A Thanksgiving Monologue

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Media, hell On, Welcome to a very special Thanksgiving monologue.
I'm your host ed Zetron and well, this one's about you,
and it's about thanking you for the last year or
two and saying that this show really does mean a

(00:24):
lot to me, perhaps more than it should, and this
journey has become oddly personal in that the show has
allowed 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 realized,
but I mean it's sincerely and I think at this
point you've kind of worked out that's my whole bag.

(00:45):
And I recognize that 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 sho is special. And I'm endlessly grateful for the
hundreds of thousands of human beings who listen to or

(01:06):
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
quote were stress test of the tech industry's largest firms
and collective intellect and honestly imagination. Either I'm wrong and

(01:31):
the growth trains suddenly sprout smoke and 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

(01:52):
bullshit on AI too in my comments and 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. And you all know we're at this point.

(02:12):
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 asked
comparison people are even making these days. They're not even
really fucking bothering, are they, And everybody is still trying

(02:35):
to avoid looking at open AI, which is the financial
equivalent of a man walking a tight rope across lava
while begging a crowd of people to throw rocks at him. Yeah,
one point four trillion dollars worth of compute deals in
the space of five years. Should all be fine, Sammy,
You're still welcome to come on the show. By the way,
you pr person, stop fucking responding to me. Very rude,

(02:57):
very rude. But look, you the listener, if you feel
insane at the moment, it's because all of this is insane.
Open AI plans to burn escalating multiple billion dollars. The
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

(03:19):
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 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

(03:42):
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

(04:05):
doing so was not really in line with the market consensus.
Early on in this show, people they said I was mad.
Would a mad person laugh like this? Aha? Anyway? Seriously, though,
so many of you stuck by me early on, even
when the entirety of the media kind of did. And
I'm not saying everyone was against me or anything. I'm
not that kind of person other than the fact I'm

(04:26):
literally the single most punished person ever. But in all seriousness,
you've all been there with me too. 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 read it an email,
and you're picking up stuff very, very fast. There are

(04:46):
members of the media who don't get things that some
Rando's 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 see the show
is any more powerful, because look, what actually changes the
world is regular people talking about stuff. En Mass. I

(05:09):
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 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.

(05:33):
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
of God 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. 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

(05:54):
a nice two part or maybe a three parter. I
have something brewing, I'm still not sure what it is.
Going to have some cool ones about Steam with Steve
Berg from Gamers Nexus. He's been an amazing guy up
on the show what twice already. This's three to cry.
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

(06:15):
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 close to me,
a gover friend 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,

(06:37):
and I'm just very grateful for what I have. I
don't know what happened next. Happen 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

(06:57):
to tell you. I'm so lucky to do this show.
I'm lucky to have an amazing producer in Mattasowski, and
an editor and Matt Hughes, to have Sophie and Robert
supporting me on the cool Zone media side. It's really
cool doing this show. Have a great Thanksgiving, have a
great rest of the week. All back to our regular
bits next week. I'm Edzie Trump. Thank you for listening.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}A Thanksgiving Monologue