh, that's kind of funny Anyway, let's look. I hope it's not it's not just a temporary ban I hope this room court you know get slapped since they've had some very dicey and horrible rulings recently around the voting's right tax But this is something that is just ridiculous. It's bad for companies bad for people The abortion foes have won enough. I feel like but they won't they won't they'll keep going Okay, let's go on a quick break when we come back how AI is upending the midterms you Support for the show comes from at you There are sales teams out there who never seem to stop moving always a step ahead Always on the number working with a level of precision that doesn't seem normal It's no secret. They're on at you. The agentic CRM at you runs the work behind every win It's built for humans and agents with the guardrails of human software and the scale of agentic infrastructure Every customer signal your team needs is captured in high resolution always cart and always compounding Then watch atio's agents and workflow go to work building pipeline chasing every buying signal and moving deals forward 24/7 And whether in your browser slack clawed or in your inbox atio meets you wherever you are This is the frontier of go-to-market teams like parallel turbo puffer and wardsmith are already turning atio to set the pace Now it's your turn Try atio for free by going to atio.com/pivot That's atiti.io.com/pivot Support for the show comes from policy genius Everyone's busy your mom your neighbor the dog we've all got stuff going on So it makes sense if life insurance isn't necessarily top of mind for you Policy genius knows that their license team helps you get the right policy fast So you can get on with your life Policy genius is an online insurance marketplace that allows you to compare quotes from some of America's top insurer side by side for free That means you can easily find what you need coverage amounts prices terms no guesswork just clarity Policy genius helps you find the most affordable policy that works for you They answer questions handle paperwork and advocate for you throughout the process And you know you're in good hands because policy genius has thousands of five star reviews on google and trust pilot from customers Who found the best policy fit for their needs prioritize peace of mind lock in your life insurance today with policy genius You can find 20 year life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for one million in coverage head to policy genius.com/pivot to compare life insurance quotes from top companies And see how much you could save that's policy genius.com/pivot Support for the show comes from core weave AI isn't just a new tool. It encompasses so much more It's spurring a revolution across all industries and reshaping itself to become a big part of our future together core weave is at the center powering some of the biggest names in AI As the essential cloud for AI core weave provides an AI platform that combines next generation infrastructure intelligent tools and expert support It's powering the world's most complex AI workloads faster and more efficiently from medical research and diagnosis education from complex visual effects from movies To break throughs and science and technology if it's AI core weave is uniquely ready to power with purpose build tech The big ideas the wild visions and what ifs and why not Core weave is working to build what's never been built before Core weave is the essential cloud for AI ready for anything ready for AI To learn more about how core weave powers the world's best AI go to core weave.com/ready for anything Scott we're back with six months to go until the midterms AI regulation has become a hot button issue and the money is pouring in AI super packs are taking a page out of the crypto playbook which worked rather well spending millions to influence elections They're backing both democratic and republican candidates Whoever is more friendly to AI and big tech the biggest pack leading the future is funded in part by And recent Horowitz and open AI co-founder Greg Brockman on the other and there's the public first action a pack back by 20 million dollar donation from anthropic and tech billionaire Chris Larson is putting up 3.5 million in New York to back Democratic congressional candidate Alex Boris who supports AI regulation this was I was texting with Chris about this The other day and also Alex Let's take a look at the ad that Larson's pack just launched You think you know what they're watching But with AI they can land on anything violence child sexual abuse and predators Who would be against AI safety laws open AI the company behind Chachi PT They're attacking Alex Boris for writing the toughest AI safety law in the country Don't let open AI shut down child safety You can push back is responsible for the content of this advertising It's an interesting ad and from a marketing perspective It's an interesting way to counter child safety is the number one thing that people are all bipartisan about and and also AI increasingly And just for speaking of the AI legislation the Senate judiciary committee just advanced to build it would require AI companies to implement age verification process It would also ban minors from using AI chatbot companions I'm not sure this will Will pass and at the same time the Senate just unanimously passed a ban on prediction market trading for senators and their staffers effective immediately smart Calcium polymarket both praise the Senate's move the Senate minority leader Schumer called it a no-brainer saying was never allow Congress to turn into a casino Here to White House to follow suit of course the White House has already warned staff about betting on the Iran war But I doubt they'll go for a full bet and again the White House is probably in the way of any of this AI Legislative even the safety stuff passing because they're in the pocket of the AI industry so thoughts on on this effort by Chris who was Chris was a tech billionaire at a company He's really interesting. He's been very involved in San Francisco politics But this was interesting for him