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Does anyone really know what goes on behind closed doors at the Supreme Court? Four years ago, I got a tip about the court, and I was not in the market to cover it whatsoever. But this tip was about a secret influence campaign that had been carried out inside the court. As you know, the very idea of that is outrageous.
I'm Free Ferrara, and this week, New York Times investigative journalist Jody Cantor joins me to discuss her expose on the court's shadow docket. The episode is out now. Search and follow, stay tuned with Free, wherever you get your podcasts. I got to hang out with Larry David.
It's like angry meet depressed, depressed meet angry. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.
And I'm Scott Galloway. Scott, if you recovered from South by Southwest. I'm still passing in the glow. I thought it was great.
It was good. Yeah, I had a good time. In the end, it was really fun. What was your favorite highlight of it?
What was your favorite highlight? The way Representative Tallarico described masculinity, and he talks about his father, I guess, who used to come home on Sunday and immediately change and then mow their lawn. And then, without ever talking about it, he's going next door and mow the lawn of his old ladies. And I need to try that.
Yeah, that was a good start. You mentioned it at the show, though. Did you ever mow people's lawns? I used to mow lawns for money, but I didn't do it.
I showed up to the house before I mow the lawn and said, hey, seven bucks in Ohio, and I'll mow your lawn. Oh, wow. And I had a manual lawnmower, and I was all about 120 pounds pushing my lawnmower around. So you were not taught to mow people's lawns?
No, I was taught to make money. My dad was like, go make money. Go make money. Interesting.
I think jobs are huge for teens. Yeah, yeah. My son got a job at a taco truck last summer. It was so good for him.
Anyways, I think chores, jobs, and sports. I mean, anyways. Anyways, what he's been asking is because it's introspection. I mean, you're introspection.
Oh, I've got much more introspective. Today, I'm here in Tulum. I've had some time to really contemplate, and I've decided it's time for me at this age here. It's time for me to start living my dream, so I'm going to start showing up for tests I'm not prepared for naked.
Well, as always, so you're in the Mark Inreason School. Have you heard about this situation? Let me just say what it is. Mark Inreason, who I really don't like anymore.
I didn't like that much then, but he's really become such a troll. He said, he was part of the Netscape browser thing. I wouldn't say he was the only person who did take a lot of credit. Important entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, and et cetera.
Now he's a venture capitalist. On the Founders podcast with David Senra, he said, my goal is zero introspection, as little as possible. 400 years ago, it would never occur to anyone to be introspective, like the whole idea. I mean, just all the modern concepts around introspection and therapy and all the things that kind of result from that are kind of manufactured in the 1910s, 1920s.
This is very much in line with him being an expert on everything. He used to lecture me about things he knew nothing about a lot. All it says to me is this man is in desperate need of therapy. He's just trying to be like, I don't think about anything.
And I find it very dystopian, and I find him dystopian in general. But this idea that introspection is a weakness, again, is not masculine. It's not feminine. It's not human, I think, in some way.
Yeah, I think it's important to occasionally do some sort of pondering. Ask yourself, if you could only bring one thing to a desert island, what would you bring? And I decided the answer is I wouldn't go. I need edibles, streaming media, and my plane care.
No, look, in all seriousness, it's as if these guys, all men and Andreessen, hired a publicist, the brightest person in the world, and said, how do we convince humanity we're bad for humanity? And this notion that technology requires less energy to get to a point of critical thinking than a human is just so nihilist and so weird. And then introspection is how we move forward as a species. I was like Socrates, Plato, Marcus Aurelius.
Like, it's been around. He's like, oh, this is just the 1910s. He's so ignorant. Like, the idea that introspection is a critical element of all philosophy going back.
Also, by the way, Jesus tested the Bible. It's all about thinking about it. Reflecting on how you become a better. Introspection is why we have the Marshall Plan and why people reconnect with their family members.
Introspection is how you try to become a better person and realize the errors of your actions and your actions have ramifications and what can you do to leave the world a better place? And it's indicative, again, of this far-right, performative, I don't even call it masculineity, but macho, that I don't care. I just plow ahead because I'm such a baller. It's just like, okay.
It's crazy. My grandmother didn't respect a lot. She grew up in the Depression, right? She didn't wonder if she was happy.
I think she probably could have been happier, right? That kind of thing. And there's an element to that. But this idea of thoughtfulness has not been around since the dawn of fucking time drives me crazy.
The second thing is, look, this guy is very famous that doesn't speak to his family, right? Like, there's all manner of fucked-upness that is very, very deep in this particular person who has massive influence on everybody else. And, you know, he's an emotional... I don't know, he's just a tiny little man from a soul point of view, like extraordinarily small.
And I find it really, just bragging about it, is the last... You know, he's the one that said we should fight more. Like, we should physically fight, like, as if he could get in a fight with anybody. He'd lose in a second.
But it's just like, you're right, they're trying to be villains or something. By the way, the main villain in the Marvel movies is quite introspective, FYI. Well, I would argue that probably... I mean, people say the greatest mind of the 20th century was Einstein, but to bring together people to, what was at that moment, develop and deploy the most important technology in history, at least the most profound.
And that was Oppenheimer. And he was hugely introspective. So was Feinstein, if you read... He was hugely introspective.
They were really worried about the ramifications of their actions and how they could spend the rest of their lives trying to, you know... They didn't just say... The introspection isn't somebody I got who vests his chairs and then scares the shit out of the world as he peaces out to the code of Zouard. That's not introspection.
Bill Gates, or all the shit Bill Gates is getting, a lot of it is warranted. He decided, I have become the wealthiest person in the world at that moment. I am smart. What could I do with my resources to impact millions of people?
He started distributing. He decided, I think I can stop malaria on the continent. That is introspection. Yeah, anyway.
It's like a lot of very funny memes, you know, Marcus Andronicus and then there's nothing. It's called nothing. What a soulless, empty person. And this is not where we should be getting clues as we go forward.
That's just my feeling. And I think one of the more damaging figures in terms of training young men at Silicon Valley is this guy. He's not someone to follow. Let me just say, I've known him since he was very young and he's progressed negatively and backwardly in a way that's really quite depressing.
Oddly enough, in relation, and we'll finish up on this, I had lunch at South by Southwest with Mark Cuban. What a person who's developed in a really, he was telling me all about his cosplays, the passion around it. I just was like, He also looks great, by the way. He looks great.
Yeah, he's eating clams. That's another story. Did he bore you with that story? I had to suffer through that.
He lies on Amazon. Yeah, let's not get into it. We'll have him on to talk about it at some point. He's trying to get protein, but it was funny.
