Iran Market Disconnect, Vance v. Pope, and OpenAI Shades Microsoft and Anthropic

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22:51Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back. Amazon is acquiring a satellite operator, Global Star, in a deal worth around$11.5 billion as it tries to catch up to SpaceX Starlink. Under the agreement, Amazon gets Global Star's existing satellites and infrastructure, which will operate alongside Amazon's own network, now called LEO, after the Pope, I guess. Amazon says the deal will enable it to build direct-to-device satellite system with a rollout expected in 2028. FCC Chairman Brandon Carr says his agency is very open-minded to the deal, and the FCC is taking all gas, no brakes approach to expanding the U.S. space economy.

23:25Kara Swisher:He kind of has to. He just kind of has to. Talk about this because obviously Amazon isn't going away and they're trying to solidify this network for themselves to be at least the number two player here. My big stock pick for 2025 was Alphabet. We got that one right. My big tech stock pick for 26 is Amazon. This is what I think Amazon is going to do. They are going to build a viable competitor to Starlink using Kuiper as a platform. And this is another step in that. It's called Leo now. It's called Leo. I'm sorry, Project Leo. Basically, they've bought 24 satellites here. And it's never been profitable.

24:08But Amazon closed up 3%. And this is what I think Amazon's strategy is. Amazon's going to launch a phone. And then they're going to offer Amazon Prime Plus, which will offer you a phone and lightning-fast connectivity into your home. They're going after AT &T, Verizon, and Comcast and basically going to offer you connectivity with Amazon Prime. And they need the satellites to do this. So why would they buy a non-profitable satellite company? Again, see above 24 satellites. They get Spectrum. They get radio waves, the wireless signals, including Wi-Fi, travel on. The government owns these and issues specific licenses for them.

24:47But Spectrum is auctioned off by the FCC and extremely expensive, so they get that. They could do for B2C, again, Amazon price, they could sell Wi-Fi to Prime subscribers. At B2B, they could sell private wireless networks to serve its warehouses, delivery hubs, robots, drones. Robots and drones need this connectivity to communicate wirelessly constantly. And it's much easier if it's cost efficient if Amazon has its own network.

25:12Kara Swisher:Yeah, so it's a strong number, too. It's to create a strong number, too. This is essentially what Amazon is. It's the strongest infrastructure company in the world. It's an extension of their investment in the logistics network. And right now, Project LEO has 240 operational satellites. It plans to ramp up its network by deploying 3 ,200 in Earth's low orbit by 2029. Starlink has over 10 ,000. This is definitely catch-up. But Amazon has 115 million homes to offer this service to overnight. Right, the relationship with consumers, right? So you have to go out and buy Starlink. And people do love it.

25:48Kara Swisher:And I have to say, you know, oddly enough, Jose Andres, who has had has a huge beef with with Musk over USAID saying he's killing essentially saying he's killing people. He said we used to turn it as critical to our world central kitchen operations. And I think he would like an alternative, but he definitely said it's really a shame. I wish that Elon was around and not this other one, which is, you know, hugely damaging to their efforts across the world feeding people. But between that fertilizer and that, like the cuts at USAID, they're facing, you know, a huge uphill battle against hunger across the world.

26:24Kara Swisher:But one of the things that's happening here is you get an all. This is what happened with Tesla. This is what happened. There's going to be number twos. Now, will it have an impact on the SpaceX IPO? I doubt it. I think it's going to be like it's going to run. Oddly enough, interestingly enough, Google is a big owner of it, of the SpaceX IPO. They're going to make like many commas of money from this deal. So that should that would that that'll be an interesting thing, because many years ago, Yahoo owned a big piece of Google. I don't know if you remember in the beginning. And that's what saved them for a while, like having that investment in in Google that they made.

27:02Kara Swisher:And now in this case, Google is going to make a lot of money from these SpaceX. But I don't think the SpaceX IPO will be damaged in any way. Correct. from your perspective. No, it's arguably one of the strongest brands in the world right now, and people are excited about it. It'll go out wildly overpriced. I think it'll get a slight bump. It'll be the biggest IPO of 26. The best IPO of 26 will be Anthropic, which will get out ahead of OpenAI, because it has more momentum. But it's going to be, again, if you look at SpaceX, I think 18 billion in revenue, 6 billion in profits. So when it's going out at 100 times revenue, it's growing 24 % a year.