to sort of go against these pro AI packs, which are led by essentially Mark Andrewsson and his gang his mob Thoughts on this Well, it's just he's feeling a vacuum. It feels as if there should be federal legislation what what I find most interesting is I think that The entity or the part that the touchdown or the The visible object or the cultural whatever you want to call it is going to be data centers And what's interesting about AI is that you're approval of AI. The two brands that have registered the greatest brand destruction have been the U.S. abroad over the last few years. We used to be the enforcers protecting people of the West from rogue nations. Now we are that rogue nation. And AI, the brand AI has just taken an absolute nose dive because the only population of the cohort where AI has over 50% approval is people making over $200,000 a year. Because if you're wealthy, you see AI is powering your 401k. An opportunity to make money. You may use it at work. You feel pretty secure about your job. But what a lot of lower income people think is that AI, the only visible representation of AI is a data center that's going to send their electricity rates up while private companies that they don't even have access nor the money to participate in boom and value. I think data centers are going to be ground zero for this battle. Yeah, it's one of them. I think a lot of it. I think people just have it like a real antipathy towards AI at this point. Even if it's it's a good thing in some ways, right? I think they really, you know, these packs, they'll work, they'll work day and night. The same thing with the crypto industry, you know, which had sort of a faint distasteful aroma to it. And it real, but it still was effective with all the millions they're spending all over. And by the way, Musk is part of this. They're all trying to stop it. It's interesting that anthropics on the other side are Chris Larson's on the other side. So there's a lot of tech billionaires lining up to stop that. And it's not good for anyone. Alex Boris is a really interesting candidate. He's in that part of Manhattan. I think it's Jack Schlossberg, George Conway or all. There's a whole pack of people running in that area. And Alex is trying to sort of stick his head up and as the Mr. AI regulator. But it'll be it'll be an interesting case of who wins here. A lot of people think the candidates are the party that is sort of sort of vaguely anti AI has a better chance in the midterms. I don't know if you think that's so, but there there is legislation. It's just that this this administration is just not going to pass any of these laws because they're they're getting so much money from the AI companies. I don't see them. That's the only people they ever have at the White House or AI people never have a critic, never have anybody who's against it. There was this great Hugh Grant Nicole Kibman show called The Undoing where they're trying to solve a murder and the defense attorney says people hire me to create muck. And that's what's going on here. I think that's what the the AI guys are going to do. I think they're just going to create a ton of confusion around this and make it difficult to pass anything. And also they have the money. My understanding is they've already pledged about a quarter of a billion dollars and just for reference leading up into the 22 midterms. Farmer has spent 26. No, this is using 2022 just as a benchmark. Oh, okay. Got it. But the Farmer lobby spent $380 million insurance meant $159 real estate spent $139. I think you're going to see far more than that spent by the pro AI lobby. I think it's going to be sort of they'll try to couch it as we're we're forced safety and children when you do do this stopfully. And the anti AI will be a grassroots and it'll be focused on data centers. They're environmentally damaging to us. They're not creating any jobs. And all they're going to do is send you already soaring energy costs even higher. So it's going to be it's it's going to be an interesting it's going to be an interesting proxy for how people feel about AI and technology. I I don't know. I feel like it goes back to the Bezos thing is they're trying. Nobody likes them anymore. Like they have become villains. They are villains now. And so I don't know how much money they spend. People are like I can't tell you how many people. Scott really interestingly over the past week people have come up to me and said thank you to you and I for being at least critical in a smart way. Like very you know not just screaming about it but explaining it. I just feel like these are villains now. And they can spend as much money as they want. But I don't think it's going to I think people in their heart feel very nervous about it and very very distrustful. And I know it doesn't correlate with how much money like the product was but the story is about corporations fucking you tech companies fucking you that's really what it's about. And I think and it was it did in a very subtle way. But it's they've got I'm not sure it's going to work. And the same thing with these the prediction markets as much as they're interesting everyone's got a little funny feeling about it. I mean obviously the Senate nobody in the Senate should should be on prediction markets if they have trading well both you're right. The prediction march is even worse on some level because it's like let's bet on the war let's bet on death essentially. And and it should be the White House. It should be the House. It should be all of them. It's not free speech. It's you have unique information. You're there for the public service. And while you're there you're not going to be gambling essentially that's which is what I think it is. We look there's two issues here one and we'll come back to this one is how the general public feels about AI and how the brand has eroded dramatically. And then there's in my view we should follow the Singapore model and entry level minister earns the equivalent of $800,000 and 1.7 million US for a prime minister. The objective of our elected representatives the incentive should be you are there to make