If oysters means GLP-1, I believe it. Seriously, I met with him and Michael Dell and they're both claiming that they're playing a lot of Fidel. I'm like, your old you could eat you right now. Fidel, my ass.
Fidel, anyway, I just was like, I had a wonderful talk about prescription drugs, about life, but it was such a difference. He's the opposite of Mark Cuban. He's like a good man trying to have value. Yeah, exactly.
Anyway, we have to move on, but Mark, honestly, stop to all of you. Alex Carp said a number of stupid things. Stop talking, all of you. Stop talking, because what you say is nonsensical and actually makes you look so stupid and pathetic that I'm just here to help you on that issue.
Anyway. But look, even if you're a religion, you're supposed to reflect on some of it as some of a cryptid. As of this recording, oil prices, in a more real situation, prices was over $119 of bear at one point following attacks on energy sites in the Gulf. President Trump has been lashing out at U.S.
allies this week demanding they send warships to help secure the straight before moves. The response has been, quote, global raspberry, as one analyst quote. We're seeing also the first resignation of this war. Counterterrorism official Joe Kent stepped down saying Iran posed no imminent threat.
Of course, he went on Tupper Carlson. He's of that ilk. He has some problems himself, but nonetheless, he quickly went on Tupper Carlson to discuss his departure because this is like the train, the right wing MAGA train if you're going in one direction. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is asking the White House to approve $200 billion requests for Congress to climb the Iran war.
I think an entire, I think Joe Biden was $180 billion for like years long wars or whatever. Defense Secretary Hicks has just said a briefing that a number could move because it takes money to kill bad guys. Speaking of introspection, what an idiot. The next move, what happens here?
Trump also said this week, by the way, that a former president told him he regretted not bombing them, but all the former living presidents did not say that, so I guess he's talking to himself. I mean, they deny it. Like, he's such a liar. It's astonishing.
Like, what this guy does. Obviously, either cognitive or just a liar. I'm not sure. But because we were seen as the good guys and innovators and that we did embrace this notion that if we can make you wealthier and more peaceful, ultimately, that wealth and peace will return home in the form of you buying our trucks and being our ally.
And we can put a military base there. And the operating system of 60 or 70% of the world was U.S. laws, military, flows of energy, general rule of law, even democracies, even laws and justice systems were based off the U.S. model.
And to a lesser extent, the British model, it just got evolved. We were starting to 2.0. And he's decided, no, with 30%, I can go at it alone. What he's found is all of a sudden, he's one-third versus two-thirds.
And this is just, we warned my son not to take grapefruit juice into the living room with a brand-new couch. And he tells us, don't be an idiot, I can handle it. And then he screams, Dad, I need help. And I know exactly what's happened.
Well, what do you know? I'm going to do this unilaterally. I'm not going to go to the U.N. Gulf One, George Bush put together a coalition of, I think, 31 countries.
He got U.N. authorization. And he got the allies to pay $62 of the $70 billion in costs. That's been a great sacrifice for many of them.
And, of course, he's been downplaying their sacrifice. And they're now, like, literally saying no. And, by the way, if you come out of NATO, fine. Like, they're now at that point.
I mean, you know, whatever. He asked China for help. And, by the way, China's ships are flowing through. So the notion that he's going to, quote-unquote, an enemy or an emesis, going to people he's been really rude to, I mean, this is just, and they didn't anticipate that they wouldn't be able to count on their allies.
He didn't anticipate the Iran pushback, the strength of the, I mean, he was advised by, by the way, pretty much, stories coming out now where, like, he was told this, he was told this, he was told they would do this, they would close the straightforward moves. Like, everyone's leaking the shit out of things, which is really, I mean, what's interesting, I know it's the smallest part of it, but the lie about presidents was weird. It was just weird. Like, why would you say that?
And then they all say no. And it looks like he's, it's a liar, he's talking himself, or whatever. The whole thing seems, like, lies come out of his mouth every day, now they're easily trackable. Like, easily trackable lies and they don't really work.
And so, something's going on, something's happening, in a way that's, I mean, I don't want to give him an excuse, maybe he's just a malevolent prick, but it seems problematic that he's leading this coalition of the one. And also, when you hire incompetent conspiracy theorists, which is what Joe Kent is, I mean, this is very upsetting for me as someone, you know, quite frankly as a Jew, and that is, he immediately said that, basically, the largest military in the world in the United States is being manipulated by Jews. And this just plays into a very anti-Semitic trope being fomented on the far right. And I don't doubt.
Rogan, Megyn Kelly, there's a bunch of them. Yeah, but this is all Jews' fault. Yeah. That's not helpful.
Yeah. So, and... It's one thing to be against the war, and I think there's some legitimate... Or to say Netanyahu has too much influence over it.
Yeah, I get it. No, I get it. No, I'm just saying, the American people can say we don't like wars, but they do always take it right into that. That was...
Tucker Carlson's a dangerous person in that regard, I'll tell you. Oh, they're doing a victory lap. They're like the number whatever five at the, you know, in our intelligence unit is saying what Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson are saying, that it's the Jews. We're being manipulated by the Jews.
Yeah. Anyway. It's problematic. So oil prices, what is the actual impact is it going to have on economy?
It's immediate. I mean, unfortunately, no, this happens. It hurts middle-income families and low-income. Already, you're talking about an increase.
For every dollar increase of the pump, it looks like we are going to have about a dollar increase. It's another $530 a year. And low-income families spend almost, get this, 20% of their income on home and auto energy costs. Yeah, and then the residual effects of food, everything.
Everything you touch is impacted. Everything got to you using some form of fuel or is consuming fuel. And it's going to probably spike inflation in an additional 100 bips in the short run. Speaking of which, Jerome Powell says he'll stay on his Fed chair until his successor is confirmed by the Senate, even if that's after his term expires, he has every right to.
It could be a while. The Senate hasn't even scheduled a hearing for Trump's nominee, Kevin Warsh. Do you have to Senator Tom Tillis who I'm talking to next week says he won't vote on confirmation until the DOJ investigation and Powell is over. They've been handed some court things to Jimmy Pirro and the rest around Powell for his part and they're appealing it, I think.
For his part, Powell also says he'll stay on his Fed governor, which I said he would, remember? I said this until the investigation is well and truly over. I thought he would do this. He looks like he ran out of Fox a long time ago.
And well and truly over means he could stay as long as he has a while on that Fed governor. He'll have, as you noted, many times enormous influence. So this is the opposite of what Trump wanted and he stepped with Powell and Tillis, I can tell you, he's not stopping at all. I think if it had been a different president who demonstrated more grace to him, I don't doubt he would have stepped down or if he'd said to him, listen, I want you to be my chief economic advisor.
