Uh, just a quick disclosure, I'm going

off camera cuz I feel like [ __ ] and look

worse. Anyways, with that, today's

number 93. Poly Market accurately called

93% the Golden Globes winners last week.

That the Golden Globes really isn't an

award ceremony.

>> Is that a joke?

>> No, that's me pausing cuz I forgot what

I was going to say. Um, okay.

>> I think I came up with something good.

Today's number 93. Poly market

accurately called 93%

of the Golden Globes winners last week.

That

the Alzheimer's is kicking in.

It's time to call my nurse. Reheat my

soup.

Today's number 93. Poly market

accurately called 93% of the Golden

Globe winners last week. That's

incredible. The Golden Globes isn't as

much as an award show as it is a

gathering of people who would [ __ ] their

sister for a limited series on Hulu.

Ed, how are you? I'm doing well, but I'm

a little upset that we were not

nominated for a Golden Globe for best

podcast. There were a lot of

nominations. It was the first year that

the podcast category was created and we

were not on the list and so I'm a little

bit upset about it. Other than that, I'm

doing very well. How are you?

>> I was watching the award speeches on Tik

Tok of all places and I thought that is

the exact same vibe and tone I use to

thank my dealer.

>> It's like it's got that same Oh, thanks,

man. It's got that same sort of same

sort of vibe or when I roll up to a bar

>> and I remember I didn't put on

deodorant, but at that point I remember

where the deodorant bar is. I don't

know. Um I don't know where I was going

with that.

I thought the nominees for best podcast

were really solid. Mel Robbins is great.

>> Well, it was just all the all the most

famous people.

>> They didn't have Rogan. They didn't have

Ben Shapiro.

>> Sure. It was the most famous people that

were not politically divisive.

>> Uh, who else was in there? Uh, obviously

Amy Polar. There's some res. There's a

little bit of backlash in the podcast

community. Let me spill the tea here,

Ed.

>> And by the way, I think she's a

remarkable talent. Uh, although she has

not invited me on her podcast. I've been

on every one of the podcasts except for

uh the the woman who won, Amy. Uh

everyone in the podcast community is a

little bit like

>> Oh, Amy won. I didn't I didn't even see

who won. It was Amy.

>> Yeah, Amy Polar won. And and and by the

way, I I think she just Okay, she

deserved to win. It's It's a good

choice. She Her podcast is fantastic.

She's fantastic. But the podcast

community is a little bit upset because

a lot of us have been doing this for a

while. Yeah, Amy showed up about 12 18

months ago and then won the first award.

So, there's a little bit of chatter in

the podcast community.

>> Understandably. Understandably.

>> Did you enjoy the Golden Globes?

>> I did not watch it. I didn't even see

who won. I I was going to ask you if you

watched it. Sounds like you watched it

from your phone.

>> I do what everyone does. You watch the

clips.

>> Yeah, watch the clips. Yeah. I didn't

even see any of the clips. Maybe I'm

bitter again about this lack of

nomination.

>> What media does Ed Elson consume? I

always assume it's me that I'm just

aging out that I'm watching CBS and CNN

and, you know, asking for a new oxygen

tank and

>> Yeah, I'm not watching I'm not watching

cable. I I I appear on cable, but I

don't watch it.

>> Oh my god, you're Cara Swisser. You have

officially become Cara Swisser. There's

no escaping you. And I pull you up and

what do I know? You're on MS now.

>> There we go.

>> And who do I see? Oh, I see Ed Ellson

and his side piece Katie Tour. What were

you talking about? I couldn't even get

through it. What were you talking about?

>> Every week it's a new thing. I don't

know. Probably something about young

people. How we're getting [ __ ] It's

probably something along those lines.

Next up, I'm I'm trying out News Nation.

>> You're going on News Nation. Are you

going Are you going on with Cuomo? Is

that the same? That's NewsNation.

>> Katie Pavage, former Fox News host. New

show coming up.

>> I think it's important. You're going to

reach dozens and dozens of viewers on

that show. Ed. That is very exciting for

you.

>> It's great. It's very exciting.

>> It's good practice though. I started at

Bloom I know. Well, how did you get

started at Scott? Well, um Bloomberg

used to have me on every week to talk

about tech and then they asked me to be

exclusive and they wanted to pay me and

I said nope. And then they wanted to do

a TV show with me and I went on without

my shirt and said that my favorite um

that I liked one night stands. I called

it the nut and bolt. I went on as a

construction worker and they called me

and they said, "We need you to

apologize.

There's some women in the newsroom."

True story, women in the newsroom who

are really pissed off about this. And I

was I had already because I knew every

CMO in America at that point after

working at L2, I'd already pre-sold $3

million in advertising. By the way,

every other show they were launching had

sold the grand total of like zero. And

so they called and said, "We want to

work this out, but we need you to one

say we didn't know about it and two

apologized." And I said, "One 100%

because it's true. Two, no, I'm not

sorry." And saying you're sorry doesn't

help. And I, you know, we're all adults.

We're all adults. And they sent me a

thing saying, "Here's a list of all the

things you have to agree never to

mention." And it started off, "All

right, penis jokes. I get it. Erectile

dysfunction. Okay, fine. I can't talk

about my hobbies." And then it went on.

It was like 50 things, including my

favorite was Cheryl Samberg. I'm not

allowed allowed to talk about Cheryl

Samberg. I'm like, "Have you met me?"

And so, do you remember this meeting? I

did a meeting with all of you guys. Were

you still here or were you in junior

high school?

>> Well, this is the important point is

this was my very first week on the job.

It was my first week working for you. It

was also my first week having a job,

having a full-time job uh out of

college. And so, it was a very

interesting meeting for me because I had

told my parents that I'm going to go

work for this guy, Scott Galloway.

They're like, who's that? It's like,

don't worry about it, but we've got a

show for Bloomberg, so that's going to

be pretty cool, this Bloomberg TV thing.

And CLA will remember this, too. Then I

had to call my parents and say, "Hey, by

the way, this whole Bloomberg thing,

it's canled. It's not going to happen.

Sorry about that."

>> Well, it wasn't cancelled. You're not

giving me enough credit. What did we

decide in the team meeting?

>> I said I said to the team, "What should

we do? Should we agree to sign up for

this this these guard rails? What What

should we do?"

>> I had no problem with pulling it. I was

bullish on you, not Bloomberg. I I don't

remember it being a question. Maybe it

was a rhetorical question or maybe I

remember it correctly. We did a team

meeting and said this would be a lot of

revenue. It's a TV show. It's Bloomberg.

It's the right brand. And by the way, I

love Mayor Bloomberg and I love the

Bloomberg organization. I had a really

good experience there. Anyways,

collectively we decided, "Fuck it." And

I called them and they were so shocked.

I said, "We're out. We're folding our

tent. We don't want to. We understand

your concerns. We understand why you

would want to have some guardrails

around me, but that's just not what I'm

about." And the wonderful thing about

having a little bit of economic security

and a team that is young and stupid is

we make decisions like this. And they

were blown away that we decided to walk.

And since then, by the way, I my my

understanding is Bloomberg is mad at me.

>> Is or is not.

>> No, is I've essentially now been banned

from two networks.