Americans wealthier not to enrich yourself. And what Americans see right now around AI is the following. It's making a lot of people a lot of money but the only thing I see is risk peril according to these guys and my electricity costs are going to go up. So I'm supposed to like this. Oh and by the way that the ultimate poster child for bid for tech in this age is musk. Yeah. And he does not acquit himself well. No he does not. So it used to be it used to be gates. It was a little bit awkward. It used to be and then went on to I think I think I think it's very concerned about public health and developing nations. Steve Jobs in a minimum was was likeable and seen as a visionary. The new spokespeople for tech are musk Altman right? It's kind. I don't even think Bezos. He's kind of left. No I think people think of him. I think he looks like you know daddy war bucks except not nice day. And then unfortunately we're not fortunately unfortunately. The other person at the center of this that's that's identifying or marking the age around technology because he was so close to so many of them is Epstein. So what do you have? You have increasing electricity costs. Wealth accretion that you're not participating in. Parallel that supposedly the inventors of this shit think is everywhere. Oh and let's add in a dash of pedophilia. Welcome to big tech. Like who are they here? Who are I mean maybe Dario Amadeh? Who are the heroes here that are supposed to be Cuban Dario? I didn't think Cuban's associated with technology. I do. I do. I'm just saying but I think he's not he's not associating with it. I'm just saying there are better better heroes here. Like I would say it's such in Adela could fill that role. Tim Cook could have except now he looks like somewhat of a showed. You know I don't I agree with you. I think I've never seen such a thing happen. I mean just 10% of Americans are more excited than concerned about AI as of March. Two-thirds of Americans have not have not much or no exposure to AI at work. Two-thirds of Americans think that AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates. Less than a third of Americans trust AI and 70-70-70% of Americans think AI poses a threat to humanity. So okay, threat to humanity but my electricity costs are going up. So while I'm living here. I can barely afford gas. I don't have my affordable care subsidies but the but open AI is raising money to 150 billion dollars. It had to fund something that supposedly has a threat to humanity. What do you know people aren't excited about AI? They've done this is the worst managed brand in a long time. I don't know what they can do get it back. I really don't at this point. We'll see if they can but they're just all such every time they open their mouths. I think they should stop talking. That's my feeling. Anyway, we need to go on a quick break and we come back. Apple is sitting on a ton of cash. Might they use it to make a big acquisition under their new CEO. Support for the show comes from Chorweve. AI is just a new tool that encompasses so much more. It's spurring a revolution across all industries and reshaping itself to become a big part of our future together. Chorweve is at the center powering some of the biggest names in AI. 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Some analysts say there's a signal that Apple is about to make a major AI acquisition possibly. The AI start-up perplexity, which is struggled compared to the others, and there's a range of issues around it. Should Apple buy into the AI business? First, what do you think about this? Well, first off, this really is sort of a run-through-the-tap high-five, you know. Nice last quarter for two. Yeah, best Q1 ever. Revenues of $111 billion, up 17% year-on-year, beating Wall Street estimates of $109 billion. This stocks trading up 3% after hours. One of the things I love about Apple is they figured out we're a mature company. We're not a growth company. We're still growing, but we're going to return money to shareholders. They do it through buybacks. They just announced $100 billion share by-back. They've raised their dividend 4% to 27 cents per share. The iPhone revenue rose 22% in the quarter with Cook calling the iPhone 17 lineup, which I wasn't a fan of. I got to own that. The most popular in our history, got that one wrong. The revenue was constrained by supply issues. Q3 guidance, revenue growth of 14% to 17% year-on-year. The new CEO joined the earnings column was introduced by Cook, which was the first time I think, the first appearance since the transition was announced. He praised Apple's financial discipline under Cook. The thing I love our respect so much about Apple is that companies typically have a tough time acknowledging they're no longer a teenager and they stuff their face with Botox and fillers. They don't want to act like a mature company and be very disciplined, which goes to your question around AI. I personally think, and watch by the time this air is announced, they've acquired perplexity. I think Apple's culture is so strong that they've decided that they are not an acquisitive company, that they don't like acquired. They've made fewer acquisitions in any company of their size. I wonder. The headphone company's the last one I remember. Beats, right? It just wasn't that big a deal. In my view, what they've decided is similar to the search wars, let's not engage in the AI wars. It's too expensive. There's too much capital in it. Let's continue to be the arbiter, the toll, then custody of the billion most attractive consumers in the world. Like with maps, the way they got out of maps. They manage, and there's been antitrust action against it, but they manage to get a $20 billion licensing fee to be the default search engine from Alphabet. I wonder if they're going to say, "Look, we'll use AI to improve our targeting and improve our Apple music, but we're going to, at some point, have an auction and auction off access as the default LLM, and they're going to get tens of billions of dollars from one of these guys." Or should they buy something? This is sort of the heart. Whatever you