# Oil Crisis, AI Regulation, and Market Volatility

**Podcast:** Pivot
**Published:** 2026-03-13

## Transcript

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It's always late.
Literally.
I'm like so quantumly more important than he is.
It's crazy.
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, did we have a good time in Minneapolis?
Oh, that was wonderful.
And thank you to the wonderful people of Minneapolis.
I thought it was great.
The community or you know, maybe we got a uh not a representative sample.
I'd like to think we got a representative community seems very unified right now.
Yeah, absolutely.
People drove from North Dakota.
There was some.
Yeah, Judge.
By the way, shout out we know who you are.
There's this wonderful woman who's a lawyer in family court.
She commutes seven hours a week, and she said that uh excuse me, she said judge, yeah.
And she said we're her we're her best friends.
Yeah, yeah, it was great.
And people were great.
The audience was great.
We again we have to thank Tane Danger, raised a whole pile of money, which Scott matched, which was very generous of Scott.
And it's going to be a good thing.
Or virtue signaling.
Yeah, that's okay.
It was a night.
This is the Scott I like.
This is the direction.
This is this is the direction.
It was this is the way.
This is the way.
I we had a great time, and the audience was great.
We had a great show.
We talked to Governor Walls, who looks amazing.
Um as he's leaving.
Everyone looks so much better when they leave things.
You know what I mean?
Or they're on Ozempik.
That's what that's why we're descending into fascism, because uh Tim Walls uh should have gone on Magovey nine months or 14 months earlier.
That's the difference between us and fascism.
Okay.
A GLP one, a decision.
Folks, if you're considering running for vice president and you're thinking about a GLP one, get on it.
The word is now, the word is yesterday.
Anyway, he looks great.
I don't we have no idea if he is.
Let's just be saying that.
But he didn't have to be a little bit more.
Okay, fine.
The guy who showed up.
Yes, he was.
The guy who showed up looked like the old Tim Walls could eat him.
That is true.
But let me tell you something.
He's running too.
He said told me he was running, and it goes along with it.
It's a whole life.
They're always running for everything.
They're totally absolutely running.
Yes, he told me about his rather screen.
You know, I've started running again.
So we had a little chitty chat about it.
The idea of you out running.
I don't know.
I don't go outside.
I say inside.
I don't I don't like running outside.
You do it in the private, you do it on a treadmill.
Yeah, I love it.
I use my little time for myself.
It's my little Kara time.
I love it.
I do it three or four times a week.
It's really and actually now in hotels, they have to have a nice treadmill.
That's it.
That's the way it goes.
That's why I'm abandoning your apartment.
Anyway, uh, are you doing okay?
You're in New York.
We're headed to South by Southwest, right?
We got a lot going on.
We got a live pivot.
I'm I've got a bunch of things.
Prof.
G has a bunch of things.
I'm trying to think what else we're doing.
Oh, I'm oh, we're launching my uh my show's trailer goes up today for Kara Swiss or Wants to live.
Oh, do you have a show?
It's funny.
You haven't you haven't talked much about that.
You haven't mentioned.
Yeah, yeah, it's the secret show.
It's not so secret.
Anyway, Scott is in it, and we're gonna be we're gonna be debuting the part with Scott in at South by Southwest, where where we go to a sound bath, essentially.
Um, but it comes out today, the the trailer, so I'm very excited, and we're gonna show it all guest appearance from guests David Ellison.
The new king of Hollywood.
What if he came up to us?
What do we say?
We'd say hi, how are you we'd kiss his ass?
He's very powerful.
No, we don't kiss his ass.
He's very aware we're very critical of him.
You know, but whatever.
I don't care.
I don't care.
Doesn't matter to me.
Anyway, we'll be nice to him.
I'll see him on Sunday because I'm going to that big fancy party.
Which oh yes, you are.
Oh, go up to him.
And I I dare you to go up to him and give like a full like penis on penis hug.
Could you do that?
Uh so I I'm not a hugger.
I don't know if you've noticed that.
Yeah, I've noticed that.
I tried.
I feel like Alex the way Alex hugs sideway hug.
No.
Yeah.
All right.
I will I dare you to do something really funny.
Unless I'm giving you $300 and you're doing more than hugging, do not touch me.
Do not you're gonna have a good time at that.
That's a lie.
It's a lot more than a hundred dollars, three hundred dollars.
I'm excited.
It's gonna be great.
Calorico.
We maybe we'll run into him.
Uh so I don't know if you heard this is I'm pulling a total caramu.
I'm interviewing him on stage with uh Just Harlow at Raging Moderate.
Oh my god, that's great.
Oh, I'm gonna come watch that.
That's great.
I'm so excited.
Yeah, so I have the the cast of Audacity, which is this new very hysterical Silicon Valley uh thing in the in the style of um Silicon Valley.
Do you have any questions or uh Talerica for me?
I have my first question is gonna be if Mary gave birth to Jesus and Jesus is the Lamb of God, then did Mary have a little lamb?
Little dad joke.
I can't go dirty with representative Talerico.
I like that one.
That's good.
That's a good one.
He'll laugh.
He'll go, oh.
Oh, ho.
He's like he's kind of a young fogy in my estimation.
He feels like older, even though he looks like he's 12, that kind of thing.
So I think what people at home need to take a shot every time he says the billionaire class.
Yes, okay.
You should do that.
One of my definite questions.
I don't know if I want to well.
I'm gonna be like I'm gonna start off with he and I have something in common, and that is we both follow hot women on Instagram.
His thoughts.
Uh okay.
All right.
We're moving on.
Sorry, James.
Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today.
I'm gonna dig in.
First, the war in Iran is sending oil prices on a wild ride this week and creating what the International Energy Agency says is, quote, the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.
Okay, that's kind of something.
There we go.
As of this recording, oil is still very high, slowly coming down from over a hundred dollars a barrel after ships were attacked in the Persian Gulf.
There's also attacks still going on.
Gas prices continue to climb as well.
And just remember, it's not just gas prices.
Every price goes up when gas goes up.
The IEA's 32 member countries are releasing a record 400 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves to counter the chaos, which means we aren't gonna feel this yet.
Uh I interviewed uh Senator Warner yesterday, and he was noting that.
Uh Trump has tried to calm markets.
He keeps trying to to do this to bring these oil prices down by words, saying the war is, quote, very complete, only to later announce we haven't won enough.
Oil prices also plunged after energy secretary Chris Wright incorrectly posted that the US Navy had escorted a tanker through the Strait of Hormuz.
So that was a problem.
The post was deleted within minutes, was enough to move markets and wipe out million-dollar trades.
This is such a taco.
This is the greatest taco of all, I think.
And even if the war in Iran ends soon, returning the Strait of Hermuz to typical traffic could take one to three months.
We're gonna see reverberations of this ridiculous situation.
Um the way he's handling it and the way he's not it seems all over the place.
Um and also to to add to the this kind of mess there, the initial findings of a military investigation say that U.S.
was responsible for that deadly tomahawk missile strike on the Iranian elementary school.
