PivotNancy Guthrie Disappearance Raises New Surveillance Questions | Pivot
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
65 min read · 13,260 words- 0:00 – 3:19
Intro
- KSKara Swisher
I'm glad they got these pictures of this guy. At the same time, this is an edge case. They're, they're keeping your video. That, which I- which everyone thought they were doing, and they said they weren't. [upbeat music] Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
- SGScott Galloway
And I'm Scott Galloway.
- KSKara Swisher
Scott, we just did a great On with Kara Swisher about resist and unsubscribe, but I'd like to-
- SGScott Galloway
You have another podcast. I found that out.
- KSKara Swisher
I do. You were quite substantive. Where are we right now? Give us a quick update.
- SGScott Galloway
Uh, it lulled Tuesday and Wednesday. It appears to have come back today because Chelsea Handler, who reached out to me, posted something of all the things she was unsubscribing to, and just to give you an example of how much impact one person can have, uh, I went on AI, I went onto my site analytics. I think she just, uh... one video she did on Instagram, that one post, is gonna inspire six to seven thousand unique site visits, conversion of five percent. That's three hundred people unsubscribing, average of two platforms, six hundred unsubscribes, average two hundred. That's twelve thousand dollars times... Excuse me, a hundred and twenty thousand dollars times ten, so one point two million dollars in market cap getting taken out of these companies because of one Insta post. So-
- KSKara Swisher
Right, exactly. And, you know, interest- I'm going to see her, uh, tomorrow night, I think? Um, tomorrow night. She's here in DC. We should get them all to do things like that. Let's, let's le- reach into the celebs we know and get them to do this.
- SGScott Galloway
There we go.
- KSKara Swisher
I'm gonna bug them all, okay?
- SGScott Galloway
I like it. Thank you.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah-
- SGScott Galloway
Great, great
- KSKara Swisher
... 'cause if, if they do that and put even just one thing up, it matters, and it's an easy thing for a lot of them, and they kind of like it.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, what people don't realize about, about economic protests, the most famous one is the Montgomery Bus Strike.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
It wasn't the one cinematic moment, it was a-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah
- SGScott Galloway
... it was, um, a, an organization of thousands of carpools over the course-
- KSKara Swisher
Yep
- SGScott Galloway
... of a year.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
So-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah
- SGScott Galloway
... it takes, it takes a while, but-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah
- SGScott Galloway
... any individual who subscri- unsubscribes from Open AI, A- OpenAI right now is taking ten thousand dollars out of their market valuation.
- KSKara Swisher
Which is great, and that adds up.
- SGScott Galloway
And there's a substitute, the free-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah
- SGScott Galloway
... the free ChatGPT.
- 3:19 – 17:19
Pam Bondi Hearing
- KSKara Swisher
General Pam Bondi, who we'll talk about more in a minute, was testifying in front of, of, uh, the, Jan, Crazy Jan, was testifying in front of Congress about Epstein on Wednesday. She made it clear she'd prefer to be talking about other things. What did she zero in on? Let's listen.
- SPSpeaker
The Dow is over fifty thousand doll- I don't know why you're laughing. You're a great stock trader, as I hear, Raskin. The Dow is over fifty thousand right now, the S&P at almost seven thousand, and the Nasdaq smashing records. Americans' 401 [k] s and retirement savings are booming. That's what we should be talking about.
- KSKara Swisher
Well, she's not the treasury secretary, but this is what shows what they care about. They really do, the fact that it was inappropriate to bring this up in here, um, given they were talking about victims, sexual, uh, uh, abuse victims, but nonetheless, this is what floats their boat, is, is this money, right? And so let's also listen to a great idea one of our listeners sent in.
- SPSpeaker
Every child of an elderly person should also go through all of their parents' subscriptions. I went through my mother's this weekend and was able to take a hundred and twenty-five dollars off of some bills by unsubscribing subscriptions she didn't even know she had.
- KSKara Swisher
That is a great idea. I do that with my mom all the time, and I'm trying very hard to take the New York Post off of her subscriptions. Mom-
- SGScott Galloway
Two years after my mother died-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm
- SGScott Galloway
... I found that Geico was still taking two hundred and twenty dollars out of her bank account a month-
- KSKara Swisher
Wow
- SGScott Galloway
... for car insurance.
- KSKara Swisher
Wow, crazy.
- SGScott Galloway
If you don't, and I've used this example before, when I unsubscribed from AT&T and went to Noble, I'm saving about twenty or thirty bucks a month, but in addition, I found out-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm
- SGScott Galloway
... I had four accounts with AT&T for BlackBerries and iPads, which had been in landfills for years, 'cause I never went on and unsubscribed them. And even though they know they're not getting a GPS signal from these things-
- KSKara Swisher
Right
- SGScott Galloway
... and they could send you an email saying, "Hey, you know you're paying seventy bucks a month-
- KSKara Swisher
Right, right
- SGScott Galloway
... for something you haven't used in five years"
- KSKara Swisher
I know.
