October 10, 2025 • 37 mins
Polymarket is a strange place. You can bet on the price of Ethereum, whether Russia and Ukraine will agree to a ceasefire this year or who the next French prime minister will be. As silly as this might sound, Polymarket is worth $8 billion, according to an investment by the owner of the New York Stock Exchange.
This deal comes on the heels of the new partnership between the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and sports betting site FanDuel. Now, in addition to betting on wheat futures, you can bet your life savings on the Lions making it to the Super Bowl. (Side note: Please do not put your life savings on the Lions going to the Super Bowl).
For decades, Wall Street has fought the accusation that investing was “just gambling.” Banks, financial institutions, regulators and the US government have spent decades establishing credibility, legitimacy, oversight and institutions to distinguish Wall Street as much as possible from the nickel slots.
Now it seems that Wall Street is embracing its inner casino. Does this shift mean investment banks, hedge funds and bond traders are really all about gambling now? Is there a difference between shorting Tesla and picking which Taylor Swift song will be the least streamed this week? (At least $500,000 is riding on Honey—check out our recent podcast on this very subject.
This week , Bloomberg Odd Lots podcast co-host Joe Weisenthal joins Max and Stacey to talk betting markets, investing and what these new partnerships mean for the economy.
Also this week, Casey Newton, host of the Hard Fork podcast, joins to talk about the future of artificial intelligence. Worries about AI companies and technologies being over-valued have been making the rounds. If AI is indeed a bubble, the economic implications could be dire. At the same time, companies, think tanks and workers are desperately trying to game out what kind of impact AI will have on jobs and industries. Everyone, it seems, is placing their bets—and the stakes are high.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
This is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. I'm Stacey Mannix Smith.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
I'm Max Chafkin and Stacey. We're talking about prediction markets
this week.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yes, and we're not just talking about the stock market
or the price of oil or things like that. There
are huge markets where you can predict everything from how
many times sailor Sweep is gonna mention Travis Kelcey in
her Tonight show interview, to whether or not President Trump
is going to pardon Jelaine Maxwell. You can bet on
(00:40):
it all and it's big money. We've got the great
Joe Wisenthal coming to talk with us about that.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
And then we've got another good conversation in the second
half of the show.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
It's with Casey Newton. Stacey.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
There's been a lot of AI hate on this show.
I think all it comes from you, largely my doing,
and we want to provide a little balance because we care.
This is a fair amounts podcast and so Casey Newton,
reporter with platformer as well as podcaster his podcast called
hard Fork, about this question that we have been circling
around for weeks and weeks and weeks, which is AI any.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Good and Max for our underrated story, I'm going to
bring it all full circle with what is probably the
oldest predictions market on Earth.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I'm just trying to think of what it could be.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Maybe you should place your bets now, Stacey.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I think before we get into this conversation with prediction markets,
I just want to touch on the big economic story
that's playing out right now, which is that basically AI
slop is keeping the entire economy float. It feels like
we've had these mega investments from open Ai and Nvidia
and money going from one into the other into the other,
(01:55):
and you're seeing this increasing chatter. A lot of people
starting to really worry that this might be a bubble,
maybe apart from the question of does this stuff work,
which we spent a lot of time talking about, but
whether or not it works or not, like we're heading
towards something that'll look a lot like the dot com crash.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
One man's slop is another man's like blue chip stock.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Max.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I think there is skepticism and worry that things are
overvalued in AI, but I think the transformational power of
AI and the fact that could very much and is
changing the foundations of our economy. I think that's pretty much.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Uh, are you reading a script that CHATCHYPT wrote for
you right now?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Because that, yeah, that sounds like I am talking to
chat g Ebt right now.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
It felt very strongly about the economic transformational powers. No,
I'm just like looking around the economy and talking to economists,
and I'm a believer. If we had to place a
bet on whether or not AI will transform our economy
in a foundational way, I would bet yes.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Now.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
The weird thing about this, and then this is a
nice segue, Stacey into the prediction markets thing is you,
of course can make a bet on whether AI will
change the world or not.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
It's called the stock market.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
You could buy some stocks in anything but the S
and P five hundred, which of course is dominated by
these companies. Like, there are all these ways to bet
on what's happening. And the main way to do that,
of course, has been to buy stocks and bonds and
to make investments. But there is this kind of new
way which is sort of like halfway between financial services
(03:27):
and gambling.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yes, these betting markets. So there was a big piece
of news this week the owner of the New York
Stock Exchange just placed a couple billion dollar bet on Polymarket,
which is the site where you can place bets on
just pretty much anything you can imagine, like you name it,
you can bet on it. And we wanted to ask
people on the street like are they betting and are
(03:50):
they using these markets to bet? So our producers Magnus
Henrickson and Stacy Wong went out to ask people do
you bet, what do you bet on? And are you
using these new markets to place your bets. Here's what
they said.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Do you do any kind of betting or gambling?
Speaker 4 (04:06):
No, not in America, but in Australia we do, like
instrading rules, football, horse ricings pretty big.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Never I would want to gamble on something that I
feel informed about, like the various dimensions of like Taylor's
this wedding, Like where is the wedding going to take place?
Like how many dresses this Taylor going to have?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
What I do in a stock market, it's more like gambling,
just trying to find chart patterns like it's going to
move and taking a bed on a position whether it's
going to.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Go up or down.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Have you ever tried betting on something like Polymarket or caul.
She like, when you bet on you know, random things. Basically, no,
not for me.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I'll leave it.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
I'll leave it to the youth of America to bet
on Calshi and polymarket.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
No, not like collections.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Was that's like really the generate behavior. I remember I
saw something I think it was on Calshi. It was like,
what is the probability that Jerome Powell will open his
Federal Reserves speech with the phrase good afternoon.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
When I hear market people, we'll talk about polymarket and
what poly markets say.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
And I kind of pay attention, but I haven't looked
at it myself.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Could you consider doing that?
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (05:08):
Potentially, Yeah, yeah, it's something I really should look into.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Okay, I love this tape. I didn't realize so many
people were into gambling, which is weird because I'm in
New York and that's kind of what this whole city's
built on.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
I mean, listen, regular listeners of Bloomberg podcasts may recognize
at least one of those voices in there, as David Popadopolis,
the host of Elon Inc. Who is famously, to our
audience at least a degenerate gambler.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
So I was surprised I was shocked. I would never
that he.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Ever concede that David Popadopolis is degenerate anything. If he
is a gambler, he's an upstanding gamblers to gamble.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
And the fact that he hasn't tried that's another one
where you're like wow, Like people who like gambling haven't
even tried this thing. It must have a long way
to go, like maybe a lot of growth ahead different people.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I feel like the stock market has all this lore
and sort of math around and this is just newer.
It's maybe it's like maybe this is like a gateway drug.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Yeah. I mean, we're going to be exploring this topic
in a conversation head and again next week, so we've
got another little preview for folks. We'll have another interview
with one of the biggest gamblers on poly market I
think the biggest actually the following week.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
So we're going to get an education.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I'm very excited for this conversation. So Max, as we
talked about this week, the company that owns the New
York Stock Exchange has said it is going to invest
two billion dollars in poly Market.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Yeah, Ice, which is is the owner of the New
York Stock Exchange, the Inner Continent.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
It's not that Ice, it's a different ice.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Intercontinental Exchange, I believe, is the name of the entity
investing two billion dollars in this thing poly market, which
is one of these prediction markets we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yes, And in this prediction market, like I logged on
this morning, you can bet on anything from how many
times Taylor Swift will mention Travis Kelce on The Tonight
Show to whether or not Israel will bomb Iran to
who will win the Oscar for Best Actor. And all
of these bets, by the way, had more than half
a million dollars worth of bets placed on them.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Yeah, and I know I'm stealing his line, but this
is the perfect conversation for our guests.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Joe Podcasts is joining us.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Hey, Joe, Hey, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yes, absolutely so, okay, Joe. Before we get into the
mechanics of this deal and what it means, what are
these markets, because these are kind of new and I
was shocked to see like kind of scruffy from what
I understood.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Sure, you know, they've been around for a while at
very small scale, and it started, you know, even like
longer than twenty years ago. People sort of theorized this
idea that why can't we have bets on all sorts
of things in real life, et cetera, and we could
glean information from them if we could. So, for example,
you mentioned a market on whether Israel is going to
(08:00):
bomb around again at some point. Now, this is a
question that has a lot of high stakes for people, right,
if you're invested in the oil market, if you care
about other things, this is a high stakes question. And
there are people out there who have informed views or
semi informed views because they understand geo politics or Israeli
politics or whatever it is. And so the idea, and
people have been talking about this for a long time,
(08:21):
is that, well, wouldn't it be great if we could
incentivize people to sort of put a price on these,
to use their knowledge ability, to monetize their knowledge, so
that we actually had some sort of way of measuring
what conventions a way of crowdsourcing, right, which was of
course a very early Internet buzzword like that's been around
for a while, and so the idea they were small
(08:42):
for a while, the regulation was very difficult. Some existed
for political events, but they're sort of constrained in terms
of size The thing with poly Market is they sort
of went around, they circumvented the regulatory framework.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I just didn't follow the rules.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You could argue that they it's all on chain, it's
fund with stable coins.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
By the blockchain, Like you have to bet on this
market and you can't legally do it from the US, right.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And so the rule was US users couldn't use it.
