Today's number 1 million. That's the

total number of domain names registered

as of last month. Uh Ed, true story. As

I'm trying to unsubscribe because of

resist and unsubscribe, I unsubscribe

from Amazon one, their healthcare

offering. And I don't know if they're

listening to me and using it across

their other domains, but whenever I go

to Amazon Prime now, it suggests

erectile dysfunction socks.

Okay. You don't like that one? Fine. Uh,

instead of getting a doctor for a same

day appointment, it gives me a picker

from a warehouse named Kyle. I told it I

had Crohn's and it suggested just turn

your body off and on real fast. See what

happens.

>> How are you, Ed?

>> I'm doing very well. How are you doing,

Scott?

>> I feel very exposed. This resist and

unsubscribe thing. A lot of people are

saying it's inspiring and a lot of

people are saying that I should have

been more organized and reached out to

them. What do they mean? They should

have reached out to them. These people,

these politicians who already had a plan

or

>> Yeah. Or there's activist groups,

there's, you know, media personalities

who are like, well, this isn't, if you'd

reached out to me or these groups that

help organize these things. And I'm

like, the last thing I want to do is get

on the phone with a bunch of media

personalities and Brooklynites

and get their view on whether Netflix

should be on the list or not. That

sounds like the seventh circle of hell

for me. I think that's exactly right.

And there you have your answer. It was

the right choice. You don't want to do

that. That's a pain in the ass. So, you

did it your way. I think that's the

right way to do it.

>> I did it my way. That's right, Ed.

That's right. And today, I'm speaking,

no joke, to the senior class president

and the senior class at a Michigan high

school such that they're all considering

collectively unsubscribing from Spotify,

but they want to speak to me first. I

have never been so intimidated. I got to

speak to like 400 seniors at a high

school about why they should unsubscribe

from Spotify.

I think somehow that's going to I'm

going to end up in the Epstein Files

because of that.

By the way, I just want to highlight I

don't think anyone on our podcast is in

the Epstein Files.

>> Actually, you know what?

>> Oh, have you searched your name?

>> Yeah. Well, no, I haven't. Cara did. I

didn't search. I'm not in the Epstein

files. Cara did and she called me and

said, "Thank God you're not in the

Epstein files."

>> You actually are in the Epstein files.

But

>> what? It was an email to Epstein saying,

"You should read this article." And the

article quotes Scott Galloway. It's a

guy, one of his buddies saying, "Hey,

you should read this this this article

about, I don't know, valuations in big

tech or something. It's really good. You

should check this out." And then in the

article, it says, "Professor Scott

Galloway says blah blah blah blah." So,

you are in the Epstein files, but you're

in there because Epstein's buddy thinks

that you have good financial analysis.

That's right.

>> Well, there you go.

>> It is getting to the point though where

if you're not in the Epstein files, then

who the [ __ ] are you? You know,

>> you know what I love? I So, what is it?

The Overton window has been shifted

here. I've been seeing all these um sex

workers on TikTok saying that uh who's

not in the Epstein files? Hunter Biden.

>> We're going to need to audit your

algorithm soon, but please continue.

>> Hunter Biden loved two things. He loved

crack cocaine and having sex with grown

women. And he looks wholesome now. He

looks He only did meth and he banged sex

workers who were actual adult women. And

he looks like some something out of the

Walton's right now. I love how the

window has been shifted. And remember

Larry Summers, I mean, he was just

associated with the Epstein files. He

had to step down from all of his

positions. He steps down from the board

of OpenAI. Now, it turns out there are

hundreds of Larry Summers out there. But

there are so many at this point, it's

sort of like the the flooding the zone

with [ __ ] You just flood the zone with

so many creeps that now being creepy

doesn't matter anymore.

>> What we need is an institution to go

through these millions of pages and say,

"This is what warrants public scrutiny.

This is what warrants a grand jury and

an indictment." Exactly.

>> And this this is what doesn't warrant

public scrutiny.

>> And so everything's being mixed

together. I mean, everyone's talking

about Dr. for Petia. I think he's a

[ __ ] distraction.

>> Totally agree.

>> The cabinet members and the president

and someone people have committed child

rape. Those are the people we should be

talking about.

>> 100%.

>> Anyways, I I find the whole thing

another example of how people don't

appreciate how much benefit we got from

institutions we could actually trust.

There's no institution we trust to

review this and parse out the parse out

what is credible information that

warrants discovery and other information

that's just stupid gossip that's going

to do nothing but create headaches for

people for no [ __ ] reason. And it

almost seems intentional to mix them all

together. Even the redactions which

don't really make any sense. I mean they

said that they had a rule for the

redactions which was supposed to be

victims and children. But then you go

through and you see actually a lot of

these redactions don't make any sense at

all. You have redactions of people who

are clearly the perpetrators and they're

just blacking out their name. So then

you just you just don't know who sent

that very very alarming email about

potentially some sort of pedophilic or

um creepy just awful behavior. Whatever

it is, I mean the reductions don't make

any sense. Um I'm totally with you. this

whole thing is just a total shitow and

it seems like that is the point.

>> Well, the I forget his name, but the guy

who sort of invented modern propaganda

for the GRU said that

uh he said the key is put out lies, put

out truth whenever Putin or someone else

is accused of something, put out some

truth, put out some lies, accuse

everybody all the time and just make it

such that people are totally confused

and just give up and there is no

objective truth anymore.

And that's what this is.

>> And it's working. It's working really

well,

>> 100%.

And because we don't have institutions

we can trust, they can say, "Okay, we're

not going to release the names of the

victims unless they want their names

released, but if there is an individual

who is there's credible evidence in

these files that this person has

impregnated 11-year-old, we're going to

let the markets know through a grand

jury indictment of this person." and the

the American public has a right to know

if the president of the United States

has been mentioned 5700 times or if his

cabinet secretary of commerce claims

very stridenly that he wanted nothing to

do with this guy and still continued to

have you know I mean even that you could

argue maybe that's not for public

discovery or scrutiny but instead

they've just flooded the zone like

nothing else and everyone's just

confused and had it

>> well we could talk about Epstein files

for days. But we have some very

interesting market news to get into

today. Today we are discussing why

software stocks sold off last week. Uh

we're also discussing the future of the

entertainment industry. We got some

updates there and also Anthropic's

unbelievable marketing win with their

Super Bowl ad. But to start, let's

discuss what happened to software.

Software stocks got crushed last week.

Cloudflare fell 7% at last fell nearly

9%. Shopify fell 14%. As a whole,

software companies lost roughly 12% of

their value in just one week. That

dragged the NASDAQ 100 into its worst

3-day slide since Liberation Day.