27:45When Google went public, it was growing 240 % a year and trading at 10 times revenues. So SpaceX, incredible company, the most overvalued IPO in history. The answer is yes. This is just insane, the valuation they're talking about.

28:00Kara Swisher:Yes, yeah. And I think it's great that there's more satellite efforts like this. There has to be at least two or three. I mean, there's not going to be more than that, by the way, because the costs are so huge, but it's good for having run for their money. Speaking of OpenAI and Anthropic, OpenAI is distancing itself from Microsoft and cozying up to Amazon, which is interesting. In a memo sent to staff, OpenAI's Revenue Chief, Denise Dresser, said the Microsoft partnership has limited the company's ability to meet enterprises where they are. No, no shit. On the other hand, Dresser said the company's Amazon deal has generated, frankly, staggering demand.

28:35Kara Swisher:Dresser also used the memo to go after Anthropic, accusing the rival of building its strategy on, quote, fear, restriction, and the idea that a small group of elites should control AI. Obviously, they're trying to hurt Anthropic in the race to an IPO. They're throwing Microsoft under the bus. And interestingly, speaking of Anthropic news, the company has recently received multiple offers from VCs to invest at valuations as high as$800 billion. And Anthropic has briefed the Trump administration about its new mythos model, which is not being released to the public, as we talked about last week, due to its alleged cybersecurity capabilities.

29:12Kara Swisher:Dezos-owned Washington Post said that efforts by the Pentagon to thwart anthropic are stupid, which was interesting this week. So they're fighting it out in court. I suspect the Trump administration is going to start dropping that soon enough. But talk a little bit about this OpenAI memo, which was obviously leaked in order to get it out there. And this idea of breaking from Microsoft sidling up to Amazon and attempting to stain Anthropic in some way, which I think is stupid in my estimation. Anthropic has more momentum than any company in the world right now. It's gone, I mean, it's gone at the end of 2025, which wasn't that long ago.

29:55Its ARR was 9 billion. It's now 30 billion. It's more than tripled its annual recurring revenue in four months. And by the way, OpenAI is$25 billion. So the little engine that was kind of an afterthought to OpenAI just 12, 18 months ago is now a bigger business than OpenAI. And this is the first time that Anthropic has led on revenue and it's growing faster. And not only that, it's a better business because that growth is almost exclusively enterprise-driven, which is a better business.

30:28Kara Swisher:So what is OpenAI doing here by releasing? They released the memo. Let's not pretend that this is what they were doing. What's the messaging? This has become Coke versus Pepsi. And, yeah, I think it feels desperate. I do, too. They're trying to weaponize the government against them. They're trying to shitpost them. These guys hate each other. It's the Hadfields versus the McCoys. And Anthropic has 1 ,000 customers paying over$1 million a year. That's up from just 500 in February. The number of customers spending over$1 million a year has doubled in the last— So they don't seem to care about the Pentagon thing at all.

31:04Kara Swisher:You had thought they might, but it looks like they don't. It looks like they don't. The numbers here—let me give you some more data. 80 % of Anthropic's revenues come from business clients who, quite frankly, are just more reliable and less margin-sensitive than consumers versus 40 % at OpenAI. 70 % of every incremental dollar spent on AI coming from the enterprise is going to Anthropic. They raised$30 billion in their Series G at a$380 billion valuation, which is ridiculously low compared to the$850 billion valuation that OpenAI did, guaranteeing a 17 % return, which could crush previous investors if they don't, if they have to go out lower than that.

31:44But they also said, I mean, both companies are exploring an IPO this year. And Anthropic projects positive free cash flow by 2027. OpenAI has said they're going to break even in 2030. But the bottom line is, Dario Amodi is just showing himself to be a much more competent CEO than Sam Altman. Right.