Of course, with a VPN and crypt and stable coins
you could circumvent these things. But they sort of built
up that critical mass of scale and liquidity outside of
the sort of US regulatory perimeter. And then with the
changing up the administration and the sort of new attitude
towards crypto, there's a clear move whether it's the CFTC,
(09:30):
the administration, it's like we want these to be real things,
we're going to regulate them, et cetera. But these are allowed.
And so you have the two big ones our Polymarket,
which is a sort of unregular crypto based, and then Kelsey,
which is more straightforwardly put your Fiat currency on there.
And you know they have it's a very similar structure.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Why are they so big and popular because, like you said,
there there are serious things you can bet on that
would require some knowledge, but there are also things like
how many times is Taylor Swift gonna mention her boyfriend's
name on the Tonight Show, which right is now seven
hundred thousand dollars worth of bets?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, I mean I would say a few things, which
is that, yeah, seven hundred thousand dollars is Yeah, it's
not nothing. But the real action on these sites is sports.
Like there's so much money on these sites for like
betting on a football game, et cetera. And so this
is an alternative model to the sort of traditional sports
(10:28):
book rather than a house sort of setting the odds
or moving the line depending on supply, why not just
have a thing I am going to go along the
contract and you know whoever, Pittsburgh beats Detroit and you're
going to go. So that is where so much of
the activity is happening. And so what you have, if
you really look at a volume breakdown, what you have
is a lot of interest in sports, some interest in politics,
(10:50):
especially around big elections, and then the everything else is
like kind of niche.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
I'm glad you brought that up, because when I look
at polymerk and I see the sports bets and you're right, Like,
I think to myself, I have you guys like draft
Kings or like, there are like other ways to bet
on sports. They're also as you said, like other ways
to bet on some of these totally there's an oil
price contract in here, like you obviously can bet on oil, like.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, so I think something for oil is that a
lot of people maybe they want to bet on oil,
but do they have like an oil futures broker, et cetera.
I don't think so in many cases. Now, I guess
the question is how many people really want to make
a bet on oil that don't have a sophisticated oil
trading platform. I don't think the population is that big.
(11:35):
I think most people who want to place a directional
bet on oil for some reason probably have the infrastructure
in place to do it. But you can still sort
of imagine that there might be some market out there.
So for example, it's not polymarket per se. The CME
Chicago Mercantile Exchange recently partnered with Draft Kings, and so
what they're going to do is essentially offer retail the
(11:59):
opportunity for traditional financial markets. Really yeah, absolutely, within the
context of a sports betting company. And now they're going
to have a separate app et cetera, feel.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Like investing in gambling or just.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
This is the story.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
There's no this is the story.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Are the gamblers the sports betters betting on other stuff?
Or are the commodities traders betting on sports?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
No, the idea. I think the idea is like, Okay,
you're a sports better you want a better football. It's like, well,
why not bet on goal? It's like from the same
app So I think what you're The way to think
about this is that every entity, whether they're in something
that we traditionally called investing, whether it's something that we
traditionally called hedgehom whether we called it speculation, whether we
called it gambling, they're all merging. Every one of these
(12:41):
platforms is going to want to be able to offer
everything from sports to politics, to events, to crypto to finance.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I think a lot of sports betters they don't think
of it the same way they think about their investment portfolio.
It's just fun, right, And obviously there are people who
are professional gamblers.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
There are also people who have like gambling problems.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
But I think a lot of people people I know,
they invest in index funds and they do smart things
with their retirement savings, but then they also like have
a little fun.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
On the side.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
And and I'm wondering, is that what's happening in these
prediction markets or is the line bluring?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Because if the line is blurring, that seems like really
bad for people.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
I like remember when wealth Front, which was like one
of the early fintech companies, like wouldn't let you buy stocks,
right They would only let you buy these like broad
based index funds because they were like, this is you know,
you should not be buying stocks.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
That's that is even like.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
E trade I think was that the first time you
could just go in without a broker and just buy
a stock.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
And so my point is like the idea of just
like throwing that all out the window and being like,
not only should it is it totally great to just
like buy Tesla or buy palent here or whatever, but hey,
maybe just maybe just buy some derivatives in open ai
or maybe buy some.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
You know, bitcoin weight you or whatever.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Like it just seems like people are doing really really
really dumb things with their money right now.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I'm not gonna argue, I'm not going to take the
other side of that, but I think, you know, there's
a range. Look like someone could have their sort of
mass of their money in some low cost index fund
that they'd never touch, and just maybe buy a little
bit more every month, and then their fun money, whether
it's sports betting or betting on options, or betting on
what Taylor Swift is going to say. People like to
(14:22):
have fun. That's not a crime, you know. But I
think there is this cultural change underway where people do
not think it's legitimate the idea that, oh, there are
some bets that I don't have access to. Who are
you to tell me that I can't bet on sports?
Who are you to tell me that I can't bet
on gold? Who are you to tell me that I
can't bet on a presidential election outcome? And technology has
(14:44):
made it so that all these bets are capable of
happening at any scale, and theory and the regulatory environment
has changed so that people could sort of do anything
they want and sort of all come together.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I mean, this deal with the New York Sack extine
own our values probably market at eight billion dollars, which
is big. I mean, with all this stuff opening up,
which it seems like it just is, is that good
or bad for the economy in your opinion.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
It's hard to know what the sort of real economic
effects are going to be of any of this. I mean,
my hunch, my deep down hunch, is that the world
would we would have a stronger economy if people weren't
focused on betting and stuff. I would rather I think
I would prefer a little in a world and I
guess where there was a sort of intense speculation culture.
(15:36):
But I do think a concentrated number of entities are
going to make a lot of money for this, and
a lot of people will lose money from this, which
is the story of all casinos, etc. And that probably
has on the margin some negative macro effects. But I
don't I think this is just the world we're sort
of living.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Can we talk about the upside?
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Like one sort of positive thing about this, which is
like it has become I was just expressing a lot
of skepticism about the wisdom of investing these things, but
like I find polymarket and Calshi just like super interesting
and very informative. Yes, during the presidential election, but like
it was a great way if there's a new poll
to be like, Okay, like how should I think about
(16:17):
this new point.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I completely agree from an information consumption standpoint, it's very
interesting in some of these cases. I think getting a
price on what's conventional wisdom is very useful. So for example,
people say, okay, Trump is the favorite going into the election,
or we think people think Trump is going to win, right,
But what does that mean. Does it mean he is
a ninety percent chance? Does it mean he as a
(16:39):
fifty five percent chance. There's quite a big difference in
what does it mean to be the favorite? And so
the way I think about a lot of these things
is what is conventional wisdom actually at? Because it used
to be very vague. What conventional wisdom is a term
that's been around forever. But actually putting a number on
what some of these things mean is really helpful. New
(16:59):
and information comes out, a new poll comes out, the
people who are informed about how how seriously should we
take this polster? What is the information that's actually new
in this poll, et cetera. It's nice to sort of
have this information metabolized by people who are put money
on the line, by people have some sophistication about these things.