>> You've been banned from a lot, haven't

you? You're you're you're not on CNBC

anymore, right? Isn't that another one?

There's Fox Business, there's Bloomberg,

I think CNBC. I think it's three. Yeah,

>> that's why I had to start my own media

company. I have no outlets.

>> It makes you unconscable,

>> fearless, irreverent, and I if if dick

jokes are wrong, we don't want to be

right, Ed. We don't want to be right.

>> There we go. 2026 energy. There we go.

Last weekend, President Trump launched a

criminal investigation into Federal

Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. A inquiry

led by the Justice Department centers on

whether Powell misled Congress during

his testimony about renovations to the

Fed's headquarters. Powell has pushed

back strongly. In a rare video

statement, he called the investigation

quote unprecedented. He said it's

motivated by his refusal to cut interest

rates at the president's command. The

investigation triggered swift backlash

across the finance world. JP Morgan CEO

Jaime Diamond said that anything that

harms Fed independence is quote probably

not a good idea. Leaders from the

European Central Bank and the Bank of

England issued a joint statement

supporting Powell. Even meme stock

traders have rushed to Powell's defense

with one Reddit user describing Powell

as quote an American hero. I think the

reaction that we've seen is probably

alone worth an hourong conversation. But

before we get into that, uh, Scott, we

discussed this on the Daily Show last

week, uh, but we haven't gotten your

reaction yet. So, what is your reaction

to what we've seen between, uh, Donald

Trump or maybe the DOJ and Jerome Pal?

Well, I'll repeat what everyone has

already kind of repeated several hundred

times but bears repeating a 700 first

time and that is the strongest economies

in the world hands down the most robust

economies the ones that have less severe

recessions they don't turn into

depressions are the ones that have some

form of an independent central bank or

federal reserve. They all have that in

common because the temptation when you

lower interest rates you're putting

money in people's pockets. The

temptation of any politician, Democrat

or Republican, would be to lower

interest rates through their tenure.

There's just no getting around it. And I

don't think anyone, Democrat or

Republican, if they thought they could

take interest rates down, would choose

not to and juice the economy. The

problem is you create a scenario where

there might be more money than goods,

which creates inflation. And inflation

can get to a point where you have panic

buying and then you've lost control of

your economy. And right now the dollar

is the reserve currency somewhere

between 2/3 and 80% which gives us

unbelievable clarity and teeth into

world flows of power and gives teeth to

our sanctions. Arguably the biggest

aircraft carrier strike force in history

is the US dollar. So an independent Fed

just makes all the sense in the world.

And Jerome Pal, I've never been as

confident that an individual will at

some point have a presidential medal of

freedom wrapped around his neck than

Chairman Pal. He had the most aggressive

increase in interest rates uh in

history. Everyone on the far left from

Bernie to Senator Warren was saying that

you're hurting Americans, people on the

far right where you don't know what

you're doing.

Anyways, and then and then effectively

he just just [ __ ] ignored everybody.

He just said, "No, I know more about

this than you." Uh you know, you just

hold my beer. and he took interest rates

up I think five times in like 15 months

and inflation has come down from 9% in

COVID to 2.8. Still not as low as we'd

like. We're still spending way too much

money. He has only a certain amount of

control.

>> Well, he got it down to 2.3 and then we

put these tariffs in place and now we're

back up. So, to be fair, I prefer to say

he went from 9 to 2.3 without triggering

a recession, by the way, which everyone

said was going to happen. And now that

we've got the tariffs in place, now

we're seeing it go back up. who has been

able to raise interest rates, I don't

know, 400 basis points and not cause a

recession. I mean, to to do what he

pulled off is like threading a needle in

space with, you know, no opposable

thumbs. I mean, his ability to do that

is just a feat of economics. if um I

don't know if you know this about me Ed

but I was a graduate fellow in macro

microeconomics and business school but

um just just for yeah just you want to

know that um but if someone had

described that kind of interest rate

hike and the ability to save off or

avoid a recession you'd say that's

probably impossible.

>> So anyways this guy's not only been

outstanding and an independent Fed

no is there what I do think is what a

lot of people miss is the following.

This isn't about him stepping down early

from his chairmanship. That happens in

May. That's going to happen. You know,

we're what, 14 weeks away from that.

This is about trying to get his ass off

the board of governors. Because what

Trump realizes, and what most people

don't realize, is this is actually how

boards work. While chairman pal is the

spokesperson and the one that goes to

congress and the one that has the big

title, the entire board decides and sets

interest rates. And the way board

governance and decisions happen aboard

is the following. A bunch of FIPS

formerly important people show up for

lunch once every 3 months and a an

extended meeting. The CEO presents his

or her plan. If it's a good board,

there's a lot of really robust questions

and push back. on a lot of boards,

everyone just nods their head because

they I'll see you on the golf course,

Bob, this weekend and they the most

important position is the chair of the

audit committee to make sure that

whatever we're reporting in the earnings

call is actually true. Um, and then

there's a bunch of other committees that

do different things, but basically

everyone kind of watches themsel talk,

has interesting questions, and then if

shit's getting real, and there's really

only two times a board matters, that's

when the company is thinking about

selling or being acquired, and whether

or not we need to fire the CEO. And what

happens is a second board meeting. And

the second board meeting is of the three

or four board members that matter. And

they almost always meet in the parking

lot. And they're like, I'm worried about

Lisa. I'm worried. I'm thinking maybe we

need to make a change because typically

CEOs manage boards as opposed to listen

to them. And then what you have in terms

of dynamics around decision-m is the

following. Everybody says their peace.

And yeah, that's a good point. And then

when one or two people speak, everybody

[ __ ] listens and nods their head. And

those two people are usually one or the

following. one, the largest shareholder,

especially in private companies, the

largest shareholder speaks for, as they

should, the ownership of the company or

the largest proxy for ownership. And

also, they're the ones that can cause

the most trouble if they don't like the

decisions being made and they can go

activist. Uh, two, if it's a private

company, they're the ones that are going

to be called first if the company needs

more capital. So, you can be a [ __ ]

idiot, but if you're the largest

shareholder, people kiss your ass on a

board. And then the second key board

member is the following. Someone who's

just really [ __ ] smart. There's

always one guy or gal who over the

course of one, two, three, or years just

makes it clear to everybody. I just know

more about this [ __ ] and I have better

judgment than the rest of you. And this

person I've worked with some exceptional

board members and when they speak,

everybody listens and they usually don't

speak a lot. That's the other thing

about them. and when they're discussing

how what they should do with interest

rates and the majority of governors say

we should lower interest rates a quarter

point and the chair organizing and

leading the meeting and then this

governor named Jerome Pal and then when

Governor Pal goes you know I've looked

at the data and I think we should keep

rates steady what do you think the

decision is in that meeting?

>> Yeah, I think I got to go with him.

>> There might be 12 governors. there's

going to be one voice in that room who's

like, "Okay, this is the guy that pulled

off the impossible and has demonstrated

extraordinary leadership capability."

So, while he may not have the title

chairman, he's still going to have the

most influence over the decisions around

Americans uh interest rates for the next

four years. And Trump realizes that.