- SGScott Galloway
You're gonna save money. It, it's-
- KSKara Swisher
Yep
- SGScott Galloway
... these companies are very good at figuring out a way to get you to subscribe and get you to forget-
- KSKara Swisher
Forget
- SGScott Galloway
... that it's coming, that this money's coming out of your pocket every month.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah. You know, there's a couple services, and I don't have the names, to show where your subscriptions are and to unsubscribe, but this is a better way to do it. But then you can use those services to find them all over the place. You'd be surprised at what your s- I, I found an AT&T thing I was still, from when Apple first had the iPhone, when they had unlimited, if you remember. Anyway, uh, it's a great thing to do. Keep going. We're gonna do more. We're gonna... Every little thing we can pull on the administration cares about this issue. Uh, and it's their only thing left, is the Dow, at this point, the fallout from the Epstein-
- SGScott Galloway
What's that fifty thousand dollars?
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
She's a fucking attorney general.
- KSKara Swisher
I know.
- SGScott Galloway
She clearly knows nothing about economics.
- 17:19 – 22:55
Trump Tariffs
- KSKara Swisher
uh, um, power, uh, six Republicans joined Democrats in the House on Wednesday to vote for a resolution aimed at ending President Trump's tariffs on Canada. That it's a symbolic gesture, even if it clears the Senate, uh, i- Trump would veto it, but that didn't stop him from making threats. Trump posted on Truth Social that any Republican who votes against the tariffs would seriously, uh, suffer consequences come election time, and that includes primaries. Uh, I think he's losing the, the grip, as they say. What, what do you think?
- SGScott Galloway
Well, there's some new data that shows that about... So the initial notion was the tariffs would, uh, mostly be paid by either corporations, sort of a populist thing, or the, uh, uh, importer, or excuse me, the exporter themselves. The, the country would absorb it or whoever was sending the products. It ends up, and there's finally analysis, ninety-four percent of the costs have been borne by US consumers, and then the other six percent have been borne by companies either deciding to take a bit of a hit-... or the, the importer themselves, or excuse me, the exporter themselves, reducing their prices. You have about fifteen percent of the economy is, um, imports it-- they thought the tariffs average around twenty percent, so that's three percent. Some managed to get out of it, so call it a two percent of the economy, but the problem is, it's an unnecessary two percent hit to the economy. To be fair, it hasn't had the catastrophic effect a lot of people thought it was gonna have, but in a weird way-
- KSKara Swisher
Prices higher.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, if, yeah, it's just, why-
- KSKara Swisher
I, I feel it myself, and the shelves are emptier. It's weird. I never have noticed that before.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, not that, but why reduce people's prosperity by two percent for no real reason?
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
It doesn't cause go- growth-
- KSKara Swisher
Right
- SGScott Galloway
... it doesn't cause innovation. All it's doing is-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm
- SGScott Galloway
... is, is urging or reconfiguring the supply chain around the United States. The EU is entering into an agreement with Mercosur. There are all kinds of new trade zones being opened up such that people are not as reliant on the US. In a weird-- A weird thing, though, is that if his tariffs are overturned in, by the Supreme Court or by the Congress, actually, the markets will rip. So in a weird way, it could end up, it could end up helping him if, if these things are turned back. I think the markets will scream if these tariffs are found to be, uh, illegal.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, well, we'll see. And although apparently, he's got all these plans to put other kinds of fees in place to take their place, that are-- that he-- then he'll have to go back to court and stop him for those. He's doubling down. This is something he's talked about for years, so I don't know if he's gonna back off so quickly and take the, take the victory here. He'd like to take the L, honestly. I think it's interesting.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, I don't, I don't know.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
I, I anyways...
- KSKara Swisher
No, they, you know, that lunatic, Peter Navarro, talks about him, like the, we have a whole bunch of things to happen if the Supreme Court overturns this. What's taking the Supreme Court so long, by the way? Anyway, uh, we'll see what happens. I do think on the broader sense, that there's lots more, um, Republicans willing to push back because of their own political survival is not linked to Donald Trump as much anymore. The other thing is, it looks like they may lose control of the House.
- SGScott Galloway
That's right. Another person's resigning, right?