Selloff was triggered by a wave of new

tools that spooked investors. Anthropic

rolled out industry specific products

for legal, finance, and customer

service. OpenAI also launched a more

powerful multi- aent version of its

coding tool and a new platform to help

companies deploy AI agents. Meanwhile, a

new AI assistant called OpenClaw can now

execute tasks directly through messaging

apps like WhatsApp. The fear is that if

companies can build their own software

with AI, well then why will you keep

paying companies to make it for them? So

Scott, uh just absolute chaos in the

software market right now. All of the

big software names are trading down. Uh

you look at the the software ETF, IGV,

it's down 20% in the past month. Tons of

selling happening right now. Um I have a

view on this and I've actually gone out

into the market and taken some action,

but I will start with your reactions to

what happened last week. Uh and then we

can get into the details. what you just

said is thinly veiled way of saying you

you buy these stocks you think are being

unfairly punished would be my guess.

>> Yes.

>> Um I think what you're going to see is

is that it's going to put margin

pressure on these companies and it's

going to create a new wave of startups.

I think that we talk about Figma and

Adobe. Adobe's sort of Mercedes. Figma

is sort of Toyota. somebody's going to

come up with BYD and that is they're

going to use a AI to come up with 80% of

Adobe for 10% of the price. But at the

same time, I still think Adobee is going

to be a cash machine because you'll

continue to use Salesforce for a long

time because if you invest all that time

in understanding the interface and

getting good at it and your employees

and your sales teams know how to input

data into Salesforce,

unless something is monumentally better

and it's been mandated from the top

levels of the company, they're not

switching over. So I I think you're

right. These companies have probably

been overpunished.

What I think the net net though will be

is margin compression because there's

going to be so many startups offering an

Old Navy version of these software

platforms at a fraction of the cost from

overfunded startups where a 2 10 20 30

person team can spin up a SAS platform

at a fraction of the cost. It will put I

think margin pressure on on these folks.

>> I think margin pressure is exactly

right. I think that is the danger here.

What is interesting though is that the

market's reaction has not been one of

we're going to see reduced margins or

we're going to see some more pressure on

margins. The market's reaction is

telling us software is dead. AI has

killed software. So software stocks down

20% in the past month, just one month

alone. The forward PE has gone down from

35 times in 2025 to 20, lowest level

since 2014. We're seeing huge amounts of

selling pressure to the point where it's

kind of obvious now. Like this isn't

just, oh, we might trim our holdings.

This is like sell everything. This is

what we would call panic selling. To me,

this is very similar to what happened

when chat GPT came onto the scene. And I

don't know if you remember what

happened, but chatbt shows up and

everyone decides that search is dead

now. Specifically, Google is dead now.

And you saw Google stock cratered 40% in

the year that Chach GBT was released. It

actually then started to continue to

slide as more products were announced

from CHBT. Since it bottomed out, Google

has obviously been on a massive run.

They have risen 280%.

And essentially what they did was they

learned from Chat GPT. They invested

more in AI. They integrated AI into

their products. They came up with their

own AI product. their search revenue

actually increased. It's up 50% since

chatbt was released. They got more usage

and now Google is

everyone agrees the winner of AI at

least for the moment. Um it's now worth

$4 trillion in market cap. It is sort of

with Apple competing for second most

valuable company in the world. And that

was an example where the market was

confronted with this new technology that

really freaked them out and they decided

that they just were going to do away

with their models, do away with

rationality and they just decided [ __ ]

it, let's sell. That's exactly what

happened and it it it made Google one of

the best buys and we recommended it uh

about a year ago. Similar thing happened

by the way with with Tik Tok. Tik Tok

comes onto the scene. It's really

exciting. It's really popular. Everyone

decides Instagram is dead. Meta stock

falls 70%. Then it bottoms out. Then it

rips up more than 600% in the next few

years. They come out with a product that

is very similar to Tik Tok in Instagram

reels. Now Instagram reels has almost

the same number of users as Tik Tok

does. Very similar dynamic. So I think

that this is the same thing is happening

here and that is we do have a new

technology and it could be quite

disruptive but the amount of selling

pressure that we're seeing in the

markets is just indicative of again

panic chaos confusion and there are many

reasons why I think software isn't dead

um you know the first reason would be

there's nothing stopping these companies

from integ integrating AI into their

existing products. I mean, this is the

same thing we saw with Google. Just

because Chad GBT comes along doesn't

mean that Google can't get into AI. In

fact, that's exactly what they did do

and it worked really well. The other

thing that you point out, which I think

is a massive point that people are not

really recognizing. If you're going to

cancel an enterprise contract with a

software company, say Salesforce, that's

not like a small deal. That's like a

gigantic pain in the ass. The switching

costs are massive. It takes on average

more than half a year to find a new

service provider. It also has to go to

committee. You need to have a bunch of

people, executives who have to sign off

on the decision. It also costs money. If

you're going to terminate the contract,

then you have to pay 100% of the

remaining fees. This is something that

companies do not want to do. You do not

want to change your enterprise SAS

provider because it sucks to do it. And

this by the way is why these companies

have been such great buyers in the past

because the moes are gigantic. It's

always been a thing. The switching costs

are tremendous. So in order to switch

from one of those providers, you need to

have a huge body of evidence to show you

and to show the committee that yes,

going with Claude or going with the

other AI tool is a better idea. The

other thing they're counting out is the

trust they have with these companies,

the relationships they have with these

companies. They've been working with

these companies for years. So again, the

idea that oh, there's a new tool. Oh,

there's a there's a a new startup that

they're going to they're going to help

us with our enterprise SAS. Meanwhile,

we've been working with these companies

for years and we trust them and we trust

their enterprise security. I just don't

think that it's realistic. I think that

the selling pressure is way too strong

right now. I think markets are

overreacting. To me, this is perfect

buying opportunity.

>> I think you're right. And the reality is

you want your emotions are your enemy.

And when you hear this news and the

narrative, and it's a solid one, that AI

is going to undermine all SAS platforms.

I get it. You have to be thoughtful

about valuations. But the analogy I

would use is that when I went to UCLA,

everyone talked about the freshman 10.

And that is the majority of people end

up in the dorms. I forgot to send in my

deposit for my dorms, and I was so

freaked out. My mom was going to freak

out because she wanted me to move out so

badly that I rushed a fraternity and

ended up getting into a fraternity just

because I needed a place to live. It's

neither here nor there, but anyways.

People want to know about my history.

People want to know what music I was

listening to in the 80s. RM, Lloyd Cole,

English Beat, Tom Petty, uh, you know,

Damn the Torpedoes. It was really

unfortunate that you weren't born in an

earlier age yet.

>> I agree.

>> They called it the freshman 10. And that

is you got a meal plan. You paid like

you paid I don't know, I forget it was

1,100 bucks and you got three meals a

day in your dorm. Sprout, Hedrickk,

whatever. And you just go down, you roll

down in your pajamas and they had cereal

and good food. It was all crazy crazy

fattening.

And the notion would be okay. And I

remember even someone writing an article

saying there's all sorts of different

options on campus for food. To eat

somewhere else was a hassle and

expensive and required a huge change in

consumer behavior. That's the way I see

this and that is there might be a new AI

company that comes out that is a better

CRM for half the price of Salesforce.

Good luck trying to get your entire

sales force to figure out a way to input

and figure out the interface

and the mobile application.