think of AI, it is at the heart of your services. You can't vendor it like you would search or map it. Search has been pretty central. Yes, but there's a whole bunch of things you do on an iPhone that's not just searching. You don't use search internally on the phone. You use it when you go outside. That's what they use Google for for your browser. They don't do it. They don't power the search inside of Apple. They have to have an AI company. They just do. They need it to integrate the way Google has done with Gemini. They need one. I think they have to buy one because they're not going to be able to build it. They keep having people leave who running AI. It's just, there's not enough action happening there for people to stay. There's more action. Do you think it'll be an aquaher? Do you think they'll actually offer it as a service? No, I think it'll be integrated into their services. The way Gemini is. I mean, there is a Gemini separate service, but most of the usage of Gemini is within the search engine, right, into their current product. I don't think people necessarily, like I go out when I want to use AI and go to claw, right? And sometimes I get it in Gemini, but Gemini is not quite specific enough and I don't want to pay for it and I don't want more relationship with Google and probably want to, and the claw is better for me at least. So I think they have to have something they integrate into their business for lots of reasons. And then they could also say, if you want to do something outside, like with search, we have a deal with opening. I think they did have some sort of deal. Anyway, I think they buy something. I don't see how they can't. But to be serious in AI involves this this catbacks, it's the Apple's complexion and shareholders is Apple shareholders have gotten their lips wrapped around the crack cocaine of profits. I'm not talking about a customer service, a consumer service. I'm talking about integrated into their other services. They need to have some some ability to do that. But why I guess my question is of following why anthropic and open AI both get public want to, you know, both of them call it a trillion dollars. The new CEO shows up and says who wants to be the default AI for Apple products? Yes, but for Apple products externally, not internally. They need to have AI. They need, I agree. They need to have AI competence. Right. And that's why they need to buy something like perplexity. Because you don't think they can recruit the people to build that. I can't. They have lost people. You go, I don't pay attention every turn of the screw with all these AI people moving around, which they do like a lot. But they've lost quite a few people running. It's just not, it's not where the action is. And so they're going to go. And so they have to have a competence by having a like a perplexity to run the internal stuff that you don't see necessarily. And then for consumers service, just like with search, there's search in Apple. That's not Google. But then they go and get it for the external stuff for customers where it's like, why should we pay for a really robust search service? It just doesn't make sense. Why should we pay for a map? I mean, they still have maps. That's not true. But mostly it's Google maps, right? That's who they get a big chunk of money from. And that's who their default is or default browser. Here we have the Google browser essentially. And so that kind of stuff. It's like, why bother doing that? This is integral to their how they get you songs, how they get you. They can't have open AI, give you song information. It just doesn't make it. They need to do it themselves. Certain things. That's my feeling. Yeah, I find the product. I haven't, you know, I pull up. I'm now running and doing more zone two exercise, but good. Yeah, I know. Thank you. And then, but I do, when I bring up Spotify, they have that AI DJ. I'm trying to think you think that Apple needs AI. How would that manifest in the customer consumer experience? You don't see it. You don't just the way when you go to search right now with Gemini. It's there. Right? It says, this is the Gemini. You don't even have to tell me. It's just search. Like, I don't know why they have the different shape. When I'm in an Apple phone, though, I use Google search. Right. But internally, as they they serve up all manner of things to you, they, they're using Apple technology. They just need to own They need to have a basic level of competence in AI to serve much of their stuff. And then the external stuff, they can get piles of money from whatever company, and that will be clawed. That's my guess. But they need to own something. So if only to maintain those relationships, right, to under, I just don't think they can be without AI expertise, but they don't need to offer consumer service. They're never going to offer a consumer service, not their strength anyway, their strength is their ecosystem. Anyway, we need to move on. And the Pentagon just made a slew of AI deals, speaking of this is an AI week here. Jeff Bezos is Tuxedo and AI Do's announcing last week that it reached agreements with Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, and a startup called Reflection to Use Their Technology for, quote, "lawful operational use," trust them at all. These companies join XAI, OpenAI, and Google, and providing Pentagon with AI tools. The Pentagon says these agreements will accelerate transformation toward making the US military and AI first fighting force, notably Anthropic is still out of the mix, despite that recent productive meeting at the White House. Just last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called Anthropic CEO Dario Amote an ideological lunatic. He's such a moron. They should spread around the wealth here, but not just rely on one company, obviously, and let them fight it out. But I think, nonetheless, from what I understand, from everyone who works in government clawed remains the top player here. It's stupidity on the, well, it's kind of saying things twice, stupidity on the behalf of Pete Hegseth. You have to assume he's smart in the first