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah. So, you know, they're one, they're one sick person away from losing the, having the Democrats in control. So it's a really interesting time. He doesn't have the-- the power is slipping away, and that's why you heard Screamy Pam or this nonsense and stuff, so we'll see more of that, I think. Um, okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, social media on trial, a very important case. [upbeat music] Support for Pivot comes from Anthropic. There are bumps in the road, the ones you can just throw a Band-Aid on and be done with it, and then there are the bigger problems, the ones where you really have to stop and think through, the ones when you finally crack it, it feels unbelievable. And for those problems, you're gonna need a partner to help you understand where you're at, where you're going, and how you're getting there. Claude from Anthropic is that partner. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's a collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move. Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. Plus, Claude's research capabilities go deeper than basic web search. It can use comprehensive, reliable analysis with proper citations, turning hours of research into minutes. Ready to tackle bigger problems? Start with Claude today at claude.ai/pivot. That's claude.ai/pivot, and check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all the features mentioned in today's episode: claude.ai/pivot. [upbeat music]
- SGScott Galloway
[upbeat music] Support for the show comes from CoreWeave. AI isn't just a new tool, it encompasses so much more. It's spurring a revolution across all industries and reshaping itself to become a big part of our future together. CoreWeave is at the center, powering some of the biggest names in AI. As the essential cloud for AI, CoreWeave provides an AI platform that combines next-generation infrastructure, intelligent tools, and expert support. It's powering the world's most complex AI workloads faster and more efficiently, from medical research and diagnosis to education, from complex visual effects from movies to breakthroughs in science and technology. If it's AI, CoreWeave is uniquely ready to power it with purpose-built tech, the big ideas, the wild visions, and what-ifs and why-nots. CoreWeave is working to build what's never been built before. CoreWeave is the essential cloud for AI, ready for anything, ready for AI. To learn more about how CoreWeave powers the world's best AI, go to coreweave.com/readyforanything. [upbeat music]
- KSKara Swisher
Scott,
- 22:55 – 32:03
Social Media Addiction Trial
- KSKara Swisher
we're back with more news. A landmark social media trial got underway this week, with Meta and YouTube accused of deliberately designing their platforms to addict young users. You think?
- SGScott Galloway
[chuckles]
- KSKara Swisher
The lawsuit is the first of more than fifteen hundred similar cases to go to trial. This is something that's been building for a long time. The plaintiff's lawyer is arguing that his client, a twenty-year-old woman, got hooked on these apps as a kid because they were like digital casinos delivering dopamine hits. Instagram head Adam Mosseri, uh, testified on Wednesday that he doesn't think users can be, quote, "clinically addicted" to the app. Adam Mosseri is not a doctor, just so you know. I can't believe he said that. It was kind of a, a, a mistake on his part. Meanwhile... And also, he's wrong. Uh, meanwhile, YouTube is arguing it's not social media, it's an entertainment platform like Netflix, and it's not addictive. That is also not true. The jury-- Anyone who has kids knows that. Uh, it's very different from Netflix. The jury trial, I mean, it's become more like Netflix recently, but it's also an addictive situation. The jury trial is expected to last six to eight weeks, with Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube's Neal Mohan expected to testify. This is a really important trial. Uh, the big names are coming out and talking about an issue you and I have talked about for years. Um, what are, what are the actual effects, and who is responsible for creating an, an addictive product? And I'm sorry, Adam, I'm not a doctor either, but any fool will tell you it's, uh, anyone, not fool, any person will tell you it's addictive, anyone who uses it. Um, a- and you design-- And there's so much proof that you've designed it like a casino or a cigarette or whatever it happens to be. Thoughts?
- SGScott Galloway
... imagine you're fourteen and someone, you go into your room, and if you were like me, your mom wasn't home until six or seven PM, and you're home alone.
- KSKara Swisher
Gilligan's Island.
- SGScott Galloway
And yeah, that's-- it was Bugs Bunny, and Gilligan's Island, and I Dream of Jeannie for me. But what if in the corner there was a casino? What if there was an arcade? What if there was porn? What if there was unlimited music? What if there, uh, a- and then you say, "No, no, no study." What if there was the high school cafeteria where I could say something mean about someone else, or someone could say something mean about me, and all I could think about the rest of the day and night was what they were saying about me? That the high school cafeteria never, never left, and it ends up that about six percent of teenagers are clinically addicted or, or meet the clinical definition of addicted to either drugs or alcohol, but under that same, those same standards, twenty-four percent are addicted to social media. And just some data, the average American teen, teen spends four point eight hours a day using social media. Sixteen percent of teens, or one in six, use TikTok almost constantly, fifteen percent for YouTube, thirteen percent for Snap, twelve percent for Instagram, and roughly half of all teens report feeling addicted to social media. And w- you say, "Well, okay, fine, what's the impact?" Teens who are in the highest use group express two times more suicidal intent or self-harm than those in the lowest use group, and the highest use group also expressed poor, uh, body image at three times more than the lowest use group. And it typically takes a society, or it takes America twenty to thirty years to respond to really negative externalities. It took us thirty years with tobacco, it took us twenty years with opiates, and if you think about social going on mobile in twenty twelve, it pro-- Twenty years is probably the right number. I think when I'm-- Me, pa- parents always ask me: "What should I do with my kids?" And I say: "How old are your kids?" And if they say three or five, I'm like: "We'll have it figured out by then." Because the data here is so overwhelming, and we're up against a, a, a intransigence and people trying to delay and obfuscate, similar to those tobacco executives, and they have more money, and they're more skilled this time. But eventually, the tide, the tsunami of parental concern here, you know, understandable parental concern, is washing over all this bullshit where... Uh, so I think in, I would say, I mean, you have entire countries now age-gating. Look at what Australia's doing. I think another two to three years, I'm hopeful the landscape's gonna be much different for children.