32:07Kara Swisher:Let me ask you a question. This focus on consumer, here's what I see. Open Ag definitely focused on consumer and being like Kleenex or Google, right? That was what they were going for. The one that everyone thinks of, Chad GPT, is Kleenex, right? Or Google or whatever, the representative of everything. So they relied on the consumers. Then they have a really, they start, Sam Altman starts to get a very bad consumer reputation. So he, like, up to and including people attacking his home, right, which is heinous. They have relied on consumer relationships, which are very easy to break, right? Suddenly you become the bad guy.

32:47Kara Swisher:And I think that's one of the things. But bear-hugging Amazon and pushing away Microsoft, what is that? If you're in the room, what do you think the strategy is? The honest truth is I don't know. My guess is there's some ego involved here and some dynamics behind the scenes that I just don't understand. But let me be clear. It's not easy to build a consumer brand. It can be very powerful. I'm not suggesting. I'm biased because all my businesses have always been B2B. And the one business I did, B2C, Red Envelope, was just so much fucking harder, that I found, than building a B2B business. Now, what I think the dynamic here is the following.

33:22The reason why Anthropic is going to be worth more and get to the IPO starting line faster than OpenAI as an enterprise-dominant business as opposed to a consumer business of OpenAI, it's not necessarily that one is much better than the other, but here's the difference in terms of competitive dynamics. you can get as a consumer a really outstanding LLM and AI for free. If you're a company, if you're Clorox looking for a$3 million enterprise-wide LLM AI offering, there's no free alternative. So in sum, the substitutes on the consumer level are just much greater than the substitutes at an enterprise level, which says to me, whoever dominates enterprise has just a much better business.

34:09Also, with just a duopoly, if one is perceived as better, which right now Anthropica is perceived as better in the enterprise, enterprises are much less consumer sensitive because if they're going to implement technical debt, they don't care if it's 30 % more expensive.

34:28Kara Swisher:Is it a mistake to then say, we didn't get in the enterprise fast enough due to Microsoft, which may in fact be the case, and now we're going to hug Amazon. That makes no fucking It's making sense. Right. Why do it? You're going to piss off. Why are they doing it? You're going to piss off one of the most important, measured, thoughtful people in tech, such a Nadella. Who backed you. That just makes no sense. Who backed you when you were in trouble. Yeah, and it shows that you're not getting along with it. You have these fights behind the scenes. You don't say that publicly. You don't get into a war with Microsoft.

34:56Kara Swisher:Well, they didn't. It was a memo that got out, but they leaked the memo. I mean, this is my feeling. But one of the things they have to do is they have a problem with their image. Because they're the face of AI, they're the face of AI, right? Well, Dario looks like a hero from a marketing point of view at the very least. And so that's, I think, the real problem is Sam Altman represents AI, which everybody is hating on. Like young people, all the polls, everybody has a problem with it. And when the problem shows, you look at someone like Sam Altman and not Dario, you know, Dario's not getting the kind of hatred that Altman is getting now, which I think is a problem.

35:34Kara Swisher:But why hug Amazon, too? Because Amazon is executing against infrastructure like no one's business. And if you want to, I mean, arguably, Amazon from an enterprise level is the most discerning consumer in the world. And Amazon is the best infrastructure company in the world. I think there's some ego here. I think someone got pissed off at someone. But you don't get into a public tiff with Microsoft. By the way, just in terms of stocks, Microsoft does a multiple of free cash flow. It's cheaper than it's ever been. I think Microsoft's a really good buy right now. But look, Anthropic has so much momentum right now, and OpenAI does not.

36:16Get this. Kalshi is saying the odds of Sam Altman being replaced as CEO are up to 27%. I mean, for the first time, Sam Altman being replaced by the end of the year is a real possibility. Because OpenAI, public tiffs with Microsoft, who was supposed to be your partner in this, throwing up, totally shitting the bed in the enterprise market, all this negative PR and press. I mean, and there's just no getting around it. But Anthropic is worth more than OpenAI right now. And so I think Sam, I think they were smart to be focused. They're going to do away with that ridiculous fucking nonsense from IO.

