Bezos's AI Start-up, Thiel's Nvidia Sell-off, and Trump-MTG Breakup

24:45And what I think at the same time, Medicare, which is what seniors are eligible for, actually delivers pretty efficiently and people are generally pretty happy with it. And so my idea is to lower health Medicare eligibility by two years a year. And then in 10 years, where are you? You're at 45 on up is eligible for Medicare. And that's 70 plus percent of health care costs because they happen later in your life. And I think you just keep going until effectively you have socialized or nationalized medical coverage. It's time. It's just not working for us. And everyone under could have a very inexpensive, under - They don't even need health insurance.

25:28I know they don't, but just to, you know, if something happens, right? They need, there's always - Yeah, I'm trying to figure out - The small possibility. I'm trying to figure out an elegant way that gives the private sector time to respond, because there are millions of jobs that are dependent upon this regulatory capture, and you want to give them time to adjust. But quite frankly, we have to move to an entirely different system. We have to move - Absolutely. In the UK, you know, the NHS, granted, people have their issues with it, But generally, you get good health care for free. And it's the responsibility of the entire nation.

25:58And just in Korea, they're perplexed by our health. They're like, why are you having such a bad health care? Absolutely can't get it. They can't get over a nation that's the most prosperous nation in the world where when your wife is diagnosed with lung cancer, it also means you're going bankrupt. 40 % of American households have medical or dental debt. This is, it's a huge, you know, happiness, we're talking a lot about it. The six of the 10 happiest nations in the world are in Northern Europe. And I think a big component of that is people think of happiness is having stuff or the ability to have stuff, which America defines.

26:27But actually a bigger component of happiness is absence from fear that things are going to be taken from you. And in the U.S., there's a real fear that your dignity will be taken from you and the health of your loved ones because it's so fucking expensive and people can't afford it. Healthcare and homes. That's 100%. H &H. I think crime and immigration are big in terms of perception, but in terms of the actual quality, as it relates to actually— Mental illness, cortisol, stress. Well, I'm shocked that some of our friends on the left are more aggressive about this. You know, Hillary, Secretary Clinton was right.

27:02It's just the world wasn't ready for it in 92 or whenever it was. The nation is ready for it. The nation has had it. And then the system in the UK, the top, I forget if it's 5 % or 10%, go private. Yeah, the effects are— And people say, well, that's the aristocracy. And I'm like, no, it's not. Rich people are always going to have better service and better access. Get used to it, folks. Their kids are going to have an easier time getting into college. They're going to have better doctors. Did you see that journal story? There was a journal story about rich, really the ultra rich. Never see people like they go from one.

27:33I'll send it to you. Well, that's part of the problem. And that is the top, the most powerful people by far in the top 1%. And they're no longer invested in the basics of American life. They have their own schools. They have their own police force and security now. They have their own health care. They have their own transportation. They have their own planes. So when America infrastructure is crumbling and when the average American has a difficult time getting good education or feels unsafe, these people don't feel, don't have no empathy because they're, they've totally extricated themselves from the American experience.

28:06Yeah, this story I'd recommend it in the Wall Street Journal. We have to move on. But one of the things that when Luigi Mangione happened, I was like, OK, here we are. This is more and this is going to happen over time. People are furious about this thing and they don't need to be right. It's so fixable for our country and it saves money. Just before we move on, two things. I actually believe if people had any idea how the one percent live, really live in terms of access, I think there'd be a revolution right now. I think the difference between. Well, it was described rather detailed in the Wall Street Journal.

28:36The difference between a middle class person and an upper income person when I was growing up was they got to fly business class and they had a Cadillac, not a Gran Torino, but you've lived largely the same life. Now it's a different fucking universe. It is just a different universe. And also just going back to the UK healthcare system, the people who go private because they have the money for it, it actually kind of works because they basically take pressure off the system because they're not in the system. So I think it's time for nationalized healthcare. It's time for socialized healthcare in the United States.

29:05It's just not working for us. Oh, you socialists. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Peter Thiel dumps his stake in NVIDIA. I'm very eager to hear what you say about this.