- KSKara Swisher
And the, the remedies would be warning sig-- There's lots of remedies, like with cigarettes, like people-
- SGScott Galloway
Age gating.
- KSKara Swisher
A- age gating, warning signals, um, the checking-
- SGScott Galloway
Legal liability
- KSKara Swisher
... of ages. Legal liability.
- SGScott Galloway
[chuckles]
- KSKara Swisher
The age checking is harder, I think.
- SGScott Galloway
What every, what every other-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah
- SGScott Galloway
... substance company and [chuckles] manufacturers, media company is subject to.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah. They've got to be kidding, y- you know, there's so much. You- they have so many emails of them talking about this. That's the problem. For Adam, sorry to say this, he doesn't think it's clinically addictive. Come on, Adam, come on. We all think it is. We- the problem is every adult knows this in their bones, right? It's like-
- SGScott Galloway
Because we're addicted.
- KSKara Swisher
We're addicted, like we are. It's a problem. You cannot put it down, and it is different from television. It is very different. And television... Listen, Gilligan's Island's addictive enough. I can't believe I watched all that shit, but you can walk away from it in a way. You cannot walk away from this. It's almo- I find myself, I'm-- I have to throw the phone across the room, right? So, uh, sometimes. I'm like, "Put it down." Um, you know, every, Amanda, same thing. We just-- It's really interesting, and sometimes I think about it, I'm like, I like news, and I'm read-- I'm mostly reading news, but I don't stop. That's the difference. I put down magazines, I put down newspapers, and I love news. So this is the, all this stuff as it gets out, as you see the emails in- inside the company talking about it, and especially early on, they knew just what they were doing. And, um, perhaps they weren't meaning to be malevolent at the beginning, but it's malevolent for many young people, and the impact is huge. And then they just keep doubling down with AI relationships and synthetic relationships and everything else. This is, y- the time has come round at last for these companies. We'll see how well, how, how this trial does, but it's gonna, it, it's gonna just uncover more and more about what they knew, very much like the cigarette companies.
- SGScott Galloway
When you have hundreds of billions of dollars in shareholder value, trillions of dollars in shareholder value, hundred of billions in revenue, millions of some of the brightest people in the world, and trillions of data points, all trying, all aiming towards one thing: How do we get people to spend one more second every day on social and less time somewhere else, whether it's sports, friends, studying, sleep, and they're winning. And young people, especially young men, who have this tremendous fall in their brains where they're constantly dopamine hungry, they're up against an indomitable foe. And then the other, a- a- and it's-
- KSKara Swisher
Like sugar. It's like sugar, it's the same thing. It's the same-
- SGScott Galloway
And then there's two or three... But your kid, your kid can't take, you know, a ten-pound bag of sugar into his bedroom-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah
- SGScott Galloway
... with him.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
The, the, the other two things-
- KSKara Swisher
Well, that's your kid. My kid could, but go ahead.
- SGScott Galloway
[chuckles] The other two things, it is a cumulative effect that I think have really hurt our youth, youth are, one, I do think parents have some culpability here-
- KSKara Swisher
Absolutely
- SGScott Galloway
... and that is, we have decided that our job is to clear out all borders and obstacles for our kids. We engage in concierge and bulldozer parenting-
- 32:03 – 43:08
Nancy Guthrie Disappearance
- KSKara Swisher
in the same genre about surveillance, as you know, that's another thing I go crazy about. Um, investigators in the Nancy Guthrie abduction case have recovered footage from the Nest doorbell. Nest is owned by Google. It was initially thought to have no video because there was no active subscription. When you sign up, you ha- for people who don't know, for Nest or any of these things, you can buy a subscription. If you don't, they say they don't keep the video. As it turns out, they do. The incident shows that Nest uploads video to Google's Cloud before you decide to keep it with a paid plan, so it can linger after it says it's been deleted, it is supposed to be deleted. I'm glad they got these pictures of this guy. At the same time, this is an edge case. They're, they're keeping your video. That, w- which I, which everyone thought they were doing, and they said they weren't. The FBI, working with Google engineers, took 10 days to recover the footage from Guthrie's camera. I... The companies need to spell out in plain English how long deleted footage actually remains on their servers. And by the way, they're also getting incredible pushback from the Ring ad for the Super Bowl, which is like, "We're watching everybody, but only for your dogs." And there's been a million memes about, "Only for people we need to take away." Like, the surveillance of these kind of things and the ease of which they are hacked, by the way, not just taken off the door like this terrible person did, um, but hacked into, are quite something. A lot of people are getting them hardwired into their house so that they can't do that, and also so that they can't be, um, taken via wireless. There's a lot of wireless activity here, but there are ways to... Th- a lot of these things are open season on your home. I don't-- W- when I was speaking of my son, uh, my kids, Alex, took- I had one of them up at one of our houses. When we bought it, it was there, one of these Amazon or Echos or whatever. He took them all out. He took... Uh, one day I came back, and everything was gone, and I was like, "Why?" And he goes, "Because they can watch us." [chuckles] And I was like: "Don't be paranoid." He goes: "I'm not." And he was right. So anyway-
- SGScott Galloway
I think we're-- I think we have a bit of a different view on this, in the sense that I think technology... I think we gave up our privacy a long time ago.