36:58That was the stupidest acquisition of 24 or whatever it was. That's going to be a$6 billion write-off. They're smart to stay focused. But this is a tale of two cities. And one city is skyrocketing, and that's Anthropic. And the other is burning up on reentry. And that's open AI.

37:18Kara Swisher:You know, I think about it is. But the posturing is important, right? So Altman is fighting with Musk on that case, which is going to be full. It's going to trial, it looks like, this case. So that's going to bring unnecessary, no matter what, Elon fights, you know, with a lot of swords. So it doesn't, he'll land some blows even if he's, and make them look bad. He will, even if he looks, he doesn't care because he's like the villain. So it's fine if he makes other people look like a villain. I mean, from a public perspective. They're also, you know, it's not just Altman. It's like someone like Chris Lehane, who I find very aggressive, right?

37:55Kara Swisher:And this is a very aggressive group of people that sounds like they're not getting along internally. You sort of feel rumbles of that. You know, the mistakes of not embracing enterprise and going full scale into popularity, I think, is always, if you don't make that transition, as you said, it's really difficult. And quietly, this other group has done this. Now, I agree, they shouldn't be fighting with Microsoft, but they made the mistake and now they're blaming their partner for that, right? The ability to meet enterprises where they are because they're actually - They look like they're flailing.

38:30Kara Swisher:They're competing with Microsoft. They are competitors in that space. So anyway. But what's to be gained by shitposting Microsoft in public? I don't know. What do they get? Just to say we're serious about the enterprise. We're going to really compete in the enterprise. Now we're serious. I don't know. I don't know. I don't understand this memo whatsoever. But what enterprise is going to hire OpenAI because they've been critical of Microsoft? I absolutely don't get it. These people have egos. Sachin Adela doesn't need SIEM. I mean, Microsoft could write off its investment in open AI. Quite frankly, the market has already done that.

39:08The market has taken Microsoft's stock down, I don't know, 20 or 25 percent in the last six months. The trouble in Mudville has already been perceived by the market with respect to Microsoft's playing in traffic with open AI and that their investment in open AI may not end up being, you know, the kicker and the afterburner everyone thought it was.

39:28Kara Swisher:Amazon got in at better rates, essentially. But go ahead. And a guy like Satya Nadella doesn't scare easily. I absolutely don't understand who approved this public spat. And it says to me that OpenAI does not have a board that would say, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's get in a war with Microsoft. There's ego here. Someone got pissed off at something. Yeah, so going after Anthropic as being fear restriction idea this small is just sort of so backward looking. When you start attacking the number two, there's something going on, especially I think they were trying to get reporters interested in this run rate and, you know, inflation of revenues, which, by the way, no one really cares about with these companies at this point.

40:11Kara Swisher:They want to know who the leader is going to be. Anyway, I mean, they should care, but they don't. There's a general crucible rule, fundamental truth in branding and marketing is that when you're the market leader or you want to be perceived as the market leader, which I think OpenAI would say we are the leader and we want to be perceived as a market leader. You never reference the competition. You don't. You just never. Visa was a client of mine back in my brand strategy days at Profit. And I said, why wouldn't you talk about this versus MasterCard? And he goes, we're the market leader. We never referenced the competition.

40:49When you reference the competition, you're immediately saying they're a competitor. And when you're the market leader, what you want to say is we have no. Coke never referenced Pepsi. Coke never did a taste test. They're like, we don't even, as far as we're concerned, Pepsi doesn't exist because we're fucking Coca-Cola.

41:04Kara Swisher:I've done that. I used to do when they were talking about competitors. I'm like, who? I'd do things like, I'm sorry, I didn't see it. Like, I would.

41:14I don't do that. I'm always like, Scott? I don't know Scott. Who's that? Who's that? I think someone said he has a picture of me. Yeah, I think. Behind him on his podcast. He's a stalker. The personal learning here is the following, or what I've finally come to peace with. When people shitpost you or criticize you online, the best revenge, hands down, indifference. Just indifference.