I've founen that useful. If someone has an idea and
(17:22):
the like, you know what, this price is totally off base.
The people are really uninformed. Well, that creates an opportunity
to trade, to make money, to arbitrage that difference, So
that creates an incentive for the price to move towards
what more informed betters actually think the price ought to be.
These are as a vehicle for information consumption. I am
(17:43):
a fan. I find a lot of this stuff to
be very useful.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
What about like the possibility of insider trading and a
lot of these cases, is that a concern? I mean,
are these markets fair? I mean they're very open. Are
they fair?
Speaker 4 (17:56):
You know?
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I think a lot of people would say insider trading
is desirable if you want to get that price. No,
for real, I think if you want to get that,
it's a whole point if you want to get these
if you want to get real information. What is the
odds of X or Y happening? What is the odds
of the government shutdown coming to an end?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Something?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
We're like, someone actually knows something that, you know what.
I have reason to believe that my boss is participating
in negotiations that will bring these the shutdown to a
close sooner, and then that can move the price, et cetera.
That some would argue that this is a way of
bringing greater transparency to the world. It's like, why is
(18:36):
this market suddenly moving? Granted it creates a lot of
potential perversities which we can all anticipate it. But I
just think a lot of people would say, no, we
want you to trade on inside information so that the
price of this market better reflects the real world.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
That was Joe Wisenthal from the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
His podcast is awesome and it's worth checking out. All right, Stacey,
you and I have been talking about AI kind of
puzzling over the sort of business story and all these
companies that are growing very quickly, as well as the
(19:17):
kind of larger economics story.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Also the one of the biggest sources shape in the
economy right now.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Yeah, it's unquestionably, and I wanted to have a conversation
with somebody who's paying I'd say, like closer attention to
this than you and I are. Casey Newton, who is
the editor of Platformer, which is an awesome technology substack
that everyone should subscribe to. He's also the co host
of hard Fork. He's here right now, Hey, Casey.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
Thank you We actually moved off of subseec last year
because of all the Nazis. But it's it is a newsletter.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Sorry, platformer news. Do you use ghosts now? I can't remember.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
We just have a website now.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
We build a good old fashioned website over a platformer
dot news and we encourage people to make it their home.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Ba I love it.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
But Casey, I want to start with like sort of
two pieces of news that cross my desk, probably cross
your desk, And the first one is a study that
came out of MIT, I believe, and it was.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
About AI generated WORKSLOP.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
So forty percent of employees in this survey kind of
of a thousand or so US based full time employees
reported having received work slops, so this would be like
substandard work output from one of their colleagues. And then
the other piece of content I guess that I want
to bring out was a letter from the new CEO
(20:38):
of open Door. It's full of excitement, you know. Open
Door is kind of a meme stock, and it talks
about how basically everybody at this company needs to default
to AI. If you're not defaulting to AI, you're gonna
get fired. I have to default AI he says, everybody
else does. And I bring these two things up because
(20:58):
I feel like there's a disconnect. Like, on one hand,
you have an executive class saying like you need to
use AI, we're gonna fire you if you don't, or
we're gonna try to incentivize you if you don't, and
then a reality that is not living.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Up to that expectation. And I was hoping we could
kind of unpack that.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Let's unpack it.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Is AI making people more productive at work? Or is
it just kind of messing things up?
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (21:22):
I mean it's like it's the boring answer that's always true,
which is it depends right, Like, is it possible to
get your work done a lot faster and better than
you might have otherwise been able to by using AI?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Absolutely?
Speaker 6 (21:35):
Is it also possible to just waste a lot of
time and create subpar slop and make your coworkers endure
it and possibly have to do more work than they
otherwise would.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (21:46):
But that's why I think letters like the one from
the Open Doors CEO are so silly, because there is
no like generally understood way to default to AI. Like
you read this man's letter, he says, if you use
Google Docs. You're not defaulting to AI? Should I write
my docs in the chat shept textbox?
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Like?
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Is that defaulting to AI?
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Like?
Speaker 6 (22:08):
So there's so much like silliness around all of this.
And if I worked at open Door, I would be
very afraid of this new CEO because I'm not sure
he understands how any of this works.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Okay, I have a really basic question that I wanted
to put to you, which is, do you mind explaining
exactly what workslop is? I mean, I think I understand,
but I feel like it's this new term everybody's using
and I don't really understand it.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:34):
I mean, look, sometimes when I'm writing a piece and
it's about some subject that I'm not super familiar with,
I'll go to one of these AI tools and I'll say, hey,
like pull up a report for me about this, you know,
like maybe tell me some stuff I don't know about
this thing. Yeah, And I'll read through it and there's
usually like a few gems in there that enhance my
understanding of something, and then there's like three thousand words
(22:54):
of stuff that I sort of already knew, or stuff
that's just kind of like circling around the point and
I ignore that. But what I think is happening in
a lot of workplaces is that people are running similar
reports or they're using AI tools to generate similar sort
of multi thousand word documents, and then they're just sort
of passing them along to their coworkers and say, hey,
do something with this. Yeah, here's my hot new report
(23:17):
about this, and that may indeed give your coworkers more
work to do. So that's how I understand works a lot.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
How sure are you that it's making you more efficient?
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Like like that either the time or the money that
you're putting in to these tools is actually paying back.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
Yeah, I mean so I view it as part of
my job to use these tools and understand the state
of the art, I write about them, and then people
money to read what I wrote about them. So in
that sense, like, yes, all of it is paying off.
But do I also spend my wheels and waste time. Absolutely.
And this was a conclusion I came to a few
months ago that it's very easy to use AI tools
(23:55):
for a couple of hours and tell yourself that you're
getting a lot done, and then you look back at
it and you realize you were just like kind of
typing into a box that is, you know, maybe just
telling you what you want to hear, or telling you
like random facts that aren't actually contributing to your work.
So I think the challenge if you want to use
AI in your life in a productive way is understanding
(24:16):
what are they good at and how do you sort
of like get in and out without spinning your wheels
a bunch.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And it's tricky, you know, and there's some research backing
this up right.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
They're surveys of workers asking them and we've talked about
on the show, like asking them to estimate their how
productive they are and then comparing it to trying to
at least trying to create some objective measures of productivity.
And it definitely makes it seem like people think they're
more productive than they actually are using these tools because
it keeps you busy.
Speaker 6 (24:46):
Yes, it absolutely will keep you busy. You know, you
can sort of just let it run all day long,
and it's like kind of an attractive nuisance in that way.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Okay, I have a larger question for you. I feel
like one of the big debates come up right now
is how much is AI really going to transform businesses
and our jobs? And this has become this like pivotal
thing in the economy. Like there are people saying, oh,
this has been way overestimated. All this value in the
stock market is actually not real, and then there are
(25:16):
other people saying, this is going to take all of
our jobs. And I really want to know what your
perspective on this is, Like what do you see?
Speaker 6 (25:24):
Yeah, So, I mean I do lean a little more
on the side of I think this stuff is really important,
and I think it's going to change a lot of
people's jobs. You know, you look at Anthropics announcement in
May disclosure my boyfriend works there, that they had created
a model that could work uninterrupted on a problem for
(25:45):
seven hours at a time, and we all said, wow,
that's like, okay, you're you're almost in a full work day. Wow,
you can get a tool doing that for seven hours.
That probably would have been somebody's full time job before this.
Fast forward to this week that we record this and
throwp it, put out a new model and it works
on a for thirty hours. So that's a more than
four times increase over a period of five months. So
(26:07):
I think the move here is less to try to
put yourself in the space of like what will this
all look like when all of this is over, Because
that's truly an impossible question to answer.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
What I do think you can.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Do is try to observe the rate of change and
understand that we're living through an exponential The models are
getting exponentially more powerful across these different dimensions.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
Yeah, exponentially No, I mean I think across maybe across
certain benchmarks, but I don't think we know whether they're
getting exponentially exponentially.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
I mean that is like a lot better.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
So you don't think there's been an exponential change in
capability between GPT two and GPT five.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I don't I disagree exponential, that's that's not like you
don't use chat GPT.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
I've used it enough to see that it's not exponential.
But here's my question for you, Casey. You and I
have both been doing this for a long time, covering tech.
