3.10: Drastic - Hour 3

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Live Nation, ticket Master's parent company, they have reached
a tentative anti trust settlement with the US Department of
Justice and nearly forty states, And this had been a
lawsuit that I felt like as we were getting closer
to this settlement, there was more and more coverage of
it because I think a lot of folks just don't
pay enough attention or rebul They don't care as far

(00:21):
as the monopolies that can't exist in certain industries, and
I don't think it's even debatable that that's what happened
here with Live Nation and Ticketmasters. So again, this settlement
is getting a lot of criticism for those that essentially
don't think this is really changing anything at all. So,
just to give you the nuts and bolts of it,
Live Nation owns Ticketmaster, which of course sells most big

(00:45):
concert tickets in the US. They don't really have a
direct competitor. There's other options, but they are the dominant bully,
and the government said they were acting like a monopoly
too much control, too many junk fees, making it hard
for other ticket sellers to compete. That of course led
to this lawsuit. So just to kind of put it
in perspective, as far as what this does to Live Nation.

(01:08):
This fine, which is two hundred and eighty million dollars
a lot of money, right not to Live Nation. That
it's roughly four days of Live Nation's twenty twenty five revenue.
So that makes it seem as if this is not
even really a slap on the wrist, and it's certainly
not a real punishment in the eyes of some. So
the monopoly stays intact, it seems, and what they now

(01:31):
have to do moving forward is allow certain venues to
I guess not use to. It's there were certain venues
that are going to be excluded. But I really don't
think this changes a whole lot, so doesn't impact me.
So I can't give you any kind of fake outrage

(01:52):
or anything like that because I don't often buy tickets
to events. I do, and when I do, I'm often wondering, like, you, hey,
why why is it so expensive? And why why did
I see one price? And now it's like thirty dollars
extra for processing fee and you know, inconvenience fee, and hey,
we're gonna bend you over and be you one more
time for something. I mean, that's just kind of how
it exists. And I can't do anything about it. And

(02:13):
I guess this was a chance for that to change,
and it doesn't look like there's really gonna be a
whole lot of change there. All right, it's news Radiway
forty whas seven oh seven here on a Tuesday morning,
Nick Coffee, the company man John all On alongside. We
are coffee and Company, and we are fueled by Thornton's
also Scott Fitzgerald's alongside. He'll be with us coming up
here in about eight minutes with another sports update. John
Shannon has a news update coming for you at seven

(02:34):
thirty as we get you up and running here on
a warm Tuesday morning, and we could see a record
high as far as temperatures today, which hey, that's okay
about me right now at seven oh seven it is
sixty five degrees, so gonna be high of seventy eight.
But also you do have a chance of some showers
coming down, but it looks as if tomorrow will be

(02:56):
the bigger threat of some serious storms coming in, so
be advised. Are we found found out some some sad
news yesterday as one of the few that have that
have lost their lives with this situation in Iran is
a Kentucky native, and not only is the a Kentucky native,
he grew up not too far from from where we're

(03:17):
sitting right now, So Glendale, Kentucky Native Sergeant Benjamin Pennington
is the latest to to die in the situation with
Operation Epic Fury. So he is from Hardin County, again
just south of US here, and you've got a local
community now mourning one of their own. And he was

(03:39):
wounded in on March first during an attack on US
Force's station at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
So the attack was part of the Iranian the the
the the initial I guess wave of strikes across the
region that was tied to Operation Epic the Epic theory.
But again the injuries were sustained on March first when
that happened. But he then passed away just roughly a

(04:01):
week later. So it sounds like he had a lot
of a lot of people who cared a lot about
him from that community and just a sad situation overall.
During his service, he received numerous honors, including three Army
Accommendation Medals, Army Achievement Medal, to Army Good Conduct medals
and the list goes on and on. So a hero

(04:23):
and again just a sad situation all the way around.
And our partners at WK why they caught up with
Glendale pastor Michael Bell to get to get a comment
on this young man.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
You didn't have to wonder about him. He was He
was a good person. I know that doesn't sound like
a lot, but that means a lot. He was a good,
real genuine person.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
So Essentil Harden graduate and again just twenty six years old.
All right, let's switch gears here and revisit something we
were discussing a little bit earlier. And there's there's not
any new information out there about this. It's just something
that we didn't get a chance to talk much about yesterday.
But you go back to Friday, that was when there
was a press conference to suppose celebrate Mitch Barnhart's retirement.

(05:07):
Although he's not really retiring. He's moving on from being
the athletic director and accepting a position with the school
that will pay him nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars
a year. And this is I mean, this is far
from unusual. And to say the optics are bad here,
I think would be would be an understatement in every way.