>> I think you're definitely right. I think

this is probably about um the fact that

he doesn't want Jerome Powell to be in

the room. I think you're exactly right

that if Kevin Hassid or Kevin Wart gets

in there and tries to, you know, beat

their chest and try to say I'm I'm I'm

the boss, everyone's going to be sort of

realizing actually Jerome Powell is the

real boss in here. He's the one who

really commands our respect. But here's

the data point. There is a prediction

market on this question, the question

specifically whether Powell will be out

uh off of the board of Fed governors

before August. After this went down,

after he came out with that video

statement about the investigation, the

odds that he would be out of the

committee crashed by 30%.

So what the markets are basically

telling us and by the way I think this

is true of what we saw in in the markets

at large where you initially had this

sell off in the S&P and the NASDAQ and

futures but then by the end of the day

they actually reverse those losses and

then the next day they hit record highs

and everyone's going like how could this

be? The Fed's independence is under

threat. This is a terrible signal for US

markets. But I think what people are

realizing is actually, and Justin Wolf

has said this last week, Jerome Powell

wins. He stuck it to Trump. And beyond

that, beyond winning the exchange, what

is probably more striking is the fact

that everyone agrees with him both on

the left and the right. There is

basically no one, unless you're a

complete Toad, unless you're a complete

sickopant. There's no one who thinks

that Jerome Powell is in the wrong and

that this was acceptable, that this was

warranted. And we saw this from, you

know, every former Fed chair who who

signed a letter about it. We saw it from

all the major central banks, those you'd

expect. We also saw it from the from the

the big bank CEOs. Jamie Diamond was

condemning it. Brian Moahan, the CEO of

Bank of America. Most importantly,

probably the Republicans who came out

against it. You had several Republican

senators saying this is a terrible

thing. Tom Tillis probably had the the

most authoritative

statement. He said, I have his quote

here in front of me. He said, quote, "If

there were any remaining doubt whether

advisers within the Trump administration

are actively pushing to end the

independence of the Federal Reserve,

there should now be none. It is now the

independence and credibility of the

Department of Justice that are in

question." So, Republicans coming out

against it. But then, as we said in the

intro, I think the most interesting

group to be against Trump in this and to

be in support of Jerome Powell is the

Reddit army, the meme stock traders on

Wall Street Bets. This is where all the

traders live. And the decision was

unanimous. If you go and look at Wall

Street Bets and their reaction to how

this all unfolded, their view is that

Trump is the villain, Jerome Powell is

the hero. the most popular post on um

Wall Street Bets on Monday, it said,

quote, "Jerome Powell is an American

hero. We don't deserve him." And there

are thousands of memes and social media

posts and Jerome Powell clips and edits

praising him, saying Jerome Powell has

aura. Like if if you had told me that in

2026 you would have the Reddit army

praising the chair of the Federal

Reserve as their hero, I just wouldn't

believe you because these are the guys

who are supposed to hate the

institutions and the economists and the

experts. Um you know you you would never

see a dynamic like this. But it appears

that something has flipped here. They

love Jerome Powell right now. Jerome

Powell is sticking it to the man, the

guy who people used to think was the

man. And I've been really thinking about

like what is it about this interaction

and about that video that has caused

this flip that is causing America to

rally behind the institution? It used to

be that we were all anti-institutions,

or at least that's been the trend for

the last several years. Now it's

flipped. We're backing the old stuffy

guy who's the head of the Federal

Reserve, who's, you know, the most

institutional man in the world, and

we're all saying, "Go for it. We we're

rooting for you." And that to me is is

almost something something deeper

perhaps about the cultural conversation

in America right now. I' I'd want to get

your thoughts like what what might be

different about this exchange versus

previous fights that Trump has gotten

into.

>> I don't think this is different. I think

it'll end the same way. I think he's

going to have to back down. I think he

keeps thinking, "Wait, I'm a strong man.

I'm an autocrat." And then

I think America would rather have their

neighbors and friends terrorized by mass

belie.

I think they're comfortable or I should

say

uncomfortable, but so far tolerant. And

I want to praise and commend the people

who have gone out to protest in

Minneapolis and have voiced concerns

over a secret mass police terrorizing

Americans. But I think Americans

Americans uh will tolerate that, but

they won't tolerate

uh inflation. Mhm.

>> And just to give you a sense of what

happens when a strong man enters office

and immediately installs a loyalist in

2023 Erdogan from Turkey installed a

loyalist to the central bank as central

bank governor. Within a year inflation

or the consumer price index went from

about 18 or 17% to 86%.

When that happens, you have panic

because and also low middle and upper

middle inome homes don't really own

assets. They have

what they have is cash in their

earnings. And basically overnight

they they can't buy meat. They can only

buy chicken. And those that could only

afford chicken can only afford rice. And

all of a sudden they can't make tuition

payments, car payments, they can't buy

food. and anything they had in the bank

account becomes worthless and wages

never keep pace with inflation. So

overnight they go from being having a

lifestyle of X to having a lifestyle of

point4x and it becomes untenable

especially in it. You know inflation

typically leads to

countries don't go out of business

because they get invaded. They go out of

business because they go broke and one

way to go broke fast theoretically is

inflation. And it's also it creates wild

income inequality because the people who

survive inflation are the people who own

assets. So the people who own land in

Argentina are still very wealthy because

they own land. But everybody else who

has to live off of current income and

cash, a cashbased society gets crushed.

So I think your statistics and the

Reddit army is right. And by the way, he

my sense is he's kind of dialed down the

rhetoric uh because he realizes he he

can't legally remove the guy and it's a

bit of a losing game. I totally agree.

It's like inflation is the most

important thing and you look at the

polling that's what matters most to

Americans usually in general that's what

matters most to Americans but especially

right now given what we saw with

inflation coming out of co which was

which was a real problem. What will be

interesting is

how is it going to be messaged because

Trump is out there saying I'm the guy

bringing down inflation

and he's also saying that Jerome Powell

is the guy who is increasing inflation.

And this often happens with these

populist strong men who basically just

lie to the public about the relationship

between interest rates and inflation.

and they make it sound like lowering

interest rates would reduce inflation

and and which obviously isn't true.

Meanwhile, I mean, we we have the issue

that we discussed uh during the week

with Mark Xandandy, which is we got the

slightly moderated inflation print last

week of 2.7%.

But the data is flawed because of the

government shutdown which caused these

issues in the way that we survey and

find prices on goods. And he's done his

own analysis and he's got the the real

number and I'm going with his number

because he's adjusted for what we didn't

see in October and it's 3%. So it's it's

still really really bad. We went from

2.3% again before liberation day. Then

we have the tariffs and now we're up to

3%. So I think it'll be interesting like

I agree Americans care a lot about

inflation but do they understand

the relationship between monetary policy

and interest rate policy and prices? And

will they be SCPed by this

administration

into believing that the way to bring

down prices is to just blindly follow

and believe in whatever dear leader

commands. That's what he's trying to go

for right now. And I guess that's why I

was almost so heartened to see the

collective support for Jerome Powell

because I just feel like people like

Jerome Powell usually lose in the

cultural conversation. Like usually if

you're kind of measured in 2020 in the

2020s specifically, I'd say if you're

measured quiet and you stick the data,

you stick the numbers, often times I

find you lose to Trump trolling you,

shouting at you, uh blaming you, calling

you names. Like what we've seen is that

Trump generally wins. So I think it'll

be interesting to see like what will the

American public go with? Who will they

believe? Um, and that is something that

I think Trump is definitely very aware

of and probably pretty worried about

following the reaction that we saw in

this argument. What's different here

though is that 50% of America is lined

up to hate the person almost always

because they're seen as politically

partisan.