I mean, and like we have seen this movie before, right,
where like AI technologists tend to overestimate the like how
how close their technology is to being finished? Right, Like,
(27:13):
it's very easy this has come up with self driving cars, right,
we were like ninety nine percent of the way there
in like twenty ten.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
It is hard.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
It is very hard, maybe like hard in a way
that is hard for a human mind to even appreciate,
to get that last bit where it can actually do
the thing that you want it to do.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Reliably enough for it to work.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
And the thing that I just keep coming back to
trying to think about what's happening with AI and is
this a bubble or are we living through, like you said,
like a moment of incredible disruptive change that's gonna, you know,
transform everything. There have been other big breakthroughs in work
that have happened over the last twenty years. So we
had the rise of cloud computing, we had the rise
of smartphones, we had the rise of social media, and
(27:55):
big companies fought every single one of those changes, right
you probably remember, right, like, companies for a long time
wouldn't let you use a cloud account, they wouldn't let
you use instant message, they wouldn't let you use your smartphone.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
The way all these things happened is they bubbled up.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
People were just using them, and then companies were like, okay, fine,
you want to use like Gary Google Docs, here you go.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
And it's not happening this time. What's happening is you
have this like open door.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Guy who's like trying to appeal to Wall Street because
investors like AI or whatever essentially like forcing people to
use this, and you really have to look hard to
find ways in which it is making a big difference.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I totally disagree.
Speaker 6 (28:34):
One of my note taking apps that I use, I
tag every story that comes across my desk with the
word capabilities, and that's whenever I find a story that
speaks to AI being used in an industry to change already.
So just in the past few months, I have stories
about AI transforming Hollywood as studios and production companies experiment
with AI tools. I have one about AI and automation
transforming agriculture with autonomous tractors and fruit picking robots. I
(28:58):
have one about an Early Warnings that detected and issued
alerts for twelve hundred earthquakes since twenty twenty one. AI
being used by patients and doctors for diagnoses and treatment recommendations.
So if you want to look at all of that
and say this is just like cloud computing again, okay,
but like I think it's challenged by just the sheer
number of industries and ways in which we're seeing the
technology being deployed, which isn't to say it's being deployed
(29:20):
perfectly and has already replaced everyone's job. It's just like
people are using this now, like they're finding useful things
to do with it. And my assumption in technology, having
covered it for a while, is like usually when you
see people using something and finding it a little bit useful,
my assumption is that thing is going to improve and
people will find more ways to use it.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I'm wondering, like where we are on the curve, because
the cloud computing example is really interesting. You know, it's
like something that early adopters use and then it slowly
gets adopted. I feel like with AI, I'm seeing it
kind of getting adopted all over the place. You know,
people are just chatting with it, but also transforming businesses
with it. I'm wondering where you think we are in
(30:00):
the curve. Are we just at the beginning of how
AI is going to be used? Are we in the middle?
Where are we in this evolution?
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (30:08):
So, I mean like it would be sort of funny
to ask that question of a high school student and
be like, like, where do you think we are in the curve?
And what a high school student would tell you is, well,
it can already do my entire education. So like that's
where we are in the curve for high school.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
So the question is.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
Do we think that that will become true of like
people's jobs, and if so, when my assumption is like yes,
someday probably for some wide set of things, which is
going to say there won't be any room for like
humans to be supervising these ais or like you know,
doing some sort of sort of other like you know,
creative or like you know, organizational work. But again, we
(30:41):
now have models that are like working continuously on problems
for thirty hours at a time.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
These are like coding problems, by the way.
Speaker 6 (30:49):
Yeah, you know, you're you're refactoring a code base or
you know, making Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, I don't actually know what that means, but I
imagine it's like a lot of work.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
Okay, I mean, but but I think it's an important
example because if you talk to people who work on
this stuff, what they'll say is where this technology is
really good and really working right now is in software engineering,
right and there are a number of software engineers who
will tell you that their job right now is just
a supervised AI they're no longer writing code, They're just
telling in a box what they want it to do.
(31:19):
And now again, these people, you could accuse them of
hyping up.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Their own, you know, companies, and just trying to just
being mistaken in the way that we've been talking about
right overestimating.
Speaker 6 (31:29):
They may overestimate the value of the work that the
I is doing. Is so all of that is true.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
You know.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
I talked to a software engineer friend the other day who's, like,
this is a really useful tool, but recently I gave
it this test that like it sort of absolutely could
not do. And so we are not at the at
the end of this for sure, but I think we're
past the beginning. And I think there are a number
of folks who want to reassure themselves that this is
just sort of crypto all over again, and that they
can close their eyes and eventually the bubble will pop
(31:55):
and we can all go back to twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I just don't think that that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
That was Casey Newton, the editor of Platformer and host
of the Hardcore podcast with The New York Times.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
I don't know what the underrated story is. All I
know is it's the oldest betting market.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
What is it? What is the underrated story?
Speaker 2 (32:20):
So I've been thinking about markets all week as we've
been looking into this poly market story and having these conversations,
and it's just amazing to me how many places there
are to invest or gamble or store your money right now.
But I think the underrated story of the week, and
it has gotten a lot of attention, but I still
(32:41):
think it is the underrated story of the week. Is
the price of gold?
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Oh, oh my god, Stacy, that's the overrated story of
the week.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
No, I don't think so. So gold has hit another
record high of four thousand dollars for a troy ounce.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
And what's a troy ounce?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
It's about the weight of a double a battery?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Is it? Why is it a troy That's how regular?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Because gold is so old it has its own measurements,
got it?
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Okay? That is why? All right?
Speaker 4 (33:07):
So four thousand bucks for a double a battery is
worth of gold?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yes, And it is outperformed. There's a great article in Bloomberg.
It has outperformed the US stock market if you look
at it since two thousand, it is up more than
one thousand percent. Which is crazy to me because it's
such an old investment, but at a moment when there
are all these new places to put money and grow
money in store money that this investment has appeal.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
You know, to me, talking about the price of gold
is like the most abstract financial conversation I can possibly
think of, because it is the asset I and most
people are like least likely to invest in. Like, if
you're investing in gold, what exactly you've got?
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Like a bar goal people all over the world.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
I know, I am the central banks are doing it.
I guess they haven't called you for advice yet. But
I'm glad that you mentioned the abstraction thing because I
brought something for you.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Okay, good, I'm.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Glad that we've got you brought a double a battery
is worth of four thousand dollars worth of gold.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
No, I brought it here.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
I'll show you all right.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Stacey has just taken out a ziploc bag and she
has pulled out a small coin and has put it
on the table.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
It's like a Roman emperor type guy. What do we
have here?
Speaker 2 (34:16):
That is Queen Victoria.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It's Queen Victoria, yep. And it's a very old coin.
I assume this is.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
A coin that my dad's grandmother brought over from England
when she was eighteen years old in eighteen ninety six. Whoa,
and she brought it over. This was like pretty much
all she had with her, but it was like all
of her wealth was in that coin.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Okay, this is cool, I admit it.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
How much is this worth right now? It's solid gold
or what is it?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
I think it's solid gold. It's really light as you
can feel, it's like the weight of a dime. I
just I love that, Like she trusted gold with her money,
and we still trust gold with our money. And it's
weird to me that there are so many options for
money that are so good and varied and new and
crazy right now. It's interesting to me that everybody's both
(35:08):
putting money into them, like poly markets got so much
money going into it. At the same time, it feels
like the fact people are putting money into gold and
things like bitcoin, which is sort of the gold of crypto,
I would argue that there's a nervousness about everything.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah, no, that's definitely true.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Right Like when when people talk about, like why did
the price of goal go up? It's like feeling that
any other asset is not going to create any kind
of return, so you're gonna put in this like very
safe thing. I think the reason I kind of tune
out is because there's so much like kind of scamming
and just like shadiness around the marketing of gold investments.
Like I think about these like cable news ads where
(35:48):
people are like the world is gonna end, like you
need to get canned food.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
And it is like the currency choice, the choice currency
for preppers one hundred percent. That's why people like it, right,
don't trust the governments. But it's interesting to me that
like crypto also has such similar narratives to gold. But
I wonder if, like if someone's going to take a
crypto coin across the ocean to start their new life.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
This show is produced by Stacey Wong.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Magnus Hendrickson is our supervising producer, and Amy Kean our
executive producer. Kelly Gara handles engineering, and Dave Purcell fact checks.