It's actually causing a lot of strife within MAGA, by the way, and everywhere else, normal people and MAGA.
Um the report notes officers likely used outdated information to label the school as a military target.
Trump has tried to put the blame on Iran earlier this week, claiming they also have automahawks, which everyone thought was ridiculous.
And when asked about the military report on Wednesday, Trump said he knew nothing about it.
Um we'll get to the the photography scandal at the Pentagon, but talk a little bit about what's going on with oil prices and this the school, which is just I feel like we should take responsibility when we make an error.
It's such a terrible error.
But go ahead.
I don't reverse order when you're handling a crisis, and this is a crisis.
The death of civilians, especially children, is obviously pretty ugly.
You acknowledge the issue, you take responsibility, and you're trying to overcorrect.
And they've done nothing of the sort.
And there is in a war, and this is a war.
This isn't military action, this is a war.
I went on a bike.
Like a field trip.
Exactly.
My daughter went on an excursion.
Except he didn't get Congress's approval the day before that he could go on the excursion.
Um look, this is you know, it's a tragedy.
Uh they just made a bad situation worse.
First off, they look incompetent by saying that it might have been a tomahawk from Iran.
Uh Iran doesn't have tomahawks.
So it it it looks like, okay, I'm not willing to own up to this.
I mean, there's not a good answer, but there's a reasonable answer here, and that is Yeah, this we decided to go on, you know, with military action.
This is a this is a group of people who killed 30,000 of its own people.
War is going to have collateral damage.
We screwed up, we take responsibility.
These are the following steps we're putting in place to make sure it doesn't happen again and take responsibility for it.
And it would have been not over, but it would have been acceptable.
Instead, it's like, no, it was Iran's fault.
Uh it just doesn't.
Or I didn't know.
Yeah, oh uh uh Pegcess was the same way.
It was it was and was angry when people asked about it, which is the everything wrong in the response and everything wrong in the mistake, but you're right, absolutely.
Yeah, and the the real I mean, we're just we're just starting to see.
So I was speaking to a kid and um and I said, What what you know, where do you want to be in five years?
I always ask young men that where do you want to be in five years?
And this kid said, uh, I'd really love to have my own auto repair shop focusing on EVs.
I said, okay, well then let's reverse engineer from those things.
Like, what kind of skills do you need to acquire?
What kind of job certification?
What kind of capital or money would you need to um uh start something like this?
Uh have a business plan, what what kind of real estate would you need?
What what would be your you know let's reverse engineer everything you need basics, right?
Let's reverse everything, engineer everything to today around what you would need to be an owner of an EV repair shop in uh he lives in the outskirts of Los Angeles, just the loveliest young kid.
Anyways, we can't even reverse engineer the tactics because I don't think anyone is really clear yet on what the end game is, what the end goal is.
And that is if they had said, all right, we're gonna diminish their launch capability from missiles, makes all the sense in the world.
It's more about the launchers and the missiles because you can bury the missiles on their own.
These are ballistic missiles for people who don't know.
We can we are going to make sure that the Straits of Hormuz are more secure than they were uh previous to this.
And we're gonna work with our Gulf allies to create a series of minesweepers and and enforce the border.
I mean, and we're gonna take out the Navy, and we're gonna take out the munitions infrastructure that builds this stuff.
These are the three boxes we need to check.
Can I can I interject?
I since I just interviewed Warner about this.
One of the things that they've talked about is going in and getting the enriched uranium, but that would actually be we'd take, as they say, boots on the ground, and it would be not viable.
Not viable.
Not feasible.
Unless we want a lot of Americans to die.
Yeah, as is quite frankly, uh, as is regime change.
I mean this regime is sticking pretty strongly.
Oh.
They're not collapsing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I think Calci had the likelihood of regime change at like 10% by the end of March or something like that right now.
Anyways, the but instead we don't it's like, well, okay, in war, you always have to have plans A prime and plan B because the enemy gets a say on this.
But the problem is no one can identify plan A.
No, they ate it.
They ate it.
They the the dog ate my homework.
Can I ask you about the oil prices?
Because I think that's something that's gonna people don't recognize.
And um the idea of trying to calm the market by releasing incorrect information, letting it go, you know, whipsaw all over the place.
And this release of these 400 million barrels is gonna have repercussions later, because that's when the prices will go up, these strategic reserves.
And what they're they're trying to do everything possible to pretend we're not gonna have a real crisis between the Strait of Hormuz and this release.
Um and so it they it has second-order problems.
Now Wall Street's sort of sloughing it off a little bit.
Um, but these are prices that are gonna reverberate through the system, as you have noted.
Oh, I uh uh so look, the biggest loser here is obviously um the people of of Iran who are in the wrong place at the wrong time, right?
There is no bigger loser than the families who lose loved ones.
I also think the reputation of the U.S.
and what was an opportunity to create much stronger alliances with moderate nations in the Gulf, uh so big losers.
But what people aren't talking about, the countries that import more than 50% of their oil, Japan, South Korea, India, and most of Europe, have seen their markets hammered.
Absolutely hammered.
Uh poor countries with no foreign exchange reserves, uh uh and dollar-denominated debt can't, you know, are uh it could be thrust into the IMF or effectively what is bankruptcy, airlines and hospitality companies all over the world, shipping the bunker.
I mean, nations who import their oil, especially who get most of it through the Straits of Hormones, their economy basically their economies are like fuck for the year at a minimum.
So there this is having, you know, we have obviously the biggest losers by body count are Iran, but by economic collapse, Middle Eastern oil importers, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and fragile emerging markets, Pakistan.
Guess who's doing great?
Russia.
Yeah.
This gives him the need he need he was really on the on the ropes around the million, the million people who've died, and also the price of oil, and now he has more money to spend while we ignored uh help from the Ukrainians on drones.
And one of the things Warner was pointing out was that fine, we we could take out their battleships, but the real problem is all those small fast boats and their drones.
They could get just do all manner of damage to us in that with these small $50,000 drones, and we use a million dollar rocket to take it out.
I mean, this is the problem is they have an ability to do this.
And they've been there, you know, the way Warner described it, these this country is hard, is is hard enforced, like hard, like hardwired.
This this is not Venezuela.
This is Trump lives like he's in some movie where you just do three bombs and that's the end of it.
But this is a hardwired 150,000 people in this in this ruling uh group in Iran, and they're not giving up all this money and all this power for I don't know.
It's it's a really difficult situation, which they didn't think out.
But just thinking about the market, the winners and losers.
The hardest at stock markets are Middle Eastern markets, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, their stock market's greater.
There's a capital flight to safety.
I mean, the ironic thing here is that over the long term, our reputation isn't tatters.
We're probably the least damaged because we're energy independent.
We produce more energy than we consume.
We have two oceans protecting us.
Friendly Canada to the north, harmless, harmless Mexico to the south.
We still have capital inflows in a weird way, I mean, uh, it's just terrible to say, but in a weird way, our markets are probably least damaged by this.