(05:30):
This just doesn't look doesn't look good. And I think
Barnhart in his time at Kentucky has done a fine job. Obviously,
I don't think he's been perfect. Nobody is, but he's
done a fine job. And here's what I think of
when I think of Barnhart as somebody who spent over
ten years in sports radio where athletic directors were talked
about a lot more than you would hear them here.

(05:51):
You know, Barnhardt would always be the guy that when
somebody was about to be critical of him as far
as like the end game atmosphere and experience at Commonwealth
Stadium or at rapp Arena, they would always preface it with, well,
I mean he seems like a great guy. Well, I
mean he's a nice guy. I mean he's a great man,
and then they would either criticize him lightly or harshly,

(06:13):
because by all accounts, he seems like somebody that would,
you know, always do the right thing. And I have
no reason to think he's not a good guy. I
don't know him personally at all. But two things. One,
this doesn't necessarily seem like something most would have expected
him to pursue on his way out. And also he
clearly continues to have a real difficulty at reading the room.

(06:36):
He seems to be out of touch or maybe he
just doesn't care, which that's where you get into questioning. Okay,
if he really doesn't care that this is viewed as
an unnecessary, you know, parachute job, but that's what people have,
a golden parachute job, which that's what people have described
it as. I mean, then maybe he's not you know,
that doesn't I don't think that would be a good
look on your character. So it's technically a pay cut

(06:59):
from his one one and a half million dollar AD salary,
But at the end of the day, he is now
taking on a position that did not exist. So he's
going to retire as the AD and then transition into
a new role that it's called the Executive in Residence,
whatever that means. So that's going to start on July first,
and it's going to be part of the Kentucky University

(07:19):
of Kentucky Sport and Work for Force initiative. Now, there
was some back and forth as far as who's paying
for this. Is this Athletic Department money or is this
school money? And it ended up initially being thought it
was coming from the school. Now it's coming from the
athletic department. So here's what I think is a bad look.

(07:39):
The position was not approved by the UK Board of
Trustees because I don't think it probably would have been,
given the fact that the school has laid off employees
and obviously they got to look out for what, you know,
what's what's necessary as far as spending, and if this
is one thing, it's unnecessary. So the university spokesperson says,

(08:00):
the only president's contract requires board approve. Yeah, it's only
the president's contract requires bard approval. So Eli Happoluto can
essentially create this position himself, which he did, and they
didn't even bring it in front of the board. I
guess they didn't need to, so no rules were broken.
But if it did go in front of the board,
they probably would have. I mean, I will never know

(08:22):
now what they would have done, but who'd be shocked
if they say, yeah, this just isn't necessary, especially for
nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And when I think
is fascinating is Barnhardt. He's downright pissed that anybody would
even question this. Move, And there's a lot of layers
to how you could question it. One, how could you
justify that salary? Are there any other people who have

(08:43):
this job? What is this job? Do they make nine
hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year? Why? You know,
why wouldn't you be able to specifically explain and describe
what this job is and what its role is? And
not only are the not doing that? Mitch is mad
if you bring it up. And if there's ever a

(09:05):
job that you would think you'd be able to give
specific details as far as what it entails and what
it is, wouldn't you think it's a job that was
just created when you're you know, identifying what the job is.
So like, sometimes there's there's there's lack of transparency and
you know, choosing to really lie right, I mean, there's

(09:27):
you know, they can just give you a word salad
and it ended up just being a bunch of nothing
being said. And then sometimes they can just lie to you,
and nobody wants to be lied to, But maybe that's
better than just being downright irritated that somebody would ask
a very legitimate question. Here was Barnhart's press conference from Friday,
when discussing the uh, the the new gig that he's
going to have, that that a lot of people have

(09:50):
questions about.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
All I've ever done in my life is work. So
this notion that this golden parachute is falling from the
sea lan and I'm going to sit in the rocking
chair and eat. Hey, there's ridiculous garbage. That notion that's
started by some couple two or three knuckleheads needs to end.
I'm excited about working. I'm not done. That's why I
asked for a couple of years to go, so I

(10:12):
could work longer and have purpose to what I'm doing
in my journey.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
So the knuckleheads he's referring to most assume as Matt
Jones and Kentucky Sports Radio, which I know yesterday they
talked a lot about it, and I thought two things Matt.
One thing Matt said that I thought was probably the
hardest truth for Mitch Barnhart is that nobody's really worried
about are you not going to work? They're worried about
are you going to work? Because you may not be

(10:39):
the best guy to lead an athletic department, given how
out of touch you are with things and that the
landscape of college sports has dramatically changed, and it doesn't
seem as if UK athletics has evolved quite like some
other programs have. So it's not worried about, hey, what
are you going to be doing? We want to make
sure you're working for your money. It's hey, we don't
want you to get in the way. And another point
that was made by a believe it was Andy Staples

(11:01):
of On three Sports, which is spot on. If Mitch
Barnhardt is still in house in whatever role they want
to call it, an ad would not value that job
the same way because can you really I mean, can
you really take over if he's still around, And even
if you theoretically can, hypothetically can some people wouldn't risk
that if they're in a good situation. So again, a

(11:24):
lot to unpack there, But I just I cannot believe
someone who's done this this long and has seemed to
always be a rather sharp guy not understand the optics
of this and just not and not think that like
he doesn't have to answer for these things he works for.
I mean, this is this is public university money, all right.