Pal was appointed by or reappointed by

Trump.

>> Yeah. It doesn't help.

>> He doesn't he doesn't feel Democratic or

Republican. So, and he's not a popular

public. It's not like if he goes after a

Democrat, well, you know, 47% of America

is ready to like go along and hate that

person and start calling their

congressman. And I don't think that's

the same

>> Yeah.

>> with Chairman Pal. I also think there's

probably a pretty significant number of

Republicans who are calling Susie Wells

and go, "Yeah, no, we want to leave.

Don't that this doesn't make any sense."

>> He's a totally different beast. Like it

and it's really remarkable. He's almost

impenetrable because I mean you saw that

interaction where Trump asked someone

during an interview who appointed him

and they're like you did. So it it makes

him sort of the perfect vessel to expose

the lie of this presidency. And then

when he's attacked by this presidency

and moreover attacked by Janine Pierro,

the the the former Fox News host who

Trump hired to the position this year,

like it kind of perfectly illustrates

the corruption and the grift that's

happening. And he is such a great avatar

to be the one to get to come under fire

because you really you you can't call

him corrupt. You cannot call him a liar.

Like it's completely ridiculous.

We'll be right back after the break. And

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We're back with Profy Markets. 2026 is

off to a strong start for metals with

gold, silver, and copper all reaching

new record highs. Copper is up 36% from

a year ago. Gold has gained 72%.

Silver has risen 187%.

A big driver of the rally is

geopolitical instability. Protests in

Iran have continued with reports of

significant casualties. Just a few weeks

ago, Trump ordered the capture of

Venezuela's President Nicholas Maduro.

And at the same time, tensions remain

high with Denmark over Trump's push to

acquire Greenland. So, Scott, let's just

quickly run through these insane rallies

we've seen on all these different

metals. As I mentioned copper, uh, I

mentioned gold. Tin is also up 80% on

the year. Lithium is up 112% on the

year. Platinum is up 147%

on the year. Uh, I mean the obvious

question is why? I think we should just

note that there are some there are

various reasons. One of them would be

supply shortages which we're seeing in

all these mining companies. Another

would be just industrial demand because

a lot of these metals are used for

things like data centers and power grids

and electric vehicles and all that. But

it does seem that the main driver right

now is instability at the geopolitical

stage because every time a conflict

breaks out, the price of these metals

goes up. Iran, Venezuela, Greenland,

Iran again, every time it happens, they

go up. So metals seem to win when things

get dangerous, which I think poses an

interesting question for us. If 2026 is

going to be the year of geopolitical

instability, uh hostility, uh military

conflict, it seems like it will be.

Well, then how do you invest? And do you

just invest in metals? And what do you

what else do you invest in?

>> Yeah, it's the peanut butter and

chocolate of what you said, geopolitical

instability. These are now kind of

riskoff assets. It used to be

treasuries, but now people I think worry

that the the full faith and credit of

those supposedly secure assets is now

creating a lot of the risk. So people

turn to metals. And then the chaser

effect is that they have industrial use

cases in categories that are growing.

Silver is essentially used for anything

with an onoff switch. Circuit boards,

EVs, batteries, you know, a lot more of

those. It's also used in solar panels.

Uh silver coating is used in medical

devices, more and more old people.

Copper is used in EVs, um power grids,

um wind turbines.

It's also super important for AI

production. It's used in data centers,

cooling systems. So you not only have an

asset that's seen as a hedge, you have

an asset that has enormous wins in its

sales because of the fastest growing

categories in business require the

industrial use case, you know, require

these metals. So, uh, Ray Dalio was

right. Ray's been saying for a long

time, and I thought, you know, guy who

started the largest hedge fund in the

world is talking about gold. And I

thought that seems kind of boring, but

he's been talking about this for a few

years now that gold was a really good

hedge. Also, this is a moment

I don't want to do what a lot of people

on podcast do and they talk about their

wins. I wanted some diversification or a

riskoff asset um or risk on, I don't

know how to describe it. So, I made my

first Bitcoin investment about four or

five months ago. I invested in one of

these Bitcoin treasury companies. It's

called Sequins or something, SQNS. A

friend of mine was involved in it and I

bought shares at 14 bucks in the IPO. I

sold it at the end of December to take

the tax loss at $4.50.

So, Ed, it is not easy to lose 75% of

your money in about 90 days, but I

figured it out. And of course, the day I

sold, it popped back. It's now up about

550. I literally I have I have arguably

one of the greatest traders and minds in

the world if the object was to lose a

lot of money in a short amount of time,

but I think it's important that you

highlight your losses. So, let's be

clear, folks.

>> I am so disappointed in you for buying

for buying shares in a Bitcoin treasury

company.

>> I need some exposure to Bitcoin.

>> We've talked about these treasury

companies. They're total total [ __ ]

Yeah, but you also told me to stop

drinking grain alcohol and I

>> It is fascinating though what has

happened with Bitcoin over the past

basically year because you know as you

say like this was the year of risk

assets. You're seeing all of these wars

and political conflicts breaking out all

over the world. Uh Jamie Diamond saying

that we're like at the most unstable

time since World War II. All of the

metals are rallying and yet Bitcoin is

down on the year. It's down about 1%

compared to this time last year, which

is just fascinating. I feel like this

keeps on happening to Bitcoin where the

the doomsday case is being tested and

that is Bitcoin is supposed to be a

hedge against just apocalypse like in

any form. It's the same supposed to be

the digital gold. That's kind of what

gold is. Bitcoin is supposed to be the

same thing and that every time when it's

Bitcoin's time to perform and prove that

it is indeed the digital gold. I feel

like it continues to flop. It happened

when Russia first invaded Ukraine.

Everyone was waiting for Bitcoin to

rally. Didn't happen. And the same has

happened here. while all of the the

precious metals that people go into when

they're very scared about what's going

to happen in the world, when all of

those metals rise, Bitcoin's just been

kind of eh um which is certainly a

concern for I would say Bitcoin

maximalists. Um maybe it was riding on

some some momentum because of what we

saw with Trump when he promised to save

the Bitcoin industry. What do you know

is down 1%. Um but it is striking what

has happened with Bitcoin. you would

have thought that it would have

performed.

>> Yeah, there's the notion that Bitcoin is

a hedge and serves the same purpose as

gold. It just hasn't p panned out. It it

tends to,

you know, it tends to follow its own, I

don't know, its own supply and demand. I

I don't really have any insight here. I

clearly uh if I ever start talking about

which way Bitcoin is going to go, take

out a gun and shoot me in the face cuz I

clearly I clearly don't understand the

dynamics of the crypto market.

>> Well, next time you want to invest in a

Bitcoin treasury company, just call me.

Call me.

>> Call that Elsa.