place, which he isn't. I think he's going to be out. I have this feeling. He's going to be out. You think? I do. I don't know why. I just was like, oh, he's going to get rid of him. He's too much of a moron. He's such a. I know he looks the part, and he's like, does his chest puffy thing for Donald Trump, which he likes. I just think he's, I think, the nicer out for this guy, because he's such a. I just can't figure out which one they're going to get first, Patel, or. And by the way, SNL did a great job on both of them this week, as these and Zarya did Patel. And of course, Colin just, just as Pete Hegseth is just fantastic. But I think he's in moron, and it's fine to have all these people come in and do this stuff. Why not? It just seems like that's a lot of people in there in that room. I don't think it's. I feel like somehow it's probably too chaotic to have all of them there on some level. Maybe not. This seems to me that, to a certain extent, anthropic can declare victory and go home and be one of the seven companies or not. The Department of Defense, they blacklisted anthropic. Anthropic feels like Andario Modi. I feel like kind of the first person who's sort of set no to the tech bros and to Hegseth and Trump. And he's gained, I think, a lot of stature from that. But at the same time, he can say that fine, I'll be one of the seven companies. The breakdown wasn't over capabilities. It was over guardrails, right? The DOD wanted a cloud deployable for all lawful purposes, which they didn't. Yes. And anthropics said no to autonomous kill decisions. And so a federal judge said the Pentagon's move looks like an attempt to cripple anthropic, which is an, it's just so weird, all these, all these tech bros who are all looking for the next check and bail out in their own crypto scheme going after Dario. I think it's, I think Dario has a great spot right now for the next era. Oh, wow. Wow. He looks really solid next. If there's a Democratic president, he's going to be the poster child for the day. The most interesting argument I've heard and really maybe think about this was that all of these guys are claiming that this is more powerful than nuclear weapons. We don't have private venture backed companies making nuclear bombs. So it's like, okay, if you really believe that, then shouldn't, shouldn't you all buy virtue of defense for, for defense reasons, be government controlled in own companies? Yes. Yes. Yes. Or highly regulated because you're claiming that these things are more powerful than any technology ever. We don't, like, stop making sense. Well, it's just so, it feels to me like they're setting themselves up. I'm a really excited about the potential for a Democratic administration because I think there's going to be a lot of momentum around. All right. Here are some basic common sense regulations. We would apply to any technology that is a quarter of what you claim the peril is here. You're the ones saying it's going to take employment over 20%. By the way, the French Revolution and the Weimar Republic descending into darkness happened when they hit 20% unemployment. You're claiming this thing, you're claiming this thing is learning so fast that it'll be able to turn on itself. Well, okay. So shouldn't that mean you are not allowed to release anything to the broader public until we have given you the badge of clearance on it? It's just going to, I think it's just going to be so easy for somebody to kind of step in and say, all right, you guys win. You have scared us so squarely and so rightly that we are going to, we are going to have regulators and the defense department and the DOJ in your fucking knitting folks. And at the same time, they need to strike a balance such that Chinese LLM don't get well ahead of us. But at some point you have to realize, okay, when does, when does the well-being of civilization begin to even remotely rival the excitement of your IPO? The tech bros have become so used to as long as I'm going to get my face on the NASDAQ billboard, I can overrun all social concerns and I can even brag about how fucking dangerous this is, as long as I use it to extract or pull the future forward with cheap capital, I think these guys are really sticking their chin out. They're sticking. And then they have, again, a meal Michael is there, all their best buddy, which who is from there, you know, gaming the situation, because the moron Pete Hagsat doesn't know anything. And so they're just, they're sitting, let me say, when if the Democrats do get control in a strong way, you need to flush all these people down the toilet, like immediately, like not even like, let's all try to get along, first you take them out and then you start over again. And I think puts Dario in the best position in that regard, because he had the guts to speak back, you know, or at least push back on just the most illogical moronic statements by the Defense Department under this incredibly unqualified cabinet secretary. I mean, really, it's so, it's so ridiculous. One of the problems, you know, sometimes there's nefarious people who are smart, right? And you're sort of like, oh, we're in trouble. But this is a moron, like an actual, like the moronic nature of both Cache Patel and Pete Hagsat is so parent, they're not sly, they're not, you know, slyly evil or evilly sly or whatever. It's a genius shaking his head. Correct. I was like, oh, because he knows, right? He could do something. But I just, I, you're right Dario puts himself in a much better position for what's next if we make it there anyway. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Support for the show comes from plot. If your day is filled with meetings, calls and important conversations, keeping track of what was said, what was decided, and what happens next can quickly become a job of its own. Whether you're meeting in person or online, taking conference calls or conducting interviews, plot can help you make the most of your time. What is the AI power note taking device built for real world conversations, unlike relying on your phone or opening another app every time you want to take notes? 