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32:50Scott, we're back. Peter Thiel's fund has sold off its entire stake in NVIDIA, elevating AI bubble fears. At the time of this taping early Monday morning, it looks like the markets are in for a muted open after a rocky week of tech stock sell-offs quite a lot while we were away. The Nasdaq composite ended last week down a half a percentage point, led by dips in Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta, even though Warren Buffett bought into Alphabet, which he never buys and detect. And talk about this, this move. And let me just add this. Speaking of AI bubble fears, some recent reports are shedding more light on OpenAI's finances.

33:23This was jaw-dropping, I thought. Documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal show the company is burning through cash. I mean, it is a forest fire. Operating losses are projected to reach about three quarters of annual revenues by 2028, mostly due to computing costs, of course, though the company expects to turn a profit by 2030. They say they are. Then they could. This happened with other Internet companies. OpenAI spent about$12 billion on inference, essentially computing costs, between 2024 and the third quarter of 2025, according to documents reviewed by tech blogger Ed Zitron. The documents also show Microsoft's revenue share payments from OpenAI roughly doubling since last year.

34:01OpenAI has said these aren't accurate, I guess. But they are having this. We'll see when they have their IPO. Sam Altman recently said OpenAI's revenue is more than$13 billion a year. But these latest numbers don't seem to support that. Any thoughts on this stuff? I'm really interested in your take on the Teal stuff combined with, and of course, was his name from Masa's son, sold off one NVIDIA in order to get into open AI. But go ahead. Well, I think most people, most market analysts would go, listen, this is just some profit taking. NVIDIA is up 38%. NVIDIA was down 8 % last week, but it's up 38 % for the year.

34:44Microsoft down 1.3, up 22. Meta's flat was down 4.5%. It's only up 2 % for the year. Amazon is up 7%, but it gave back 8 % last week. Alphabet was down 3%, but it's up 45%. And Apple's up 1.2 % last week and up 12 % for the year. And the companies that, so Apple and Amazon are supposed to be most immune from the AI trade. They haven't gone all in. I personally, and again, this isn't financial advice, but I'm increasingly convinced that the string that gets pulled on that takes down the global economy to recession levels and there'll be nowhere to hide is the following. I think the quote-unquote trillion-dollar-plus commitments or framework that Sam Altman has made to try and convince everybody, I know more than you and this is so fucking huge.

35:36I need 60 nuclear power plants and 300 billion and compete from Oracle. I think a lot of that is marketing. And great, if the revenue is doubled at OpenAI, it means its stock is 80 % over value because built into that valuation of 40 times revenue is that this thing is quadrupling every 12 months and will quadruple every 12 months for four years. And it's not. And the moment they announce, again, I think this trade unwinds the following way. I think a traditional company, a PepsiCo, a Caterpillar on an earnings call says, look, we are excited about AI. We do think it's going to be a breakthrough, but we are scaling back our investment.

36:16And then a bunch of other traditional S &P 500 companies look at each other and make the same announcement, OpenAI has to, you know, it becomes clear there's no fucking way OpenAI is going to continue to be able to buy $300 billion or$100 billion in NVIDIA chips. And the thing that takes the market down, quite frankly, is NVIDIA. Because with a$5 trillion market cap, if this thing gets cut in half and there's a$2.5 trillion destruction in the market, which will impact the top 10 % of households who are now responsible for 50 % of consumer spending, that's how the economy, like, literally starts to throw up and convulse.

36:50And I think we're getting there. The narrative has gone from AI boom to AI bubble. Now everyone, have you, people don't realize because it happens incremental, and you said something that always struck me, that humans adapt. People don't realize how much the narrative has changed around AI in the financial press just in the last 15 days. Everyone's talking about a bubble now. I've read so many bubble stories, it's crazy. And of course, as you say, sometimes when that's the case, it doesn't happen, right? It over-indexes on that. I would say the Teal thing, I don't think it's just profit-taking, although this guy has a tuning fork for money, right?

37:28He's a very talented investor. Whether he figures out some weird tax plan that he never pays taxes again or some weird gap gains thing that he does. He's always up to some amazingly ridiculous and greedy thing to do. But, you know, that's him. He's a capitalist. He's going to take advantage of every nook and cranny of problems. but it was interesting that it just they see things before people because they're in the middle of it and they can actually see the numbers and anyone that can see the numbers you have to pay attention to their moves and it's not just a profit taking right it's not just that I think I think probably it's not like you sort of feel like remember Amazon was all like going to be on Amazon.bomb that kind of stuff that there was that narrative that went on and then it wasn't But this is so much bigger.