>> I'll tell you not not to do it. Um, so

one thing to think about here as well,

we've got all of these

crazy military events happening around

the world, which probably want to get

your views on too. But, you know, this

is a market show. This is an investing

show. So, when we think about how to

invest, how to think about it. Generally

what happens when conflicts break out is

stocks go down and gold goes up or some

equivalent to gold like platinum for

example

um and we can see this in the numbers on

average when conflicts have emerged over

the past 20 years the 4-we return on

stocks has been negative -2% the four-we

return on gold has been positive 3% gold

has gone up 3% in some cases it's even

been worse. We looked at the start of

World War I, for example, where stocks

fell 30%. And the markets closed for 4

months. So, generally what happens in an

environment such as the one we're in

right now, when things get kind of ugly,

when people start shooting at each

other, stocks go down, gold goes up. And

that appears to be the the consensus

among everyone. And it appears to be

what we are seeing um at least in the

past like week or so. The more important

question is, okay, that's looking at the

four-week return, that's looking at the

short term. What happens over the longer

term, and the longer term is actually a

very different story, and that is stocks

actually perform quite well during

conflicts and after conflicts. You look

at World War I, for example, again, when

the markets reopened after that

four-month closure, the Dow actually

rose more than 88%.

And this was a JP Morgan analysis. They

looked at all of these geopolitical

conflicts throughout history. They found

that over the course of 12 months, the

S&P's returns are on average the same as

they are during peace time. So, I think

what we're about to see this year is

this obsession with the metals. We're

obsessing over it right now because

these numbers are very striking. I think

we have a tendency during conflict,

during wartime to think, okay, sell your

stocks, buy the gold. I think one thing

that we we should highlight is like

long-term you probably don't want to

give into that tendency. Long-term

stocks still perform great regardless of

what's happening and who's fighting with

whom. Um and I think that's going to be

something for investors to kind of

wrestle with because, you know, I I

don't know what's going to happen next.

I mean Trump said Iran, you know,

they've stopped killing people so we're

not going to invade. But I mean, who the

[ __ ] knows? And as soon as people get

the guns out, it seems like all bets are

off. I could see gold ripping even

higher. And then the question is like,

do you have the balls to hold on to your

stocks or are you going to sell and and

buy the gold and put it under your

mattress?

>> What was I found more interesting is we

essentially go through, I don't want to

say invade, but inspire a regime change

in Venezuela and oil barely moved. I'm

actually very bullish on what the Trump

administration did in Venezuela. I think

having a satellite and navy bases for

China and Russia

um in our hemisphere is a really bad

idea. Uh Russia is distracted. China is

geographically too far to do anything

about it. So similar to a Bond film

where the opening they always nail the

openings in Bond films. It's just

sometimes it goes on to be a great film,

sometimes it goes on to be a shitty

film. And so far this has been executed

with such incredible

strategy and strength. The army r the

the rangers, the air force uh

intelligence assets on the ground, the

navy pulled off in 35 minutes what Putin

has been unable to pull off in 35

months. Every adversary in the world is

remembering what Secretary Albreight,

one of my heroes, said 20 odd years ago.

Our memory is long and our reach is far.

Our reach is not only far, it can

[ __ ] strangle you. I mean that from a

brand standpoint, I think that was one

of the biggest flexes in recent

geopolitical history. The problem is I

worry this Bond film is about to be

Quantum of Solless and that is a really

shitty film because rather than

capitalizing on this incredible military

victory from the best reforming

organization in history see above the US

military the playbook here is very

simple. The greatest innovation in

geopolitical history was the Marshall

Plan. The Imperial Navy of Japan was

murdering our sailors stranded in the

sea. baton death march, you know, I just

just torturous. We had a lot of reason

to be angry at these people. And what

did we do, Ed? What did we do? What did

American taxpayers decide to do with

Japan and Germany post World War II? We

rebuilt their [ __ ] nations.

And we leveraged our great institutions

and we let them immigrate. And we said,

I know as punishment, we're going to

rebuild incredible societies and

democracies. Why? Because you are an

incredible society. And it's clear that

no matter what we do, you're going to be

a force in the world because you've

built such incredible societies. So

here's an idea, let's when you're at

your weakest

really help you. And who are our

strongest allies in the world? Well, I

would say Canada and Britain, maybe

Australia, but a close third, fourth,

and fifth third and fourth would be

Germany and Japan. They shouldn't be

thinking about stealing their oil. They

should be thinking how do we motivate

American investors to put a Four Seasons

and Urban Outfitters and Chipotle down

there.

>> You don't think that's exactly what

they're doing? I feel like that is

actually what they I mean they they're

taking the oil, but he's also saying,

"Okay, let's get all the oil exacts

around a table and let's figure out how

to drill baby drill and just make it a

corporate American paradise in

Venezuela."

>> Oh, young young Jedi trainee. Um um you

think, therefore you're wrong. Uh, look,

you don't want to control oil, you want

to control the flow of oil. To invade a

nation for oil is so 19th century

because the oil coming out of the ground

in Venezuela is heavy crude. It costs

somewhere between 65 and 70 bucks to

pull a barrel of oil out of the ground

in Venezuela where they can sell it on

the open market for $62. Why do they

continue to do it? Because they still

have to pay fixed cost. So, it makes

sense to keep pumping.

It makes absolutely no sense to want to

own that oil. What's more powerful now,

the world isn't being shaped by the

ownership of oil. It's being shaped by

the control of the flow of oil. And that

is whoever controls the flow of this

asset. It's like the rationale for

invading Venezuela for oil would like me

saying, "I'm going to in I'm going to

invade Costa Rica for sand." No, you

don't. It doesn't make any sense. What

you want to do is potentially control

the flow. And there are shadow fleets of

tankers going to Russia, Iran, and

China. 90% of Venezuela's oil exports

were going to China. And if you can

control the flow of oil into China, you

get balance, counterbalance against

their dominance in rare earths, because

without oil, without energy, if you

could cut off China's supply of energy,

which is possible militarily for 6

weeks, they're out of business. Whereas

in the US, we're energy independent. We

can keep producing tanks in planes. So

controlling the flow of oil and where it

goes to is fine. But taking a nation

that is so economically indentured that

over the last 20 years there's been 8

million refugees flowing out of that

country putting huge pressure on their

neighbors and then further economically

indenturing them is just [ __ ] stupid.

That's going to lead nowhere good. It's

also going to create resentment within

the general public. We have an

opportunity. Venezuela people say you're

talking about nation building Scott like

in Iraq or Afghanistan. There's a big

difference here. Those nations were a

series of tribes encapsulated in a

geography with lines driven by the, you

know, uh, drawn erroneously by the

British 100 years ago. Venezuela is a

great culture, a a nation of mostly

homogeneous people and values, and it's

been a democracy for much of the last

100 years. For us to go in and say, "We

want to help you. We're going to invest.

The oil is yours. Now, if you decide to

figure out a way to ship it

expeditiously to the US for our

incredible refining capacity, we'd

really appreciate that, right? But we

need to build a great nation and have it

be an example, a bright shiny beacon of

democracy and capitalism in Latin

America, not us showing and basically

putting a gun to their head and say,

"Give us your [ __ ] oil." So, this is

a Bond film. It started really well and

it's already coming off the tracks.