Except the cost.
There'll be costs for airlines, there'll be costs for uh truckers, there's gonna be costs for home heating.
Thank goodness it's not winter, right?
The dollar's already strengthened.
I mean, it it's uh it's ironic, but when you diminish the entire world, there's a flight to safety, and flights to safety usually benefit the U.S.
Emerging markets are gonna get the shit kicked out of them.
India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, capital flowing out to the US dollar for safe havens.
The U.S.
will likely be down eight to ten percent on a tariff ruling, or was down, but it could be down another 10 to 15 percent.
And that'll be I'll talk more about that on our prediction.
But you're gonna have a pretty big peak to trough, but that some of that might just be the air coming out of the bubble.
But to your point, the least damaged in the Middle East or Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but the big winner here, as you said, is Russia.
The oil price spike benefits them.
The U.S.
is distracted by Iran, so more Ukraine leverage.
And oddly, the the ruble strengthens.
So war is literally the agent of unintended consequences.
And this is so frustrating because if this had been more like four-deau and less like Iraq, and they'd set out a series of achievable objectives, that this could have been a win.
It could have been the Gulf states coming together.
And if they'd said, look, to a couple of European nations and to the Gulf states, a stable Middle East benefits all of us.
Let's all have a series of objectives, and we're gonna pay for and execute against most of this.
We could have strengthened our alliances.
We've been dragged around by Israel here in a lot of ways, it looks like it.
Let me see, I I disagree.
I think we're very tightly coordinated with Israel right now.
I talked to Warner who's in the gang of eight.
I'm gonna go with him over you.
I'm sorry to say that.
But you know, I think it was that they were.
Yes.
Um I think they were gonna attack, and we decided to be the senior partner.
Like that's rather than create something else.
Well, we mean Iran was gonna attack Israel, Israel's attacking.
No, no, no.
Israel was gonna attack Iran.
I mean, that's the implication he had.
And Senator Warner feels like we did not have the power to say stop.
Well, he doesn't know why we didn't.
That was one of his questions.
He's he's he's surprised.
He he uh he seemed wor more worried.
He's usually not a worry ward, but he seems worried about two things how this was conducted, obviously, and what the real implications are, especially around drones and small boats that could do enormous damage to our battleships and everything else, and also election security.
Um but one of the the weirder parts is how the the the administration has behaved.
Um Donald Trump was dancing last night or golfing and stuff like that.
So the visuals aren't very good.
The Defense Department has now barred press photographers from Iran briefings after publishing photos that Heggs says staff found, quote, unflattering, according to the Washington Post.
Heggs says Vanity aside, um, uh it just that they just look like like he looks like a fatuous pop and J at all times.
But in this case, the lack of seriousness about something that's very serious seems problematic, and it's also causing problems within their own group of mega.
There's a real shift.
There's a real like sort of tr Tucker Carlson Meghan Kelly, uh MTG on one side, um, and then uh, you know, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, all this is a real ugliness.
If I I went over I wandered over to Twitter, which I shouldn't have done.
And the the nastiness between them is really quite something.
It's really quite something to watch.
Like imagery is so incredibly powerful.
They're basically I think one photograph brought and didn't bring an end to the Vietnam War, but expedited it.
And it's that that's it's that incredibly dramatic photo of the girl running a young girl running from a napalm bombing.
And with the Iraq war, George Bush and the Pentagon, they banned photos of service member coffins because he realized war's so ugly that that it will lose support.
And the notion that these guys can't handle the images of Pete Hagsath in an unflattering I mean, it's just uh it shows you're spending you're allocating your capital in the wrong places.
That's not that's not what you should be thinking about or worried about.
And the if you think you can control the imagery of Pete Heggseth, well, okay, just wait till you see the images that are gonna come out of Iran.
And you can already sell see that the IRGC is quite frankly organizing again and going on an information campaign.
They are and they've they've been very good.
Iran in general has been one of the stronger players uh in though in those spaces in terms of propaganda and everything else.
And so when you say good you mean effective.
I mean they they lie like there's no lots of people do lots of governments do.
Um I don't know.
I think Iran takes it to a new level.
They do but but they are when I say good is they're good at it.
They're very um they're all throughout all the various social networks.
They're very um they did one the other day which I was sort of fascinated by where they put up your president as a pedophile um which was interesting.
They just they've been at it for a long long time and they have used often when there's stuff that pops up online, it's either Russia or Iran.
Um China to an extent too but really Iran has used social media as one of the smaller I mean it is a smaller country than Russia or less powerful and it has used social media to its advantage in ways that are really of course heinous because it's conspiracy theories and you you always find them s somewhere in they they're at the top everyone I ever interview in cybersecurity are at the top in cybersecurity issues, in uh propaganda, in conspiracy theories, and they have a very well-oiled machine throughout the world doing this kind of stuff.
So well when the actual audit of social media is done, I think we're going to find that somewhere between 10 and 40 percent of comments and posts on geopolitical accounts or accounts of influencers is going to have originated from either the C CCP, the GRU or the RGC.
Yep.
Absolutely.
This is what you do.
You see a piece of content, and then you look at the comments to evaluate and shape your own view of that content.
And when it's all gamed.
Yeah, and it it has a huge impact.
You don't even recognize how much impact it has on your views of stuff, because if someone says, Oh, the US, the US will be able to escort ships through the Straits of Hormones.
I'm just using an example.
And then there's just a ton of stuff saying, that'll never happen.
Oil prices are gonna be at 2008.
All right, where's that comment coming from?
And and unfortunately, although they could put in places to verify accounts and get rid of fake accounts and fake comments, you know.
I mean, just go on these really sensitive pages or sensitive opinions and click on who made the comment, and it's someone with three followers.
Okay, that's not a person.
And the question is, why would someone be making this comment?
Or what entity would have an interest in these comments?
We're gonna talk about that in a little bit because there's a major report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate that's really interesting around chatbots.
This story is gonna continue and have reverberations, obviously.
Uh, we're gonna go on a quick break, and when we come back, Anthropic sues the Pentagon, and Microsoft comes to Anthropic's defense.
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Scott, we're back with more news.
The White House is reportedly preparing an executive order to formally ban anthropic across the federal government, which is likely illegal.
The Defense Department CTO Emile Michael, and let me just say I covered him, and he's a toading bully, just said on CNBC that Anthropic would, quote, pollute the agency's supply chain.
We've only done this for foreign companies, just so you know, this kind of behavior.
All this comes as Anthropic is officially suing the Pentagon for labeling a supply chain risk, effectively blacklisting the company from federal contracts.
This has never been done to an American company.
Anthropic argues the government overstepped its authority and violated the company's First Amendment rights.
And now Microsoft is getting in the mix.
The company threw its support behind Anthropic this week, urging the federal court to temporarily block the Pentagon supply risk designation in an amicus brief.
Microsoft warned uh that the unprecedented move would have, quote, broad negative ramifications for the U.S.
tech industry, and they're damn right.
Scott, before we go further, I want to play a prediction you made last week.