I have even something more important to keep in mind as long as Jerome Powell is in the room. There's how you think there's the governance structure and then there's actually how boards and body politics works. And this is how this is essentially a board of directors. This is how they work.
There's a bunch of them. In every board, there's 12 people and there's two people who matter. There's the largest shareholder, which doesn't apply here. And then there's someone who's so fucking smart that everyone, they don't speak a lot, they listen a lot.
But when they speak, everyone has a tendency to nod their head. And tell me the, whatever it is, the other 11 governors are going to, when Jerome Powell says, you know, whatever, the chair is the person who's going to run it. I don't think, I think Tillis isn't giving up. I know Tillis isn't giving up.
He said it. He's like, Tillis now suddenly has used to bend his balls and he's like, no, I'm going to do the right thing for, he's very offended by the Jerome Powell thing. I know that. And so I think it's, he's a business person.
He's a really well, you know, even though, you know, he sounds like he's like, very smart guy. He's very stuck on this. Powell not putting Lars through. Obviously he helped take down Kristi Noem.
I think there's, there's such a pushback not just from our allies abroad, but here, if you're someone like Tom Tillis and can stop this, you do it. Like why not? What's the negative for him? There's nothing because he's now, because Trump tried to push him out essentially of the Senate and now he's in enormous by the way, especially with inflation up.
So Trump has gotten the opposite of everything he wanted. No, Calci said there was a 99% likelihood they would not get rates. But where I was headed was, I would bet 98% of the decisions in the Fed from the Board of Governors, regardless of who's in charge, regardless of who takes the mic, the new chair, whatever Jerome Powell said was probably the right move in that meeting is what they're going to do. This is a guy that had a Mary Lou Retton like stick the landing of the economy where he basically tamed inflation by 600 basis points while not going into recession.
Like no one in economics, you know, I think Walsh is perfectly qualified, but Trump now has Jerome Powell forever. Like especially the dumb attack on his I think another six or 12 years or something or whatever, basically until Powell dies. And also he's going to stay there as the head of it. It's just anyway, it's good for him.
Go for him. I think he is, I think he is the first Medal of Freedom recipient. One, Democrats love to show that they're bipartisan. It'll probably be Vice President Spence will be the first one and the second one will be Jerome Powell.
Vice President Spence. Oh, Pence, I'm sorry, Pence. Oh, Vice President Pence. Yeah.
Oh, that's a good idea. The two of them. Pence does not get that recognition. His legacy is going to age really well.
Yes. Father. I like Father at this point. Father is actually that.
Father and Powell. Okay, Scott, let's have a quick break. When we come back, we'll say goodbye to the metaverse. Hey, I'm Matthew Shell, comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your For You page.
And I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, wait, don't swipe away. It's called That Sounds Like A Lot. As in, that feeling when you check your phone in the morning, you read three headlines, and you immediately think, oh, that sounds like a lot.
I can't deal with all this. But guess what? I can deal with it. And I'm going to get into it every Friday.
I'll break down whatever chaos is happening in the world. Then I'll sit down with a comedian. You can be progressive and not be, like, fucking annoying. Maybe an actor.
Because feminism is gone too far. You go, why? Because the Sadie Hawkins dance happened? Maybe a filmmaker.
Since leaving that show, I'm challenged to staring. I just got to hang out and try to do something. So we are 250 years into this American experiment, and I say it's going okay. I give us like a C+.
There is no perfect past, but there is also no exclusively negative past. Because humans are human. That's what we do. I think the story of America is the struggle of people who have not been included in the promise of America to expand those principles to include more people.
What's going to determine the next 250 years of America? And how do we write a new social contract that can get us the democracy we deserve? Okay, so I'm just going to be a jerk here because I'm a historian. So we have to have a prologue explaining, you know, we the people.
Okay. You know, I just got to remember it from Schoolhouse Rock. We the people are going to the former perfect union. Establish justice.
What is it? Ensure domestic tranquility? So you're talking about a foundational document. So I'm building a document that will protect American democracy.
That's this week on America Actually. Scott, we're back with more news and Meta is shutting down its VR metaverse on June 15th and the legless people are gone. The VR social network Horizon Worlds never drew more than a couple hundred thousand active users a month. Some users report that daily active users actually dropped to under a thousand.
Who are those people? I want to meet those people. Over 70 billion was spent on the project over time. You have talked about this for a long time.
I never liked the metaverse. So there's some breaking news that broke after the recording. Tara, we just learned that Meta is not shutting down VR support for Horizon Worlds. That's according to an Instagram post from Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth.
He said there was, open quote, a lot of misinformation about the company's plans. We announced, hey, we're moving away from Horizon Worlds and VR. And the headline is that Horizon is dead. He said, it's not.
And likewise, VR is not dead. We're continuing to invest tremendously. This is weak sauce. We fucked up.
Nana is on life support. And despite the fact she might have brainwaves, we're pulling the plug soon. This is, in my view, an attempt to backtrack and not totally freak out the remaining employees before they find another job or lay them off. This is, this is dead, in my view.
And, you know, an attempt to, if you will say, no, there's still hope when they believe and every indication here is that this thing is maybe in hospice, but be clear, it's on a green mile. All right, enough of that. Let's move on. Well, the press was falling over the idea.
You were not impressed. Let's listen to a clip from 2021. 2021. I just love the fact that Mark Zuckerberg is showing up with literally the biggest fucking thud in history, and that's the Oculus.
That's his vision for the metaverse. Now one from 2022. And so if he pulls it off, it'll be one of the most impressive feats in renewal, corporate, not even corporate renewal, but vision around maintaining growth. If they pull it off, I don't think they're going to.
I think this thing is already a giant flaming bag of shit. One from last year. I was the original hater of headsets and metaverse. And the idea of a bunch of cyborgs rocking around in their own world, even when they were outside, it was sort of anathema of like everything we should be doing.
Nice call, Scott. Let me just say that. Second of all, I didn't like that because the legless, it was weird. Remember when he introduced it, it was so weird and awkward at the time.
One of the things that's astonishing here is that he could have this much of a loss and still, they're doing so well elsewhere that this $70 billion doesn't matter. And he's fed it while other people who have losses get slapped back. But this is such a failure. Please, please take a lap and conclude this chapter of Mark Zuckerberg's life for us.
Care the fact that $70 billion in CapEx got taken into a street and burned and that people didn't want to live in a legless future where they didn't want to be in place where 40% of them were within 20 minutes nauseous or that they further separate from him. I'm shocked here. I'm shocked this didn't work. I had big hope for it because I think Mark Zuckerberg is clearly right.