41:38Kara Swisher:You've gotten good on that. Don't mention it. Remember, you used to get mad at certain people attacking you. Well, I wasn't used to it. I used to be this cute professor that everyone said nice things about. And then when I got big because of you, people started actually looking at my shit and saying, this makes no sense. And I would get upset. Anyway, I'm fine now. And then I discovered edibles. Yeah, it's good. Anyway, you've gotten much better about that, I have to say. Getting off of Twitter, which you did first, I will acknowledge. I'm sorry for making that mistake last week. Anyway, another interesting story.

42:07Kara Swisher:We're going to go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about a potential. United American Airlines merger seems unlikely, but here we go.

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44:41Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back with more headlines. The CEO of United Airlines reportedly pitched a merger with American Airlines directly to Donald Trump. Of course, the two companies combined would account for about 40 percent of the U.S. domestic flying capacity. Industry experts in law makes sure they're pushing back, flagging major antitrust concerns. I mean, even I know that. As one analyst puts it, the Justice Department doesn't object to that. What would they object to? Trump is staying quiet for now with the press secretary, Kieran Leavitt, saying he has no opinion on a potential merger. I mean, I don't mind this guy trying it, but why not?

45:13Kara Swisher:It's the last days of Nero's empire here, so why not? But this seems like something that would be dead on arrival. I just don't see it. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, but you just you summarized it perfectly. And that is the last days of Nero. And that is you're going to see in the next two years, you're going to see so many mergers proposed because everyone's going to go, there's no fucking way an FTC or a DOJ that is not in a deep coma would allow this. So if we're, you know, if we're one of the two most dominant places, you're just going to see mergers like crazy because they're going to go, this is our last chance because this absolutely makes no sense from a concentration and monopoly standpoint.

45:56This should not be allowed to happen. It would create the largest airline on earth, 30 to 40 percent of U.S. domestic capacity. And I don't know if anyone's noticed, airline tickets are skyrocketing.

46:07Kara Swisher:Oh, I have. I just bought some. I was looking at a one-way from Miami to London business class, and it was 11 grand. I know, it's crazy. Kirby's argument to the administration, a combined airline would be a stronger competitor internationally. Okay, yeah. He noted two-thirds of long-haul seats from two from U.S. are on foreign carriers, but 60 % of passengers are American, framing it as a trade deficit issue. And also, American, I love airlines, I love aviation. Delta does the best job domestically. JetBlue's mint is the best product, but America has the worst product. They're the weakest of the big three,$111 million in net income last year on$54 billion in sales, basically break even.

46:52And it carries$25 billion in long-term debt, more than its rivals. On the other hand, United, which is a better-run company, did$3.4 billion on$59 billion. American Airlines stock jumped nearly 10 % on the news.

47:06Kara Swisher:So what does that say? That it could happen? This can't happen. This won't happen. No way. Well, the market thinks it might because, again, see above the guy. It's just fucking ridiculous that CEOs go kiss the ass of the president to try and get a merger through. He should have nothing to do with this. But the antitrust problems here are striking. There are 289 routes where the two carriers overlap. And combining them would leave only one or two airlines serving that route. See above increase in prices. They will fuck consumers so hard. Some of the routes that overlap are Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Phoenix, Charlotte could require divesting entire hub operations in some cities.

47:45And the DOJ previously blocked the JetBlue Spirit deal, which was a fraction of this size. So this is exactly the kind of deal that shouldn't even be considered if there was a DOJ or an FTC that was independent and looked at consumer prices. And these consumer mergers and the lack of regulation does two things. It transfers capital from labor and from consumers to shareholders, full stop. And it's been a one-way flow of capital and power for the last 30 years. And the DOJ and FTC have almost no reviews anymore. I mean, it's like if you want to save money, get rid of the DOJ and the FTC. What the fuck are they doing now?

48:27Kara Swisher:They can't. They absolutely cannot do this. I mean, you know, it's interesting because on Monday there you're seeing significant pushback. We'll talk about this more on two things I want to talk about on Monday. The significant pushback to Paramount now, a lot of Hollywood is now like got the pitchforks out, essentially. I don't know if they can do anything about it at this point, but you see them like really organizing at Cinecom, all these places. There's all this pushback. And again, David Allison wouldn't show up for a hearing in Congress about this. just for personal reasons, but there's just a lot of pushback there.