38:16Like, it's so big, and it affects everything. And they're already established industries and already established companies. These other companies, when they coughed, nobody cared. In this case, when they coughed, everyone dies, essentially. Here's an interesting thing. Jeff Bezos is taking a larger role in the AI game. He's created a startup called Project Prometheus. Oh, it's so, oh, it's such a, whatever. So macho, isn't it? I know, right? By the way, Prometheus did not have the greatest tale, Jeff, just so you know. For people who don't know, Prometheus gave humans fire, and he defied the gods for doing this.

38:51But in punishment for his actions, Zeus condemned Prometheus to internal torment, including an eagle ate his liver daily. So good luck, Jeff. And he'll be the co-CEO. The company is focusing on AI with real-world applications in aerospace cars. In other fields, it makes sense. Project Prometheus has already raised$6.2 billion in funding. I'm not sure what it is. It's probably making apps, right? I would assume like how you would deploy it anywhere. Like what's the use of AI? And I think people right now are mostly using it for search, you know, sort of a more robust search or a more robust analytical thing.

39:32And so the question is how do you make it really seamlessly useful throughout, which is what you're talking about? What's the actual ROI on these things? So I don't know. I don't know if you think of anything like that. The thing that kind of marks the age a little bit is weapons of mass distraction. And that is, I think the country is being run by. I think we're bombing fishing boats, which, A, no fentanyl comes out of Venezuela. They don't have any fentanyl production. Not in fishing boats, that's for sure. And then if these fishing boats were the distribution system or the transportation system for the drug trade, which, by the way, is not the way you go after the drug trade, the transportation system.

40:10If they were, in fact, faring drugs or fentanyl, of which there's none in Venezuela, to Miami, these boats would need to make 20 stops to refuel, which is sort of logistically improbable, if not impossible. I believe we're bombing fishing boats because of a dead pedophile. I think they, every day, as soon as Epstein creeps back into the news, they try and come up with something. you know whether it's this health account nonsense or an additional 100 % tariff on Lithuania to try and distract them and then the other person that does this I mean the most powerful person in the world the wealthiest man in the world are literally deploying all their energy and firepower on distraction right now and Musk is like look at anything but the fact I have a car company trading at you know a revenue multiple that's never made sense for a car come Oh, look over here, it's robots.

41:01Look over here, it's autonomous. Look over here, it's AI. Like, jazz hands on fucking meth. Because it's not, if he just starts talking about Tesla as a car company and the metrics and what the plan is for this company that wraps steel around a motor, people are going to wake up and go, oh, it's a car company and take the stock down 80%. It's also, can I add something? It's more than that. It's also the idea that they can't shut up. I was just thinking this last night. I'm going on the show, Jennifer, you know, those two ladies. I've had ladies. And I had to think of I've had it. I have had it with them talking.

41:40Like, when Bill Ackman was giving dating advice, you know, I was thinking, like, I would call him a cheap-ass discount version of Scott Galloway. It was, first of all, stupid advice for young men. He's sort of moving into your space. I'd give him a smack-a-roo, Scott. But he's sort of copying. Yes. He put out this whole thing about, can I meet you? You go up to a girl at a bar and you say, can I meet you? Can I meet you? You just did you. Can I meet you? Can I meet you? That's his piece of advice. He like started giving dating advice. I'm like, can you just go back to hedge funds and stop commenting on everything?

42:15I bet he saw like the Galloways, number one, I need to get in on this thing. And it gives me a softer side of Sears kind of look. But yeah, he had, and it's completely bonehead. So just to be clear, I don't. But that's what I mean. Bezos can't shut up. I know, but I try and base my dating advice on research. So just real briefly, gentlemen, women are attracted to men sexually for three reasons. The first is signaling resources. So the bad news is, you know, that's a range of... To say I'm Bill Ackman. But you can also signal resources by having a plan and having your act together and demonstrating discipline.