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If you like hearing me tell stories about people, well, I've decided to tell stories about my life and the people I love. A letter was left carelessly around, so I've sort of caught red-handed. It's a show about secrets and forgiveness, I hope you'll come see it. Find all our tour dates and get tickets at thisascriminal.com/live. Support for this show comes from Clavio. Let's set the scene. It's late, the team is tired. You've got a global launch coming up and your customer inbox is full. No worries, meet your new best friend, Clavio. With one prompt, Clavio's AI agents build the whole campaign, the email's text, WhatsApp, all in your voice, and find your next sale before you do, and nothing goes out without your okay. Plus, Clavio answers those emails in every new one, still sounding like you. It does this because customer data marketing service analytics and AI agents live in one place. Clavio. Idea to launch, support handled one evening. Over 200,000 consumer brands have a best friend named Clavio. go to K. A-L-A-V-I-Y-O dot com slash best friends. Okay, Scott, Winston Fales, why don't you go first this week? Well, my fail is the board of directors for GameStop. If you're going to be an SEC publicly listed company, you have a fiduciary responsibility to not impose a tremendous burden on other companies who are trying to serve their shareholders and serve their consumers and their employees. When you make these ridiculous offers to another company that has absolutely no credibility veracity, likelihood of going through, you're just in some weird attempt to like ignite another meme craze in your stock. That's just irresponsible and reckless. There needs to be generally speaking in business within from public companies to other public companies, there is sort of a code. When we were thinking about acquiring a company or a public company and then we decided internally it doesn't make sense, we immediately sent them a letter saying where we're trying consideration because we don't want to tie them up. We want them to get on with their business and their life, even though you could do it to distract them but I was on the board of Urban Outfitters and at one point we were considering acquiring Abercrombie and Fitch who at the time was hugely diminished. Oh, by the way, Cara, we missed that one. We could have picked it up for pennies and it's come back hugely. Who has it? Oh my gosh, Abercrombie, that would have been, that one got away from us. We came very close, the handy family that runs and controls Urban Outfitters are very, very smart people and but ultimately we passed. But the moment we made the decision, we could have gotten in the way of other competitors American Eagle or whatever to acquire it, kept it on the market for longer, but it was like, no, there's a code amongst good fiduciaries, we immediately say we're not going to be a bitter here. Such that they can get on with trying to sell it to somebody else. This is such, it's just irresponsible, I just hate this from a decorum standpoint. It's a waste of everyone's time. He's not serious and I love the fact that the market is responded by taking this stock down 11%. Anyways. He's a new Ryan Cohen's an ass clown, I mean. My win is Senator and University President Ben Sass. Did you see a 60 minutes interview? Oh God. It's heartbreaking. It really, and of course I turn everything back to me, I find he is such a, like, he's the best of conservative values. His ability to talk about his faith, God, his fidelity to the Constitution, his fidelity to his family, and couch it as he struggles with a pancreatic answer, he had so eloquent and so moving, and I was struggling with something that happened to me that really upset me this weekend, and he, I watched his interview and he talked about that at one point before he had the diagnosis of pancreatic answer, he had, he said hundreds of tumors around his spine unmanence to him, and he was in such intense crippling pain that he was taking a dozen scalding hot showers a day that would provide him just minutes of relief, and then he'd have to take another hot shower. And so I started a practice where I'm like, okay, imagine you have that kind of pain. Tumors all over your spine, and all you can do is lay down and then take another scalding hot shower. I'm like, what would this problem mean to me at that point? And it's a really healthy practice, anyways, I have my, my bencest tumor practice now. Oh goodness, yeah. And you know, can I point out, there's a lot of really amazing mRNA technology happening right now about pancreatic cycle. Well, he's still alive because of some of those technologies. Yeah, but it's still is probably too late, but there's so much going on, of course, the administration's been cutting all these things, but he's amazing. He was one of the first people to go against Trump, too, when it wasn't convenient. He also had a really lovely statement when they were talking about the worst thing about his illness. He stated that he was really sad that he wasn't going to be with his wife for a while. A while. I mean, it was just so such a lovely testament to his, his wife and the way he framed it, that he's going to, that he believes they'll be together again, but he's upset that he's, he's going to have to wait. I mean, this guy, it's, Democrats should sigh of relief that he is not running for president on the Republican side. Well, except the Republicans rejected him because he was early, he was an early Trump opponent and then he got sorry. Well, I think he got carved out of big lane. I don't know. He got drummed out. He was one of the people like Liz Cheney and so he was in that game that got shoved out of the whole party because they needed to be in, you know, the Trump palole acquire. So I, I always found him to have a lot of courage even before this illness. I reached out to him. Yeah. Because people over the weekend, he's going to come on the party pod. But anyways, my win is just the, just the perspective and I, I think I would, I would recommend that everyone wants that interview. It really