You know, they're going to say, "Fuck

that. Let's just stick with Salesforce."

Now, the next time they're negotiating

next year with a huge site license for,

I don't know, McKenzie or whoever who

uses Salesforce to manage all their

potential clients of people who think

that someone with a PhD in a Northern

European accent knows any more about

their [ __ ] business than they do. The

procurement department at McKenzie will

use all of these AI CRM startups to

negotiate a lower price. Yeah,

>> but I don't think they're going to swap

out a cloud flare of all the these

companies do such a good job of creating

friction to exit

>> try to I remember when when I was not

running but I started my red envelope. I

think we were using Oracle and

Broadvision

>> and Oracle was power was it powering our

database but trying to switch out of

Oracle they purposely make it almost

impossible. Yeah,

>> these companies do a really good job of

making it easy for you to sign up, like

I find when I check out of a hotel, they

make it so easy for me to pay. They're

like, "Okay, we've already taken the

payment." What's really hard is if they

charge you for breakfast you didn't

order, it takes, you know, several calls

and years to get your money back and

it's not worth it. It's the same thing

here. These companies will experience

margin pressure because the procurements

departments will have a lot of options

and they'll threaten it, but they're not

going to tell their 4,000 media part

department at L'Oreal to start using

some other um you know software program

to figure out how to track clients or

payables or whatever. Right now, these

companies their revenues are growing and

they're actually growing at double-digit

rates. So, it's not that people are

upset with the product right now. They

actually like the product and and every

company that has an enterprise

relationship with one of these software

companies, they're going to be trying to

find reasons to continue the

relationship because it's too much of a

pain to get out of it. They don't want

to do that. In addition, they're going

to be integrating AI into the products

themselves. So, it's not like I mean,

it's not as if Salesforce suddenly

doesn't have AI. Salesforce is investing

a lot in AI right now and they're going

to roll out those products to their

customers. So I I think it's a lot of

hysteria over something that is not that

meaningful and you know it's rare that

you have these moments where there is

such

such momentum in the selling pressure

among the markets and so I think these

are the moments where you want to go in

and buy. Um Mark Mahaney calls these

kinds of companies DHQs, dislocated

highquality companies. That is you want

to find good companies that are

experiencing some level of dislocation.

I have a few names that I have bought.

Um and who knows what will happen to the

prices cuz the markets are going crazy

right now.

>> What did you buy? Inquiring minds want

to know.

>> So I bought three stocks. The first

stock was Adobe. And just a disclosure,

Adobe has sponsored this podcast in the

past. I made this pick last week and I

stand by it. It's down 9% since Monday

night. It's down nearly 40% in the past

year, trading at 17 times earnings. The

S&P average is 29 times earnings. Its

5-year average, it 5-year PE average is

37. So, the assumption is AI is just

going to kill Adobe overnight. But

again, this is a large enterprise

company.

>> Wow. It's at a 5year low.

>> It's getting absolutely decimated right

now. but it's used by 98% of Fortune

500s. We've also talked about this with

the research team that they have this

major tailwind which is short form

video. Everyone's trying to hire video

editors right now and every video editor

is using Adobe Premiere. They've got a

lot of things going for them and they're

going to start integrating AI. So, I

think Adobe is a buy right now. We've

discussed that. I also think Salesforce

is a buy. It fell around 11% at first.

It kind of recovered again. We'll see

how it trades in the next few days. You

got to move quickly here. It could be

that by the time this episode airs, it's

it's back up, but it's down 45% in the

past year, trading at 27 times earnings.

Its 5-year average is 73. It's growing

at double digits. Its RPOS are up 12%.

Again, this is like a massive enterprise

SAS company, which again has really

large modes. My third pick that I've

bought is Service Now. Uh, trading at

nine times sales, five-year average of

16. Uh, people just assume AI's killed

it, but again, they're integrating AI.

They've got $1 billion in AI revenue in

the pipeline for 2026. They're

integrating with Anthropic and Open AI.

They've signed contracts with these

companies. So, those are some buys that

I I've gone with. Again, do whatever

you'd like. I I think that these are

good opportunities. And then the other

thing that you could consider right now

is just like buying the ETF which is

called IGV just the whole software ETF.

But my view is you know it's possible

that there are going to be some losers

here. So I think it's better to go in

and start picking some winners. Um but

that's what I've gone for. I also would

have gone for Microsoft as well but most

people have just huge amounts of

Microsoft exposure already. Um but

that's gotten pummeled as well. And

again, it doesn't really make sense

because Microsoft owns a huge portion of

OpenAI already. So if OpenAI is going to

kill Microsoft, well, Microsoft already

owns it, so it's going to be totally

fine.

>> I really like your thesis. I was asked,

I didn't think of software companies. I

was asked a couple months ago, what are

the companies that if you had to bet, if

you had to go short companies because of

AI boom, which companies would you pick?

And I picked two. I picked Only Fans.

And I think I told you like 6 months

ago, someone called me and said, "Do you

want to be a part of an investor group

to buy Only Fans?" I'm like, "One, no."

And two, why would you think I'd be

interested in this?

>> And

>> why wouldn't they think you're

interested?

>> I've never I've never I've never signed

up for Anyways, I've never signed up for

a porn site or anything like that.

Although, those gay hockey players from

Harvest Moon or whatever it's called

Rivaly, I would definitely like $4.99 a

minute. I' I'd do that like, "Hey, I

love your program." Um, anyways, I'm I'm

unsubscribing from HBO Max and so I'm

binging the gay hockey thing and I'm

rethinking everything, Ed. I'm

rethinking everything.

Anyways, back to what were we talking

about? Oh, AI. Only Fans. I think it's

[ __ ] I think you're going to be able

to get a really hot person, you know,

doing whatever it is they do on Only

Fans for 3% of the price with AI. And

the other company, it's not really a

software company, it's a research

company. It's the company that acquired

my company. Uh I think Gardner is

[ __ ] And that is every research

report they put out, their events are

still really powerful, but every

research report they put out, I feel

like almost any

uh IT manager or any CTO could get a

similar level of feedback with a fair

with a two-minute prompt. And their

stock at this in the last year, it's off

72%.

My guess is an activist is going to come

in there and say you need to lay off 70%

of the people and use AI and offer have

a kind of a what Figma is to Adobe it is

Gardner's going to need to come up with

a lowerc cost product but I hadn't

thought about the software guys getting

this badly hurt but I if you use Adobe

you're fluent in Adobe it's its own

language

>> it's its own job requirement

>> and we like Figma all the kids are using

Figma design

>> design schools It's also gotten crushed.

>> Gotten crushed.

>> Yeah, I I own Figma. Um anyways, we

should um time stamp this and come back

in 3 6 and 12 months and see uh how

these how these stocks are doing.

Service Now is an interesting one. I've

I've spoken at their conferences. Um but

I don't I don't know that much about the

company.

>> Yeah, it just again massively oversold.