42:47It's like signaling not only current but future resources. Second is intellect. What's the fastest way to communicate intellect, Kara? I don't know. Make a joke? Be funny. That's right. so I've told you my impersonation of a woman. I'm laughing, I'm laughing, I'm naked. And then, if you can make a woman laugh, she'll... I should not laugh at that, but it was fun. If you can make a woman laugh, she'll have coffee with her. And then the third thing, and this is the most underleveraged weapon in dating and the advice I have for young men, is kindness, and it's true. Women instinctively believe at some point they'll be vulnerable because of gestation, and they want someone who is a kind man.

43:24This all makes sense. Can I meet you does not. Yeah, so I don't give guys opening lines. I would start with, hey, where are you from? And then you read body language or... What's that old line? That's a nice shirt. It'll look great on my floor in the morning. Well, my big line is you give them the phone and ask them to take a picture of you. Everyone always says yes and no problem, and they're nice. And then you say, now can you turn it around on Periscope mode and take a picture of the two of us? And she'll go, why? And you say, because I want to show it to our kids. Oh, my God. That's so creepy.

43:59That would send me way, way, way. It's 5.56 in the morning. I'd be like, how can I get out of this place with my head intact? No, no one needs to take dating advice from a guy who lost his virginity at 19. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. No, but there's basics. I did not know Bill was getting— Is Bill getting into the young men game? I'm going to have to call Richard Reeves and Jonathan Hyde and elbow him out. I was like, what are you doing? Get out of scum. I was immediately angry. But it was also stupid. So I thought, okay, I'm angry, and yet it's stupid. He's like totally getting into the Scott game.

44:28He'll probably call you for lunch like they all do. Like, let's have lunch and chat. Let's talk about hedge funds, Bill. You're a hedge fund person. That's the only thing we want to talk to you about. I don't mind Bill that much. I think he's become a clown. I think he's a very talented investor. He's very good investor. Very risk-taking. But he needs to stop talking about everything else publicly. He could talk about it privately if he's interested in whatever. He reminds me there's a great show on Netflix. Only we can talk about things we're not supposed to talk. Do we have no domain expertise in?

44:58No, no, no. We know a lot about it. I do a lot of reporting. No, I don't talk about hedge fund investing. I don't know anything about it. I ask you. We just talked about the market. Yes, but you talked about it. I didn't because I don't know anything about it because you know something about it because you've been investing since 13 with Cy, apparently. That's right. But there's a show called The Beast and Me, and then we're going to move on. and it's with Matthew Rice and Claire Danes. And it's about this billionaire who lives next door to this Pulitzer Prize winning lesbian writer. It's kind of echoes.

45:29And he's such an irritating person. And literally they have a lunch that I have had with a dozen different tech people, rich people. And it was so like, he's so irritating in this show. He also might be a killer, but it's, anyway, just he's so irritating. So stop getting into Scott. I was defending you, Scott. I love that. I love how you're like a dog and you're like protecting my purse. Get away from my purse. Well, it's like cheap-ass discount, Scott Galloway. I don't want cheap-ass. I want the real fucking deal. You want the premium? You want that new leather smell? You want that new smell of— No, I don't want Bill Ackman to give dating advice.

46:07I'd like him to move along. Smell of men and speed save. I love hedge fund advice from Bill Ackman. I smell so weird right now. I bought Axe Spray in the airport because I didn't have deodorant. I smell like a 19-year-old. That's like a teenage boy. No, 19. Try 12. Yeah. My sons were done with it at 13. Anyway. Oh, that's the worst smell. I just have a memory of really bad smelling young men. Oh, my God. Just to put a finer point on the actual substance of the conversation. So at the peak of the dot-com bubble, all of big tech accounted for about 34 % of the S &P. There's just 10 companies now that account for 40%.

46:39And the 10 biggest companies in tech back then were 27%. So these companies are 50 % more expensive as a percentage. or they account for 50 % more as a percentage of the total S &P. So we are now in this was - Look out below territory. Well, if you look at what happened to these companies in 2000 and you look at their peak from which they fell, these companies are now 50%, have 50 % more market cap as a percentage of the total market. And then the Buffett test, where you take essentially the market cap of the S &P as a percentage of GDP, he likes it. I guess normally it trades around 80 or 90%.