49:05Kara Swisher:And you sort of see it beginning to coalesce, these ideas of, no, I don't think so, which is interesting. You'll see if this happens. Like, I feel like people are quite in the mood to stop these things now. And that's going to be, they're going to overreach on the other side, probably. But it feels like this is like, I can't even believe this guy did this. Like, I'm just like, well, okay. And Trump has no political capital to take this on at this point. No way. It's just never happening. I don't see it. I don't see how he did. I need to correct the record. The DOJ and the FTC do serve a purpose.

49:40They did decide that Live Nation was a monopoly, which was the right decision.

49:45Kara Swisher:Yeah. We'll see. We'll see where it's going. There's a lot of pushback on all these things. But you're right. They're going to keep trying to do so as things comport. And then we'll get to a normal level again, hopefully. One thing that's interesting, about 5 million kids have signed up for Trump accounts, 1.2 million eligible for$1 ,000 Treasury seed deposits. The accounts were created through Trump's big, beautiful bill and are set to officially launch July 4th. The Bank of New York Mellon will manage the accounts and Robinhood will build a Trump accounts app. What do you think about Robinhood, known for getting people into risky trades involved in this?

50:20Kara Swisher:Obviously, another suck up to Trump in some fashion. But I have several friends who are just doing it. It's like$1 ,000 free dollars. Like, why not? Like, why not? It seems like let's take the money and use it to save for college or whatever you want to save for for kids. Any thoughts on this? I love this concept. I remember meeting with a guy named Alex von Furstenberg a couple years ago, and he was pitching me on the idea of baby bonds, and he was very passionate about it, and he's been very involved in it. I love the concept of, at the very outset, giving, you know, for every infant born, giving them some money and letting compound, you know, the most powerful force in the universe.

51:00I would have gone much deeper than this. For$40 billion a year, you could give$7 ,000 to every baby. And then I would totally infantilize them and not let them touch it until they're 65. You spend$40 billion a year. And then in 20 or 30 years, you announce in another 20 or 30 years, we're no longer going to need Social Security because everyone's going to have a million bucks at 65. Interest rates dive and it pays for itself. But our Congress doesn't want to think faster than their fucking two-inch dicks.

51:25Kara Swisher:Is there danger here of riskiness for people's, like, I mean, this is free money. That's what I can, you know, someone, she has just said, oh, I took a Trump account. I'm like, are you kidding? Grab it. Like, absolutely take a Trump account. Oh, why wouldn't you? Yeah, if you're eligible. So just to give you a sense of compound interest, you know, my kid's going to college next year. When he was born in 2000 and, when was my kid born? 2007. I put$10 ,000 and I think it's called a 529. Yeah, I did too. New York account. I did too. And I'm like, I'm worried about college. I don't, I was a clinical professor making 160 grand a year living in faculty housing.

52:04And so I thought, okay, I'll scrape together 10 grand. And I didn't do it again. I was stupid. I didn't do it again. I just looked it up online because I'm like, oh, what about that 529 I did? Now, granted, the markets have ripped. Do you know what that$10 ,000 is worth right now? A couple hundred thousand dollars. No, 85. Oh, okay. But still, in 18 years, it went from 10 to 85.

52:24Kara Swisher:Oh, I put more in. I did them for both boys. I paid for all of college with Louie and Alex. And people have controversies around 521s. You could have done better in the market. But I just put it away and forgot about it. And I added the maximum amount to it at the time. Yeah, but it's tax-free. You can take it out. That's tax-free. I just was like, I don't even want to find it. I know I could probably do better in the market, but I don't care. I had the money. It was a certain bet. I don't think you could have because the difference, just to explain it, if you invested$10 ,000 and I had 85 in the market, say, out 100, I'd have to pay capital gains on it.