This is, I mean, the scariest thing, I think the scariest thing about our economy, other than the income inequality, is the fact that we've now tied the fate of the S&P and the 10% wealthiest households who control the economy now and government. We've tied it to our ability to evolve a new species of asocial, asexual males and some females. And the thing is, this is a healthy gag reflex from mammals. One, on a very instinctive level, it's very uncomfortable, especially for women, but for everybody, when you're walking on the sidewalk alone and you hear footsteps behind you or inside you.
Because the things you can eat and the things that can eat you don't come straight at you. They have a habit coming from behind you or from the side. And so your peripheral vision, and the reason why billboards on the highway are still a big business is you notice shit in your peripheral vision. You're very subconsciously conscious of what's in your peripheral vision or what isn't.
And when it's blocked with a headset, you feel uncomfortable. So they never spoke to an anthropologist to say, all right, what happens when we met in technology that from the moment they turn it on, it's like if you turned on your PC and it made you feel slightly nauseous. Yeah, all of those, remember all of that stuff, remember they showed it at CES years ago where you looked at a TV that was jumping out at you, it was sickening. And no one, it never, it was a big thing one year at CES and then it wasn't.
Let me ask you, I'm going to ask you a more challenging question. All right, look, we're going to have immersive worlds, right, in some way. And some of it is kind of cool. I remember 20 years ago, Walt and I went to Korea and went to Sony or LG, and we were looking at these headsets in movies.
Pretty fucking cool. I remember thinking that. I wasn't nauseous. I went to the sphere this week, which I loved.
I saw the Dorothy thing, and I thought it was wonderful. And we were all in a big room. And I have to say, it was a lovely communal experience because everyone's laughing and they dropped some apples out of the sky and everything else. There is something, I want you to say what will work here because there is an immersive experience with screens that is very satisfying.
What would you, if you would pick a business in the immersive screens, either on your head or in a situation like the sphere, which I think is a spectacular achievement in a lot of ways. And it's also beautiful on the outside because it's delightful. What do you imagine that to be? I don't think there will ever be big businesses here.
I think there are niche experiences. I think that our species has gotten really used to and comfortable with as bad as it is this world. So IMAX is an immersive experience, but it's never really lived up to the potential outline. It's good business, though.
Yeah, it's been, quite frankly, over the last four years, it's been a shitty business. IMAX, relative to the cost, it's been okay. I love IMAX every time. That's what I do when I take my, I love saying shit in IMAX.
I'm going to see Project Hail Mary tomorrow night. It's a niche business. The only place I want immersive experience is when I'm having my teeth cleaned by a hot single mother, Brazilian single mother. And then she puts on a headset that I can watch, heated rivalry.
And then I start crying because I start thinking about my mom and I'm under the influence. I tell her, when she says one to ten, night dress, I go, twelve, baby. Can I tell you what I liked about, you're right, they're experiential things. One of the things that was cool about Spheres, I have seen Wizard of Oz a million times recently, too, because my little kids are now watching.
So it's not something I want to see again and again. But one of the things I thought was quite beautiful was the ability to see things in the movie that I never saw. Like some of the beautiful costumes, some of the beautiful set design. And oddly enough, the faces of all the people that weren't Dorothy, or the main characters.
I found myself looking at these beautiful faces from another era. There were two twins there that I never noticed. And so one of the things I found, it wasn't just, everyone was like, oh, the tornado. And I was like, that was cool.
But what was beautiful was I could really see things in a way that I appreciated. So there is something valuable about immersive in some way, like travel, I suppose. Or when you go to a theme park and you get on one of those rides that you like, you know, you soar past the Golden Gate Bridge. I love all those things.
Now, look, going into another world, you feel like an explorer. It's sensory overload. It's really exciting. And then you want out.
Escape room is correctly named. You wouldn't want to live in the sphere. Your body can't handle that much sensory stimulation. In the sphere, by the way, similar to IMAX, an amazing product.
It's not doing well economically. So the idea, or even the ultimate sensory experience, the ultimate moment of awe, supposedly, according to astronauts, is to go into space and see the world from another perspective. But guess what? What's the first thing they want to do after a week?
Get home. They might get home. So what I think, I wish technology was more focused on, I hate this notion that we need to colonize Mars. No, the real genius here is someone who's going to make this place a little bit more fucking habitable.
I'm in Tulum staring out at palm trees and coconuts and the sand, the sugary sand. And I'm in awe and I'm comfortable. And this is the only fucking universe I want to be in. Yeah, no, I know.
I've never wanted to go to space. Anyways, look, it's a disaster, Mark. You were wrong. And Scott was right.
Speaking of scaling back, OpenAI is scaling back on projects and focusing on coding and business users. The pressure for the change comes from competitors like Anthropic, which you and I have been talking about, dominating the business AI market. Employees also felt that companies do everything strategy led to a lack of focus. Speaking of which, OpenAI delayed the launch of the adult mode, which would allow sexual explicit conversations due to concerns from advisors over mental health risks, you think.
Also concerned in age prediction systems that have been misclassifying minors as adults 12% of the time. The feature which a company still plans to release eventually would be text only. This is all the influence of Fiji Simo, who is the new top executive there. Very similar when Eric came to Google.
They were sort of chaotic and did everything, the two founders, Larry and Sergey. And then they brought Eric in to really clean it up. Seems sort of basic, this executive. But they do have done, made like a million stupid announcements, and it does remind one of Google in that regard.
You're exactly right. It's remember when Google was doing shit like trying to cure death. And then I feel like Eric brought in managerial competence and how to scale an organization. But Ruth Barat showed up and said, all right, mom is home.
Fun times over. The dog's pregnant, the garage is on fire. I'm in charge now. And this is the right move for OpenAI.
And that is, and by the way, and this is my prediction, Anthropic is not worth more than OpenAI. I don't care what the last mark is on my preferred funding. But Anthropic has surged to $19 billion in annual recurring revenue from $14 billion just a couple weeks ago. $6 billion in AR was added just in February.
OpenAI AR was $20 billion at the end of 2025. And here's the key. It's all about the enterprise because they're the only ones that are willing to make these huge investments. And get this, Anthropic's enterprise market share has increased to 32%, surpassing OpenAI's 25%.
And since 2023, enterprise AI revenue has exploded from $1.7 billion to $37 billion. Yeah, they've got to be. OpenAI has really messed this up. And then the other staggering statistic here that is why OpenAI is focusing, which is the right thing to do, is Anthropic is now capturing three out of four new spending in enterprise AI.
So they're getting 73% of all spending among companies buying AI tools for the first time. And 10 weeks ago, this split with OpenAI was 50-50. So get this. It was 60-40 in OpenAI's favor as recently as early December.