47:17It's trading at 220 % right now. Yeah. Well, Buffett is mostly in cash, except he bought some Google shares. Oh, do you know he's assembled a war chest of$310 billion in cash? He did buy Google. Yeah, he bought Alphabet. That was interesting. And Apple and Amazon are probably the least vulnerable because they have not gone all in on AI like everybody else. But the narrative has changed really dramatically, which isn't to say that the market, my friend Barry Ritholtz reminded me that 97, when everyone said the market was overvalued, the Nasdaq doubled from that point. But this feels really, really wobbly.

47:57Going to go fast. That's my feeling. All right. Let's go on a quick break. And when we come back, bonds are thriving.

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51:39See, Scott, I'm availing myself to your expertise. We're back with more news. So bonds are having a moment, which is usually seen as a steady, predictable investment, is having its best year since 2020. So far, the Bloomberg U.S. Agribond Index has returned around 6.7 % in 2025. And you know who's noticed? President Trump. He's bought at least$82 million in corporate and municipal bonds since the end of the summer. According to ethics forms, we're talking about over 175 separate purchases here. And here's the interesting part. A bunch of these investments are in sectors that are so happen to benefit from his own policies.

52:13What a surprise. And by the way, I recommend watching Scott Pelley's piece on 60 Minutes about the finance CEO pardon. It's not new reporting by any stretch of the imagination, but he brings it together nicely. Anyway, is there a smart move for non-presidents? Explain this for the people. Again, I shall not comment because I don't know, but can I meet you? But go ahead. It's been a bit of a flight to safety. Interest rates, they're historically not that high, but in terms of recent history, they feel fairly rich. And I think what's going on here is pretty basic and that is a lot of investors feel the way I do, and that is we have no idea where to invest or find value.

52:54It feels like with gold up 55%, it's like, where do you go? Where all the stocks are overvalued, even foreign markets are getting, not frothy, but what feels like fully valued. And also, it feels like there's a lot of risk in the system. So if your return on bonds is fairly decent, and bonds are in the top of the cap structure, meaning that as long, NVIDIA could get cut by 90%, but it would likely still be able to pay off its debt or its bonds. And so people generally think of bonds as being a safer instrument, and they're getting actually paid for the risk, most people would argue right now, because of the run-up in interest rates and inflation.

53:34So kind of a safe haven is like people look at the market and go, I don't know where. When the Dow was trading at a P of 25 and the Russell 2000 at 34 with the median historical at 19 and 15 respectively, Like, okay, stocks are just too goddamn expensive. So there's been just a bit of a flight into the bond market, which has rallied the bond market. I don't think it's that bonds are such a great deal. I think it's a flight. I think it's a quote-unquote risk-off strategy. And there's more money to just float out of stocks into the bond market. I think it's a pretty basic kind of fear index. What do you think about Trump moving into them?

54:13You know, I don't know. More corruption? I don't know what's going on there. I think what's going to happen, I think the biggest thing that's going to happen in the debt markets is that essentially America is a giant bet on AI in terms of. Right. As you've noted, yeah. Everything is about AI now. If these companies get cut, I don't see any way that the global economy doesn't go into a recession. Because now the S &P dominates global market cap and these 10 companies are 40 % of the S &P. So 20 % of global market cap is in 10 companies. But if you think about, I mean, if this thing comes undone, it's just so, I don't know, I mean, it's just, quite frankly, it's just kind of scary.

54:58I'm sitting here thinking, wow, how do I get into bonds? What are you going to put your money in? Are you going to put gold up your ass? What are you doing? Where do I, you know, where do I put my money? Cash. And then, of course, you don't want to miss it. Yeah, it's very, it's a very fraught time, I think. Anyway. Oh, I'm sorry, but you asked about Trump. I'm sorry, I'm all over the place here. The biggest thing that's going to happen in the bond market, or it's going to be a weird thing, not only is America a giant bet on AI, Trump's presidency is a giant bet on AI. Because I just don't think he would— Very good point.

55:29If the market was down 14%, not up 14%, I don't think we'd have National Guard and cities. I just think he'd be so much less. The S &P and the Dow continue to be the most damaging metrics ever invested because they give the illusion of prosperity and that everything's all right. It is not. And they also credit or blame the president unfairly for the market's machinations. if this if the ai trade on on wines it's going to be terrible for trump so i think what he's going to do i think he's going to backstop the these enormous purchases and what i mean by that is if open ai says if we need 500 billion dollars to buy all these or commit to all these chips i think they're going to ask the government to backstop the debt and which is which is by the way socialism but i think he's going to do that but i wonder what's going to happen to the credit markets when all of a sudden...