Let's listen.
My prediction is no.
And that is Dario Amoti has given license and permission to CEOs to say no.
And in the next 30 days, you are going to see a raft of CEOs find their testicles and start saying no to this administration.
So you were right, Scott.
Uh so let's talk about that, them saying no.
And it's not just Microsoft, 37 AI researchers at OpenAI and Google, not the companies themselves, also filed a brief supporting Anthropic.
Um, you know, I'm gonna just very quickly comment the the this is what the government's doing here is really uh unprecedented.
It's a disagreement with a company, and instead of just disagreeing and moving on, they are attacking them in the most ridiculous ways, trying to make an example of anthropic and really hurt their business.
Um for you to I need you all to understand Emile Michael's role here, because the the these people all have other interests and agendas that have to do with their previous life in Silicon Valley and their future life in Silicon Valley.
And Emile Michael's always, as I said, been a toting bully to powerful men.
And this is what he's doing here.
Um and he's not a he is not a player that is in any way neutral.
He's not doing things for the you and I in in this government.
He's doing things in his own self-interest, if would be my guess.
And so the the attacks on anthropic, right behind him is all manner of competitors of anthropic that are using the federal government to uh hurt a company that decided not to want to do something.
And I'm glad Microsoft uh stood up for them.
I think this is the biggest story in tech.
And so just a quick recap um anthropic had uh basically two assets of the Pentagon.
Um, and both pretty narrow.
They didn't want uh cloud to be used for fully autonomous weapons, meaning AI, not humans, making final lethal uh targeting decisions, which seems reasonable.
And the second one was no use of cloud for mass domestic surveillance of Americans.
And the Pentagon responded that it does not intend to use cloud for those purposes, but refused to contractually commit to that, arguing that it it can't lead tactical operations by exception, and that legality is the Pentagon's responsibility.
And then on the um about two and a half weeks ago, Trump posted on True Social directing every federal agency, directing every federal agency to immediately seize all use of anthropic's technology.
And then Hegseth designated anthropic as a supply chain risk.
Okay, that is that's a label which was which has been reserved for foreign adversaries.
Yeah, I just said that.
Yeah.
And companies linked to the Chinese and Russian government.
Well, I'm saying it again, Carrie.
Ah, right, okay, fine.
The supply chain the supply chain risk status.
First off, that's this isn't just the government saying, okay, uh you don't want to work with us, we don't want to work with you.
If they say, if they label them as a supply chain risk, then already uh a hundred plus enterprise companies have reached out to Anthropic and said, we may not be able to use you.
A financial services company positive negotiations regarding a $50 million contract.
A pharmaceutical firm, financial technology company.
I mean, they can't, this really is an excess.
When you're labeled sort of an enemy of state, this is the equivalent of like you're a corporate enemy of state or threat.
I say threat.
Anthropic has now filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon saying that Congress's procurement laws don't authorize blacklisting a U.S.
company over protected speech.
That's what this is.
They get they get to work with or not work with who they want.
And the supply chain designation is is just not it's just not legal and it sets a dangerous precedent for any American company.
They will lose.
Most people think the government will lose.
But it will have an effect.
Yes, yes, the government lose, but it'll still have the effect.
This is a Trump thing.
He creates a real problem, whether it's anthropic.
And companies don't work with them until they figure it out.
And then and then it causes damage, just like they done at, you know, when they fire all of Voice of America.
Now they've lost in court, and Kerry Lake is an idiot, but it's already caused damage and caused damage to it.
And that's the goal is they're gonna push it illegally as far as they can, and then they'll be stopped.
But by the time they're stopped, anthropic is badly affected.
And if you all don't think this is a Silicon Valley rumble happening here, it's all in the self-interest of private companies who have an interest in slowing anthropic down.
And if you look at the links between Emile Michael and the rest of these these clowns.
Do they have financial interests and competitors?
Just this, yes, they do.
And so this is a way that Silicon Valley, the penny Silicon Valley used to ignore government for the most part.
And then the penny drop that they're easy to pay for, and that they can do their competition with each other in the federal government by pretending they're working for us as people or getting spots, putting their putting their people in the various spots, right?
That will cause it.
This is a Silicon Valley corporate beef happening.
It's that is what's occurring here.
The one that's been most outspoken, and I'm trying to connect his financial interest, which I'm sure is driving his rhetoric, is David Sachs.
David Sachs, Mark Andreessen.
Please understand there are shadow people behind these actions that you need to pay attention to.
And Trump is a, you know, sort of a useful idiot.
I'm I'm sure they make fun of Trump behind his back.
Um, but you know, it's all in their economic self-interest to hurt this company.
And they couldn't hurt them by being better.
So this is how they're doing it.
This is what they're doing.
It's really but it comes down to this is the this is the fulcrum that determines if companies continue to show some backbone.
And by the way, good for Satya Nadella, um showing some backbone here.
And again, risk.
So the the Calci is saying that anthropics like the likelihood anthropic wins the case is 72%.
In the meantime, companies will say, hey, that site license we were about to sign with your anthropic, we're just gonna wait.
We're apologize.
This is terrible.
You're great, but we can't we we we can't sign this contract right now.
To your point, Microsoft and a group of 22 retired senior military officers have filed amicus briefs in support of anthropic and its lawsuit.
But what's interesting is that consumers are speaking.
The enterprise is running, but consumers are running towards anthropic.
Downloads of the CLOD app spike more than 75% after Trump prompted federal agencies to stop using anthropic.
And on the flip side, uninstalls of ChatGPT mobile apps spiked roughly 300% the day after Trump's proclamation.
So the the question is who wins in the mind of Anthropic's board here?
The fear and the stasis that has been created in the enterprise market, or consumers running towards a company they think is finally showing some backbone.
I think it's damaging.
I think this is the t this is such a Trump way to do this is more enterprise, unfortunately.
I I know create chaos and damage, and it's legal, but do the punch, even if it's like uh I'm not a boxer, but if you do like a kidney punch, you do a kid, you hurt the person, and then you're like, oh, did I do that?
I didn't know I did that.
And you use your minions, uh, and I cannot underscore again what a minion Emil Michael is, um, to do your dirty work and pretend you're working for the government.
It's the whole thing is such a this is such a fixed fight.
I can't even you need to, and I think reporters should really spend a lot of people don't know these characters.
Again, this was an ex-Uber executive.
He's been involved in a lot of stuff in Silicon Valley, but he had to leave Uber under please go watch look at our reporting on him many years ago.
Um he had to leave Uber under very n difficult circumstances around the rape of a woman in India, um, in an Uber.
Um, but just um just go go go Google them reporters who are covering this and stop acting like Emil Michael has is this clean character.
In any case, I'm sure he'll come after me, but it's true.
Um, so I I'll win on that regard.
Um anyway, um, we're gonna move on.
Uh another thing that again, Silicon Valley just can't stop stealing, essentially.
Grammarly launched an expert review AI feature that gives editing suggestions, supposedly inspired by well-known writers and journalists.