So from December to now, it's gone from 60-40 to 27-73. So they are literally losing the enterprise market. So it's starting to feel like OpenAI's Netscape, not Google, right? That's how it sort of...
That's interesting. You know, I was there when Google was the first bout of chaos was at the beginning. And there was a cover of Fortune magazine, Chaos at Google. And of course, we also shut down all the...
They had so many ridiculous shit they were doing. And they could do it just like Mark with the metaverse because they had all this money. But it was like dumb. Like, it was at the time when they would have you in.
And I was always like, this seems dumb. Like, why are you doing this? Why don't you stick with your business? And they just wanted to be more creative or more something, more interesting in some fashion.
But it's really interesting because this is at a time when, I think, you know, Anthropics has been under pressure from the government. But in the end, they will soar. And Pete Hegseth will be, you know, a sad little footnote, a sad little drunken footnote in our history. Anyway, we'll see what happens.
Speaking of something, it won't be a footnote, I would say, as Bob Iger stepped down as Disney CEO again. Iger passed the baton to his successor, Josh DeMorrow, at Disney's annual shareholder meeting this week. DeMorrow, a 28-year-old veteran of the company, was most recently head of Disney experiences, which includes parks, cruises, and resorts. Iger is set to stay on as an advisor and board member until the end of 2026.
Not very long. It's unclear what he'll do after that. Before the last time he left, he did a bunch of advising sailing around on a boat in the South Seas. Last time he retired, which I said he wasn't going to say retired, I asked him whether he planned to get into politics less than what he told me in 2022.
Do you ever run for office? I'm not planning to run for office. Is that a no? That's just what I said.
Okay, all right, fine. I think you are. So, last thing. You should.
I don't usually do not tell another white guy, oh, please run for office. We don't have enough of you. But I think you'd be an excellent politician because I don't think you'd give a fuck. Anyway, I don't think he's going to run for office, actually.
I can't imagine he's going to do that. But what do you think his next act will be? I mean, he certainly has his ups and downs, and the stock has not reflected much of it. Although I do think he did a lot around digital, and he did a lot around streaming.
I think he was a very good CEO for much of his tenure and not so good in other things. I think probably the Fox purchase is one people point to as being problematic. But in general, pretty good tenure, especially around streaming. I think he made those moves.
What do you think his next act should be? Hit the golf course and enjoys life. And I would call a challenge on his tenure, Cara, because the last 10 years have been the most prosperous in the history of the world for American companies, and his stock is below where it was 10 years ago. And at the end of the day, as the CEO, that's your kind of metrics one, two, and three.
Quite frankly, he really fucked up. He's the guy who went to Vietnam, completed his tour, honorably came home with medals pinned to his chest. He can be a viable candidate for the Democratic nomination right now, but he looks less like Mark Cuban and more like Shel Sambor. And that is his second tenure.
First off, he was peckling from the cheap seats. He left and never really left the room, but convinced the board, as far as I can tell, to fire the new guy and put me back in like some returning hero. And he has had huge wins in his face, but Disney has become... disney has gone from being probably the most iconic company in the creative community to a certain extent represents what's happened in the creative community and that is to think of how incredible it is and their great ip and great creativity it's been bad for shareholders and it's probably been a difficult place to work the last 10 years and he did he did make a lot of the right moves he launched a streaming network invested in the parks but at the end of the day his last 10 years there was a there was never a clear succession path he started to feel a little bit like i forget the name of that guy at city group city group that anytime someone got near him got shot in the head so he leaves he's very likable he's very smooth had he stayed away and then just let someone else run with it i think he'd probably be a cabinet member maybe by you know in the next administration at minimum now he's now he's the guy that quite frankly took disney he didn't take the stock anywhere i get it i think doing the streaming stuff was critical to its future and he definitely pushed that through like i was there watching he made a number of digital moves over the years they kept changing disney what a vista i mean i wrote stories on every one of them but i do think directionally very few people leaned into digital and streaming the way he did right and i don't know i would argue netflix of course no no yes no they should have bought netflix when they had the chance and everybody had the chance at one point um but yeah you're right netflix was in the right position but you are dragging around a legacy organization makes makes it very hard it's the organization that had the world's best ip i mean netflix so okay so disney in the last 10 years has market returns of zero and netflix is up or i'm sorry it's up 600 and granted the other studios have not fared any better but with that ip with the parser cash flow yeah look bob what's the lesson here the lesson is the following and i think about this a lot it is very hard to pull out the ultimate gangster move for your brand when you're in a position of power and you're doing well and that is to leave the party too early um and that is people have a tendency when they're doing well and they're so iconic as bob biker is and was to think to just stay too long yeah you want to leave the stage while people are clapping you want to leave a party 10 minutes too early you want to leave a vanity fair oscar party at midnight not at 4 a.m when you're wandering out alone and it's clear emily radikowski is not going to speak to you by the way at one point i was sitting at the bar we didn't talk about this because you were blabbing away all your other i was sitting at the bar no joke in between john ham who's quite handsome and jacob and jacob alorty who's even more handsome and much taller emily started walking towards the bar and all i could think of is there's no fucking way she's coming to me right now yeah no way i'm like i'm like uh the price is right this is the real emily you saw her oh yeah trust me i saw her okay yeah by the way she looks she looks pretty good she looks pretty good wait what happened wait i only want the radikowski part go ahead nothing she just walked up and had a drink at some point i'm like i want to be the professor not the stalker so uh but my favorite moment you didn't say hello i'm excited oh my god she's got to know we talk i said hi to maureen dowd and caitlin collins those are my friends that's who i hang out with and the smartless guys those guys are fun i like those guys and they're like they feel sorry the only people come up to me are like they can use an intellect they think oh it's so cute they have a professor here let's go be nice to them that's our charity for the night and everybody comes up to me says i have some i very much appreciate your work and they say oh can i meet you know can i meet jed apatown now i'm convinced half the people half the people talking to me yeah we're checking themselves out in reflection of my glasses oh no no i can't believe you didn't speak to by the way that party vanity fair those people are geniuses i'm gonna subscribe twice okay the environment they pulled together that night yes nice i would i think it's the most aspirational environment i've ever been in my life i just couldn't get over the wardrobe the environment the food the vibe i just thought uh the new editor unbelievable mark yeah mark this is an amazing handsome guy too yeah i have to say they always had a good party they've been good under all their different editors and i got to hang out with larry david it's like angry me depressed depressed me angry oh my god you look alike what happened was there like a moment we really larry and i are friends now oh we totally get along uh you know we hit it off and by the way the larry david show is really the larry david show he's like that's exactly who he is he's like what's the point of an oscar he just starts into a bit you know okay here we are he has a new show that looks hysterical that he did with the obamas anyways i very much i did not see bob i did not sense a cashmere sweater tuxedo anywhere