- KSKara Swisher
Yes, Scott McNealy, we did.
- SGScott Galloway
What I wanna see... Oh, remember Scott? Mm.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, he said that.
- SGScott Galloway
He said that.
- KSKara Swisher
"Privacy doesn't exist. Get used to it," remember?
- SGScott Galloway
If, if you are in London or New York-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm
- SGScott Galloway
... you can't go more than, I think it's thirty feet-
- KSKara Swisher
Agreed
- SGScott Galloway
... outside without a camera. And the reason they did that was they implemented massive- they have, like, a, uh, a security headquarters because of 9/11. And I actually, w- what I think you need, though, is really, really well thought out laws and institutions that say, "We're not gonna go fishing. Unless it's a felony crime, we don't investigate it."
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- SGScott Galloway
In other words, people have the right... You said something I've thought about a lot-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm
- SGScott Galloway
... and that is, people have the right to have secrets. [chuckles]
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
And if you wanna, if you wanna go into a store, if you're, I don't know, y- you, you should be able to do what you want.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
If you murder somebody, then quite frankly, and there are enough, there's enough evidence to say that you are a-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm
- SGScott Galloway
... reasonable person of interest, then we are going to utilize, uh, cameras, data-
- KSKara Swisher
I agree with you
- SGScott Galloway
... video footage.
- KSKara Swisher
I agree with you. I just think you buy this product, and it says it isn't keeping it. If you don't pay for it, then it's not keeping it. Like, I'm sorry, it's just, that's just the deal. That's just the deal when you buy it. I have several of these, and I've taken most of them off my house, but they say ex... And I pay a lot of attention. We-- If you don't pay, this stuff is deleted. This is deleted. If it says it's deleted, it should be deleted. That's all. It's just the deal you make with them, and so I don't think they should keep it if it's supposed to be deleted. Same thing with Echo: it shouldn't be listening if it says it's not listening, right? That's which, that's... If you want it to listen, you can tell it. That's in your home. I'm talking about this. Outside, I think we've lost that battle. There are g- there, cameras are everywhere in Lon- talk about London. Monte Carlo is really wired. So is the United States of America, and that's a good thing when it comes to crime, but it's a very bad thing when it comes to inside of your house. 'Cause, Scott, I know, uh, if you wanna wear your frilly underwear, I think I... Ooh, wait, was that a secret? Um, i- I back people's-
- SGScott Galloway
I don't wear underwear
- KSKara Swisher
... privacy in their homes. I'm just-
- SGScott Galloway
Daddy goes commando.
- KSKara Swisher
[chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
Big Ed and the twins wanna be free.
- 43:08 – 51:30
AI News Roundup
- KSKara Swisher
... Scott, we're back with more news. Time for rapid fire of AI news. First up, Anthropic is in the final stages of raising twenty billion dollars in new capital at a valuation of three hundred and fifty billion dollar, uh, valuation. Also, at Anthropic, a researcher submitted a resignation letter saying the world is in peril, saying employees constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most. That researcher is going off to write poetry, by the way, which should trouble you. Over at xAI, Elon Musk has lost two co-founders, Jimmy Ba and Tony Wu, both announced their departure as a big restructuring over there, too, when he-- as he's brought it into, uh, SpaceX. The company at OpenAI, the company's fired an executive after he opposed plans for an AI erotica feature in ChatGPT, citing sexual discrimination. We don't actually know what happened here. Uh, Anthropic raised the funding, uh, raised twice the funding initially sought, uh, based on investor demand. Uh, so thoughts on any of these stories? Lots of different-- [chuckles] Lots of stuff happening around AI again.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, the why people get fired or why they say they were fired, I don't know. I haven't sorted through that. What I, I think it's already happened, whether it's reflected in the valuations or not. I think Anthropic is now worth more than OpenAI. I think OpenAI-
- KSKara Swisher
What was their valuation? Eight hundred billion?