But your Gottner point is an interesting

one because Gartner would be one of

those companies that is in that bucket

of companies that have been absolutely

crushed due to the AI thesis. But this

is where I think stock picking actually

does come in handy and it actually is

useful. I mean, I know that we're

usually pro ETFs, just, you know,

diversified indices, but when something

like this happens where a technology

comes in and it just decimates the whole

narrative of of an industry, and it's

not unreasonable. I mean, the idea that

AI is going to massively disrupt

software is a very reasonable pick. The

point being, there are going to be

winners and losers. It's possible that

there will be losers in this, which is

why you want to go in and figure out,

okay, what are the winners here? Because

right now, everyone is being undervalued

right now. Everyone is getting sold

regardless of what you're doing with

your business. And that's why I think

that's why I I I I've chosen a few names

as opposed to going for the whole bucket

of companies themselves because I do

think it is reasonable to look at what's

happening and say, "Okay, well, this

company isn't taking AI very seriously.

This company's product actually isn't

very differentiated and their

relationships with their enterprises

isn't as strong as some others.

Therefore, this one actually will get

burned." And maybe Gottner is one of

those companies. Um, but it is a moment

where it's like, okay, if everyone's

selling at some point, you do need to go

in there and and start, as Buffett says,

being greedy while everyone else is

fearful. Agreed.

We'll be right back after the break. And

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We're back with Profy Markets. It was a

busy week in the entertainment industry.

Disney finally named its next CEO, Josh

Demorro. He is the head of its

experiences division. He'll take the

helm from Bob Iger next month.

Meanwhile, Netflix and Warner Brothers

Discovery executives were on Capitol

Hill defending their planned mega

merger. What started as an antitrust

hearing quickly veered into a broader

fight over political bias. Senator Eric

Schmidt went as far as as accusing

Netflix of producing quote the wokest

content in the history of the world. So

Scott, we've got uh leadership shakeup

at Disney, new CEO going to replace Bob

Wiger, and then we had this antitrust

hearing in Washington

uh investigating the the acquisition of

Warner Brothers Discovery. Let's start

with the antitrust hearing and let's

start with just some of the highlights

from that hearing. Let's play a clip.

Sen Ali, Netflix has no political agenda

of any kind. I can tell you that.

>> Well, then why is your children's

program so full of this highly

sexualized, highly controversial,

highly controversial agenda? I don't I

don't I don't understand it. It seems

strange to me.

>> Um, respectfully, sir, it's because it's

inaccurate. We have millions of hours of

children's programming. I get

>> You're saying it's not there. You You

don't You don't have trans You don't

feature trans characters, trans story

lines, trans themes. It's not in your

programming. I'm saying we feature a

wide variety of stories and programs to

meet a wide variety of people's tastes.

>> Why is almost half of it Why does almost

half of your children's program feature

this highly controversial, highly

sexualized material? Why? That that just

seems strange to me.

>> Netflix content is synonymous

for the modern phenomenon of race

swapping, both historical and real and

fictional characters. Netflix, it

continues to push sexual and gender

theory on kids. And maybe this is what

was being referred to earlier. 41% of

G-rated kid approved series contain

LGBTQIA+

content.

>> You have a wide range of programming on

HBO. Name one program that is designed

to appeal to conservatives.

>> We don't design our programming to

appeal to

>> I can think of a lot that are designed

to go to liberals. Name one. Let me ask

you, do you think CNN is fair and

balanced?

>> Sir, I I'm not involved with CNN and in

fact they're not part of this

transaction.

>> Uh remind you this was an antitrust

hearing. Scott, your reactions.

>> JD Vance goes to Europe and lectures EU

leaders on their lack of free speech.

And now the Republican party is claiming

that private companies

have an agenda and they're not allowed

to. So, so to be fair, CNN is biased.

Fox is biased and private media

companies are allowed to have a bias

because consumers have a bias.

Netflix is probably the most politically

neutral of all of them. They were

getting [ __ ] two years ago for airing

Dave Chappelle because progressives were

freaked out about what they felt were

anti-trans comments. So which is it? I

know Ted Sarandos. For the life of me, I

could not figure out what Ted Sarandos's

politics are. And I think he wants to

keep it that way. So this notion somehow

and also I don't even need to know the

data and I know that it's [ __ ] that

50% of kids content features an LGBTQ.

That is not their agenda. But that's

just they they're just trying to get

kids to spend more and more time

watching Netflix. They're not they don't

have a they don't have any sort of

agenda along those lines. And even if

they did, guess what? They're allowed

to. The antitrust is a real issue here.

And that is if Netflix also owns HBO, do

they consolidate the market at the

high-end artal subscription content?

That's a real issue. If Paramount/CBS

is allowed to own CNN and Tik Tok, is

that also an antitrust concern? That's a

real issue. But this is what's going on.

The Ellison's give money to Republican

lawmakers. The Ellison's are trying to

come up with a reason for Netflix to not

be able to acquire Time Warner. And so

they are jinning up a bunch of

Republican senators to create some sort

of controversy or reason why Netflix

should not be able to acquire Time

Warner. There are reasons why neither

Paramount CBS/ the Ellison should be

allowed to acquire it. There are reasons

Netflix should not be allowed to acquire

it. They are antitrust. It has nothing

to do with the bias or the lack thereof

of their content. And this is senators

Holly and I forget the other guy who are

just [ __ ] coin operated who've been

told by the Ellison's we don't want to

have to pay more. So go create

controversy and some sort of bias among

people who have absolutely no ability to

think critically about when regulators

should weigh in and they shouldn't.

You're Quentyn Tarantino films have a

[ __ ] bias. They're allowed to sell to

whoever they want. This isn't about an

editorial bias. This is about a

concentration of power that would lead

to higher prices, of which there are

real concerns. And Senator Booker

actually thoughtfully tried to address

these concerns. But instead, you have

coin operated senators with the

Ellison's head so far up their ass you

can barely see their legs dangling out

of their asses trying to pretend they

give a flying [ __ ] about free speech and

that somehow Netflix is too progressive.

And the right answer to, oh, CNN doesn't

have a bias. It's more fair and

balanced. He should have said, I believe

it's more fair and balanced than Fox.

And I believe Fox has the right to do

whatever the [ __ ] they want. And people

can decide if they want to watch or or

have advertising. This was supposed to

be about concentration of power that

transfers capital and power from

consumers and workers to shareholders.

That is a real concern from both biders.

But this is how it's supposed to work.

Whoever shows up with the biggest check

gets preapproved for the acquisition and

then there is review across the DOJ, the

FDC and CPHAS around security concerns

and antitrust. Instead, we're thinking

somehow that they're not allowed to have

a bias even when there isn't one.

Anyways, thank you for my TED talk.