uh but the thing is you walk in and they're like you want to do red carpet morning i'm like i am so doing the red carpet yeah yeah and there's three x's and i guess you're supposed to go to one x and take pictures yeah i didn't know that so i go to the first x and they're like hello professional nice and i'm like now i'm gonna go to the second x and sit here and pose and then i go to the third x by the time i got to the third x i realized everyone's like what the fuck is this guy doing and one of the one of the photographers just out of a moment of like feeling sorry for me kind of waving along like you're supposed to just wax when i turn to be red i'm a bad celebrity oh my god can i ask you what did you see jepaisos he was there oh i saw him with lauren i thought they looked great i don't know i didn't know i don't mind just midlife crisis i'm here for it i know but did you say hello i said hello to all three of them i mean yeah no i said hello um i did not i'm intimidated unless people come up to me i'm intimidated i don't like to approach anybody you could have gone and said kara says hello that that in that one you could have done that that's like hi my rich father knows you i just don't want to do that he doesn't like me i would be bad but i literally freaked out about midnight i'm like this is the best party of my life i need to go home pick a zanix and just recover from all of them i've had a kid who didn't have candy store for eight hours did you i can't believe my only note is i can't believe you didn't say hello to emily radikowski you're a loser you're a loser and i think she was there alone not that i was like looking at her a lot i think she was there you needed to say this was your golden opportunity to say hello that's the end of our relationship anyway it's bob eiger's next act very quickly he'll go on a couple boards and he'll enjoy his life and he deserves to do all of his friends and hang out with his lovely wife and speak at usc's film school and i think it's something else i think it's something else he's in really good shape when he was in the last one he texted me far too much and i was like i think you need to do something else because i think he's got another thing i don't know what it is i'm 75 yeah he could be in the cabinet uh well what was that 77 78 he could be the commerce secretary i don't know he probably doesn't want to do any of that shit for he'll be ambassador of france and throw amazing parties like the u.s residents that's perfect ambassador of france let's do it bob we're gonna send you to france but anyway let's go on a quick break we come back we'll talk about how she facing criminal charges your favorite groups of people next time this week on network and shell i'm joined by tank sinatra the meme king with over 15 million followers across tanks good news influencers in the wild and his personal account tank is breaking down what the meme economy really is how much a single sponsor post pays why major brands are throwing serious money at jokes and how mean culture think preparation age scarter packs and a perfectly timed screenshot is actually reshaping how we think about money and value get ready for a conversation that'll change the way you scroll make your rethink what going viral is really worth and prove that sometimes the most serious money moves are wrapped in the silliest of jokes listen wherever you get your podcast or watch on youtube.com scott we're back with more news calci is facing criminal charges in arizona where prosecutors say the prediction market platform illegal that people bet without a gambling license calci says the charges are meritless and that they should be regulated federally rather than by individual states the case is the first criminal prosecution against a prediction market company it's more to come i actually when i was south by south met with the california attorney general who today did a lawsuit one of the lawsuits against the next star whatever that ridiculous murder was um in any case this is the states have been regulating gambling for years like forever for decades so it's not meritless um so what do you think that's this because what was interesting another story popped up which i found fascinating the times of israel reporter received death threats from gamblers on polymarket after reporting an iranian missile strike that affected a high sex prediction market bet some betters tried to pressure him to change the story so the market would resolve in their favor and let me just say if you this is a topic people are really interested in i'll read an email from one of our listeners i'm a journalist and a fan of the show i don't understand why i'm hearing calci percentages cited during the show and said anything it's people guessing i think it's more harmful than helpful that's you doing it's god i don't do that i agree with you um what do you think about these markets shifting from predicting events to actively influencing them in certain given the gaming part easily gamed uh unregulated bad actors it is gambling um and gambling is very well regulated so what do you think about that i think there's some truth to all of that i this is one of those things i'm hugely conflicted by because i am absolutely fascinated with the data where we push back on the listener is oh no this data is incredibly insightful uh the wisdom this is the wisdom of crowds this is this does illuminate whenever i'm looking at political races whenever i'm looking at interest rate movements i go to i go to calcium you don't think it's a trailing indicator you don't think it's a trailing indicator it's pretty much up to date and the thing about money and the thing about looking at typically the people who did this stuff were academics economists or an investment banking analyst all of them are conflicted all of them want to catastrophize because it makes us look smarter all of us have third party influences nothing is more amoral and pure than money it just when someone bets on something it really shows you what they really think is going to happen and if you look at it these kind of these speculative markets speculation markets or prediction markets have essentially put pollsters into a certain investment banking analyst out of work because guess what kind of i just met with a bunch of pollsters on this topic in my opinion they're done if you look at if you look at the prediction markets record versus pollsters in the last election the prediction markets kick their ass absolutely i love the data i am swimming in the data it's one of the first things i do before i get on a show is i look at i look at calcium data i'm totally conflicted because at the same time there's a really good argument that this is just gambling now what what's happening is they're being charged with four counts of election wagering um the debate is over the fundamental definition of gambling versus event contracts and arizona charges kind of putting money on a contingent future event or occurrence is illegal but at the same time if that's true then traditional options would be illegal and that here's the problem or the issue gambling and tapping into a prefrontal cortex an immature prefrontal cortex that is built by hungry and susceptible uh in some ways there's just not getting around it feels predatory and unhealthy so what do you do do you infantilize i think calci is trying to be the clean the cleanest best lit place of this they're not doing contracts on things like war whereas polymarket is off offshore and calci is trying to get licensed by the same people who license the options exchange but i i want to hear what you think i have no more clarity around this i think the states have been regulating gambling forever so i think that's nonsense that if this gambling is going on they need to they're proving it they're proving it everywhere states have been approving gambling all they are but so they need to be regulated in the same way like it's something with everything it's like if open air is giving legal medical or psychological advice they need to be subject to the same rules people are right it's the same everybody like i was in vegas for a second i have to tell you you're absolutely right it's dead vegas is dead you don't need to be in vegas vegas is in your pocket that's right i was like i literally oh my god scott was right it was so freaky to be in vegas without people it felt like i was in like pluribus right it was so weird and you could feel the the innervation of a place that is just these big rooms and the casino's empty it's weird and so it's definitely hurting businesses right these kind of things whether it's sports betting online or this kind of thing there's a they need to be regulated the same way everybody else is and and states have every right to do this this is this is not and maybe there should be federal gambling laws but