Sage Bauman heads Bloomberg Podcast special thanks to Jeff Muscus,
Julia Rubin, and Marie Ling. If you have a minute,
please rate and review the show. It'll mean a lot
to us, it'll help other people find it. And if
you have a story that should be our business, email
(36:39):
us at Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net or tell us what.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
You're investing in on polymarket or Kyalshe.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Yeah, just put a bet on something and send us
a screenshot that everybody with an S Everybody's at Bloomberg
dot net. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
This is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. I'm Stacey Mannix Smith.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
I'm Max Chafkin and Stacey. We're talking about prediction markets
this week.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yes, and we're not just talking about the stock market
or the price of oil or things like that. There
are huge markets where you can predict everything from how
many times sailor Sweep is gonna mention Travis Kelcey in
her Tonight show interview, to whether or not President Trump
is going to pardon Jelaine Maxwell. You can bet on
(00:40):
it all and it's big money. We've got the great
Joe Wisenthal coming to talk with us about that.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
And then we've got another good conversation in the second
half of the show.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
It's with Casey Newton. Stacey.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
There's been a lot of AI hate on this show.
I think all it comes from you, largely my doing,
and we want to provide a little balance because we care.
This is a fair amounts podcast and so Casey Newton,
reporter with platformer as well as podcaster his podcast called
hard Fork, about this question that we have been circling
around for weeks and weeks and weeks, which is AI any.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Good and Max for our underrated story, I'm going to
bring it all full circle with what is probably the
oldest predictions market on Earth.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I'm just trying to think of what it could be.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Maybe you should place your bets now, Stacey.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I think before we get into this conversation with prediction markets,
I just want to touch on the big economic story
that's playing out right now, which is that basically AI
slop is keeping the entire economy float. It feels like
we've had these mega investments from open Ai and Nvidia
and money going from one into the other into the other,
(01:55):
and you're seeing this increasing chatter. A lot of people
starting to really worry that this might be a bubble,
maybe apart from the question of does this stuff work,
which we spent a lot of time talking about, but
whether or not it works or not, like we're heading
towards something that'll look a lot like the dot com crash.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
One man's slop is another man's like blue chip stock.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Max.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
I think there is skepticism and worry that things are
overvalued in AI, but I think the transformational power of
AI and the fact that could very much and is
changing the foundations of our economy. I think that's pretty much.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
Uh, are you reading a script that CHATCHYPT wrote for
you right now?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Because that, yeah, that sounds like I am talking to
chat g Ebt right now.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
It felt very strongly about the economic transformational powers. No,
I'm just like looking around the economy and talking to economists,
and I'm a believer. If we had to place a
bet on whether or not AI will transform our economy
in a foundational way, I would bet yes.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Now.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
The weird thing about this, and then this is a
nice segue, Stacey into the prediction markets thing is you,
of course can make a bet on whether AI will
change the world or not.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
It's called the stock market.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
You could buy some stocks in anything but the S
and P five hundred, which of course is dominated by
these companies. Like, there are all these ways to bet
on what's happening. And the main way to do that,
of course, has been to buy stocks and bonds and
to make investments. But there is this kind of new
way which is sort of like halfway between financial services
(03:27):
and gambling.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yes, these betting markets. So there was a big piece
of news this week the owner of the New York
Stock Exchange just placed a couple billion dollar bet on Polymarket,
which is the site where you can place bets on
just pretty much anything you can imagine, like you name it,
you can bet on it. And we wanted to ask
people on the street like are they betting and are
(03:50):
they using these markets to bet? So our producers Magnus
Henrickson and Stacy Wong went out to ask people do
you bet, what do you bet on? And are you
using these new markets to place your bets. Here's what
they said.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Do you do any kind of betting or gambling?
Speaker 4 (04:06):
No, not in America, but in Australia we do, like
instrading rules, football, horse ricings pretty big.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Never I would want to gamble on something that I
feel informed about, like the various dimensions of like Taylor's
this wedding, Like where is the wedding going to take place?
Like how many dresses this Taylor going to have?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
What I do in a stock market, it's more like gambling,
just trying to find chart patterns like it's going to
move and taking a bed on a position whether it's
going to.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
Go up or down.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Have you ever tried betting on something like Polymarket or caul.
She like, when you bet on you know, random things. Basically, no,
not for me.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I'll leave it.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
I'll leave it to the youth of America to bet
on Calshi and polymarket.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
No, not like collections.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Was that's like really the generate behavior. I remember I
saw something I think it was on Calshi. It was like,
what is the probability that Jerome Powell will open his
Federal Reserves speech with the phrase good afternoon.
Speaker 6 (04:58):
When I hear market people, we'll talk about polymarket and
what poly markets say.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
And I kind of pay attention, but I haven't looked
at it myself.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Could you consider doing that?
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (05:08):
Potentially, Yeah, yeah, it's something I really should look into.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Okay, I love this tape. I didn't realize so many
people were into gambling, which is weird because I'm in
New York and that's kind of what this whole city's
built on.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
I mean, listen, regular listeners of Bloomberg podcasts may recognize
at least one of those voices in there, as David Popadopolis,
the host of Elon Inc. Who is famously, to our
audience at least a degenerate gambler.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
So I was surprised I was shocked. I would never
that he.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Ever concede that David Popadopolis is degenerate anything. If he
is a gambler, he's an upstanding gamblers to gamble.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
And the fact that he hasn't tried that's another one
where you're like wow, Like people who like gambling haven't
even tried this thing. It must have a long way
to go, like maybe a lot of growth ahead different people.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I feel like the stock market has all this lore
and sort of math around and this is just newer.
It's maybe it's like maybe this is like a gateway drug.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Yeah. I mean, we're going to be exploring this topic
in a conversation head and again next week, so we've
got another little preview for folks. We'll have another interview
with one of the biggest gamblers on poly market I
think the biggest actually the following week.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
So we're going to get an education.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
I'm very excited for this conversation. So Max, as we
talked about this week, the company that owns the New
York Stock Exchange has said it is going to invest
two billion dollars in poly Market.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Yeah, Ice, which is is the owner of the New
York Stock Exchange, the Inner Continent.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
It's not that Ice, it's a different ice.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Intercontinental Exchange, I believe, is the name of the entity
investing two billion dollars in this thing poly market, which
is one of these prediction markets we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yes, And in this prediction market, like I logged on
this morning, you can bet on anything from how many
times Taylor Swift will mention Travis Kelce on The Tonight
Show to whether or not Israel will bomb Iran to
who will win the Oscar for Best Actor. And all
of these bets, by the way, had more than half
a million dollars worth of bets placed on them.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Yeah, and I know I'm stealing his line, but this
is the perfect conversation for our guests.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Joe Podcasts is joining us.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Hey, Joe, Hey, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yes, absolutely so, okay, Joe. Before we get into the
mechanics of this deal and what it means, what are
these markets, because these are kind of new and I
was shocked to see like kind of scruffy from what
I understood.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Sure, you know, they've been around for a while at
very small scale, and it started, you know, even like
longer than twenty years ago. People sort of theorized this
idea that why can't we have bets on all sorts
of things in real life, et cetera, and we could
glean information from them if we could. So, for example,
you mentioned a market on whether Israel is going to
(08:00):
bomb around again at some point. Now, this is a
question that has a lot of high stakes for people, right,
if you're invested in the oil market, if you care
about other things, this is a high stakes question. And
there are people out there who have informed views or
semi informed views because they understand geo politics or Israeli
politics or whatever it is. And so the idea, and
people have been talking about this for a long time,
(08:21):
is that, well, wouldn't it be great if we could
incentivize people to sort of put a price on these,
to use their knowledge ability, to monetize their knowledge, so
that we actually had some sort of way of measuring
what conventions a way of crowdsourcing, right, which was of
course a very early Internet buzzword like that's been around
for a while, and so the idea they were small
(08:42):
for a while, the regulation was very difficult. Some existed
for political events, but they're sort of constrained in terms
of size The thing with poly Market is they sort
of went around, they circumvented the regulatory framework.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
I just didn't follow the rules.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
You could argue that they it's all on chain, it's
fund with stable coins.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
By the blockchain, Like you have to bet on this
market and you can't legally do it from the US, right.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And so the rule was US users couldn't use it.
