A Thanksgiving Monologue

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

0:33call zone media hello and welcome to a very special thanksgiving monologue i'm your host ed and well this one's about you it's about thanking you for the last year or two and saying that this show really does mean a lot to me uh perhaps more than it should and this journey has become oddly personal in that the show has allowed me to explore this kind of complex relationship I have with technology, the industry, the media, my peers, my own identity, which all sounds a bit much, I realize, but I mean it sincerely and I think at this point you've kind of worked out that's my whole bag and I recognize I still sound congested.

1:20Sophie made it very clear, this is all I'm doing this week, I've got to recover and I will recover a promise. But I wanted to say that our humanity is what makes us different from the machines. And that's what makes this show special. And I'm endlessly grateful for the hundreds of thousands of human beings who listen to or read my work every month. I love hearing from you. I'm so grateful for your generosity, your intellectual interest in my work, and in many cases, great empathy and capacity for good. And the conclusion of the AI bubble, I think it's going to be a referendum on the status quo, a stress test of the tech industry's largest firms and collective intellect and, honestly, imagination.

2:01Either I'm wrong and the growth train suddenly sprouts from OpenAI or Microsoft or Anthropic, or I'm right and hundreds of billions of dollars got burned on unprofitable software and even less profitable hardware. While I've complained in the past about feeling alone in this, I never really have been, and you've all kind of made me realize that. From the early days of my newsletter and Better Offline, many of you have been calling bullshit on AI too, in my comments and emails on the Reddit. And a lot of you are honestly not far from where I am, as far as my breadth of knowledge. I hope I'm helpful in educating you, but already so many of you see with clarity what the stakes are and how to pierce the thick layers of financial bullshit.

2:42And you all know we're at this point, we're basically living in a paradox. Every day we look at the stock market, it's either red or slightly green. Everyone's kind of worried. Everyone's still posting these headlines, both about being in an AI bubble and also in the midst of the greatest technological revolution since. Whatever half-arsed comparison people are even making these days, they're not even really fucking bothering, are they? And everybody is still trying to avoid looking at open AI, which is the financial equivalent of a man walking a tightrope across lava while begging a crowd of people to throw rocks at him.

3:15Yeah,$1.4 trillion worth of compute deals in the space of five years. Should all be fine, Sammy. You're still welcome to come on the show, by the way. Your PR person stopped fucking responding to me. Very rude. Very rude. But look, you, the listener, if you feel insane at the moment, it's because all of this is insane. OpenAI plans to burn escalating multiple billions of dollars for revenues that appear based on the episode I put out a few weeks ago, well, they appear a little questionable. And whatever OpenAI actually makes at this point is up for debate, which I think is reasonable and should have happened earlier.

3:54And even now, I still have people getting in touch with me saying, oh, perhaps the numbers are delayed. Perhaps it's this, perhaps this. It's not. It's a cruel accounting, I believe it's called. Those numbers were correct to the quarters I had them in. It's time to start accepting where we are. It's time to accept that things are not going well and that this bubble will burst. It's probably going to be the most egregious I told you so in history. But I don't have to do that I told you so alone. I'm not doing it alone. You're coming with me. And today I celebrate you, the listener, and I'm thankful for you for trusting me the many times I've asked you to when doing so was not really in line with the market consensus.

4:39Early on in this show, people, they said I was mad. Would a mad person laugh like this? Anyway, seriously though, so many of you stuck by me early on, even when the entirety of the media kind of didn't. I'm not saying everyone was against me or anything. I'm not that kind of person, other than the fact I'm literally the single most punished person ever. But in all seriousness, you've all been there with me too. You've given me your time every week and you're generous with your time too. Your energy and your focus too. So many of you are showing up on Blue Sky and Reddit and email and you're picking up stuff very, very fast.

5:17There are members of the media who don't get things that some randos emailing me get. Some of you are picking up some nuanced corporate accounting that took me a lot longer to get out there. So I could not be more proud of you and I could not really see the show as any more powerful because look what actually changes the world is regular people talking about stuff en masse i can have whoever successful a podcast i want i can have however many subscribers but ultimately if there is just a gluttony of people who can look at this bullshit and see it for what it is i think that changes the world and you are part of that too and the distance between my knowledge and your own is minuscule you are the ones that will make the difference.

6:00So tell everybody everything you know. Don't worry about giving me credit. I don't give a shit. I really don't. What I give a shit about is you knowing more and making better decisions as a result. An early piece of feedback I got was never to tell you how to feel, and I won't. But I'll tell you what I know and why I feel that way. And I feel very lucky to have so many of you listening. And the end of the year is going to be a more chill thing. I think I'm going to come up with a nice two-parter, maybe a three-parter. I have something brewing. I'm still not sure what it is, but we're going to have some cool ones about Steam with Steve Berg from Gamers Nexus.

6:35He's been an amazing guy up on the show twice already. It's so cool. I get to talk to cool people I admire. And in that vein, I also have Nathan Grayson from Aftermath coming on as well in the next few weeks. A lot to look forward to. And thank you for the many emails I've got about me being sick. I really do appreciate you looking out for me. I'm taking care of myself. I have wonderful people close to me, a girlfriend who took care of me as well. And I mean, it's been really nice. My world feels a lot warmer and larger than it did a year ago. And I'm just very grateful for what I have. I don't know what happened next.

7:12Happened next? Jesus Christ. Not editing it, Matthew. Anyway, I don't know what happens next. But I do know that there are many, many, many more hundreds of thousands of people who are capable of actually understanding what's going to happen next. And I can't wait to tell you. I'm so lucky to do this show. I'm lucky to have an amazing producer in Matt Ossowski and an editor in Matt Hughes. To have Sophie and Robert supporting me on the Coolzone Media side. It's really cool doing this show. Have a great Thanksgiving. Have a great rest of the week. We'll be back to our regular bits next week. I'm Ed Zitron.

7:50Thank you for listening.

8:20We'll be right back. December 31st, 2025 and save. Discover more at brightviewseniorliving.com. Equal housing opportunity. Some moments in life stay with you forever. In a special segment of On Purpose brought to you by eBay, I share a story about a book that changed my life early in my journey and how I was able to find the same exact edition on eBay. It was more than just a purchase. It was a reconnection with the memory that shaped my purpose. There are certain books that don't just give you information, they shift the way you see the world. I remember reading one when I was younger that completely changed me.

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