there haven't been really i think that would be good i think they would want that i think they want some regulation yeah but let me ask you let me ask you let me ask you this you have sons i think about this a lot let's be clear much of this is gambling uh and but at the same time do you infantilize children and i i know firsthand that someone appreciates data there is real value in this data there is it can also be easily gained so easily we don't know what's in it there's a lot of potential for insider trading but the more liquid markets people are more greedy anyway huge potential for insider trading i get it but let me ask you this do you think it should be they should be put out of business regulated or let it just run free regulated and what does that mean i'm not sure i'm not an expert on this but i feel like i want to know how gambling things are regulated 21 would be one good start right possibly yes 21 it's interesting yes yes it's actually on certain parts other parts it's fine but yes age dating would be one thing it's infantilizing we do it all the time with with real real businesses agree porn alcohol military what it says we're different it's the same it's the same song and dance from all internet companies we're different we don't deserve the same and they get unfair advantage here um these these markets get unfair advantage it made me very uncomfortable for example when uh sienna and others side deals with them because i'm like because i don't think they know how to use them properly that's the other thing it can be so it's not reporting like it's not it's not it's an indicator it's a data point but it's not i guess i don't like them doing polls either so i guess i just i find it very weak and it can be very influential in a way and so i just feel like it obviously needs to have some regular trading with my sons they don't actually not they're not big bettors i don't i'm not i don't know why i mean i get that like i was in negus for two days i didn't bet once like i was like i walked right through the casinos but that's me um but i just feel like it's the death threat this reporter thing is a really interesting thing like this this has implications that have been around since the dawn of time these and they think they're different and so i think we need to have more transparency into how they're doing things i think they should have you know they shouldn't bet on deaths like i mean they shouldn't be i don't know if we should make them not do it or if you say okay you're gonna do that yeah but to be fair i do think calcio said we're not gonna we're not gonna create markets and things like war that might involve an incentive it might involve death or geopolitical right so that's the kind of stuff but there's gonna be someone who's gonna so maybe we need some laws right anyway we have to win it's a really interesting developing situation but i think it's in every state's right to do this so calcio should stop being so like high-handed with them of course they're gonna come in it's affecting things so uh this is exactly why the government should come in in some fashion at least think about it have hearings talk about it and let's discuss the things um just before we finish this is the last thing uber plans to invest 1.2 billion dollars in rivian as part of a deal to deploy 50 000 robo taxis i recently spoke with uh rivian founder and ceo rj skirringe on on with your switch i also saw him for an extended amount of time at south by southwest let's listen to a clip where he talked about self-driving if you're a customer and you have a choice of i can buy a car for 35 40 000 and it can you know drop me at the airport it can go to the grocery store to pick up you know stuff for me it can drop a friend at a house it can do all those things or a car that doesn't do that it's it's going to be very binary right i think there'll be very few people that will self-select to say i don't want those features even folks who are not comfortable with the idea of self-driving once you experience it one or two times it does i try to do that to everybody it's so sticky because you get your time back suddenly you can be reading a book on your phone it's just so sticky one way of convincing one person who likes to party i'm like you can you can text and drink i don't know what to say here's mine that's my sale for you i think that was you i was talking about um it was really it was super interesting i think it's a real blow again to tesla um i drove the rivian too at um south by southwest i also they have a really nifty bike called also which i like a lot um i really like the rivian i think he's interesting i think he's a great spokesperson for this stuff um and they're wonderful they're wonderful i might buy one i might buy an r2 um because i was super impressed with it in any case it's a really interesting um move by uber who needs to get into this business and uh and it's a good thing for rivian who you know it's a tough struggle to get these cars to get a car company going um your thoughts on rivian i think it's a win-win i think it's uh rivian is subscale automobile platforms customer how many billions to produce i think rivian has done as good a job as anyone i'm moving when i move back to the us i'm gonna if I buy a car and I've really enjoyed not having a car for four years, I'm probably going to buy a Rivian.
I was one of those people who put $5,000 down on it like five, six years ago and never took delivery of it. I should probably look into that. New calcary market. What's the likelihood that he gets his money back?
I think Tesla's missed a real opportunity here again and again, but I don't think he cares about the cars anymore, does he? I mean, he's introducing a cyber cab that doesn't exist and isn't being used anywhere. I mean, between Waymo and Rivian, I think they've sort of ran around. It's also very, one, they need more scale, so this is a great win for Rivian.
Two, I think one of the biggest brand enhancements is to be known, there are a few brands that have fallen further faster in the last 20 years and made shittier cars than Jaguar. This is one of the great British brands in history. The design and the cars the last 20 years have just been remarkably uninspiring. Now, the best brand move, in my opinion, in Jaguar is they have been the car of choice that I've seen for Waymo.
Yes, they are. So immediately it's like, oh, Jaguar is kind of the Pepsi generation new cool car. I didn't even know that. I had the look.
I didn't even recognize the car. I'm like, oh, that's a Jaguar. So it's brand enhancing for Rivian. It gives them all sorts of scale.
And also what people have underappreciated is that the biggest winner, the obvious biggest winner in autonomous, regardless of all the bullshit press releases, people realize it's not Tesla. It's likely Waymo. They have the capital. They're miles ahead of everyone.
They have exponentially more miles under their belt in terms of testing this. But there's an outside shot that the biggest winner here is going to be Uber. Because when you control it. Sort of like the Apple.
They're sort of like the Apple. They have. We always use the term custody of the consumer. My first client was Levi's Johnson Company, and they were always complaining about JCPenney's and Sears.
I'm like, yeah, but they have custody of the consumer. You need to open your own stores. You need to go vertical to control the relationship of the consumer. In the U.S., Uber has 75% market share.
They're basically a monopoly. And so what they can do is they can say, they can push up an icon saying, why do you need to download the Waymo or the Tesla app? Just click here for driverless. Yeah, they can also do deals with Waymo, too.
And they can play them off against each other. They can find a company that wants to work with them the most and get market share. You can also use Uber to summon Waymo. I mean, why not?
That's why not. And then take a large margin. So what did Apple do? Because they control custody of the billion wealthiest people in the world through UI, and people don't want to learn a new app, they extract $20 billion a year from Alphabet to make Google the default search engine.
Uber's in a position to extract extraordinary deals around autonomous, and they can save people, oh, yeah, you want autonomous? No problem. Here's the Uber app you love. The question is, what's interesting is, two of the biggest winners, hands down, are going to be Uber and Waymo.
And I wouldn't be surprised if Uber is, in fact, the biggest winner, because they have custody of the consumer. Yeah, ultimately. I've been, as you know, the proponent of self-driving in a safe mode. I will tell you, I would never get into Tesla, given I had a long talk with RJ about, you know, I think he's more on you don't need this many points of safety, but he put them on there anyway, right?