- SGScott Galloway
Well, they're-- So I think they're trying to close a round at eight hundred and fifty.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, eight fifty.
- SGScott Galloway
But with that one VC who i- kind of- i- if there was a moment where the, the, the balloon was burst, if you will, the bubble was burst, it was when that VC had Sam Altman on his podcast and said: "You've made a trillion dollars in spending commitments on a company with twenty billion in revenue. How are you gonna do that?" And he got very defensive about it, and they've gone consumer, Anthropic's gone enterprise. Uh, uh, they haven't made the kind of crazy commitments. I, I think there's been the kind of the mother-of-all industrial pivots. I, I think now, if you will, Avis is now Hertz. I think Anthropic is now worth more-
- KSKara Swisher
But three hundred and fifty billion
- SGScott Galloway
... or will be soon than OpenAI.
- KSKara Swisher
They are not making the money.
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, that's-- But they're, they're stronger in the enterprise. Anyways, I, uh, none of this makes any sense in terms of a multiple on revenues, but, uh, I think, I think OpenAI is in real, um... I don't know. Crisis is the wrong word.
- KSKara Swisher
On xAI? There's a lot of arguments over on X about that they have now do not have-- He, he- his big thing was, "I have the best AI researchers." Now, he does not, right? From what most people, intelligent people, are saying, uh, about it. But, you know, he always does this. He always goes in and shakes the tree and then shakes the tree again. That's his, that's his MO, I guess. They're a distant, what, third or fourth or something?
- SGScott Galloway
Well, these guys are all... H- here's an, a, a, a symbol of how easy it is and how difficult or how vulnerable they are. It says here are some, Dario and Daniela Amodei, uh, were at OpenAI, now at Anthropic. Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI, now at Safe Superintelligence. Aravind Srinivas, OpenAI, now at Perplexity. Mira Murati, OpenAI, now at Thinking Machines. Arthur Mensch was at Google, now at Mistral AI. It's the brightest minds here are-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm
- SGScott Galloway
... supposedly in w-- I used to work with a lot of luxury brands, and they said the biggest problem they were having in China-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm
- SGScott Galloway
... is that at the biggest malls, if Prada was, had a store across the street from Bottega Veneta-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm
- SGScott Galloway
... if, if the manager of that Prada didn't have people show up, he could go across the street during the lunch hour at the, to the lunch court and offer someone eleven bucks an hour from the Bottega store, who was making ten, and they wouldn't even go back after their lunch break. They would go over and work at-- It was just so easy to pick off people by offering them a dollar more per hour, and it feels so many of these deep-- these people who have, you know, fairly or unfairly, have established themselves as some of the few minds that really understand this stuff, the amount of money and temptation to go do their own thing or join another firm, it is-- I mean, supposedly, wasn't there reports that Zuckerberg was paying some people a hundred to three hundred million dollars?
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
And then he wasn't. I mean, it just feels like it's total, I don't know, bedlam right now. [chuckles] Just-
- KSKara Swisher
Right. It's, it's, it's-- They all think they're gonna be the one, right? "I'm gonna be the final one standing, and I'm gonna own the world," essentially, which is a bet. It's a bet, right? I think one of the things that continues to plague these companies are these researchers who are like, "We're fucked, everybody." Like, they come out and j- almost, you know, like, they're sort of like, "Shh, it's gonna kill us."
- SGScott Galloway
I think, uh, but quite frankly, Kara, I think a lot of it is people [exhales] backfilling, uh, the reason why they're living with-- leaving with morality sometimes or some sort of victimhood. If you look at-- J- just to go back to musical chairs here, if you look at xAI, the company lost its second co-founder in just two days, and that means that half of xAI's founding team, six of the twelve, have left the company in less than three years of existence. And Musk said, you know, "W- w- we've reorganized xAI to improve the speed of execution, which required parting some ways with some people." And I think for some of these founders, there's legal risk to staying at xAI. The EU is currently investigating the company for its creation of non-consensual sexual deepfakes based on real people, including children. So this really is the Wild West. This is, um, uh, you know, I don't know, I, I-- It's just, it's so difficult to e- even keep track of-
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah, yeah
- SGScott Galloway
... you know, who ends up where and why.
- KSKara Swisher
It's like, it's like as if as, [exhales] science people went crazy, right? But I, I do think the warnings are getting really interesting. [chuckles] They're like, "I wish someone would just explain what-- We're in peril, how? How are we in peril?"
- SGScott Galloway
Why? Yeah, how does that manifest? What does that mean?