Of course, with a VPN and crypt and stable coins
you could circumvent these things. But they sort of built
up that critical mass of scale and liquidity outside of
the sort of US regulatory perimeter. And then with the
changing up the administration and the sort of new attitude
towards crypto, there's a clear move whether it's the CFTC,
(09:30):
the administration, it's like we want these to be real things,
we're going to regulate them, et cetera. But these are allowed.
And so you have the two big ones our Polymarket,
which is a sort of unregular crypto based, and then Kelsey,
which is more straightforwardly put your Fiat currency on there.
And you know they have it's a very similar structure.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Why are they so big and popular because, like you said,
there there are serious things you can bet on that
would require some knowledge, but there are also things like
how many times is Taylor Swift gonna mention her boyfriend's
name on the Tonight Show, which right is now seven
hundred thousand dollars worth of bets?
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, I mean I would say a few things, which
is that, yeah, seven hundred thousand dollars is Yeah, it's
not nothing. But the real action on these sites is sports.
Like there's so much money on these sites for like
betting on a football game, et cetera. And so this
is an alternative model to the sort of traditional sports
(10:28):
book rather than a house sort of setting the odds
or moving the line depending on supply, why not just
have a thing I am going to go along the
contract and you know whoever, Pittsburgh beats Detroit and you're
going to go. So that is where so much of
the activity is happening. And so what you have, if
you really look at a volume breakdown, what you have
is a lot of interest in sports, some interest in politics,
(10:50):
especially around big elections, and then the everything else is
like kind of niche.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
I'm glad you brought that up, because when I look
at polymerk and I see the sports bets and you're right, Like,
I think to myself, I have you guys like draft
Kings or like, there are like other ways to bet
on sports. They're also as you said, like other ways
to bet on some of these totally there's an oil
price contract in here, like you obviously can bet on oil, like.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, so I think something for oil is that a
lot of people maybe they want to bet on oil,
but do they have like an oil futures broker, et cetera.
I don't think so in many cases. Now, I guess
the question is how many people really want to make
a bet on oil that don't have a sophisticated oil
trading platform. I don't think the population is that big.
(11:35):
I think most people who want to place a directional
bet on oil for some reason probably have the infrastructure
in place to do it. But you can still sort
of imagine that there might be some market out there.
So for example, it's not polymarket per se. The CME
Chicago Mercantile Exchange recently partnered with Draft Kings, and so
what they're going to do is essentially offer retail the
(11:59):
opportunity for traditional financial markets. Really yeah, absolutely, within the
context of a sports betting company. And now they're going
to have a separate app et cetera, feel.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Like investing in gambling or just.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
This is the story.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
There's no this is the story.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Are the gamblers the sports betters betting on other stuff?
Or are the commodities traders betting on sports?
Speaker 1 (12:19):
No, the idea. I think the idea is like, Okay,
you're a sports better you want a better football. It's like, well,
why not bet on goal? It's like from the same
app So I think what you're The way to think
about this is that every entity, whether they're in something
that we traditionally called investing, whether it's something that we
traditionally called hedgehom whether we called it speculation, whether we
called it gambling, they're all merging. Every one of these
(12:41):
platforms is going to want to be able to offer
everything from sports to politics, to events, to crypto to finance.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
I think a lot of sports betters they don't think
of it the same way they think about their investment portfolio.
It's just fun, right, And obviously there are people who
are professional gamblers.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
There are also people who have like gambling problems.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
But I think a lot of people people I know,
they invest in index funds and they do smart things
with their retirement savings, but then they also like have
a little fun.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
On the side.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
And and I'm wondering, is that what's happening in these
prediction markets or is the line bluring?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Because if the line is blurring, that seems like really
bad for people.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
I like remember when wealth Front, which was like one
of the early fintech companies, like wouldn't let you buy stocks,
right They would only let you buy these like broad
based index funds because they were like, this is you know,
you should not be buying stocks.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
That's that is even like.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
E trade I think was that the first time you
could just go in without a broker and just buy
a stock.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
And so my point is like the idea of just
like throwing that all out the window and being like,
not only should it is it totally great to just
like buy Tesla or buy palent here or whatever, but hey,
maybe just maybe just buy some derivatives in open ai
or maybe buy some.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
You know, bitcoin weight you or whatever.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
Like it just seems like people are doing really really
really dumb things with their money right now.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I'm not gonna argue, I'm not going to take the
other side of that, but I think, you know, there's
a range. Look like someone could have their sort of
mass of their money in some low cost index fund
that they'd never touch, and just maybe buy a little
bit more every month, and then their fun money, whether
it's sports betting or betting on options, or betting on
what Taylor Swift is going to say. People like to
(14:22):
have fun. That's not a crime, you know. But I
think there is this cultural change underway where people do
not think it's legitimate the idea that, oh, there are
some bets that I don't have access to. Who are
you to tell me that I can't bet on sports?
Who are you to tell me that I can't bet
on gold? Who are you to tell me that I
can't bet on a presidential election outcome? And technology has
(14:44):
made it so that all these bets are capable of
happening at any scale, and theory and the regulatory environment
has changed so that people could sort of do anything
they want and sort of all come together.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I mean, this deal with the New York Sack extine
own our values probably market at eight billion dollars, which
is big. I mean, with all this stuff opening up,
which it seems like it just is, is that good
or bad for the economy in your opinion.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
It's hard to know what the sort of real economic
effects are going to be of any of this. I mean,
my hunch, my deep down hunch, is that the world
would we would have a stronger economy if people weren't
focused on betting and stuff. I would rather I think
I would prefer a little in a world and I
guess where there was a sort of intense speculation culture.
(15:36):
But I do think a concentrated number of entities are
going to make a lot of money for this, and
a lot of people will lose money from this, which
is the story of all casinos, etc. And that probably
has on the margin some negative macro effects. But I
don't I think this is just the world we're sort
of living.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Can we talk about the upside?
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Like one sort of positive thing about this, which is
like it has become I was just expressing a lot
of skepticism about the wisdom of investing these things, but
like I find polymarket and Calshi just like super interesting
and very informative. Yes, during the presidential election, but like
it was a great way if there's a new poll
to be like, Okay, like how should I think about
(16:17):
this new point.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
I completely agree from an information consumption standpoint, it's very
interesting in some of these cases. I think getting a
price on what's conventional wisdom is very useful. So for example,
people say, okay, Trump is the favorite going into the election,
or we think people think Trump is going to win, right,
But what does that mean. Does it mean he is
a ninety percent chance? Does it mean he as a
(16:39):
fifty five percent chance. There's quite a big difference in
what does it mean to be the favorite? And so
the way I think about a lot of these things
is what is conventional wisdom actually at? Because it used
to be very vague. What conventional wisdom is a term
that's been around forever. But actually putting a number on
what some of these things mean is really helpful. New
(16:59):
and information comes out, a new poll comes out, the
people who are informed about how how seriously should we
take this polster? What is the information that's actually new
in this poll, et cetera. It's nice to sort of
have this information metabolized by people who are put money
on the line, by people have some sophistication about these things.
I've founen that useful. If someone has an idea and
(17:22):
the like, you know what, this price is totally off base.
The people are really uninformed. Well, that creates an opportunity
to trade, to make money, to arbitrage that difference, So
that creates an incentive for the price to move towards
what more informed betters actually think the price ought to be.
These are as a vehicle for information consumption. I am
(17:43):
a fan. I find a lot of this stuff to
be very useful.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
What about like the possibility of insider trading and a
lot of these cases, is that a concern? I mean,
are these markets fair? I mean they're very open. Are
they fair?
Speaker 4 (17:56):
You know?
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I think a lot of people would say insider trading
is desirable if you want to get that price. No,
for real, I think if you want to get that,
it's a whole point if you want to get these
if you want to get real information. What is the
odds of X or Y happening? What is the odds
of the government shutdown coming to an end?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Something?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
We're like, someone actually knows something that, you know what.