52:58Whereas if you apply it towards tuition or school supplies, you don't have to pay taxes on the gains. My point is the idea of giving kids, every baby born, a retirement account, I wouldn't let them have access to 18 or 25. The problem is, and the thing that's going to bankrupt our nation as we continue to send more and more old people who vote, old people vote themselves more money. We have to reduce entitlements for old people. And this is the way to do it.

53:28Kara Swisher:So they're not entitlements, they're investments. I mean, I think the danger, obviously, is if we remove it completely, is people are, you know, subject to whatever the vicissitudes of the market. And that's always been the worry, right? That's why it's called social security. There has never been. OK, but there has no you could buy any five stocks since the beginning, the beginning of the markets. You could buy any five stocks in the S &P. And if you hold on to them for 10 years, you've never lost money because of demographics and innovation. The long term trajectory of the market. Now, there's been there's been decades where it's gone flat.

54:02But over the over the long over the long term, there's nothing like the up and to the right of the markets. and I think this is a great idea. I agree.

54:13Kara Swisher:I put that money away for my kids and I never paid a dime for college because it had been saved and put away. And it was all tax-free. It paid for their dorms. It paid for their food. And Alex eats a lot. And it was great. And I was like... That meal plan. Yeah, Michigan is losing money on Alex. And the very end of Louis' college thing, And Alex went to a less expensive college. It was just a little bit of money. But it was zero. It was the best money I ever invested, I have to say. Anyway, speaking of which, Alex was your turn 21. Congratulations, Alex. You're on your own. All right, Alex. I know.

54:53Kara Swisher:Good for you, man. I know. Of course, he was studying last night. I was like, Alex, go get a drink. Go get a drink. Yeah. My guess is he's already done that. I know. But he's like, that might be a good idea. I was like, I have to study for fluid dynamics. Look, this is the bottom line, or this is a theory you want to tap into. The most profitable businesses in the world tap into one thing, and that is a flaw in our instincts. We're desperate for affirmation. We're desperate for free gaming. We're desperate for opportunities to procreate. So we buy Ferraris, we go on Instagram, and we gamble. The highest margin products in the world tap into a flaw in our instincts.

55:35You want to reverse that and tap into the following flaw, and that is humans are really bad with respect to the time-space continuum. What do I mean by that? Because for the majority of our time on this planet, we haven't lived past 35, and now we live to 80. People have no sense of how fast time is going to go. And they say, well, the markets are up 9 % to 10 % a year. That's nothing. I'm not going to invest in the markets. I can make more money as a baller opening a restaurant or opening my company goes public. You are going to graduate from college. You're going to blink. You're going to have a couple of kids.

56:11You're going to have some joy. You're going to have some grief. And you're going to wake up and you're going to be fucking 60 years old. It happens so fast. It's great to save money. So this is what you want to do. Save money. You want to, at a very young age, figure out a way where you don't even get the cash in your hands. matching programs at work, 529s, baby bonds, automatic withdrawals, and just a little bit of money from an early age, and then blink, you're 65, and you look at that account, and you have a shit ton of money. This is a flaw. This is your revenge. This is a way you put scaffolding on the instincts that are flawed.

56:47Kara Swisher:Yeah, I agree. Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

56:56Hi, I'm Brene Brown. And I'm Adam Grant. And we're here to invite you to the Curiosity Shop. A podcast that's a place for listening, wondering, thinking, feeling, and questioning. It's going to be fun. We rarely agree. But we almost never disagree. And we're always learning. That's true. You can subscribe to the Curiosity Shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically receive new episodes every Thursday. For the last 10 years, everything in American politics has basically revolved around one man. And as a political journalist who came of age during Donald Trump's rise in 2016, I've had a front row seat.

57:35Kara Swisher:I am officially running for president of the United States. It's going to be only America first. America first. Thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol building. But is it possible to talk about politics without talking about Donald Trump? That's the question I'm going to ask in our new show from Vox. The idea of like a post-Trump or not exactly Trump-focused show can exist because he's not really driving any agenda items. It really does feel like so reactive. You know, I think this Iran thing is also going to cause a big split in the GOP. So far it doesn't among like people who say they're MAGA voters are still with Trump.