>> I think the administration would argue

that what they're doing is exactly what

you just described. They're not I mean,

who knows what the true intentions are,

but from what I'm seeing, they're more

interested in the flow of oil versus the

oil itself. And they've talked about the

fact that it's going to cost, you know,

tens to hundreds of billions of dollars

to build the infrastructure to make the

oil actually usable. So, I feel like the

the the danger of all of this, if

there's something, I guess from my view

that they're getting wrong, it's sort of

the long-term consequences, not of going

after oil, but of deciding

to pursue the Donro doctrine of we own

the entire Western Hemisphere and at the

same time in the same week threatening

military intervention into Greenland,

which is owned by an ally in Denmark. So

to me, it's sort of like that he's

communicating to the world. He figured

out, we were talking about this the

other day. We were comparing the use of

military force to tariffs. Someone

showed Trump that there's this thing

called tariffs that you can do and you

can slap a tariff on and you can do it.

It's executive power and it's a way to

kind of screw anyone else. So if anyone

[ __ ] with you, put a tariff on them. He

figured out this shiny new weapon and he

just decided to spam it as much as

possible because he had so much fun

using it. It almost seems as though with

Venezuela, he's learned in the past week

or two weeks that the next that the the

next best shiniest weapon you can use is

actual weapons. It's guns, it's

grenades, it's missiles, it's attack

helicopters. And he's decided, "Oh my

god, this one's even more fun. I can

actually just drop a flashbang into

Venezuela, get Seal Team Six in, kidnap

Maduro, and I'll be the man, which he

kind of has appeared to be in the past

week. And then it seems like he wants to

do it again with Greenland. And I think

that the the concern is that he's going

to keep on doing this because he loves

how powerful he feels when he does this.

And the trouble is going to come in the

long term when we overplay our hand

thinking that we can just solve

anything, solve any conflict by just

pointing a gun at someone. And that

eventually these relationships that we

have with uh our allies with Europe,

with Denmark, etc. become extremely

afraid, become non-existent, at which

point everyone hates America. And then

that's sort of the the downfall of

America. I feel like he's very, we were

talking about this as well, analyst

Chris O'Donnie made the point like he's

extremely short- termist. He has almost

no conception of the long-term

consequences, whether it's invading

Greenland or even, you know, forcing the

Fed to lower interest rates. There's no

real understanding of what's going to

happen after the next election cycle. It

seems to be not even on his radar.

>> Look, there's they're all very different

here for different reasons. So, the

analogy, I'll stick with the movie

business. the analogy of Venezuela being

a bond film. If we look at the other

two, let's talk about Iran and let's

talk about Denmark. Potential military

action against Iran and Denmark's um

what I call it

>> territory or something

>> protectorate territory. Yeah. Greenland.

>> One is the sequel to Star Wars and that

is I think the ROI to Greenlight the

Empire Strikes Back from 20th Century

Fox in 1978 was like we're really

confident this movie will do really

well. By the way, probably the best

sequel in history, maybe with the

exception of Aliens, the sequel to

Aliens starring Sigourney Weaver, but

Aliens was outstanding. First James

Cameron of the franchise. But we know

one is an amazing idea, one is a one is

heaven's gate or just the well I don't

know what the biggest cinematic flop in

history is, but I'll start with the flop

and that is

invading or forcing

Denmark to sell Greenland is like me

showing up to Chipotle today with an

AR-15 and demanding they give me a

burrito bowl with pork, extra guacamole,

and charge me $14.85.

Yeah.

>> And someone might point out, well, boss,

we'll we'll do all of that for you

without the gun.

And

Rare Earth Minerals there. There are

huge strategic reasons to have an

alliance

with Greenland and Denmark. They have

rare earths. They have supposedly

somewhere between 12 and 17%. That's

huge. They are in geographically one of

the most strategic positions in the

world regarding our ability to attract

Russian naval vessels and submarines.

It's it's hugely strategic. Has huge

economic potential. Everything we want

to leverage those things. Denmark has

already provided. Come on in, get your

burrito bowl. We like you guys. But for

some reason, we've decided we don't want

an alliance. We want compliance through

force.

It's like something I learned early when

you're trying to get something from

someone. You know, people talk about a

carrot and a stick. If you're ever going

to use a stick, make sure it's it's

almost veiled and they just figure it

out on their own. I find the moment you

threaten people,

uh especially successful people, because

successful people tend to have big egos.

All business goes out the window.

They're like, "Fuck you. I'm taking the

other side because I don't back down to

threats." And we're actually

contemplating threatening and going to

war with other members of an alliance

we're in which has been the strongest

alliance in the world which has created

more prosperity in the last 80 years

than we've had in the last 800. This is

arguably

the lowest IQ moment of the Trump

administration. We get everything we

want without owning it, without paying

for it. So this makes no sense. Now, the

highest ROI military action, the sequel,

The Empire Strikes Back. By the way,

that snow battle, I think that's one of

the greatest battle scenes in the

history, cinematic history. Have you

seen the snow battle?

>> I'm always underwhelmed by the old Star

Wars movies. You're going to hate me for

saying that. I always find the special

effects. I mean, I understand they were

awesome in their day, but I'm just sort

of like I actually think that the, you

know, one, two, and three better better

fights. You're going to hate me for

saying all this. Well, in new news, the

new co-host of Property Markets is Kyla

Scandlin. Ted, that is that is literally

sacrilege.

That is you are now an apostate from the

religion of the dog.

>> I'm a contrarian

>> and oh my god, okay, take your 1976,

you're in seventh grade, you get your

first date with Paula Brewbaker, and you

I'm sorry, Paula, not Paula Brewer.

Paula Kumnock was her name of all

things. And you take her to that film

and you watch Star Wars for the first

time.

>> Can you imagine what that was like? Fair

enough.

>> THX has just come out. It was like the

audiences in a galaxy far far away. A

long Oh god, that [ __ ] is genius.

Absolutely.

>> Anyways, and then they and then George

Lucas, that incredible filmmaker,

followed up with Howard the Duck.

Anyways,

uh but the the best ROI

uh for our military right now would be

to um do use intelligence

and and also our air force over the

skies which we now own to suppress

civilians or to bomb and strike civilian

suppression centers in Tehran and Iran.

the unlock of 95 million people and the

unlock and the victory for women's

rights and women who have been

enormously oppressed in this regime. The

ability to bring stability to the Middle

East and turn Iran into a great ally is

the highest ROI used to the government

and the military right now because

everyone unfortunately is under the cold

comfort that it's over. No, we've been

here before. There was a green

revolution or whatever it was I think in

2019. The government comes in and is

brutal and it goes back and it starts to

goes from a boil to a simmer and we're

back with the Islamic Republic which has

been the largest sponsor and coordinator

and catalyst of terror across the Middle

East for the last 50 years. This is such

an enormous opportunity for women's

rights, for geopolitical stability. I

think this is a fantastic use of

military power. So, let's review. We

have our Bond film. Started great. Don't

know how it's going to go. We have the

biggest flop in history and at some

point someone has to get some sanity and

say let's shut down production and even

discussion of this idea and that is

invading a NATO member and then there is

the Empire Strikes Back or the greatest

ROI in history or Raiders of the Lost

Arc or or Indiana Jones whatever the

most successful sequel was in history.