(11:44):
Quick time out traffic and weather updates on the way
it's News Radiate forty whas Nick Coffee with you here
at news Radio eight forty whas the company man John
on along Sign today. John, have you ever heard anybody
use the word vall and told, Oh, yeah, okay, it's
new to me. But this is not so surprising given
the current situation with the American workforce. Not a great

(12:07):
month in February for the job market, and certainly a
lot of fear out there for a lot of industries
AI the tariffs, all that kind of stuff. But voluntold
is apparently something that's taken over with a lot of
people in certain industries. So this is a survey that
as two thousand employed adults, if they feel like they're
doing the work of three jobs at once in their

(12:28):
current role, and on average, employees say that nine new
tasks get added to their workload every year. Seventy eight
percent of workers say they've been volunteld to take on
additional work they didn't ask for or agree to within
the last year. Twelve percent say it happened within just
the last day of them participating in this survey. So
the most common reason companies give for piling on more

(12:52):
work is lack of Staffing site about thirty seven percent
of those that responded. So I could tie you taking
on more and you enjoying. I guess it's really your personality.
If you're somebody that likes to really show that you
can be dependent on and you can be versatile and

(13:12):
have flexibility, because that's just kind of your personality, then
you probably don't even really think about it as far
as well, hey, why am I doing all this work?
But you'll get there at some point because you'll think, well,
wait a second, this was never what I when when
it becomes a pain in the rear end because you
can now no longer maybe focus on what you were
hired to do, and then you realize, oh, wait a second,

(13:33):
I've now put myself in a position to where I'm
doing two jobs and I'm only getting paid for the
one they agree that I agree to take. And then
I'm sure there's some employers that they try to take
advantage of people they feel like they can, But then
maybe sometimes it just plays out that way that oh,
I didn't realize now, but hey, we really can't lose
this person, because sure enough, over time they're now leading

(13:57):
three specific areas. So I'm not sure I mean, I'm
not sure how it relates to like what it is
that I do every single day, but I do know
that there's oftentimes where you ended up just trying to
help out do a little more, and then it became
the expectation, and then that's where it gets a little awkward. Yeah, volunteered.
I feel fell out of touch here because I'd never
even heard of that word. John.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
My wife is a teacher, she's she's used that phrase
on her kids, she's she's used it on me. I
think it's a very I'm surprised you used to my
I mean, I know what it means.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
I just had never heard anybody use the word never.

Speaker 4 (14:31):
Okay, like it's not it's never been like in your
lexicon of just you know, yeah, so if you're never
volunteerlling your kids to do.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Things exactly, so it's just that gray area of Wait
a second, you know I kind of I kind of
work for you, so therefore I need to do what
you are asking of me. But wait a second, this
isn't whatever I this isn't what I ever agreed to do,
because this isn't the job that I, you know, that I.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Applied for, Like I was kind of volunteered to come
over to news radio eight forty w h as almost
two years ago. Absolutely, I was with you in the
afternoons and to completely change my lifestyle. Now I'm glad
I'm over here. I'm glad you're over here with me.
But it was a very sudden and drastic change at
the time.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's a good example of
where you know, Yeah, I mean if you would have
said yeah, no thanks, I mean, I'm not really sure
what would have happened. And glad to know we'll never
know as far as you having to move on or
them having to move on, whatever it may be. But yeah,
I'm sure there's countless examples of it happening. And by
the way, the impact is significant, as seventy four percent

(15:29):
say the extra work hours hurttive their overall productivity, forty
one percent say that it's caused to burn out, fifty
four percent feel dissatisfied with their job, forty six percent
say their mental health has worsened. So, yeah, a real
thing that's impacting Americans at work every day. And I
know it's just two thousand people that are asked to
participate in this survey, but I think just given the

(15:51):
current climate with the workforce in America, none of this
surprises me at all. All right, stick around, and we're
volunteering you to do that, so yeah, don't go anywhere,
no choice, exactly, exactly, all right. Coming up on the
other side, we're going to bring in a guest to
a set to join us, and it is Mike Debuski.
He will join us to discuss the latest with this
AI lawsuit against the government. Stick around. It's News Radiate

(16:13):
forty whas it is seven forty five here News Radio
eight forty whas Nick Coffee with you, and I have
Mike Debuski joining me to discuss this latest lawsuit here
as Anthropic has filed. I guess we'll start with this
when it comes to where it went wrong with Anthropic
and the Pentagon. What led to them to appear to

(16:34):
be in good shape and negotiations seemingly and then it
fell apart.