I have reason to believe that my boss is participating
in negotiations that will bring these the shutdown to a
close sooner, and then that can move the price, et cetera.
That some would argue that this is a way of
bringing greater transparency to the world. It's like, why is
(18:36):
this market suddenly moving? Granted it creates a lot of
potential perversities which we can all anticipate it. But I
just think a lot of people would say, no, we
want you to trade on inside information so that the
price of this market better reflects the real world.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
That was Joe Wisenthal from the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
His podcast is awesome and it's worth checking out. All right, Stacey,
you and I have been talking about AI kind of
puzzling over the sort of business story and all these
companies that are growing very quickly, as well as the
(19:17):
kind of larger economics story.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Also the one of the biggest sources shape in the
economy right now.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Yeah, it's unquestionably, and I wanted to have a conversation
with somebody who's paying I'd say, like closer attention to
this than you and I are. Casey Newton, who is
the editor of Platformer, which is an awesome technology substack
that everyone should subscribe to. He's also the co host
of hard Fork. He's here right now, Hey, Casey.
Speaker 6 (19:42):
Thank you We actually moved off of subseec last year
because of all the Nazis. But it's it is a newsletter.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Sorry, platformer news. Do you use ghosts now? I can't remember.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
We just have a website now.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
We build a good old fashioned website over a platformer
dot news and we encourage people to make it their home.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Ba I love it.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
But Casey, I want to start with like sort of
two pieces of news that cross my desk, probably cross
your desk, And the first one is a study that
came out of MIT, I believe, and it was.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
About AI generated WORKSLOP.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
So forty percent of employees in this survey kind of
of a thousand or so US based full time employees
reported having received work slops, so this would be like
substandard work output from one of their colleagues. And then
the other piece of content I guess that I want
to bring out was a letter from the new CEO
(20:38):
of open Door. It's full of excitement, you know. Open
Door is kind of a meme stock, and it talks
about how basically everybody at this company needs to default
to AI. If you're not defaulting to AI, you're gonna
get fired. I have to default AI he says, everybody
else does. And I bring these two things up because
(20:58):
I feel like there's a disconnect. Like, on one hand,
you have an executive class saying like you need to
use AI, we're gonna fire you if you don't, or
we're gonna try to incentivize you if you don't, and
then a reality that is not living.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Up to that expectation. And I was hoping we could
kind of unpack that.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Let's unpack it.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Is AI making people more productive at work? Or is
it just kind of messing things up?
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (21:22):
I mean it's like it's the boring answer that's always true,
which is it depends right, Like, is it possible to
get your work done a lot faster and better than
you might have otherwise been able to by using AI?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Absolutely?
Speaker 6 (21:35):
Is it also possible to just waste a lot of
time and create subpar slop and make your coworkers endure
it and possibly have to do more work than they
otherwise would.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yes.
Speaker 6 (21:46):
But that's why I think letters like the one from
the Open Doors CEO are so silly, because there is
no like generally understood way to default to AI. Like
you read this man's letter, he says, if you use
Google Docs. You're not defaulting to AI? Should I write
my docs in the chat shept textbox?
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Like?
Speaker 6 (22:06):
Is that defaulting to AI?
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Like?
Speaker 6 (22:08):
So there's so much like silliness around all of this.
And if I worked at open Door, I would be
very afraid of this new CEO because I'm not sure
he understands how any of this works.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Okay, I have a really basic question that I wanted
to put to you, which is, do you mind explaining
exactly what workslop is? I mean, I think I understand,
but I feel like it's this new term everybody's using
and I don't really understand it.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:34):
I mean, look, sometimes when I'm writing a piece and
it's about some subject that I'm not super familiar with,
I'll go to one of these AI tools and I'll say, hey,
like pull up a report for me about this, you know,
like maybe tell me some stuff I don't know about
this thing. Yeah, And I'll read through it and there's
usually like a few gems in there that enhance my
understanding of something, and then there's like three thousand words
(22:54):
of stuff that I sort of already knew, or stuff
that's just kind of like circling around the point and
I ignore that. But what I think is happening in
a lot of workplaces is that people are running similar
reports or they're using AI tools to generate similar sort
of multi thousand word documents, and then they're just sort
of passing them along to their coworkers and say, hey,
do something with this. Yeah, here's my hot new report
(23:17):
about this, and that may indeed give your coworkers more
work to do. So that's how I understand works a lot.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
How sure are you that it's making you more efficient?
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Like like that either the time or the money that
you're putting in to these tools is actually paying back.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
Yeah, I mean so I view it as part of
my job to use these tools and understand the state
of the art, I write about them, and then people
money to read what I wrote about them. So in
that sense, like, yes, all of it is paying off.
But do I also spend my wheels and waste time. Absolutely.
And this was a conclusion I came to a few
months ago that it's very easy to use AI tools
(23:55):
for a couple of hours and tell yourself that you're
getting a lot done, and then you look back at
it and you realize you were just like kind of
typing into a box that is, you know, maybe just
telling you what you want to hear, or telling you
like random facts that aren't actually contributing to your work.
So I think the challenge if you want to use
AI in your life in a productive way is understanding
(24:16):
what are they good at and how do you sort
of like get in and out without spinning your wheels
a bunch.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
And it's tricky, you know, and there's some research backing
this up right.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
They're surveys of workers asking them and we've talked about
on the show, like asking them to estimate their how
productive they are and then comparing it to trying to
at least trying to create some objective measures of productivity.
And it definitely makes it seem like people think they're
more productive than they actually are using these tools because
it keeps you busy.
Speaker 6 (24:46):
Yes, it absolutely will keep you busy. You know, you
can sort of just let it run all day long,
and it's like kind of an attractive nuisance in that way.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Okay, I have a larger question for you. I feel
like one of the big debates come up right now
is how much is AI really going to transform businesses
and our jobs? And this has become this like pivotal
thing in the economy. Like there are people saying, oh,
this has been way overestimated. All this value in the
stock market is actually not real, and then there are
(25:16):
other people saying, this is going to take all of
our jobs. And I really want to know what your
perspective on this is, Like what do you see?
Speaker 6 (25:24):
Yeah, So, I mean I do lean a little more
on the side of I think this stuff is really important,
and I think it's going to change a lot of
people's jobs. You know, you look at Anthropics announcement in
May disclosure my boyfriend works there, that they had created
a model that could work uninterrupted on a problem for
(25:45):
seven hours at a time, and we all said, wow,
that's like, okay, you're you're almost in a full work day. Wow,
you can get a tool doing that for seven hours.
That probably would have been somebody's full time job before this.
Fast forward to this week that we record this and
throwp it, put out a new model and it works
on a for thirty hours. So that's a more than
four times increase over a period of five months. So
(26:07):
I think the move here is less to try to
put yourself in the space of like what will this
all look like when all of this is over, Because
that's truly an impossible question to answer.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
What I do think you can.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Do is try to observe the rate of change and
understand that we're living through an exponential The models are
getting exponentially more powerful across these different dimensions.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
Yeah, exponentially No, I mean I think across maybe across
certain benchmarks, but I don't think we know whether they're
getting exponentially exponentially.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
I mean that is like a lot better.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
So you don't think there's been an exponential change in
capability between GPT two and GPT five.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I don't I disagree exponential, that's that's not like you
don't use chat GPT.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
I've used it enough to see that it's not exponential.
But here's my question for you, Casey. You and I
have both been doing this for a long time, covering tech.
I mean, and like we have seen this movie before, right,
where like AI technologists tend to overestimate the like how
how close their technology is to being finished? Right, Like,
(27:13):
it's very easy this has come up with self driving cars, right,
we were like ninety nine percent of the way there
in like twenty ten.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
It is hard.