It's probably something [ __ ] awful

like Smurfs 2 or any something. This

would be in my opinion one of the

greatest ROIs uh for the US military

would be to stand behind and finish the

job for uh the incredible uh incredible

brave Iranian people. Also, don't call

yourself a feminist unless you agree

with me and think we should absolutely

be supporting Iran. Oo, that was hard.

>> I'm just amazed that we compared the

Iranian regime to Smurfs, too.

>> There you go.

>> That's my take.

We'll be right back. And for even more

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We're back with Profy Markets. Two major

developments drove the AI conversation

last week. First, Apple announced it

will use Google's Gemini model to power

an upgraded version of Siri. The

partnership sent Google shares higher

and pushed the company to a $4 trillion

market cap. That makes it just the

fourth company in history to reach that

milestone. Meanwhile, we saw Anthropic

with another big move. The company

rolled out Claude Co-work, a new

consumer focused version of its coding

agent. The launch generated massive

buzz, including 17 articles and an intro

video that drew 46 million views on X.

So, Google Anthropic dominating the

headlines in AI this week, but there is

obviously one major player that has not

been in the headlines and that is open

AI. We have not seen much major news

coming out of Open AI. So Scott, I think

the first thing I'd want to start with

is probably this Google and Apple

partnership. I mean, what Apple has told

us is that they're going to use the

Gemini model for Apple intelligence. We

don't actually know what that means or

how it will actually work. We should

also acknowledge that Apple does already

have a partnership with Open AI. Um, so

it it's kind of unclear how that changes

the agreement, but the market told us

this that's that Google's a winner here.

The stock rose 3%. And by the way,

Google's up 70% in the past 12 months. I

I still believe that was kind of our our

greatest call that we've we've ever

we've ever done on this show. There are

some rumors that we we don't really know

about. We don't know if it's true. One

is that Apple is going to pay Google $1

billion per year to use Gemini, which

seems significant. Another is that Apple

is paying OpenAI nothing to use Chat

GBT. So, I think that's our first clue

here. I mean, what do we know? Apple's

now using both Google's Gemini and Chat

GBT. But it appears that Google's the

only one who's actually getting paid for

it, which tells you something about

OpenAI's ability to make deals. And as

I've said before, I mean, the guy who

they've got running these deals, they're

not even getting legal counsel on their

deals. They've got their head of product

figuring out the paperwork on these

things. And then what do you know?

apparently, again, unconfirmed, but

apparently they're not even getting paid

to be the model for Apple. Then you've

got Claude Co-work, which was a big deal

basically because it looks incredibly

useful. Um, it does everything you want

AI to do. It it organizes your calendar,

it tracks your meetings, it creates

transcripts, it automates them, then it

creates action items from the meetings,

it communicates between your email and

your calendar. The reason this product

launch went viral is because everyone's

like, "Holy [ __ ] this thing looks like

it's going to be incredibly useful."

Which again is a problem because Chachbt

hasn't released anything like this yet.

And so it is striking. One of the things

that we said at the beginning of the

year is that Anthropic, if you had to

bet on an AI winner, it's probably not

going to be OpenAI. It's probably going

to be Anthropic. If you had to bet on on

one of the two, it appears that

>> Wait, hold on. It's not going to be You

mean it's going to be Gemini, not

OpenAI?

>> Well, I'm looking at the startups. I I I

would actually say that I think Google I

mean I what I would say is we called

Google. I think Gemini is going to

continue to grow. But if I'm looking at

the startup race, the AI startup race, I

and I feel like it's it's anthropic

versus open AI. Those are the two

private companies that are really making

the headlines. Open AI was uh the whale

for years and we talked about that. I do

think that Anthropic is going to

dethrone OpenAI in 2026 and it appears

we're beginning to see that.

>> There's a third and a fourth and that is

and it makes sense. No company can hold

80% market share in a market this

lucrative but and then Anthropic and Clo

which we use or Claude, excuse me. We

have someone who works for us in Clode.

Claude is their LM. I actually like a

little bit more. I use both all the

time. Actually,

>> I like them both. I can't figure out. I

go back and forth anyway and they're

just incredible technologies, incredible

companies. The

the third and the fourth are Gemini.

When you have a fire hose of a billion

people who use your search every day and

I don't know if you've seen, but the AI

summaries at the top are getting better

and better and they can integrated into

their products and they have just so

much u IQ over there, you just do not

want to count Gemini out. And then the

fourth that will be the most disruptive

will be name your Chinese open weight

LLM. And we've said that we believe that

China's going to engage in AI dumping.

And you already have companies ranging

from A16 Ventures portfolio companies to

Airbnb using Chinese LLMs because

they're a fraction of the cost. And also

if you look at these things they're

reaching technical par. Now, what I got

wrong was last year I thought Apple

deciding not to enter the search wars,

capital wars, and just saying, "Look, if

you want access to the billion most

important people in the world, iOS

users, you got to pay us 5, 10, 20

billion a year, and we'll put Google in

front of everybody." I thought they were

going to be able to negotiate the same

thing. I thought Tim Cook staying out of

the AI wars was actually a good move and

that he would just leverage access to

his billion. You know, the billion

consumers that have iOS are probably

responsible for 50% of the world's GDP

because I think 80% of e-commerce in the

US is from Apple, which doesn't have

anywhere near that market share, right?

And when you're using an Android phone,

you're kind of saying to the world, you

know, things just really haven't worked

out for me the way I'd hoped. If you

have real money or real influence, you

have an iPhone. They command incredible

licensing fees for that access to that.

What's interesting as far as I

understand about the Gemini deal is that

Apple, it's either flat or Apple may be

paying them a billion dollars for this.

So, it's kind of flat. That's nothing

for them.

>> And there might even be I'd love to see

the details of the agreement. There

might be a royalty agreement. I thought

Apple was going to be able to get

billions and billions to shove, you

know, name your LLM in front of the most

valuable consumers in the world. That

does not look like it's happening which

really strikes me I need to rethink the

power dynamics in this

>> but they did it again rumors it appears

that they were able to do that with the

open AI and chat GBT they're not they're

not paying a dollar to to use chat GBT

so again says something about the the

power dynamics there and the fact that

they they have chat GBT for free and yet

they've decided in the past week

actually we would prefer to pay Google

billion dollars to use their AI model.

So I think whoever runs strategy at

Apple is probably very smart and is

doing game theory and has thought at

some point we are going to be able to

charge for access. So what how do we get

that number to be as big as possible?

The way we get that number to be as big

as possible is to ensure that this is a

robust market with more than one player

more than two ideally three or four who

all show up and bid and make irrational

bids for access to be the exclusive or

the preferred provider of AI to our

billion uh consumers. So I think what

they've decided is we'd be better off

continuing to put wind in the sales of

Gemini which has I don't know 8% 12%

share then further create dominance

across open AI. Now I also think and

this is just pure pure speculation but

what we forget is that these people are

human and they have egos and these

people are men. All of them are men and

they all have really big big [ __ ]

egos. And by the way, some of that's

good. A dude with a big ego will

sacrifice his health, his relationships,

sometimes his reputation to just drive a

company and create a ton of value and

shareholder value and tax revenue.