56:24Are you kidding? That's going to drive MAGA crazy. He is going to lose so much election-wise if that happens. Well, the reason why treasury bills are so... pay a lower interest rate than corporate bonds is corporations are supposed to take greater risks. And also, they're not as creditworthy as the U.S. government. And when you start melding the private bond market and the U.S. treasury market, you're basically saying, okay, these are no longer... These take on the risk profile of corporate bonds then, which could raise interest costs. Interest costs are already our biggest, have become, I think, our biggest expense behind Social Security.

57:01They're a trillion dollars now. And that's even despite the fact that they trade, you know, most people would argue like a very safe instrument. He would basically raise our, I believe he would raise our interest rate costs by 100 or 200 billion a year. He better not do that. I think that will be, Margie will be mad about that. that one. Oh, you're right. MAGA will lose their shit over that. Anyway, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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1:00:32Okay, Scott, let's do wins and fails. I think I will go first. Go ahead. One thing that really irritates me now, I like Seth Meyers. I don't think he's my friend, but I talked to him and he's a really terrific guy. The administration's war on late night continues. President Trump is called on NBC to fire Seth Meyers after the show featured multiple roasts at his expense. Seth is very funny. President said Meyers was suffering from TDS or Trump derangement syndrome and described his performance as uncontrollable rage. It's ridiculous. In a normal world, that's fine. He can complain about it. He's obsessed with late night.

1:01:06He's obviously up late or something's happening by himself in his room with his clicker. and in an it what really irritated me once again fucking fcc chair brennan carr reshared the post you suck up toady do you understand the jig is frigging up for this guy at some point and you are going to go down hard hard let me just say he is should not be sharing this post um about firing people when he got into trouble before saying you know we're coming to get jimmy gimmel remember that we had to take back. I thought, I just, he is such a dumb fuck. I don't know what else to say, but Trump can yank, he yammers on about whoever, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

1:01:48I think he is putting her at risk, by the way. And by the way, call out to Dana Bash for pointing out, Marjorie, you weren't concerned about this until it was directed at you. And Greene said that's a fair criticism and you're right. But in this case, Brendan Carr continues to make the same stupid mistake because he's not very smart. My win, SNL this week, Glenn Powell was so spectacularly good on SNL. He was so good. He really fell into it really beautifully. He's shockingly, surprisingly funny because he's so handsome and he took off his shirt, of course. But there was an SNL AI photo sketch that it's not a new idea that AI photos are demented, sometimes can be demented, or videos that you make.

1:02:36That's been a trope for, you know, this AI slop thing and weird photos with six hands. It was so funny. It was about a grandmother and their kids giving them this AI photos that turn old photos into AI photos and they come alive. It was so funny. I recommend everybody see it. It just really encapsulated how fucking ridiculous these AI photo enhancements are. And I just think Glenn Powell, kudos. Okay. So my win is Tom Cruise received his first Oscar. I was here in LA and I kept seeing all these stars at the hotel. And I guess last night was the Governor's Award or something? Governor's Awards, yeah.

1:03:17And Tom Cruise was given an honorary Oscar for his contribution to the medium. But just, I've always thought that Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, and I think the same is actually true of Channing Tatum. He's in this cool movie called Roof Man. But I think these guys are so good looking that it actually diminishes the perception of just what fantastic actors they are. Is that what happens to you? That does happen to me. Me and Bill Ackman. People don't appreciate it. But just some of the movies, his body of work, obviously the Mission Impossible and Top Gun franchises. But people forget he was in Risky Business when he was a teenager.

1:03:57Edge of Tomorrow, Minority Report, Rain Man, The Color of Money, where Paul Newman finally got an Oscar, Collateral, A Few Good Men, Jerry Maguire. You can't handle the truth. Sorry. And my favorite film of his, Magnolia. I thought, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, I thought he should have got the award for that. Tropic Thunder. In the Stiller movie where he plays Harvey Weinstein, where he does his, what is it? Eyes Wide Shut. Tropic Thunder. I mean, this guy. Tropic Thunder, if you want to laugh your ass off, Tom Cruise is fantastic. Taps, The Last Samurai, which was actually a pretty good film.