- KSKara Swisher
Hey, [chuckles] hey. Like, uh, it's like the people who knew that we're about-- You know, in those movies, where a bunch of people know we're about to get hit by a, like, a comet or something, and they're not telling us? They're like, "I would- [chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, is it, is it Arnold-
- KSKara Swisher
... I would harm your family." Why? [chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
Is it Arnold Schwar- Schwarzenegger showing up at your door wearing Oakleys and a lot of leather?
- 51:30 – 54:35
Jimmy Lai Sentenced
- KSKara Swisher
separate note, w- speaking of sort of normal journalism and getting information out, one of the most depressing things is Hong Kong media mogul and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai was sentenced this week to twenty years in prison after being found guilty in a, a sedition and collusion with foreign forces. It's the longest sentence ever handed down under Beijing-
- SGScott Galloway
It's a death sentence.
- KSKara Swisher
Death sentence. Uh, Lai's children are saying a potential visit by President Trump to China in April could be crucial in securing the release of their seventy-eight-year-old father. This is something Trump should do. Back in December, Trump said he asked ch- uh, President Xi to consider releasing Lai, but on the campaign trail in twenty twenty-four, he was a lot more confident, saying: "A hundred percent I'll get him out. It'll be easy to get out." He's not so easy to get out. Uh, let's not forget the, the real surveillance economy, the real control economy. We've talked about these issues around control and the uses of AI for badness. Um, China wins the boats everywhere, and they, they go after this guy, who's a really important, um, figure, um, uh, figure in, in this area. And so, uh, if President Trump can do anything, please do it. If anyone can do anything, but Jimmy Lai is a hero, and, and what's happened to him is a, is, as you say, a death sentence.
- SGScott Galloway
Look, I go to the economics. W- when you start imprisoning journalists, whether it was Turkey in twenty twelve, Soviet Union at the turn of the century, or China, uh, putting the-- you know, taking a very hard-fisted approach to Hong Kong in twenty twenty-one, as kind of best epitomized by Jimmy Lai being imprisoned, distinctive, the morality of it, distinctive, the importance it plays in a society, the nation gets poorer and angrier. It's a-- It is literally a conar-- a canary in the coal mine saying: We are about to send a chill across some of the most talented people, and scrutiny about what can be said about companies that hurts the economy. The nations get poorer and angrier, and i- it's literally a symbol of when an economy is about to move to an authoritarian state, which is really bad for innovation, for attracting outside capital. W- when you're thinking about investing in Turkey, and all of a sudden they start locking up journalists, does that thing, does that, does that... If you're Google, you think: "Yeah, I'm gonna start-- I'm gonna open an office in, I'm gonna open an office in Istanbul?" Or you're thinking: "You know, I'm gonna wait and see if they sort that out." If you're one of the brightest PhDs in the world, and you're doing research on authoritarian governments, you're doing research on innovation, and you're worried that your research might, might co- might contradict something that the leadership is espousing to, do you go teach at those universities? No, you go somewhere else. So i- i- uh, this is... Look, China is not, you know, is not a model for... B- but having said that, I was just supposed to be on with Don Lemon, who got arrested.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
Why the fuck is- [chuckles]
- KSKara Swisher
Exactly.
- SGScott Galloway
Why are they arresting Don Lemon?
- KSKara Swisher
Don Lemon, like, give me a break. They shouldn't be arresting any journalist like this. It's just ridiculous. Uh, I would agree. Um, I'm gonna finish up with-- Anyway, Jimmy Lai, let's get him out. Let's, let's get him out. He's a hero. Um, I'm gonna, uh, finish
- 54:35 – 57:16
DOJ Antitrust Chief Steps Down
- KSKara Swisher
up with something that just happened. Um, Gail Slater, who a hugely respected lawyer, antitrust lawyer, who's running antitrust at DOJ, just announced she's stepping down. It follows, uh, the, the resignation of a guy named Mark Hammer, who was one of her, his, uh, her top deputies. She's had clashes with Pam Bondi over the handling of antitrust investigations. I- I've heard she was in a real bind over the Paramount thing. They're trying to, like, shove through things that are friendly to the Trump administration, and she just can't do it. She can't do it. During her eleven months on the job, she found herself in this bind, caught between the Trump administration's, um... I- i- she was close to J.D. Vance. This is a very respected and well-regarded antitrust person. This should be an enormous signal that Gail Slater is stepping down. Um, I'd hoped to talk to her, but, uh, everyone had told me sh- they didn't know what she was gonna do about the, the Netflix Paramount thing. Um, you cannot be against the Netflix thing if you're not against the Paramount thing [chuckles] I'm sorry. Like, and, of course, she's being-- you know, she, she, she had a- she's been put in a bind all over the place. A, a talented and, and well-res- regarded person is put into a bind, and so she's stepping down. Um, I just don't know who-- They'll put in some idiot, like a Brandon Carr type of person, who will just do what they say. Um, but it really brings it down rather significantly. Even, uh, even, um, uh-... Megan Del Rahoon, who works for Paramount actually now, very well-regarded. Like, they're, they're gonna have to put in a, in a village fucking idiot in the Pam Bondi mode, so not a good sign, not a good sign.