There's something there's very I I say

ego in both, you know, positive and

negative ways. I think Tim Cook is

pissed off that Johnny IV and Sam Alman

are talking about their plan to, you

know, produce products and that his old

head of AI that was kind of in the Steve

Jobs era is putting out these broy films

about the future of AI and how they're

clearly they are clearly planning to put

out some sort of product. They want to

put out the equivalent of the AI phone,

right? That's why Johnny IV is there.

They was the most ridiculous acquisition

in history. That's we're coming up on a

year now. I think Johnny Iv is a genius.

They paid, I think, $6 billion for his

cute little company. I think they

overpaid by about 5.999 billion. That's

going to be a write-off. At some point,

someone on an accounting committee on

the board is going to go, you know, we

need to write this thing down.

>> Yeah.

>> But so I think it's one ego and two they

want a really robust ecosystem of AI

players such that they can command the

greatest licensing fee which at one

point I think they'll be able to

extract. Just looking at where we are in

the AI race right now. Chad GBT is still

winning. So we can look at the monthly

visits on all the different AI

platforms. So for Claude 183 million per

month, Perplexity 196 million, Gemini

1.4 billion. It is amazing how Gemini

has grown. Chargeb is the winner by far

though at 5.8 billion monthly visits. I

think something we should also recognize

is the brand recognition of Chat GBT,

which is still far and away the winner.

If we look at the amount of mentions it

got on TV last year, it had 4,000

mentions. Gemini got less than half of

that. Claude got a fraction of that. 80%

of adults have heard of Chad Gibbt. And

this is something that Cla brought up,

which you've brought up in the past,

too, is Chad is the only one that is a

verb at this point. I mean, you talk

about this in relation to Google. just

Google it or Uber or you should just

Uber there. You chat GBT things. You

don't Gemini things. You don't claude

things. And I think that is probably

pretty relevant in terms of the brand

recognition of chat GBT. We shouldn't

underestimate it. On the flip side, it

does appear that the the tides are

beginning to turn. If you look at

traffic last month, in the month of

December, traffic to ChatGBT went down.

Traffic to Gemini went up. And then the

other thing that I find really

interesting is if you look at who is

using chat GBTV, a lot of kids are using

Chat GBT more so than the other

platforms. And what's also incredibly

fascinating during the summer search

interest for Chat GBT got cut in half.

And people are suggesting that maybe the

reason this is happening is because kids

are using it to do their homework. And

so suddenly the summer comes and they're

not using it to do their homework or to

cheat on their homework anymore or to

write their essays. And I'm I'm sort of

I can't tell if that's a bullish or a

bearish signal. I mean, it's not great

if your use case is just kids cheating

to use to to do their homework. At the

same time, it's kind of good to get some

stickiness into some usage from the next

generation of consumers. What is very

clear to me and I think this has been a

huge mistake. I thought that they were

going to get on this about two years

ago. I predicted I think it was the

beginning of 2024 that chat GBT would

pivot into enterprise. They'd focus less

on the consumer. That's not what they've

done at all. And I think it's been a

real problem because Anthropic has

completely leapfrogged them in terms of

enterprise usage. 80% of Anthropic's

revenue comes from enterprise customers.

For Chargt, it's 30%. And you know, you

think, okay, well, what's the big deal?

That's fine. I think that the more

telling statistic is that OpenAI has 32

times more users than Anthropic. They've

got a huge uh consumer base, but they

generate only two times more revenue.

The reality is enterprises, businesses

just pay more money. It's just a better

business and it's got stronger modes.

So, that's another reason why I'm just

generally more bullish on Anthropic.

They seem to have leaned heavy into the

enterprise play. Meanwhile, yes,

everyone's using chat GBT, but only 5%

of the users pay for it. And then I

mean, what's going to happen when they

when they really ramp up the

monetization? What are what is the price

that consumers are actually going to be

willing to pay? I'm not so sure.

>> Yeah. And to your point, so Greg

Schauve, who's the CEO of Section AI,

which upskills corporations for adoption

of AI, he has said he's I was on the

phone with him a couple weeks ago and he

said something that really struck me or

resonated with me and he said that he he

effectively echoed your comments and

that is he said look there might be 1 to

two billion potential users of chat GPT

and he quoted he like maybe 40 million

will pay for it. He's like, "That's

optimistic." That in no way gets them

anywhere near the valuation they already

have. He said, "There's two forks in the

road here. There's there's two doors.

Door one and door two. Door one is that

open AI inspires really quickly massive

enterprise adoption or door door two is

bankruptcy."

He's like, "If they don't figure out a

way to get enterprise adoption like

humming on 12,000 cylinders, they're

going out of business." Yeah. because

there is no consumer model uh consumer

adoption model that gets anywhere near

the valuation they have in the markets

right now and I thought that was really

interesting and to your point Anthropic

has gone B2B and it's not to say that

having the best BTOC

company isn't worth a lot of money it's

just not going to be worth $1.5 trillion

uh so it's yeah I I love the way he

framed it massive enterprise adoption or

bankruptcy

>> I think there's a very very tiny and

unlikely door three which would be the

ad model.

>> But again, they haven't proven that. And

yes, they're beginning to start to build

out the ad business. But I mean, I I'm

with Greg. If the if the goal is we're

just going to have a B2C business and

we're going to charge people a monthly

fee, that's not going to work. You're

not going to become a trillion dollar

one half trillion dollar company. We

have seen tech consumer tech companies

that have reached those valuations by

just

completely doubling down tripling down

on advertising. Meta would be the best

example of that. I think that's their

only lifeline. Um unless as you say I

think enterprise would be the option the

other option too. I think the other just

before we end here the other thing that

we should just think about the labor

market impacts. I know we've talked

about this a lot, but you know, if you

look at that Claude Co-work product

release, one thing that becomes very

clear when you watch this video is like

this is doing the entire job of any

entry-level worker at any information

services company. like all of the tasks

that it's doing, figuring out the

emails, creating the the PowerPoint

decks, figuring out what was said in the

meetings, writing it up in a document,

simplifying things, like this is all

stuff that I was doing for you in my

first year out of college. That's going

to be done by AI now, or at least it

appears that that will be done by AI.

And this just is it's going to be an

ongoing conversation this year. Like

what does this mean for entry- levelvel

workers where we're already seeing like

the numbers are not they're not great. I

mean young young employment or young

employment among young people is is

lower than it's been in years. There was

this other data we just saw. 76% of

employers reported hiring the same or

fewer entry-level employees last year

compared to 2024. like it seems that AI

layoffs are already happening. This to

me makes it seem like it's only going to

accelerate.

>> We're talking to David Solomon from

Goldman Sachs, the CEO there next week.

And that's one of the questions we want

to pose to him because to your point,

Gold, a place like Goldman has such

growth opportunities that they can find

new things for people to do. But I got

to think small services firms or just

the traditional on-ramping of

information economy talent. I got to

think that's just what's strange is

supposedly the blue chip law firms have

not decreased their freshman classes

which I just find shocking because I am

already uploading

um we got a payment from Vox yesterday

for pivot and I'm like what is this for

when did it get here and I immediately

and I thought what are the payment terms

and I immediately just uploaded the