Casey Newton discovered the tool was attributing advice to him and others, even though they never agreed to participate.
The feature even generated advice under the name of a certain tech journalist, Kara Swisher.
Um they've they've stopped that now.
They've gotten they they pulled back on it apparently, but what an incredible bunch of information and identity thieves.
I don't know what to say.
Anytime these people can steal, they steal.
Well, it goes back to this mindset.
And I thought one of the I think there's looking glasses into people's souls, how they treat their pets, how they treat service staff, is sort of a uh, you know, when is there guard down?
When there are certain tells, right?
And one of the tells that was really frightening when Sam Alman was asked about the energy consumption of AI, he said, what people don't take into account is the amount of energy it takes and the amount of investment and resources it takes to get a human to a point where it can make logical decisions and engage in critical thinking.
He said, if you look at how much energy and input and resources it takes to raise a child such that it can get to a point where it can make decisions, AI is better.
I found that so nihilistic and so inhuman because what Silicon Valley, or at least some of the individuals we talk a lot about, don't realize is that we try and get ROI economically such that we can make low ROI investments in relationships and people we love.
I'm not getting I am not getting an ROI back from my children on any sort of economic level.
Well, you use a lot of energy.
I'm wondering if we should use as much energy for you as we do, but go ahead.
Well, but the the whole point, the whole shooting match of an economy and relationships and satisfaction and purpose and some sort of spiritual sense of calm and like your life mattered, is that you do engage in you know pr productive economic or domestic labor such that you can invest that in other people.
And you may or may not get a return.
But the point is the return you get is you're so invested in something that you you your life has meaning.
The the whole point is that you create value such that you can you can you can invest that value in relationships.
And for most people, the most rewarding place of investment where quite frankly they don't get anything resembling an economic ROI is in children.
And to look at it on that level is like, okay, you don't understand what it is to be a mammal or a human.
And and also the notion that you can spend 50 years of your life professionally working your ass off, staying late, starting in the mailroom at the Washington Post, as you did, such that you have a voice, a reputation, a twist of phrase, an ability to string words together that compels people to action, it provides insight.
And then they can come in and just adopt that 50 years or piggyback on it.
That piggyback, steal it, really.
Is like I if I type in, give me five jokes on this, or or give me a view on the oil price, and I put in my voice, it does a really good job because what it's doing is stealing from everything I have ever written, said, or done.
That is correct.
And so the music industry did this correctly.
It said, okay, if we're KROQ, which is awesome, the best radio station uh of the 90s in Los Angeles, and they play a bunch of English beat or Tom Petty or Lloyd Cole in the Commotions or REM, they track how much they're playing, and then they send them a royalty.
And what these guys want to do is they want to leverage your years, decades of of discipline, schooling, certification, risk taking, time away from your family, but they don't want to pay for it.
And they see everything.
I mean, that that's I think a felony.
But what is double homicide from a mentality standpoint is that these people really look at relationships and humans on an economic basis.
I just I when I saw that, I thought, I thought, this guy is not He just had a kid.
Well, I'm I'm not gonna I'm not gonna speak to his children, but what he's gonna find out, and this is uh what I tell other dads.
It was a dark comment.
It was a dark comment.
I'm like, don't make the mistake I made and think that right away your kid's gonna be super into the shit you're into, and you're gonna get all these Hallmark moments, despite what insurance commercials would tell you, you're going to have to invest more in this child in every way.
And that's the point, because at some point what you realize is that that overinvestment in other people gives you purpose and value.
Let me just say they think everything is for the taking and for them.
I just this is just another example.
This what was happening at the Defense Department.
Oh, we have it up on Anthropic.
Oh, anything they can take, they take.
And they just continue to prove, you know, they they keep not meeting my low expectations for them already.
Um, and this is kind of an interesting thing.
Researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which has been attacked in all the and it's cre its founder been attacked legally by Elon Musk, and the federal government now, in his at his behest, they they're keeping going though, they don't care.
Tested 10 major AI chatbots and found out eight out of 10 were willing to help plan a violent attacks like school shootings, bombings, or assassinations.
Researchers posed as a 13-year-old boys, as 13 boys showing how easily minors could get guidance on weapons, locations, and strategies.
Only Anthropics Claude and Snapchat's My AI consistently refused to assist in planning attacks, and only Claude attempted to dissuade the users.
Deep Seek wished the user happy and safe shooting.
And on that note, a lot of you have been writing in about a story in Canada earlier this year.
An 18-year-old government opened fire at a school in on Tumblr Ridge, British Columbia, killing eight people.
Let's listen to a clip from a listener.
I am calling because it seems to be that there is a connection now between the shooter and chat GPT.
The shooter was flagged by ChatGPT several months ago regarding some of uh their behavior online.
ChatGPT didn't report it, which is one of the reasons why I am leaving this message to see what your thoughts are on that.
OpenAI is now being sued by the parent of the child who was injured in the shooting.
I, as you know, I've been at this for years, especially around kids, but it's jumped into people.
Um the most recent, uh, one of the more recent shootings, it was it was this suicide was like an adult, was was changed by these chatbots.
I cannot let's stop calling them chatbots.
What an adorable word for synthetic beings.
Um, which who don't who don't are not bound by legal, like if you're a lawyer and you did this, you go to jail.
If you're an analyst, if you're a you know, a psychologist and you did this, you'd go to jail.
If you were a person and you did this, you would go to jail.
Like all of the people go to jail.
They're willing to assist in violent attacks, and they're not doing anything to rein it in.
And it's not just kids, it's it's everything.
And again, the only one that is doing the right thing is Claude.
And so, and this is anthropic and this is the company.
I'm not doing an ad for Claude here, but they have at least some, and I think they should be regulated too.
But I can't tell you how incandescent I am about the way these people try to take every bit for themselves, and they do not care the damage they are creating.
And I I I'm gonna keep talking about this until Congress steps in and does something about it.
And you don't work for those rich people, you do not work for them.
You and and I I'm with Jen Telarrico enough with these people.
So go ahead.
Well I I think it's important to draw a distinction between potentially creating some sort of psychosis that leads to self-harm or harm against others through overuse of of AI or any other digital platform.
I think that's a separate study that needs to be done and without the interference of the massive money and lies and owned bot research that these these firms will do.
I think this is different.
I think this is whether the federal government needs to put in place laws and incentives such that if a private organization or corporation receives information that this person might be on the verge of committing an act of violence, if they have a responsibility to report it to the authorities immediately.
And I think they do.
I'm not a privacy person.
I'm not suggesting we go to minority report where we arrest them before they've committed the crime.
But at my school or so uh my school in Florida, where my kids went at another school, uh, and we we all shared information when I was involved with the school about these very difficult situations.
A kid was drawing very um disturbing images of gun violence.
And so the school felt like it had an obligation to report it, and then the FBI went to the house, and the FBI said, Are there any guns in the house?
And I think that was the right thing to do.
You're right.