And so compared to Elon, it's like, I just have one camera with a guy in the back. Like, I feel so unsafe in Tesla's in that regard. And I think the way Waymo's done it is right. But you're right, Uber's in a very, but it could have been easily sidelined by all these companies.
But I always used to say they have the reservation system. And you're right, it's the chain of custody. And you do trust Uber. I mean, I know Travis Callen is trying to come back in this sector, but I've got to say, Dara took that company and really made it into one.
You know what is really been eye-opening for me? And it goes to something you said that's always really resonated with me. And that is, the thing about tech executives, they're traditionally white males who went to elite schools, raised in wealthy families. And when you've never been a victim, it's difficult to understand victimization.
That's what struck me. Like, until I walk in those shoes, you don't. And you know what women say to me? It makes so much sense.
I just never realized it. I get into an Uber. The driver usually doesn't talk to me. I don't want to talk to them.
And I know that sounds terrible. I just don't want to talk to them on my phone. Every woman I talk to says when they get in an Uber, the Uber driver tries to chatter up. Not me, but yes.
Well, it's uncomfortable. Especially if you talk to young women. And you know who's really used and loves Waymo? It's women.
Women, they do. Or else you can also now in Uber, by the way, for the rest of the women. They've done a great job. Let me tell you.
I don't agree with him. Sometimes he can be a little too compromising with terrible people. I think he knows it. He's a great CEO.
He's done a great job here. All right. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.
Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Can I just start very quickly? Of course. I predict this MAGA micropenis war is going to get worse, and I am here for it.
Do you know about this, right? Megyn Kelly said Mark Levin had a micropenis, and then President Trump defended his micropenis, and then Marjorie Taylor Greene came in with a micropenis, and Megyn Kelly's doubling down on it. It's completely crude and awful and repulsive, and I think it's going to get a lot worse, and I'm very pleased. Thank you.
Yeah. No, I don't. I think it's inappropriate to talk about menstruation, and I don't care. By the way, I was at a URN stall last night, and a guy looked over and he said, circumcised?
And I said, nope, that's just a wear and tear. Oh, my God. You've told that joke before. I'm going to start clocking your penis.
Never get told. By the way, I'm not going to say Adam Grant, but Adam Grant said you've got to cut back on the penis. That's the party you missed. Oh, my nemesis?
Yeah, your nemesis was like... The more successful version of Scott Galloway? He's doing a podcast on the Vox Media Podcast Network with Brene Brown, the two of them. They're trying to be the nice version of Scott and Cara, I think.
And he commented on your penis jokes. And I said, and I literally... Scott, I said, I love them. I defended you so hard.
I appreciate that. And I was like, people love them. And he's like, yeah, but you think it's the right thing. I go, it's the right thing.
No matter how much... If that's right, I don't want to be wrong. Also, I want to be a little bent to the left. Congratulations for Ney and Adam.
It's a condition. I'm a special needs person. It's a condition. Don't shame me.
Micropenis. Now I'm talking about micropenis. Sorry, Adam, but micropenis work cracks me the fuck up, and I'm here for it, and I hope more to come. And I think we're not done with micropenis.
I love it when they war with each other, because one of the things I don't like about the Democratic Party is that I find for the most part, when I just went on this great podcast, this really lovely guy, he's a conservative, out of Fort Lauderdale. Oh, you want to get that guy? Oh, I like him. He's nice.
Anyways, the thing I find generally speaking about Republicans is they're like, oh, you want to be a Republican? Come on in. And when you say, oh, I want to be a progressive, it's like, we'll see. I feel like we apply way more.
No more. Tellurico, there's a new Democrat in town. Well, go ahead. If you don't choose the right words, if you don't hold a gun correctly, let's court-martial you and hang you.
It's the right that's doing it now. You know what this is? This is a bunch of podcasters who know the algorithm. The more fights they get into, the more incendiary they are.
Yeah, I suppose you're right. Candace Owens makes a living off of saying really vile things, because the algorithms and the reason our nation is being torn apart at the seams is there's no financial incentive in being vile and incendiary. The algorithms love it. In a world where there were editors and fact-checkers and more reasonable people saying, is that a reasonable thing we want to print?
She would be fucking nowhere. Yes, I get it. Anyway, so I love it when these guys fight, but at the end of the day, it's indicative of a bigger problem, and that is our overlords, our algorithms, deciding that this is news. Oh, you're so good.
I don't care. I like the micropenis. Anyway, I defended you, Adam Grant. I appreciate that.
I'm telling you, other than academic credibility and talent and higher IQ, that dude has nothing on me. That dude has nothing on me. Do you know he was a diver in college? Even better.
He was a diver. All his sort of like, you know, his tweets about, you know, characters doing the right thing when no one's looking. Oh, fuck you. All right, move along.
Adam Grant, you and Renee Brown, all your thoughtfulness and deep introspection. Let's just say, I like them both, and Adam's a friend, so I trust he's taking his all in jest. I hope so. Maybe we'll discuss it on their new show.
Maybe we should have a rumble with him. I think we could be evil twins. I think with his intellect and my, I don't know, my something, we could take over Australia, and Renee would be queen of Australia. We should do a crossover show.
I'm going to invite them on a crossover show. All right, we could switch partners. You know when you switch the husband and wife? You know, I've tried it, but I'm the one that ends up alone and no one's up for it.
It's called a key part. No, you could have Renee. Anyway, finish, do your prediction. Oh, I'm sorry.
My prediction is OpenAI, Sora's social media app will be shut down soon. Oh, Sora. What do you know? You know something.
No, I don't. I have to know original reporting. Okay, all right. But they're focusing, which is the right thing to do.
Sora's essentially OpenAI. It's a tick-like social media platform for AI-generated content, and users use their video model to generate short-form content, and they can upload it and share it, right? And upon its release, Sora came out in number one in the App Store and actually got more downloads out of the gates than ChatGPT did. However, the parties ended.
Downloads fell 32% a month over a month in December and another 45% in January, and then Sora is the little engine that didn't. But at the same time, OpenAI has to spend a ton of money to keep the lights on there, and some estimates are that... It also brings a lot of legal challenges. Well, it's costing them $15 million a day or $5 million a year, and despite that, the app is bringing in less than half a million dollars per month, and given their new focus, which is the right one, on focus, it's not central to OpenAI's core competences.
They're an AI company, not a social media company. It's not creating revenue. Big losses, and also, it's really unpopular. 62% of Americans disapprove of online videos, creative AI goals.