- SGScott Galloway
Agree.
- KSKara Swisher
Anyway, uh, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. [upbeat music]
- SGScott Galloway
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- KSKara Swisher
[upbeat music] Okay,
- 57:16 – 1:05:49
Predictions
- KSKara Swisher
Scott, let's hear a prediction.
- SGScott Galloway
I think that what was supposed to be the most anticipated IPO, maybe with the expe- exception of kind of SpaceX AI, Tesla, the-
- KSKara Swisher
Whatever. Tesla's not in there yet.
- SGScott Galloway
Probably the most anticipated was Open... The IPO of OpenAI in twenty twenty-six, sometime this year or early twenty seven. I don't think that's gonna happen. Um, I think that-
- KSKara Swisher
Whoa!
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, I think this company is, is now, is gone into full, um, I don't call it panic mode, but it feels as if the mo- momentum has a habit of creating more momentum, and I think the momentum is really negative around this company. Uh-
- KSKara Swisher
What happens then? Where does it go? What does it do?
- SGScott Galloway
Well, it... They-- I think they'll substantially, um, scale back their-- I mean, have you already seen the war-- Have you ever seen Jensen Huang and Sam Altman, who were, you know, bud buddies, are already shitposting each other?
- KSKara Swisher
Right.
- SGScott Galloway
Claiming that the hundred billion dollar agreement with- was a framework, and they're actually not gonna... The hundred billion dollar investment-
- KSKara Swisher
May I just say, you said that.
- SGScott Galloway
Well, that was ridiculous. These circular deals, I'll give you a hundred billion-- I'll invest a hundred billion if you invest a hundred billion in our chips, and now S- and now, quote, unquote, "Jensen's backtracking" and saying: Well, it was just a framework. They couldn't justify it. NVIDIA's stock has gone down because people are worried about exposure to OpenAI, so what does OpenAI do? They start shitposting NVIDIA and saying, "No, it's 'cause their chips didn't live up to our expectations." When, when the biggest player in the space, Jensen Huang, and kind of the young gun, OpenAI, start shitposting each other, and, and they back out of this hundred billion dollar investment framework, that is a really bad sign.
- KSKara Swisher
Yeah.
- SGScott Galloway
That means-
- KSKara Swisher
He kept using, what was the word? "We're honored to be invited." What was he saying? It was so funny. [chuckles]
- SGScott Galloway
Yeah, but they're both going on background now and blaming each other.
- KSKara Swisher
Oh, totally, utterly.
- SGScott Galloway
Can I-
- KSKara Swisher
Like, can I just give people a lesson? When you hear sources close to the situation, if they were any closer to either of them, they'd be on the other side of them.
- SGScott Galloway
[chuckles] That's them, right? The-- So I think, I think the momentum-
- KSKara Swisher
Yes
- SGScott Galloway
... the, the worm has turned, and it's not that OpenAI isn't an unbelievable company that could go public at, like, a fifty billion dollar market capitalization.
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm.
- SGScott Galloway
But the problem is, when you sell some investors in at two fifty, four fifty, and then if he's able to close this round at eight fifty, they're not willing to go public or let you have a liquidity event that cuts their... What happens in an IPO, say, he went public at three hundred billion next year and said: "Okay, the market isn't what we thought." Unless there's a couple of years where the latest round of investors get so fatigued they're willing to take a sixty percent haircut, all of your shares, the last round of investment has a preference, meaning they- they're the first money out. So the fifty or a hundred billion going in at eight fifty doesn't wanna give up their liquidity preference and let them go public if they're going public at less than eight fifty, which I think they would. So your last round of investors become a veto block for going public, unless you're gonna go public at a valuation greater than eight fifty.
- KSKara Swisher
So what do they do? You haven't answered my question.
- SGScott Galloway
They'll dramatic-- In my opinion, they'll dramatically scale back their capital, their CapEx, and they'll end up with a much smaller, much less ambitious, amazing company that's only worth a hundred or two hundred billion. It's only one of the thirty most valuable companies in America, not the-
- KSKara Swisher
Get bought? What hap-- Well, that means everyone else will get collapsed, right or not?
- SGScott Galloway
I think the whole... My opinion, if you look at, and I look at weird signals, the percentage of ads at the Super Bowl, right? If you look at all this, I think there's a ton of anecdotal evidence showing that while AI may live up to its potential, the market cap of the biggest players this year-
- KSKara Swisher
Mm-hmm
- SGScott Galloway
... is about to throw up.
Episode duration: 1:05:49
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