does remind most of us, and it's like that monk saying that the man with good health has a thousand problems. The man with bad health has one problem. When you hear what this guy is going through and you hear, you hear how just articulate he is about government and in his views on things, I really found it. I thought, God, this guy's such a great role model. I really hope, I really hope he's around for, I, I love that he's getting attention now, but I think he's adding a lot of really wonderful value to the public discourse right now. Anyways, my, my win is Senator and University president. Good win. Excellent. All right. Well, okay. And your fail is this board. Okay. My fail, it's, well, it's kind of a win in some way, but the New York Times interview would Tucker Carlson, he's done a lot of interviews lately because he's trying out all his stylings to run for president as we know him. He's trying everything. It's fascinating to watch. The interviewer did a great job. Yes. Lulu Garcia and Navarro's a friend of mine did a great job pressing him back. He denied wondering whether Trump is the anti-Christ, Lulu played it and then he denied it again. He denied it right after, oh, I didn't come out of my mouth. She's like, it just came out of your mouth. He goes, I never said that. Yeah. Right. It was, I was like, well, this guy looks like you saying that, isn't this isn't you? Wow. You know, she did a great job with him, but it was just, I think the more interesting is thing is, you should watch all of them because he's preparing for presidential run. And so his tricks and everything else are, she's super smart. You may not like Tucker Carlson, but he's highly intelligent. And, and I think he's an interesting, it'll be an interesting fight over the Republican party post Trump. And, you know, obviously, Marjorie Telegreen is trying to prepare her way. She changed Trump to arrangement syndrome and Trump disappointment syndrome, which I think is probably a more accurate for his followers. Anyway, just a really good interview. Watch it. Lulu was an amazing interviewer at the Times and, but that exchange, the whole thing is quite good, but that exchange back and forth is really, was really something. Obviously, my win is the money that Devil War's product did, it's crazy. Sorry. You just did yours. You just did the same one. If yours, the, the, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, that is a lot of money. I also, it's really interesting what's doing really well. The Michael biopic did really well. Michael Jackson biopic is doing incredibly well. Again, it was really, here's why I think it's a win because Hollywood always says, oh, that's a black movie or that's a woman's movie or that's a gay man and women's movie. And that's why it's doing well. It's just, they're both, I haven't seen the Michael movie and I think they left out some of the pertinent parts of controversies around him in this one. Michael Jackson, what controversy? Yeah, exactly. Or let's bring in a white guy, Project Hail Mary. They're just good movies. Like stop having to like say, oh, it's the women, oh, it's this, like you just make a really, what I loved about this movie and some of the others that have been doing really well is they show Hollywood at their very best beautifully told stories. There's not a, in any of these, there's not a stitch of fucking AI anywhere, right? It doesn't feel cooked and that's what really is working people are just flocking to these movies. And by the way, the theater was full of not women. It was everybody. It was really interesting. It was a young man. It was, it was not, I was surprised by the audience because you get to thinking it's a bunch of ladies going out and having, you know, Margarita's frozen Margaritas with their friends and then kicking it up in their heels. But it wasn't. That was you. That was you. So I just, I, I really like, I'm going to start hanging out on movies. Yeah. I know. Non AI movies. I don't know what else to say. It's a push, just like people don't like brand AI. They like brand people. And that's what's done. Very good. They love stories. Anyway, I got a share recommendation for you. What? Shorzy. It's about this, it's about this hockey team. It's sort of the pride and joy of some small town in Canada. It's really, and of course, it's all about, it's really a story about people, but it's really adorable. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. And Kara, you'll love this. Shorzy is directed by the same guy who directed heated rivalry, Jacob Tierney. There's got to be blow jobs in the locker room coming episode two. I was watching a running point. I think that's what it's called. The one with Kate Hudson and Justin's in it too. Justin's in it a lot in this movie. Yeah, he's very good in that too. It's good, it's adorable. I just finished watching it. Okay, Shorzee, all right. I'll listen to it. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show. We'll call 8551-Pivot and elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe. You're going to love this Scott for the latest episode of On. I interviewed Alene Brosh McKenna and David Frankl, the writer and director of Devil Wars, Prada 2. I wanted to focus on them. I mean, the stars have gotten a lot of attention, but I think these two are at the heart of why it's so excellent. And they're really incredibly good purveyors of what they do. Let's listen to a clip of David explaining how he approached Meryl Streep's character Miranda Priestly. Miranda is not the villain here. Miranda is the heroine. Miranda is trying to achieve excellence every day. And why does she have to be nice to accomplish that? And there's a long list of mostly men, of course, who are highly regarded for their superb work. I mean, they might be the goats in their business, but they, and no one really questions how nice they are about accomplishing that. It's a really smart interview. I really like to show people behind the scenes. And they're great. And Scott, one of the parts you'll like a lot is Miranda trying desperately to avoid getting in trouble with HR. The whole story reminded me of you. I don't know why. Trying to avoid HR. Yes, there's, you know, she says things and her assistant goes, "No, no." And she's like, "What? I can't say I want to kill myself." You know, there's a hole. It goes, it's a little bit, but it works really well. And every time she did it, when I saw this thing, I thought, "Oh, Scott Cowley needs someone who sits next to him and goes." But then I realized that was me. Yeah, it's you. No, no, no, no. I think you give me, you realize I have never been in anything resembling any type of trouble like that at a corporation. I'm Alan Alda over. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Anyway, it was good. Yeah, anyway, it's David Frankle. Although I do call my assistant jiggles. Is that wrong? Oh, God. Any, there we go. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don't do that. We don't say that. At the Christmas party, I ask all the hobbies to sit on my lap. Is that wrong? What are you after Christmas, little girl? Oh, my God. All right, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Today's show was produced by Larry Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, Todd Weissman, and Christine Driscoll. Any entertainer to introduce this episode, thanks so much to Drew Bros, Ms. Rivera, Dan Chalon, and Kate Gallagher. The shot of Courage Vox Media is executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from York Magazine of Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Support for the show comes from Harvey AI. It starts with a handshake, a word becomes an agreement, and a agreement becomes a contract. A contract becomes bound by law. Today, Harvey, the AI platform designed specifically for legal work, is powering that next step. More than 200,000 lawyers and 80% of the AMLA 100 are building with Harvey, accelerating review, sharpening negotiations, and more. Learn more at Harvey.ai. Harvey does not provide legal advice. Users should always independently review and verify any output from Harvey.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Apple is reportedly preparing a major AI acquisition, likely of Perplexity, to strengthen its internal AI capabilities and services despite its cautious acquisition history.
  2. The U.S. military has signed AI deals with major tech firms like Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia, signaling a shift toward AI-first defense, while Anthropic is excluded due to its refusal to allow autonomous kill decisions.
  3. AI regulation is becoming a fierce political battleground, with pro-AI and anti-AI lobbying groups spending heavily, including a $3.5M campaign by Chris Larson to support Democrat Alex Boris, who advocates for strict AI safety laws.
  4. Public trust in AI remains low
  5. The tech industry faces growing backlash over perceived elitism and environmental harm—data centers are seen as a symbol of AI’s negative impact, especially for lower-income households.
  6. AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are facing political and institutional pushback, with critics arguing that unchecked AI development risks societal harm and that regulations are needed to prevent misuse.
  7. Apple’s AI strategy hinges on internal integration rather than consumer-facing services, indicating a need for AI competence to enhance core products like music, search, and personalization without relying on third-party platforms.
  8. A broader cultural shift is underway, where public distrust of big tech—symbolized by figures like Musk and Bezos—is growing, and people increasingly see AI as a threat to affordability, jobs, and personal autonomy.

Summary:

The transcript explores key developments in AI, technology, and politics, highlighting a growing public distrust of major tech companies despite their economic power. Apple is reportedly preparing to acquire an AI startup like Perplexity to bolster its internal AI capabilities, reflecting a strategic move to maintain dominance in services without relying on third-party platforms. S.

military is advancing AI adoption through partnerships with tech giants, while Anthropic faces exclusion due to its refusal to allow autonomous weapons—placing it at odds with defense officials. On the political front, AI regulation is becoming a central issue, with significant lobbying efforts from both pro-AI and anti-AI factions. 5 million campaign supports Democrat Alex Boris, who champions strict AI safety laws, countering tech-backed initiatives.

Public sentiment remains skeptical: 70% of Americans believe AI threatens humanity, and many view AI as job-eliminating and environmentally harmful. The narrative underscores a cultural backlash against tech elites—symbolized by figures like Musk and Bezos—whose perceived arrogance and profit-driven models have eroded public trust. Despite AI’s transformative potential, the conversation centers on balancing innovation with safety, ethics, and equitable access.

The episode suggests that without strong oversight, AI could deepen economic and social divides, and that democratic accountability is essential to prevent unchecked technological power.

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AI regulation is a hot topic, with bipartisan support for measures like age verification for AI chatbots and bans on minors using AI companions. Tech billionaires are funding both pro- and anti-AI political campaigns, raising concerns about market manipulation and public trust in AI safety.

Data centers are central to AI operations and are increasingly seen as environmentally damaging and costly, especially for lower-income households. Public distrust in AI stems from concerns about rising electricity bills and lack of transparency, making data centers a symbol of AI’s negative economic impact.

Yes, Apple is likely to acquire an AI startup to strengthen its internal AI capabilities, despite its history of cautious acquisitions. The company needs AI integration in services like Apple Music and search to remain competitive, and has lost key AI talent, making acquisition a strategic necessity.

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