1:04:38Even his bad films are pretty good. All the Right Moves, remember that? I like the Irish one. I hate to say it. I like when he's an Irish. Far and away. I'm a huge Tom Cruise fan. Despite the Scientologist, I think he's a creepy in real life dude. I have to say I've enjoyed his. He's not creepy. He's a Scientologist, but I've heard he's a really nice man. On sets, he's very generous. He's got that Taylor Swift generousness. He's tough on people in a good way. I would agree. You don't hear. It's just the Scientology thing. Vanilla Sky with the most beautiful woman in the world, Penelope Cruz. Anyways, congratulations.

1:05:14I think Tom Cruise is just an incredible talent. Nice. Nice. Okay, I like that. I'm going to agree with you. And anyways, my fail is the boring stuff. And that is, I just think we are in a crazy fucking overinflated market right now. If you look at even the emerging markets index is up 30%. That's outpaced the S &P. That was the trade I recommended at the end of last year was foreign stocks. And now that trade's kind of over. Bitcoin's at an all-time high, 126 ,000. I mentioned gold is up 55%. And now, I mean, everything is just so expensive. And whenever we get to this level of froth, sometimes there's not a crash.

1:05:59Sometimes it just plays out over a decade, which is sometimes even worse. It just goes, there's been entire decades, cara where the market just goes flat. Like New York real estate typically doesn't go down. It just goes sideways for 10 years. I was looking, I was reviewing all my investments over the last decade. And actually my real estate, the place I own in Manhattan has performed the least well. And that can happen when a market is frothy. Sometimes it's not a big dramatic media event. It just goes flat for 10 years. And the S &P forward P typically averages 17. It's now at 22. It's only traded above 22 times twice since 1985 during the wait for it dot com bubble and the COVID-19 pandemic.

1:06:44And after that, the market fell off sharply each time. Anyways, I'm usually I mean, granted, you know, Andrew Rostorkin and Josh Brown from Midholz Management have always reminded me and I need to do this. And it's one of my many flaws as an investor. You have to constantly ask yourself what could go right. And Andrew says that it's the optimists who have vastly beaten the pessimists in the market over the medium and the long term. Because of demographics and innovation, the market continues to kind of churn up. But this feels that the argument or the loss is I think it's unhealthy for an economy to have this kind of concentration of power and value.

1:07:23It creates fragility. And the corruption layered on top of it. Well, that doesn't help. No, bad decisions. But just the backstopping open AI, what a terrible decision. Oh, that would be terrible. But Nassim Taleb says he talks about fragility and anti-fragility and what the definition of robust is. And a robust industry is one where any one or number of companies go out of business and it wouldn't threaten the entire sector. So if McDonald's goes out of business, you're still going to be able to get your cheap fatty calories. So that actually the fast food industry is very robust. our economy is becoming very fragile because of the regulatory capture and also just the hysteria around this space.

1:08:01And we now have 10 companies that are literally the string that if they get pulled on, puts the global economy into a recession. So it's boring, but my fail is... Scott's worried in L.A. Well, a lack of antitrust. When it's great in L.A., I sure like. Anyways, my win is Tom Cruise finally getting the recognition he deserves. And my fail is we have let our economy become way too concentrated across a small number. We have an anti-fragile or we have a fragile economy right now based on this trade, which is, by the way, folks, it's now more crazy town than it was in 99. Correct. All right. That's really bracing and sobering.

1:08:44Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe. This week on with Kara Swisher, I spoke with filmmakers Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein about the American Revolution, their new six-part docuseries airing on PBS. I highly recommend it. Let's listen to a clip of Ken talking about young people. They're more open. They're persuadable. They went with the democratic socialist, you know? Democratic socialists don't kill Jews. National socialists kill Jews.

1:09:21Many of our allies are have been or are Democratic Socialists. I'm not worried about Democratic Socialists. I'm worried about dictators. That's what I'm worried about. And so are they because they told us which way they wanted to go. Okay, that was a great interview. And again, I recommend the show. And it's really full of things I didn't know, and I'm a history buff. Okay, 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. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

1:09:56Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Mia Saverio, and Dan Chalon. Nishat Kura is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.