>> It's completely ridiculous. And again,

it was a hearing on antitrust and it

just completely devolved into a trial on

wokeness. And I feel like this is yet

another reminder, and I know we say this

all the time, of how stupid these Senate

hearings are. Like, every time the these

hearings happening, it's just a giant

display of political theater. None of it

even matters. And I think it's so funny

that these people, these these

Republican senators default to the

wokeness argument, probably because they

don't really know where to land on the

antitrust argument. Because the trouble

is that you've got all these different

players in here and they don't really

know who to side with because on the one

hand like oh maybe Netflix is woke so

maybe they should be against them but on

the other hand Paramount's controlled by

the Ellison's and the Ellisons are big

tech and but you know historically

they've been against big tech but also

oh wait the Ellison have been donated to

Donald Trump so who are we supposed to

side with? So, it's almost like wokeness

is just the default backup calling card

that you immediately knee-jerk reaction

go to when you don't really know what

the [ __ ] you're talking about. And that

seems to be what has happened in this

Senate hearing, which was supposed to be

again, what do you do when an extremely

large entertainment company is

purchasing another extremely large

entertainment company and most of these

entertainment channels are now going to

be housed under one company that has

like very legitimate and serious

monopoly concerns. There are also decent

arguments on the other side about the

role of YouTube and Instagram and on Tik

Tok and all these digital platforms, but

it's almost like that stuff is boring to

them. They don't really understand that.

That's business stuff. We don't really

care. I'd rather talk about LGBTQ and

transgender actors in children's shows

because that's something that I know my

supporters are really going to get riled

up about. Is it going to have any impact

on the transaction? Is it going to

change the trajectory of monopolization

in America? [ __ ] no. But it doesn't

matter because again, it's all for the

clips. It's all for the drama. It's all

for the show. And this was just another

reminder of that.

>> You know how people say the politicians

are speaking to a crowd of one? Like

whenever Secretary Gnome speaks, she's

just thinking, "Does he want me to say

this? Does he want me to say?" They're

all playing. They're all playing.

>> I haven't. That's good.

>> They're all playing to Senate to

President Trump. Senators Holly and I

forget the other one. They all had an

audience of one, but it wasn't President

Trump.

>> It was Larry Ellison. M

>> and unfortunately the only people who

demonstrate any actual domain expertise

or any fidelity to what the actual

hearing was about was first and foremost

Sen Senator Clolobashar. I mean here's

the thing. If we're going to talk about

affordability, throwing $40 billion at

soybean farmers while pissing off China

and then taking that money and giving it

to Argentina who's now none of this [ __ ]

works. Tariffs are inflationary. Nobody

wants to have an adult conversation. If

you want to bring inflation down,

the two things we need to do, and

there's a variety of things, but the two

biggest things, free trade, get rid of

all these ridiculous tariffs, reduce

tariffs. It'll there'll be some losers.

Some businesses in manufacturing and

services will go out of business in the

US. But eventually, when you protect

your domestic markets, at some point

your competitors abroad own [ __ ]

everything. And then eventually they

come for your lunch. and two massive

antitrust. I'm finally like have enough

money and enough influence right now. I

know I'll have if there's a Democratic

president, I'll know I'll have his ear

and amongst a variety of things, whether

it's whether it's mandatory national

service, $25 an hour minimum wage,

single pay healthcare, whatever it is,

I'm going to push so hard and say the

way you oxygenate the economy, the way

you bring down prices over two, five, 10

years is massive antitrust.

>> As voters, we're lazy. We're looking for

a quick fix. Oh, gas prices are down.

That has nothing to [ __ ] do with us.

That's about shailing Canada. That's

about geopolitics. That's about Saudi

Aramco deciding to open or close or

tighten the spot. That has nothing to do

with anything. If you want prices to

come down, you need massive free and

open trade. And you need specifically to

break up all of these monopolies who are

charging monopoly rents. But nobody

wants to have an adult conversation

around the hard structural work of

actually bringing down prices. Yeah.

>> But the fact and I I hate the fact that

we're talking about these village idiots

who are coin operated at the hands of

the Ellison's as opposed to senators

Clolobashar and Booker who actually want

to talk about the issue at hand.

>> No, I 100% agree. does feel that every

time an antitrust lawsuit comes up or

there is an implication that there could

be potentially monopoly on the table, we

always come up with an excuse as to why

it isn't actually a monopoly. In this

case, it it's the it's the YouTube and

Instagram and Tik Tok argument. The

argument is if YouTube exists and if Tik

Tok exists and if Instagram exists, then

you know they're competing against these

platforms, which you know I I get. I I I

understand that argument and it makes a

lot of sense. However, are we ever going

to have a moment where we decide

actually no, this isn't okay? I mean,

the same thing happened with Google and

the Google antitrust case and then they

decided, oh yeah, you were operating a

monopoly, but AI came along and AI

really destroyed the business and so now

we found another excuse to not have any

antitrust enforcement. It just seems

that every time we come up with some

reason, whether it's wokeness related or

otherwise, as to why we shouldn't be

implementing any form of regulation. And

so, yeah, it's it's not a surprise that

the market looks the way it does because

we've just decided that we don't really

want to do anything about it. Let's also

talk about uh Disney's new CEO, Josh

Dearo. He's the head of parks. He's

going to be taking over on March 18th

when Bob Iger will be stepping down. Uh

he's been working at Disney for 28

years. Um he has been you know crucial

to expanding the Disney experiences

business which is basically their parks

and cruises which is now the core piece

of the business. And this is a whole

other conversation but it is fascinating

how that has changed where the the

highly capital inensive piece of the

business which is operating a theme park

used to be way undervalued by investors

but now the narrative has flipped.

They're less interested in certainly the

linear also kind of the streaming.

They're very excited about the

experiences he's been running that

business. So now he's going to be taking

over as CEO. Do you have any reactions

to this new pick and the end potentially

of the reign of Bob Iger.

>> Bob Iger is the guy that after coming

back from Vietnam a war hero decided to

go back and had his legs blown off. That

was one of the worst personal decisions

in corporate history for him to start

heckling from the cheap seats around his

successor and then convince his board

that he should go back and shed

shareholder value. I mean, it's just

been and a lot of it isn't his fault.

He's basically, you know, the market has

poured honey on him and sent him hunting

for bears. I like that. That's like

something that Brian Williams would say.

That's that's like having a moose in a

convertible. Um, anyways, the

Why does that make me happy? Uh,

look,

this company will have an overhang. This

is also a buy. This company's going to

have an overhang until they're able to

get rid of their linear stuff. And that

is, you know, Disney, Nat Geo, ABC,

because in a conglomerate structure, and

I experienced this at the New York Times

where I was on the board at for two

years. I don't know if you knew that,

but

>> wow.

>> Yeah, I know. It's very impressive. So,

but here's the bottom line. We had some

great assets. We owned 17% of the Red

Sox. We had we owned the seventh tallest

building in the world. We owned a really

outstanding media company called the New

York Times. And then we had all these

shitty regional papers that were a

melting ice cube. And what happens in a

conglomerate business model? We also

owned about.com. Anyway, what happens in

a conglomerate model with stuff that

makes no sense? The market hates it and

the market finds the shittiest business

and assigns that multiple the entire

business. And essentially every every

analyst report and Q&A and earnings call

or the investor relations or Bob Iger on

a call it goes something like this.