58:16But like for the first time, you see on a major issue, open opposition from the start of this war. I'm Estet Herndon and welcome to America Actually.

58:31Kara Swisher:OK, Scott, let's hear up predictions. Is it about all birds now that it's an AI business? No, just move along. No, I had two and one of them was all birds. OK, so I'll go to that one because you prompted me. My prediction was going to be anthropic IPS before open AI. but that's boring and I've already talked about Anthropic. So I'll go to the one you suggested. The Allbirds pivot to AI will inspire a bunch of copycats. You're going to see Chegg, GameStop, Rent the Runway, all decide they're AI companies. So this is what's happened. Allbirds, the one type sneaker brand, they just sold its IP for 39 million two weeks ago, down from a$4 billion peak valuation, is rebranding as - Uncomfortable sneaker business, but go ahead.

59:15This rebranding is Newbird AI and pivoting to leasing AI chips, GPUs. The company is buying$50 million or secured$50 million in financing to buy GPUs and lease them to customers. And shares spiked nearly 900 % at intraday highs on the announcement. So what is this going to do? Just like remember when Bitcoin treasury companies went crazy and all these different companies decided they were now Bitcoin treasury companies. So we've seen this movie before and it doesn't end well. Long Island IT Corp rebranded as Long Blockchain in 2017 to ride the crypto wave, and its shares were eventually delisted, and the SEC brought insider trading charges.

59:55Shocker. New Bird, if you will, what I call New Bird, will soon be No Bird. So the prediction is the following. All Bird and this ridiculous fucking jazz hands pivot to AI that resulted in a massive one-day spike. Ton of copycats, and it doesn't end well.

1:00:11Kara Swisher:What does it end? How does it end? These companies have short-term pops. The insiders who get the shares before they announce it dump the bag. And then the people who think this is anything resembling a company with enterprise value end up losing a shit ton of money. is similar to all the Bitcoin treasury companies. When you try and it's like, remember in the early 2000s, when I remember being in a meeting, a board meeting at Williams-Sonoma, where we seriously contemplated changing the name of the company to williamsonoma.com because we thought that would add shareholder value. And Howard Lester, who was one of like the clearest blue flame thinkers in retail, it's like, that's just fucking stupid.

1:00:48We're not doing that. Anyways, when you're just trying to create the illusion you're in a hot area with absolutely no domain expertise, IP, or advantage. Sure, call it AI, a pop. If you're in Allbirds right now, just take it from me, sell. But you're going to see a dozen of these things announced in the next 90 days.

1:01:10Kara Swisher:It's so stupid. People did mock it, which is good. All right. I have no predictions today. I predict that Scott Galloway will be a star of my show this weekend. Everybody watch it because Scott is very funny and actually has a lot of serious and significant things to say about health care and longevity. And he's really good. I don't remember that part. I remember falling asleep. I don't remember saying anything substantive. You did. And you sound great. You sound really good. You actually say a lot of substantive things. Anyway, he looks great and you get to see him sleep. Anyway, we want to hear from you.

1:01:43Kara Swisher:Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot. Send a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott Universe this week on Prof G. Markets. Scott spoke with Catherine Ann Edwards, PhD economist and Bloomberg news columnist, on why AI is only one factor behind the challenges young workers are facing. Let's listen to a clip. It's not as if the only thing standing between young workers and a job is what private employers are doing or say they are doing or will do with AI. We have a weak economy and a weak labor market with terrible social supports and almost no investment in people that don't have a job.

1:02:19Kara Swisher:There are solutions that don't have to come from just knowing more about AI, but have to come from holding our policymakers accountable for economic mismanagement. AI is today's story, but there will be another one. Weakness is weakness in the labor market. We don't have great infrastructure for helping people who don't have a job. That's 100 % right. It's so true. She's super smart. You'd like her. Yeah. Anyway, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll have lots to talk about next week. There's so many topics happening. And we'll be back next week to do so.

1:03:21We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Have a great weekend, Kara.

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