That seems like if you notice, there was a video that went viral on Snap, uh teacher put out a snap saying that she wanted to kill these kids, and it immediately the cops showed up and said, uh, did you put, did you say this?
Are you having any sort of mental issue right now?
You need to go home, and we need to understand what is going on with you and if you have access to guns before we let you back into a school.
And the same is true here, that if you are going to monetize this type of information and you understand it so you can interpret it so well that you can create a prompt that keeps them on another second, another minute, or serves them the exactly right auto insurance ad, then in exchange for that economic benefit and what is clearly demonstrated ability to know what's going on with that person, if you see any evidence that that person might be capable of creating this type of crime, you have an obligation.
You bartenders, the bar, if a bartender continues to serve people alcohol, observing that that person is really drunk, and then that person gets in a car and kills someone, the bar is liable.
A very good analogy.
So if they have such incredible targeting, such unbelievable information, they can clearly tell that, okay, this individual is getting maps and and identification and information is basically digitally casing.
We should investigate, is what you're saying.
A school, then immediately a message goes out to the local authorities saying, here is exactly what this person said.
We have a judge involved, you get the order, and boom, they're in the house asking this person questions.
I'm not saying they arrest them, they haven't done anything yet.
They would argue this is surveillance, that but of course they don't mind selling surveillance.
You know, I'm just saying a human being in this situation would be arrested or libel, right?
These people are giving I agree, you should separate the two, but they're related, Scott.
It's the same mentality of let us extract all the good stuff, let us not protect anybody, and we are not liable for what we're doing.
You know, Mark Benioff once called them cigarette companies.
It's worse.
It's worse than a cigarette company.
They were just selling cigarettes and using Joe Camel.
That sucks.
But this is something demented.
Like I I think they've they've they they're demented.
I I don't that they think this is okay.
And that they don't say to themselves, should we really is this the way we want to make our money?
We want to make our money by poisoning children's minds.
We want to make our money by letting sh people who are mentally disabled g become more so and then giving them a lot of people.
But again, that's a different issue.
I agree, but they're giving people plans.
And if you're gonna give people plans on how to shoot a school, you have a responsibility to say, you might want to check this out, police.
I get, but for the purposes of of remedies, I think you need to separate the two.
Character AI may in fact be leading people into a state of psychosis where they believe the right thing to do is to find their stepfather's gun and kill themselves because they're gonna get to hang out with Daenerys and in the afterlife.
That is shifting their psychological state.
My understanding of this, the the shooter here was that she was already in an awful psychological state and was using Chat GPT as a tool to execute violence.
Both require some sort of regulation, responsibility, and action.
Yeah.
You've done a lot of good work interviewing parents around the rabbit hole and psychosis that the character AIs can lead people to, which by the way, has an average usage time of 75 minutes versus uh AI at like 13 or 15.
At the same time, if these organizations can very easily use the same technology to not only alert them at the right moment to serve them an ad for a dating app or for a cryptocurrency trading platform.
They can't say this person is clearly going through something and potentially a threat to the community and others.
They have a responsibility to immediately notify the authorities.
All right, we're gonna finish this up, but they don't have a community responsibility.
One of the things that always struck me.
When you say they don't have a community.
They don't feel like they like to do that.
No, I'm saying they should.
I think we're in agreement here.
I think they never did, is the point I was going to make.
When I when they were building their their headquarters, I remember Twitter building its headquarters, and they had the most beautiful cafeteria.
I don't know if you've ever been there, but it was gorgeous.
I've never been invited to Twitter's cafeteria.
This was pre-Elon.
And I was thinking Prelon?
Prelon.
Um I was thinking they don't care about all the businesses around.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like they kept the people captive in this beautiful, everything is here, don't go anywhere.
And I thought they don't give a fuck about San Francisco.
It's just like j they just want to be here, but they didn't care about the surrounding delis.
They didn't care about people going out in the street and creating a street life.
They didn't back the the, you know, they don't have to back the opera, but they didn't back any civic organizations ever.
And I was always like, huh, what a group of people.
They don't really care about anything but themselves.
Like I remember being struck by that cafeteria and thinking, they really could give a fuck.
And it was the same, it's the same idea.
They could give a fuck about our government, they could give a fuck about all these things except for what's in their interests.
And so I could I could go ahead.
I'm gonna I'm moving into I'm speaking of psychosis, I'm g moving into one.
It comes down to one sort of basic algorithm, and that is all corporate you could argue the big tech is worse than most, but generally speaking, it's safe to assume that all corporations care about the shareholder value and earnings and getting to those earnings within the confines of the law.
What is unfortunately is different nowadays.
I don't think that's changed.
I think General Motors would still be pouring Mercury into the river if there wasn't I would agree.
But because of Citizens United now, the only thing that elected officials care about is getting re-elected.
And the only thing you need to get re-elected is more money than the next person.
And Silicon Valley has connected the dots here.
And it said we can compromise inch by inch their ability to regulate us and prevent a tragedy to commons by throwing money at them.
And now billionaires, the 900 billionaires in the United States are responsible for 19% of the pack giving.
I know.
Was that number?
So I think you should ask Talerico about this.
I'm sorry, you should let him talk about this issue.
I mean, ultimately, it's it this is not a good situation for all of us.
And they someone came up to me the other day and who had been critical of my book being too hard on Silicon Valley burn book, and they said, I have to apologize.
You weren't hard enough.
And I was like, You're absolutely right.
But anyway, uh, all right, Scott, let's go on a quick break when we come back.
What Barry Diller is saying about CNN.
Hey, Kara Swisher here.
I want to let you know that Vox Media is returning to South by Southwest in Austin for live tapings of your favorite podcasts.
Join us from March 13th through the 15th for live tapings of Today Explained, Teffy Talks, Prof.
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It's all part of the Vox Media Podcast stage at South by Southwest, presented by Odoo.
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We sell out, and we hope to see you there.
Ambassador Ram Emanuel served as President Obama's chief of staff, an administration that had to deal with its fair share of global conflicts.
He dealt directly with Israel's Prime Minister and thought plenty about the threat from Iran.
But Emmanuel told me that the pace of action from this president in the Middle East is giving him whiplash.
In 15 months, this president has taken military action against eight countries.
I just just in 50.
Now we got three more years to go.
In 15 months, I ran twice, but you have Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Venezuela.
Uh you uh I was now I'm losing uh Nigeria.
Today explained.
In your feed every weekday, and on Saturdays, too.
This week on Virgin History, our chat show about the most interesting and important products in the history of technology.
We're talking about the hottest toy from 1998.
That's right.
Of course, I mean the Furby.
The little thing that sat on your desk and didn't have an off button and didn't speak English and annoyed everyone you knew, but you loved it to pieces anyway.
It turns out there is a fascinating technology and even AI story behind what happened with Furby and why it took off.
That's the story this week on Version History, wherever you get podcasts.
Scott, we're back with more news.
Barry Diller is speaking out about wanting to buy CNN and what he would do with it in a new interview.
Diller says CNN hasn't been managed optimally and has enormous potential to influence.