Parks unbelievable business with an

incredible mode around it. Film studio

doing well creating IP that is drafted

into our parks singular experience. No

one can compete with our parks. If you

don't take your kids to a $1,400 a night

shitty hotel with shitty food and take

them to Disneyland four or five times by

the time they're 10, someone's going to

call child services on you. Disney

streaming is getting some leverage. It

has singular positioning around family.

You know, people say they've missed

stuff and they've missed trends. I don't

buy that. I think Disney still does a

great job with their IP. Very talented

people, outstanding culture.

all of it's great and then they have to

go but our linear platform showed 8%

decline in revenues and 14% decline in

EPS as soon as they shed that [ __ ] and

go good bank bad bank or sell it to a

consolidator and it's all about the

parks and it's all about the experiences

cruises and the streaming and the studio

this company goes up substantially in

value Disney is at a 10-year low and Bob

has clearly had the for sale sign out on

those networks, but I don't think he's

gotten no one has offered him probably

the price he wants. He probably has an

unrealistic view of the value of ABC on

ESPN. By the way, ESPN used to be the

cash cow for Disney just to tell you how

much things have changed. The other

thing is I wonder if the last 6 months

are going to be awful because the fact

that he's leaving, he's actually leaving

ahead of schedule says to me that he

looked at the back half of the year and

went, "Oh, [ __ ] I don't want to be

around for this."

>> So, and by the way, I loved your

interview with Rich Greenfield. I always

learned when I listened from Rich. And

uh uh you had him on you had him on

markets, right? When did you have Rich

on?

>> We had Rich on on last week. That's

right.

>> You you do this some days when I'm not

on.

>> Anyways, that's what you call scale. By

the way, see all the all the stuff

behind me?

>> I do. I do. I love it.

>> How awesome is that?

>> It's great.

>> Oh, and who noticed it first, by the

way? And why?

>> Who noticed it first? I don't know.

>> Let me go this way. Who's not up here?

>> Who's not up there?

>> Cara Swisser. She gave me so much [ __ ]

I'm like, let's be honest, Cara,

>> let's go.

>> You're my ex-wife. These are all my

Bellarian hookers. I am so down. These

people are making me money, giving me

more joy, and you're just the first

wife.

>> Oh, man. Bellarian hooker.

>> I can't afford the Russian hoes. I go

for the Bellarians.

Anyways, that's probably a hate crime.

Um, this is

>> Don't worry about it.

This is Disney is I think an undervalued

asset. The parks guy is the right pick.

These things are they're going to I

believe the back half of the year might

be rough for them because of our head up

your ass tariff economic warfare against

our strongest ally Canada. Anyways, the

park's amazing, the film studio amazing.

The streaming media company is starting

to get real momentum. They have to get

rid. And by the way, the new the new co,

whether it's the independent, whether

it's just bad bank and they spend them

out on their own or someone consolidates

them, that will also be a good stock to

own because it's a different complexion

of capital. As long as you reduce costs

faster than revenue declines, you can

you can churn out and consolidate all

the other cable guys. I think that's

going to be a good stock. But until they

do this good bank, bad bank, it's always

going to be assigned a multiple of a

shitty cable outsported company that is

not growing. And the reality is Disney

is growing. I believe if the new CEO

sold all of the linear, all of the

linear, right, Nat Geo, ESPN, ABC, I

think if they sold it for a dollar, the

stock would go up.

>> I think I agree

>> because everything they're doing is an

apology. Everything is Yeah. But yeah,

yeah, yeah. But the overhang of these

linear networks, the confusion of the

business strategy, the constant

apologizing for the last 20 minutes of

the earnings call is just an enormous

overhang on the stock.

>> 100% agree. I think the question now

being when is it going to happen and

potentially it's going to happen now

that they have a CEO because you know

remember you've been calling this for a

long time. You've been saying this this

is an issue not just in the last few

months or the last year, but I think

you've been saying this for for years

now. They have to get rid of the linear

assets. Um I would imagine that

everyone's going to be hammering on Josh

Dear's door demanding the same thing. So

I wonder if now that we've got a new CEO

in the building, is it actually going to

be possible? Um perhaps you have a

prediction on if this is actually going

to happen or not. But I will also the

question, do you think it's gonna happen

in the next, say, 12 months?

>> The good bank, bad bank, the sale of the

linear assets.

>> Yeah.

>> Oh, they've been for sale for two years.

Um, it's just a question of who can show

up with an offer. And I'm I imagine

there's probably some content or I don't

know, who knows, creative contracts that

are sort of trying to, you know, unsess

or unfry or unscramble an egg. But these

it's not a matter of if, it's just when.

Uh, so and I think they were probably

hoping they'd get a better price for

ESPN and they just never got the number

they wanted. But absolutely this guy has

typically what happens with a new CEO,

you can do almost anything and your

board just rubber stamps it. You have a

honeymoon period. So whenever you have a

new CEO, you want to say to him, "Boss,

okay, go hard. Go early because you have

license to do whatever the [ __ ] you want

right now." He should do it if he can do

it right away. do it immediately. By the

way, it's starting to sound like forced

seller territory. And I mean, it's it

there's two options. Either you sell it

to a private entity or you spin it and

you take it to the public markets. But,

you know, we saw what happened with

Versent. They did the spin. It went

terribly. The stock's been absolutely

crushed. So, I wonder if they're going

to be looking for uh a private buyer.

Either way, it seems like they have to

sell. It's making me think that you need

to put a consortium together and make

them a a somewhat measly offer that they

must accept.

Um, I feel like that could be an awesome

investment.

>> At 4.3 billion, it's one-year returns.

It's off 35%. You're right. Someone's

Yeah, someone needs to roll up these

things and make a go of it. It's um I

don't

these actually can be really good

stocks. Cable news is still a good I

think what they also might be waiting

for and I'd be curious to get Rich's

view on this. Typically these companies

lose money. It's like the the dirty

secret especially retail is they lose

money for 48 weeks and then for four

weeks from Thanksgiving to Christmas

they just print money. I think in some

of these cable news, I don't know if

Disney owns local stations or not, but

they make a [ __ ] ton of money around the

election

and that guy

uh that guy who hosts ABC News and also

the fact that CBS News went from 5

million viewers a night to 4 million

probably hasn't held the value of ABC.

So, my guess is my guess is they keep

thinking, "All right, someone's offered

us." The problem is the only buyers

right now are smart.

>> That's good. You should be one of those

smart buyers. Yeah, but the problem with

smart buyers is they want to pay market

value. What what he's looking for is

some drunk kid with a rich father to

come in and overpay for the thing. He's

hoping for a sky dance paramount Warner

Brothers like valuation and no one's

going to give him that cuz all the

people who will buy these linear assets

actually have calculators and they want

and to be fair these things it's very

dangerous right now. CNN

just I think CNN's viewership is off 30

or 40% yearon year. So they keep waiting

for a better price and every day the

price probably gets worse. So yeah, at

some point I think you're right. I think

there's probably is an opportunity for a

PE player to come in and say, "Here's a

shitty shitty offer. You must take it."