Speaker 4 (27:21):
It is very hard, maybe like hard in a way
that is hard for a human mind to even appreciate,
to get that last bit where it can actually do
the thing that you want it to do.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Reliably enough for it to work.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
And the thing that I just keep coming back to
trying to think about what's happening with AI and is
this a bubble or are we living through, like you said,
like a moment of incredible disruptive change that's gonna, you know,
transform everything. There have been other big breakthroughs in work
that have happened over the last twenty years. So we
had the rise of cloud computing, we had the rise
of smartphones, we had the rise of social media, and
(27:55):
big companies fought every single one of those changes, right
you probably remember, right, like, companies for a long time
wouldn't let you use a cloud account, they wouldn't let
you use instant message, they wouldn't let you use your smartphone.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
The way all these things happened is they bubbled up.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
People were just using them, and then companies were like, okay, fine,
you want to use like Gary Google Docs, here you go.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
And it's not happening this time. What's happening is you
have this like open door.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Guy who's like trying to appeal to Wall Street because
investors like AI or whatever essentially like forcing people to
use this, and you really have to look hard to
find ways in which it is making a big difference.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
I totally disagree.
Speaker 6 (28:34):
One of my note taking apps that I use, I
tag every story that comes across my desk with the
word capabilities, and that's whenever I find a story that
speaks to AI being used in an industry to change already.
So just in the past few months, I have stories
about AI transforming Hollywood as studios and production companies experiment
with AI tools. I have one about AI and automation
transforming agriculture with autonomous tractors and fruit picking robots. I
(28:58):
have one about an Early Warnings that detected and issued
alerts for twelve hundred earthquakes since twenty twenty one. AI
being used by patients and doctors for diagnoses and treatment recommendations.
So if you want to look at all of that
and say this is just like cloud computing again, okay,
but like I think it's challenged by just the sheer
number of industries and ways in which we're seeing the
technology being deployed, which isn't to say it's being deployed
(29:20):
perfectly and has already replaced everyone's job. It's just like
people are using this now, like they're finding useful things
to do with it. And my assumption in technology, having
covered it for a while, is like usually when you
see people using something and finding it a little bit useful,
my assumption is that thing is going to improve and
people will find more ways to use it.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I'm wondering, like where we are on the curve, because
the cloud computing example is really interesting. You know, it's
like something that early adopters use and then it slowly
gets adopted. I feel like with AI, I'm seeing it
kind of getting adopted all over the place. You know,
people are just chatting with it, but also transforming businesses
with it. I'm wondering where you think we are in
(30:00):
the curve. Are we just at the beginning of how
AI is going to be used? Are we in the middle?
Where are we in this evolution?
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (30:08):
So, I mean like it would be sort of funny
to ask that question of a high school student and
be like, like, where do you think we are in the curve?
And what a high school student would tell you is, well,
it can already do my entire education. So like that's
where we are in the curve for high school.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
So the question is.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
Do we think that that will become true of like
people's jobs, and if so, when my assumption is like yes,
someday probably for some wide set of things, which is
going to say there won't be any room for like
humans to be supervising these ais or like you know,
doing some sort of sort of other like you know,
creative or like you know, organizational work. But again, we
(30:41):
now have models that are like working continuously on problems
for thirty hours at a time.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
These are like coding problems, by the way.
Speaker 6 (30:49):
Yeah, you know, you're you're refactoring a code base or
you know, making Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, I don't actually know what that means, but I
imagine it's like a lot of work.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
Okay, I mean, but but I think it's an important
example because if you talk to people who work on
this stuff, what they'll say is where this technology is
really good and really working right now is in software engineering,
right and there are a number of software engineers who
will tell you that their job right now is just
a supervised AI they're no longer writing code, They're just
telling in a box what they want it to do.
(31:19):
And now again, these people, you could accuse them of
hyping up.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Their own, you know, companies, and just trying to just
being mistaken in the way that we've been talking about
right overestimating.
Speaker 6 (31:29):
They may overestimate the value of the work that the
I is doing. Is so all of that is true.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
You know.
Speaker 6 (31:35):
I talked to a software engineer friend the other day who's, like,
this is a really useful tool, but recently I gave
it this test that like it sort of absolutely could
not do. And so we are not at the at
the end of this for sure, but I think we're
past the beginning. And I think there are a number
of folks who want to reassure themselves that this is
just sort of crypto all over again, and that they
can close their eyes and eventually the bubble will pop
(31:55):
and we can all go back to twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I just don't think that that's going to happen.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
That was Casey Newton, the editor of Platformer and host
of the Hardcore podcast with The New York Times.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
I don't know what the underrated story is. All I
know is it's the oldest betting market.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
What is it? What is the underrated story?
Speaker 2 (32:20):
So I've been thinking about markets all week as we've
been looking into this poly market story and having these conversations,
and it's just amazing to me how many places there
are to invest or gamble or store your money right now.
But I think the underrated story of the week, and
it has gotten a lot of attention, but I still
(32:41):
think it is the underrated story of the week. Is
the price of gold?
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Oh, oh my god, Stacy, that's the overrated story of
the week.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
No, I don't think so. So gold has hit another
record high of four thousand dollars for a troy ounce.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
And what's a troy ounce?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
It's about the weight of a double a battery?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Is it? Why is it a troy That's how regular?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Because gold is so old it has its own measurements,
got it?
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Okay? That is why? All right?
Speaker 4 (33:07):
So four thousand bucks for a double a battery is
worth of gold?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yes, And it is outperformed. There's a great article in Bloomberg.
It has outperformed the US stock market if you look
at it since two thousand, it is up more than
one thousand percent. Which is crazy to me because it's
such an old investment, but at a moment when there
are all these new places to put money and grow
money in store money that this investment has appeal.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
You know, to me, talking about the price of gold
is like the most abstract financial conversation I can possibly
think of, because it is the asset I and most
people are like least likely to invest in. Like, if
you're investing in gold, what exactly you've got?
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Like a bar goal people all over the world.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
I know, I am the central banks are doing it.
I guess they haven't called you for advice yet. But
I'm glad that you mentioned the abstraction thing because I
brought something for you.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Okay, good, I'm.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Glad that we've got you brought a double a battery
is worth of four thousand dollars worth of gold.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
No, I brought it here.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
I'll show you all right.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Stacey has just taken out a ziploc bag and she
has pulled out a small coin and has put it
on the table.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
It's like a Roman emperor type guy. What do we
have here?
Speaker 2 (34:16):
That is Queen Victoria.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It's Queen Victoria, yep. And it's a very old coin.
I assume this is.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
A coin that my dad's grandmother brought over from England
when she was eighteen years old in eighteen ninety six. Whoa,
and she brought it over. This was like pretty much
all she had with her, but it was like all
of her wealth was in that coin.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Okay, this is cool, I admit it.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
How much is this worth right now? It's solid gold
or what is it?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
I think it's solid gold. It's really light as you
can feel, it's like the weight of a dime. I
just I love that, Like she trusted gold with her money,
and we still trust gold with our money. And it's
weird to me that there are so many options for
money that are so good and varied and new and
crazy right now. It's interesting to me that everybody's both
(35:08):
putting money into them, like poly markets got so much
money going into it. At the same time, it feels
like the fact people are putting money into gold and
things like bitcoin, which is sort of the gold of crypto,
I would argue that there's a nervousness about everything.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah, no, that's definitely true.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Right Like when when people talk about, like why did
the price of goal go up? It's like feeling that
any other asset is not going to create any kind
of return, so you're gonna put in this like very
safe thing. I think the reason I kind of tune
out is because there's so much like kind of scamming
and just like shadiness around the marketing of gold investments.
Like I think about these like cable news ads where
(35:48):
people are like the world is gonna end, like you
need to get canned food.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
And it is like the currency choice, the choice currency
for preppers one hundred percent. That's why people like it, right,
don't trust the governments. But it's interesting to me that
like crypto also has such similar narratives to gold. But
I wonder if, like if someone's going to take a
crypto coin across the ocean to start their new life.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
This show is produced by Stacey Wong.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Magnus Hendrickson is our supervising producer, and Amy Kean our
executive producer. Kelly Gara handles engineering, and Dave Purcell fact checks.
Sage Bauman heads Bloomberg Podcast special thanks to Jeff Muscus,
Julia Rubin, and Marie Ling. If you have a minute,
please rate and review the show. It'll mean a lot
to us, it'll help other people find it. And if
you have a story that should be our business, email
(36:39):
us at Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net or tell us what.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
You're investing in on polymarket or Kyalshe.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Yeah, just put a bet on something and send us
a screenshot that everybody with an S Everybody's at Bloomberg
dot net. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.
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