He says he told Warner Brothers CEO David Zazloff all this.
Let's listen.
Where I've said Jim, I don't think your programming, I don't think it's being optimally programmed.
I don't think it's competitive.
Now, by the way, the facts uh support that.
Uh meaning that its ratings have declined, its revenue has declined.
It's still quite profitable, but how would you alter it?
Oh, in every way.
Look, feel, and see.
Every way.
And I mean, I hope I get the chance.
I don't think I will, but I hope I do.
Um, I'm not sure when this was, but I I I texted him.
Um he said it's not happening.
He said not that now that the Ellisons have it.
Um and they and he quite correctly, and I happen to know this, they're gonna combine CNN and CBS.
Um, he doesn't think he he has a chance.
I would love to work for it.
Barry Dillon, even he's much more conservative than I am, but um I would certainly love uh he's such a good programmer, he's such an interesting, he does love journalism, even if he gets mad at it sometimes.
He's someone I I appreciate in that regard.
Um I wrote him, I said, can you please?
And he's like, there's no way.
Uh so I can I can knock this one out of the water, he can't do it, unless please, Ellison, sell it to Barry Diller.
Uh uh please.
That would be great.
So any thoughts?
Um I mean, uh, I would love to see Barry Diller partner with Jeff Sucker and a private equity firm.
And I think there's more, a greater likelihood than people believe that the Ellisons might say, this is too big a headache.
We might just sell uh combined CBS and CNN to someone else.
Because I think that I'm not sure, and maybe I'm being naive here, I'm not sure they're as Machiavellian as people think about trying to control the world.
Um I don't know, but maybe they have some grand vision for how they integrate it into TikTok.
But I I can't imagine Larry Ellison is as smart as he is.
He isn't gonna say this is gonna be more headache than it's worth.
Yeah, they wanted the studios.
I I I agree.
They're not quite in Maccabillion.
They they they're they're just opportunistic, I would say.
I I you know, David Ellison was qu was democratically.
You're the third richest man in the world by focusing on on economics.
And I think that anyways, I think there's a shot.
CNN makes a lot of money.
Diller is correct.
It makes sense.
It's high margins, but I did some analysis here because I just wanted to show you like with uh one, talk about some numbers of cable news.
I spent a decent amount of time last night uh on AI looking at ratings and viewership.
And essentially what I did was just to give you a sense for the ecosystem, and also I never miss a chance to make Pivot look good.
It is good.
I looked at gross viewership.
That is the number uh or listenership.
That's the number of people who watch a program and then see it on YouTube or on social.
Oh, wow.
Or download the audio and listen to it.
And actually, listens are more valuable than views because it's a more intimate experience.
And that's why that's why you get higher CPMs on podcasts right now than you get on cable TV.
CPM is the cost per thousand viewers and advertiser is willing to pay.
So let's look at gross viewership.
The number of times someone or the number of people that watch the program, see it on YouTube or somewhere else, or listen to the podcast version of it.
Fox News averages during prime time.
Fox.
Fox News during primetime averages 2.1 million in gross viewership.
This is staggering.
CNN, 660,000.
Fox is kicking the shit out of CNN.
Pivot's gross viewership is 375,000.
CNBC is 252,000.
Now, that's a bit of a a misnomer.
It's important.
But what advertisers care about, they don't care about kids, they don't care about seniors.
They care about people age 25 to 54 who are buying kids, houses and cars and in their mating years.
This is a single pivot, not two together of the week, right?
Uh this is this is one show.
One show.
Not because we do two a week, but go ahead.
Right.
This is one show.
So in the core demo, that's adults 25 to 54.
Let me start here, which will explain that number.
Let's look at the median viewer age.
Fox News, the median is 69, CNN at 67, CNBC at 63, Pivot, the median age is 42.
42.
So, which leads you to believe, as you should, that the number, the percentage of viewers in the core demographic for these institutions or for the cable guys in CNBC is somewhere between 20 and 30 percent.
For Pivot, it's 70%.
Meaning the number of people listening or watching these programs, listening to or watching these programs in the core demo that advertisers care about, CNBC gets 63,000 people on average watching their programming who are in the core demo.
CNN gets 135,000, Fox gets 197,000, and Pivot gets 233,000.
So we're getting more people in the core demo, and then, which leads to the following.
The word I've heard from CNN is they get between $13 and $17.
I don't know what Fox gets.
So just to give you a sense, oh, and let's talk about median household income.
And cost of doing business, but go ahead.
Yeah.
You want to reach wealthy people.
Wealthy people are now responsible for 50% of consumer spending.
They have more discretionary income, right?
Fox News, the average household, the median household income is $60,000.
CNN, $65, CNBC, $85.
That's not a pivot, 150.
Because we get a very tech-heavy, high-paid audience.
So it's pretty obvious why cable news, Fox is actually doing pretty well.
But cable news as a whole is dying.
It's literally dying.
So Barry Diller's saying he wants a new look and a new feel.
What I would suggest is unless you can pick it up at distressed pricing and consolidate it with a bunch of other stuff, I think Barry's falling into the same trap that a lot of people follow into, and that is nostalgia is not a strategy.
I don't think there's any, I don't think there's any coming back.
Really interesting.
They're too expensive.
I mean, you didn't even figure in costs.
Our costs are basement compared to all their own.
Oh, the gross margins?
Yeah.
I mean, then it gets it goes from ugly to worse.
Yeah.
What's interesting is there's a it's a it's still a great brand.
And I agree with you about the romanticism.
And he happens to be, even today, at his uh he's much older, is still the best programmer around.
He's been no, he's he's a he's a legend in the world of media.
But not just that.
I don't I've never seen him think like, oh, I just John Malone.
And he hasn't been able to figure it out.
I agree.
I agree.
But I'm just saying I I I wouldn't like just say, oh, he's just being romantic.
I I've had discussions with him.
He's got some great ideas, and I agree.
It's a real problem.
It's uh I I would spin it off and see what Zucker and Diller could do.
Because they both of them, very good.
I they have a lot of ideas and bring in people who have great ideas.
And what would you do with it?
If if they said, here is this, this is what you have, Scott, what would you do with it?
I know you have an just an anathema to television.
I know that.
But um I I it's an interesting I I think he it's what he knows best, and it would be interesting.
I think he would be an interesting owner.
Is he said it's not happening.
Um, but uh, but it's nice that he's bringing it up, I think.
Well, that's right.
And by the way, speaking of our demo of our young demo, 42 means there's a lot of people on the very young side.
A lovely young man named Evan last night.
I was going into this party for Hank Paulson, was like, I love Pivot.
Say hi to Scott.
And I was like, and and Amanda's like, that is a very young person.
I get stopped by very young people, very old people, um, middle, most much in the middle, and very different people.
And I really Evan, I really appreciate all the nice things you said uh about the show.
Uh, because we we like all our different fans, but you're right, in age thing is important, all kinds of stuff.
Anyway, Barry, good luck.
All right, we're not gonna be buying it, and I won't go off on my craziness like I did with the post.