>> Well, I'm sure they've already had

those. or for or for Versant to come in

uh and and take this out. But any any

price at this point is a creative

to the core business in terms of

shareholder value. I'm excited to see

what happens for the next

>> the next 12 to 24 months. I think it's a

buy here. I like this. I can never find

value anywhere. I like your idea around

these software stocks that may have been

overpunished. And I do think Disney is

an opportunity. Disney's going to have

usually usually don't get an activist

with a new CEO because they like to give

the guy the benefit of the doubt as a

honeymoon phase. But I wouldn't be

surprised if someone a pelt-like figure

or somebody is taking is taking is

starting to acquire or aggregate shares

here. If this thing keeps going down,

somebody's going to show up.

>> Josh Dear just needs to pray on either a

drunk child of a billionaire showing up

or a Saudi crown prince of some kind.

>> Saudi can't own it. Gano own ABC News.

>> Fair enough. We'll see. But fair enough.

>> I think they should have that anchor. I

forget that guy. He looks ethnically

ambiguous. I think they should have him

do the evening news with his shirt off

if they want to juice ratings. That

guy's dreamy. I'd like to see him take

up hockey and [ __ ] a bunch of dudes in a

locker room. Is that wrong, Ed?

>> Not wrong. I think that's your I think

that might be your your fifth heated

rivalry mention in the last couple

weeks. I'm starting to think that you

are binge watching this and watching it

again.

You watch four episodes of that thing in

a row. You rethink everything, Ed. You

rethink.

>> I can't wait.

>> Everything.

>> Okay, let's move on to our final story

here.

>> That was a good segue. Let's get him off

the gay hockey. Let's get him off back

price earnings

and trust here.

>> Anything quick.

>> Go to commercial.

We'll be right back. And for even more

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We're back with Profy Markets. Anthropic

used the Super Bowl to take a shot at

OpenAI and it worked. The company

dropped its ad early, building buzz

before the game and reminding everyone

that the Super Bowl is still one of the

biggest marketing stages there is.

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>> For our audio listeners, the tagline at

the end reads, "Ads are coming to AI,

but not to Claude." As a reminder, Open

Eye recently announced that it would

begin testing ads on Chad GBT. That news

caused a stir online as Sam Alman once

described ads as quote a last resort for

us as a business model. So Scott,

big win for Anthropic. This ad went mega

mega viral. Everyone is dunking on

OpenAI. Everyone's making fun of OpenAI

with these ads. Sam Alman had a pretty

hilarious and pathetic tweet that he put

out which we can get into. Let's start

with your initial reactions.

>> It used to be that the right commercial

could change a business's trajectory.

When Hyundai came out with this

commercial saying seven-year warranty,

you know, Coca-Cola's occasionally

there's an ad that is so breakthrough

and grabs people emotions, it just

juices sales and rejuvenates the

company. That almost never happens

anymore because people aren't watching

the audiences become so fragmented and

people immediately go on their social

graph or online and do diligence on

whether this product actually is worth

it or not. This is

the biggest moment in broadcast

advertising as it relates to impact on

the markets we've seen in a long time.

This is the moment that Anthropic begins

an ascent in valuation past open AI. And

in my course on brand strategy, we have

a bunch of different models and

constructs for evaluating brand and

strategy. And one of them I call lading.

And that is you say we're this, they're

this, and you find points of

differentiation that pass three hurdles.

Differentiation, are we truly different?

Relevance. Does anyone care? And three,

is it sustainable? So, we're Democrats.

We're for bodily autonomy, therefore

denying a woman's rights. Is it

differentiated? Yeah, we are truly

different on this. Is it relevant? No.

We'd like to think it is, but family

planning and abortion rights never show

up at the ballot box as much as we'd

like to think it's going to happen this

time. And is it sustainable? Can we own

it?

Anthropic has done lading here. They've

said, "Okay, we're not going to have

ads."

That is a point of differentiation

because the number one use case for AI

at corporations is what, Ed?

>> Um,

>> very good, Ed. Okay, we'll go we'll all

go by service now. But anyway, so

>> I don't know.

>> What's the answer?

>> It's therapy.

>> Oh, therapy.

>> People are revealing their most intimate

questions and concerns to AI. And the

thought that this person is going to

take all your personal information and

start saying, "Oh, you seem to be

suffering from depression. Have you

thought about Lexapro from Hoffman Lar

Ro?" I mean, you know what you're

getting with Google. You know that

they're going to take you to a place

they can further monetize and mix in

some utile information. We have been

opening up so much about our most

personal information to AI that the

thought that they're going to put in

ads, it really is different. Anthropic

has said, "No, we're not going to do

that. It's hugely relevant to people

because people are already scared and

worried about AI and the thought that

they're going to start taking all of our

history and all of our most intimate

secrets to to prostitute us to

advertisers. And it's also most likely

sustainable. I think it'll be difficult

for Sam Alman to go back on it because

he has all these growth projections he

has to live up to, including going back

on his word and saying he wasn't going

to do porn. Now he's saying he's going

to do porn. And the execution here

around these ads. Oh my god. This is

this is Weeden Kennedy like you know

Nike ad material. These whoever did

these ads this ad is going to get if the

if the Super Bowl is like the Super Bowl

usually is. It's a shitty game. This ad

is going to get more attention than the

than the game itself. This is a pivotal

moment that still shows that advertising

can be relevant. Whoever is the agency

here, their phone is ringing off the

hook. They're getting they're getting

there's always kind of a hot agency for

a while that that they do a great ad

campaign and people under the illusion

that these guys if we bring in these

people and they wear black and they

party with us and they're really

attractive so we'll spend we'll waste a

lot of money on them that they can

rejuvenate our business. This is a big

moment for for um Anthropic and this

execution.

They've already gotten 10 times the ROI

on this Super Bowl commercial before

it's even run. This is I'm I'm blown

away, Ed. I'm totally blown away. 100%.

Sam's response was hilarious. He put out

an essay on Twitter. This is Sam Alman,

the CEO of OpenAI. He said, quote, first

the good part of the Anthropic ads. They

are funny and I laughed, but I wonder

why Anthropic would go for something so

clearly dishonest. He goes on to say, "I

guess it's on brand for anthropic double

speak to use a deceptive ad to critique

theoretical deceptive ads that aren't

real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I

would expect it. We are committed to

broad democratic decision-making in

addition to access. One authoritarian

company won't get us there on their own

to say nothing of the other obvious

risk. It is a dog blah blah blah blah

blah. No one [ __ ] cares." Sam Hman,

he got roasted and he's trying to make

this argument that, you know, it's not

true how they're portraying the ads in

chat GBT. We're not going to be

surreptitiously putting the ads in there

and trying to recommend them while

you're doing your therapy, which may be

true. Maybe the ads will be a lot better

than that. Maybe it'll be a lot less

dystopian than Anthropic has suggested

with this ad. Point is, no one [ __ ]

cares. It was a good ad. It was funny

the way that they even nailed down the

voice of chat GBT, which is this like

awkward, monotonous, sickopantic, very

annoying voice that everyone has gotten

sick of. Like, it's just a good ad. And

they they clearly are demonstrating they

have their their finger on the pulse

here, and that's all that matters. And

so for Sam Hman to come out and give

this essay on on critiquing the the

details of this of this ad, it's like

this is some of the worst PR uh coms

that we've ever seen. And I mean it just

rubs salt into the wounds. Anthrop

everyone's turning on Open AI. Anthropic

is emerging as the winner. You said that

this was like the coming of age moment

for anthropic. I totally agree. For me,

it it it has parallels to the the Apple

ad, the 1984 Apple ad, which was

regarded by many as like the greatest

commercial of all time, also aired

during the Super Bowl, and also took a

direct shot at a competitor, which at

that time was IBM. And the whole idea

was saying through, you know,

undertones, the the sort of subtext of

the ad was that IBM is big brother.