Speaker 5 (16:37):
Now we're here, Yeah, good question. So this all played
out over the last few weeks where Anthropic appeared to
be nearing a deal with the Pentagon to use its
artificial intelligence in various capacities. However, that deal ran up
against certain red lines that Anthropic had drawn. Basically, the
executives at that company didn't want their technology to be

(17:00):
used for two main purposes. They said they didn't want
their AI to be used in domestic mass surveillance or
for autonomous weapons systems, and the Pentagon pushback on that.
They said a private company could not establish policy for
the US government, and last week they designated Anthropic a
supply chain risk after that deal fell apart. Now this week,

(17:21):
Anthropic is suing the Trump administration, saying that this designation
is unfair, it violates the company's First Amendment rights, it
misuses a national security law, and it's resulted in immediate,
far ranging, and irreversible harm to the company. They get
a little into the financials here. We learned that Anthropic
has made about five billion dollars in revenue since twenty

(17:44):
twenty three. They've spent about ten billion to train and
deploy their models, and it seems like this new designation
will threaten their financial standing even more, with their chief
commercial officer saying that a customer services provide a pause
negotiations with Anthropic over a fifteen million dollar deal because
of this new supply chain label. The two leading financial

(18:07):
services companies have refused to close deals valued at around
eighty million dollars, and in the public sector, Anthropic had
been expected to make about five hundred million dollars in
annual recurring revenue this year. Now it expects to make
about one hundred and fifty million, all because of this
new designation.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
So with Anthropics concerns over what the Pentagon would have
access to, and then to see that they've partnered elsewhere,
that has Chad GBT folks bailing. Right, there's a lot
of people who said, yeah, with the action that Anthropic took,
I now am worried knowing that they did partner with
somebody else that I utilize as far as AI.

Speaker 5 (18:41):
Yeah, exactly. So when the deal with Anthropic fell apart
late last month, OpenAI swooped in and hours later announced
a deal with the Pentagon that was broadly speaking, for
the same purposes. Now, that caused a lot of people
to scratch their head saying, you know, how was Anthropic
able to you know, or did Anthropics deal fall apart

(19:01):
and open ai was able to you know, sign a
deal when presumably, according to open AI's officials, they have
the same red lines, right, they don't want their technology
to be used for these purposes. Why is one now
a government contractor and the other supply chain risk And
it seems like that's having reverberations across the AI sector.

(19:23):
The US app uninstalls for chat GPT, that is, you know,
people taking the app off of their phone. That was
up almost three hundred percent day over day on Saturday,
February twenty eighth, that was two days after that deal
was announced, that's according to Censor Tower. Meanwhile, downloads of
Anthropics Claude, which is their equivalent to chat GPT, they

(19:45):
were up thirty seven percent and then fifty one percent
the following day on news that they didn't want to
do business with the Pentagon. So more people are downloading
Anthropics Claude, more people are uninstalling chat GPT, and also
so negative for open ai. This weekend we learned that
the head of their robotics team is resigning in protest.

(20:05):
She writes on social media that surveillance of Americans without
judicial oversight and leathal autonomy without human authorization are lines
that deserved more deliberation than they got.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
Mike, good stuff, Thank you for your time, really appreciate it.
Hopefully we can do it again soon.

Speaker 5 (20:20):
Sounds good ticket, that.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Is Mike Debuski, Yeah, this is This is fascinating, even
if you're not somebody that's interested in the ever evolving
world of artificial intelligence. I mean, just the optics are this.
Anthropic is in negotiations, seemingly in a good place, and
then all of a sudden, they've got some concerns about
what the Pentagon would have access to, so they don't
want to they don't want to move forward, or at

(20:42):
least they're raising questions that leads to Open AI swooping
in getting a deal done hours later, as Mike laid out.
And then of course you see Anthropic ending up on
a supply chain risk that is typically only for foreign companies.
So we don't know of any other reason as of
right now as far as why they would put Anthropic

(21:04):
on this list other than the deal fell apart and
they're being bitter bullies. I mean, that's the optics. But
I'm sure they'll have some type of excuse if this
thing moves forward with this lawsuit. All right, let me
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an update on Trappig and weather. We'll see how the
roadways are looking on this Tuesday morning. Also, we've got
a forecast update coming up with Susann Horrigan, and we'll
talk some sports with Scott Fitzgerald. All that on the
way right here at news Radio eight forty whas