Um, all right, Scott, one more quick break.
We'll be back for predictions.
Not for kurs a tight of O2.de slash TV.
Oh two TV.
Perfect for life TV on streaming.
Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.
Oh, one thing.
I predict we're gonna have a great time at South by Southwest.
All right, that's my prediction.
That's what you're predicting.
All right.
So my prediction is essentially, um I think the markets this year are gonna go down.
I think I think we're I think we're on the precipice of like a 10 trillion dollar wipeout.
Whoa.
Um really?
Oh yeah.
Tell all.
Well, not and by the way, I get this wrong all the time.
This is not financial advice, but I don't think it's from Iran.
It's from what comes after Iran.
Um and this is this is the chain reaction here.
Uh I don't think oil is gonna I think oil is not gonna be at 150 bucks, but it's gonna be it's it's gonna be sustainably higher.
It's gonna be elevated through the rest of the year.
And inflation in some markets reignites.
The Fed can't cut rates, they're trapped um to inspire the economy because they're worried about inflation.
I think corporate earnings are really impaired as consumers stop spending, um, because some of them will be paying five bucks a gallon for gas and their 401k will start to decline.
And Q2 earnings season becomes bad, and then what CEOs do when things are sort of bad is they throw in the kitchen sink and they'll make it look like a bloodbath just to get all the bad shit out.
But the real contagion uh here is gonna be from emerging markets.
I think there's a decent chance that Pakistan and Egypt default and as well as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Dollar denominated debt, very energy-dependent, very fragile economies.
Because they all they all, there's this domino effect in those markets because they can't afford oil imports and their dollar-denominated debt just becomes unpayable.
And then the real downward spiral starts.
European banks holding that emerging d market debt start announcing write downs.
Um foreign banks, Deutsche Bank, BMP Paribas, all hugely exposed.
Credit spreads blow out, and we get sort of a not this to the same extent, but we get an 08-style which bank is next moment.
Except this time it's happening while the US is fighting a war we started for no reason.
It's an excursion, Scott.
It's an excursion.
Well uh, and well, that's the mistake here.
Is it it should have been a special uh it should have been a military combat operation.
Instead, they've turned it into a war with no objectives.
But anyways, i by August, the narrative ships shifts from transitory war shock to holy shit.
We may have broken the global financial system.
The SP is off 20 to 40 percent from its peak.
Bitcoin goes to like 30,000.
Um, and you know, and quite frankly, the only thing that probably goes up is canned goods and ammunition and Chevron.
Well, that's a scenario.
Happy South by Southwest.
But it's gonna start.
The prediction is the following.
It's gonna start, the contagion is gonna start in emerging markets that can't afford oil, and uh their debt is dollar denominated.
It's just a toxic.
I think this is a very accurate prediction, I have to say.
So the problem is we've shot so many bullets with our debt and printing money that um the ECB and the Federal Reserve doesn't have the same firepower to try and lift us out of this.
So in other words, it could be like a an 08 shock, but the problem is we we have less ammunition for a bailout.
Yeah, with the tariffs, with the debt, with everything.
I mean, you know, one of the things that uh did you hear James Carville saying, I don't have enough Trump derangement syndrome, I want more.
You know, I'm so furious at this fucker.
He was screaming.
This what he has done here with this Iran, and it all, as you have noted many times, links back to Epstein again, right?
It links back to this guy.
He's the guy in every room.
In every room.
I think you're absolutely right that this everything is motivated by either people want to get before while the getting's good or for themselves, or uh an unhealthy need to hold on to power in a demented way.
Like I I remember when Elon said that one time if Democrats, it's an existential crisis for the world, if Democrats win.
Actually, as I always say, every accusation is a confession.
We're in an existential crisis because of these greedy fucks and because of the the need to hold on to power over everything, and it's gonna it has reverberations around the world.
There's some really interesting tax proposals.
Senator Booker proposed basically a tax holiday for young people, which I love.
Not that expensive because young people don't make that much money.
We need to level up young people who are 24% less wealthy than they were 40 years ago, versus old people who are 72% wealthier.
And then for the first time, I saw a wealth tax that could potentially make sense, but instead of going after billionaires, they should be going after anybody or everybody that say has a well, you know, more than call it a hundred million dollars.
You get no happiness, your kids still get no incremental happiness from inheriting that much money.
Yeah, we're helping you.
Billionaires were helping you lift your wallets.
And it should be it should be annual and it should be small enough such that people don't have to liquidate assets.
Or move to Florida.
Like Yeah, it has to be federal.
Starbucks is just to be federal.
Yeah, it has to be federal.
You're absolutely right.
That's great.
Okay.
All right.
We're gonna talk about that.
That's gonna be our one of our big topics at South by Southwest.
Anyway, because you have will have just interviewed uh Baby Jesus.
Anyway, uh we want to baby Jesus.
Call them baby Jesus.
Uh I dare you.
Penis hugs, baby Jesus.
That's the thing.
The problem is in Austin, you can't find three wise men and a virgin.
Ah, very good.
You knew it was coming.
You knew it was coming.
We just heard from the Calorico team and that he has a scheduling conflict.
Yeah.
We anyway, we want to hear from you.
Stop with a joke.
Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.
Go to nymag.com/slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51 pivot elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe.
I'm gonna get serious for a second.
Monday I published a story that I think I'm the most proud of of anything I've done in a very long time.
I sat down with three Epstein survivors who've been pushing for more transparency with on on On With Care Swisher's survivor uh Liz Stein, who's also a survivor of childhood uh sexual abuse, said her desire to help her younger self fuels her advocacy work.
Let's listen to a clip.
It would be irresponsible of me to have this position and to not use it so that others did not feel alone in this.
Because if I could go back and tell myself anything, it would be to tell someone.
And if they don't listen, tell someone else and just keep telling until people listen to you.
And even if you feel like they don't, be proud of yourself because you at least were able to sit in your uncomfortable truth when other people weren't.
And that's really what fuels me doing this advocacy, being the person that I wish was there for me when I needed them most.
This was a great show.
They actually got to talk a lot about it.
Often you hear you get these shorter interviews.
It was really very moving.
I dare uh I just listen to it.
I know everyone goes, Oh, good goodness.
No, you know the emotion in her voice.
Such dignity, such incredible strength, such heroic behavior in in the face of adversity.
And uh, you know, uh it was in a lot of I've gotten a lot of feedback that's been I really appreciate, but it was all these women.
They were astonishing.
It has nothing to do with me, but I let them talk, and you should listen to what they have to say, as she said.
Anyway, that's the show.
Uh thanks for listening to Pivot.
And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
We'll be back next week.
Today's show was produced by Larry Namon, Tony Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.
Ernie and her Todd Engineer, this episode.
Manola Moreno edited the video.
Thanks also to Drew Bros, Mia Savera, and Dan Shallan.
Nishak Kerwa is Box Media's executive producer of podcast.
Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.
Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York magazine and Vox Media.
You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod.
We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things, tech and business.
We will see you all in the great state of Texas.