They're going to have this mind control.

They're trying to take over the world.

Apple's going to be the company that

liberates you with personal computers.

>> On January 24th, Apple Computer will

introduce Macintosh and you'll see why

1984 won't be like 1984.

>> It's just a good ad. It's like a good

message. It's something that resonates.

That's exactly what Anthropic has done.

Um, and you know, I said a few months

ago, I think you agreed

anthropic is going to be the heavyweight

champion uh of AI in 2026.

The narrative on AI is beginning to

waver. And a trillion dollar AI spending

plan, it just isn't quite what it used

to be. It doesn't sound as sexy as it

did, say, 12 months ago. And that may

well mean pain for open AI, which has of

course been leading this charge. But

more importantly, it might mean new

opportunities, opportunities for other

companies that are taking a different

approach. It might mean the beginning of

the rise of a new heavyweight champion,

a new AI winner. It does look like that

winner could well be anthropic. And I

feel like this is kind of the moment

where everyone realized, yeah, this is

actually happening.

>> I don't think Alman was well advised

here. I think he should have said,

when you're the market leader and

they're still the market leader, you

don't reference the competition.

>> Yes. Don't say

>> never talk about them. And if he'd been

asked about it, he should have said,

"I've seen it. It's a great ad." That's

it. That's it. Because anything beyond

that looks defensive.

>> Totally agreed. and he might put out a

separate release talking about, okay, I

want to clarify some things around our

ads, what they will be used for, what

they won't be used for, where they can

add value. Anything around medical

information, anything around

relationships, we will not be inserting,

you know, but when you respond to the

number two player, which they still are

right now, you're basically saying, I'm

scared.

You know, Herz never referenced Avis.

Coke never referenced Pepsi. You don't

ever reference your competition when

you're the number one player. And he

just comes across he comes across as

defensive and uh you know, he's been

caught flat-footed. I get it. But he

should his only his only thing should

have been, "Yeah, of course I saw the

ad. I think they I think they did a

great job. Good for them. Nothing more."

and then maybe give it some distance and

then put out something about all right

let's talk about our advertising what it

will be used for what it won't why we

think it's such an incredible

opportunity to add value to our customer

base why it'll be a huge revenue

opportunity let's be honest and what

what it will not be used for such that

you can you know if you're talking about

we will we will not take pharmaceutical

ads I'm obsessed whenever I get any of

my health information I upload it to

chat GPT I want to know there's no

pharmaceutical

influence here telling me, oh, okay, you

you know, whatever it is, you have

shoulder pain. I just don't want I want

to know that they're doing their best to

give me I mean, AI should be the clean,

well-lit place of the internet to a

certain extent around information. It it

gets it wrong, but their heart should be

in the right place. So, yeah, this is

this is a seinal I believe this is a

seminal moment. I believe that when we

look back on this, this will be seen as

a big moment in the the AI wars.

>> Would you agree this could be like the

1984 Apple ad moment? I feel like that

was Apple's moment in the in the

computer revolution. I mean, this is it,

right?

>> It's a great analogy. This is that kind

of landmark broadcast advertising

moment.

>> It's very exciting. It's also kind of

interesting to see the return of

advertising, which I feel like people

have been sort of counting out that

advertising is kind of dead or it's

boring. And you know, the Mad Men era is

over, but it's kind of fun and exciting

to see what a great ad can do for your

business. I mean, we'll see what the ROI

will actually be, but it's already

gotten millions of views, and this is

before it was actually aired on the

Super Bowl. This was that just the

pre-release. They just posted it on

social media, got millions of views

across the internet in literally under

24 hours. And I find it exciting and

cool. But I'm sure if you're working at

an ad agency, it's also fun and exciting

and cool to see just such a good clearly

created by humans as well. Like this was

clearly someone who's used Chat GPT a

lot, who understands the nuances and

annoyances of the product. Like this is

a very human commercial and they've come

out there and they've put it out there.

It's resonated so much with so many

people. It does feel like this is kind

of like the resurgence of the golden age

of advertising. And I just love that

it's going to be on the Super Bowl,

which of course is, you know, the the

grand stage for advertisers around the

world. By the way, the the creative

partner, it was produced by Anthropic,

but the creative agency is a group

called Mother, uh, which is

independently owned. It's not owned by

one of the conglomerates. This is going

to be, my guess is the next year they'll

sell cuz they'll everyone will want to

talk to them and they'll realize it's

the right time to cash out. By the way,

let's bring this back to me, Ed. And um

>> please.

>> And when I was right out of business

school, I met this guy named Warren

Helman, and I'd started Profit, my brand

strategy firm, and he said, "I've got a

great assignment for you." And he goes,

"I'm going to pay you to go to Levi

Strauss and company board meetings, and

I don't want you to speak to anybody. I

don't want you to be politicized, and at

the end of the board meeting, I want you

to stand up and give us your honest,

thoughtful advice." And I was like 29. I

mean, that's a dream job, right? And

they invited two other people for their

unfiltered advice for the next two years

of board meetings. They invited a guy

named Leo Lee Clow who was head of TBWI

day and a guy named Nigel Bogle from the

hot agency of that time, BBH.

And we listen to the whole board meeting

and then we'd each get 20 minutes to

just stand up and give our piece. And

so it was a strategy guy, yours truly,

and two um creative guys, agencies. I

haven't seen an adman in a board meeting

in 20 years. No one gives a [ __ ] what

agency people think anymore. And if you

go to I've been going to CAN for a long

time. Every year the amount of beach

space, the fabulousness of the parties

gets smaller and smaller for WPP, IPG,

Omnicom, Havas, and it gets bigger for

the tech guys. I mean, the lack of

intellectual currency and influence of

the ad market is just it's just

shriveled up and gone away. It's

striking how how little people care

about their viewpoints. Ad agencies used

to be in every strate strategy meeting.

They used to be seen as a key thought

partner. Now, literally, no one gives a

[ __ ] what they think.

>> But maybe this is going to change

things. Probably not, but maybe

>> this is a blip. This will mother's going

to get a ton of business, unearned

business, because everyone will be like,

"We hired the same agency that did the

anthropic ads and then they're going to

sell to one of the big conglomerates and

go open a bar in the Bahamas or