Better Offline - A Thanksgiving Monologue

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Starting point is 00:00:22 All-Zone Media. Hello and welcome to a very special Thanksgiving monologue. I'm your host, Ed Zittron. What's awesome. And, well, this is a lot. And, well, this one's about you. It's about thanking you for the last year or two. Saying that this show really does mean a lot to me, perhaps more than it should. And this journey has become oddly personal in that the shows allow me to explore this kind of complex relationship I have with technology, the industry, the media, my peers, my own identity, which all sounds a bit much, I realize.

Starting point is 00:00:59 But I mean it sincerely, and I think at this point, you've kind of worked out that's my whole bag. and I recognize I still sound congested. Sophie made it very clear. This is all I'm doing this week. I've got to recover, and I will recover a promise. But I wanted to say that our humanity is what makes us different from the machines. And that's what makes this show special.

Starting point is 00:01:21 And I'm endlessly grateful for the hundreds of thousands of human beings who listen to or read my work every month. I love hearing from you. I'm so grateful for your generosity, your intellectual interest in my work. and in many cases great empathy and capacity for good. And the conclusion of the AI bubble, I think it's going to be a referendum on the status quo,

Starting point is 00:01:42 a stress test of the tech industry's largest firms and collective intellect and honestly imagination. Either I'm wrong and the growth train suddenly sprouts from Open AI or Microsoft or Anthropic, or I'm right, and hundreds of billions of dollars got burned on unprofitable software and even less profitable hardware. While I've complained in the past about feeling alone in this, I never really have been, and you've all kind of made me realize that. From the early days of my newsletter and better offline, many of you have been calling bullshit on AI too in my comments, in emails, on the Reddit, and a lot of you are, honestly, not far from where I am, as far as my breadth of knowledge. I hope I'm helpful in educating you, but already so many of you see with clarity what the stakes are and how to pierce the thick layers of financial bullshit.

Starting point is 00:02:29 And you all know we're at this point we're basically living in a paradox. Every day we look at the stock market, it's either red or slightly green, everyone's kind of worried, everyone still posting these headlines both about being in an AI bubble and also in the midst of the greatest technological revolution since, whatever half-assed comparison people are even making these days, they're not even really fucking bothering, are they? And everybody is still trying to avoid looking at open AI, which is the financial equivalent of a man walking a type rope across lava while begging a crowd of people to throw rocks at him.

Starting point is 00:03:04 Yeah, $1.4 trillion worth of compute deals in the space of five years. Should it all be fine, Sammy. You're still welcome to come on the show, by the way. Your PR person stopped fucking responding to me. Very rude. Very rude. But look, you, the listener, if you feel insane at the moment,

Starting point is 00:03:22 it's because all of this is insane. Open AI plans to burn escalating multiple billion dollars for revenues that appear based on the episode I put out a few weeks ago, well, they appear a little questionable. And whatever Open AI actually makes at this point is up for debate, which I think is reasonable and should have happened earlier. And even now, I still have people getting in touch with me saying, oh, perhaps the numbers are delayed, perhaps it's this, perhaps this, it's not.

Starting point is 00:03:51 It's a cruel accounting, I believe it's called. Those numbers were correct to the quarters I had them in. It's time to start accepting where we are. It's time to accept that things are not going well. And that this bubble will burst. It's probably going to be the most egregious I told you so in history. But I don't have to do that I told you so alone. I'm not doing it alone. You're coming with me. And today I celebrate you, the listener, and I'm thankful for you for trusting me the many times I've asked you to. when doing so was not really in line with the market consensus, early on in this show, people, they said I was mad.

Starting point is 00:04:30 Would a mad person laugh like this? Anyway, seriously though, so many of you stuck by me early on, even when the entirety of the media kind of didn't, I'm not saying everyone was against me or anything. I'm not that kind of person, other than the fact I'm literally the single most punished person ever. But in all seriousness, you've all been there with me too.

Starting point is 00:04:52 You've given me your time every week, and you're generous with your time too, your energy and your focus too. So many of you are showing up on Blue Sky and Reddit and email, and you're picking up stuff very, very fast. There are members of the media who don't get things that some randos emailing me get. Some of you are picking up some nuanced corporate accounting that took me a lot longer to get out there, so I could not be more proud of you, and I could not really see the show as any more powerful, because, look, What actually changes the world is regular people talking about stuff en masse. I can have whoever successful a podcast I want. I can have however many subscribers, but ultimately, if there is just a gluttony of people who can

Starting point is 00:05:36 look at this bullshit and see it for what it is, I think that changes the world, and you are part of that too. And the distance between my knowledge and your own is minuscule. You are the ones that will make the difference. So tell everybody, everything you know. don't worry about giving me credit. I don't give a shit. I really don't. What I give a shit about is you knowing more and making better decisions as a result. An early piece of feedback I got was never to tell you how to feel, and I won't. But I'll tell you what I know and why I feel that way.

Starting point is 00:06:06 And I feel very lucky to have so many of you listening. And the end of the year is going to be a more chill thing. I think I'm going to come up with a nice two-parter, maybe a three-parter. I have something brewing. I'm still not sure what it is, but we're going to have some cool ones. about Steam with Steve Burke from Gamer's Nexus. He's been an amazing guy up on the show, what, twice already? There's three times. Christ, it's so cool. I get to talk to cool people. I admire. And in that vein, I also have Nathan Grayson from Aftermath coming on as well in the next few weeks. A lot to look forward to. And thank you for the many emails I've got about me being sick. I really do appreciate you looking out for me. I'm taking care of myself. I have wonderful people

Starting point is 00:06:48 close to me, a girlfriend who took care of me as well. And I mean, it's been really nice. My world feels a lot warmer and larger than it did a year ago, and I'm just very grateful for what I have. I don't know what happened next. Happened next, Jesus Christ, not editing it, Matthew. Anyway, I don't know what happens next. But I do know that there are many, many, many more hundreds of thousands of people who are capable of actually understanding what's going to happen next. And I can't wait to tell you. I'm so lucky to do this show. I'm lucky to have an amazing producer in Matt Asowski and an editor and Matt Hughes. To have Sophie and Robert supporting me on the Cool Zone Media side.

Starting point is 00:07:28 It's really cool doing this show. Have a great Thanksgiving. Have a great rest of the week. We'll be back to our regular bits next week. I'm Ed Zittron. Thank you for listening. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite.

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Better Offline - A Thanksgiving Monologue

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