Good Riddance to Larry Summers

Summary

Slate Money: “Good Riddance to Larry Summers”

Date: November 22, 2025
Host: Felix Salmon (Bloomberg)
Co-hosts: Emily Peck (Axios), Elizabeth Spiers (New York Times)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Slate Money centers on the dramatic public fall of Larry Summers in the aftermath of fresh Jeffrey Epstein revelations. The hosts dissect Summers’ legacy, his connections with Epstein, and his broader impact on finance, academia, and policy. They then move to a sharp discussion on antitrust’s failure to regulate Big Tech, and close with a debate on whether the seemingly unstoppable wave of AI investment is a genuine bubble or something else.

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Main Discussion: Larry Summers’ Fall from Grace

Theme:
Larry Summers’ entanglement in the Epstein scandal reemerges as new emails surface, largely ending his public career and prompting reflections on his record, intellect, and influence.

The Epstein Files and Summers’ Retreat

• Emily introduces the topic, describing the “astonishing” content of Summers’ emails with Epstein. Despite Epstein’s criminal record and exposés (notably Julie Brown’s 2018 Miami Herald piece), Summers maintained contact, seeking advice on personal matters involving a female academic mentee ([04:00]–[05:14]).
• Elizabeth highlights just how “creepy” the emails are—noting Summers asked Epstein how to “manipulate” his mentee. She cites one email where Epstein replies: “she’s already beginning to sound needy, nice” ([05:14]).
• The hosts unanimously agree that Summers’ public statement—a generic regret about communicating with Epstein—sidesteps the more disturbing behavior revealed.

Elizabeth: “He’s been teaching women for God knows how long. And the whole thing is appalling.” ([05:23])

Summers’ History and Reputation

• Emily reminds listeners this isn’t Summers’ first brush with cancelation, referencing his infamous comments about women’s aptitude for science during his Harvard presidency and subsequent public apologies ([06:09]–[06:36]).
• Felix recounts his own run-ins with Summers, notably being fired after criticizing Summers’ reputation for intelligence and comparing it to the “Pig Shagger Jones” joke—suggesting the myth of Summers’ brilliance is largely unsubstantiated ([07:00]–[08:34]).
• Discussion on the “John Bates Clark Medal,” often cited as proof of Summers’ intellect, but the panel challenges the substance behind his accolades ([08:12]–[09:12]).

Felix: “The only thing that everyone always says… is he’s really smart. And then, so what?” ([07:44])

Documented Mistakes and Record

• Summers’ professional missteps:
  • World Bank “Pollution Memo”: Summers advocated (even if jokingly) for dumping global pollution in poor countries ([13:10]–[13:24]).
  • Harvard’s Financial Losses: His catastrophic financial derivatives trades cost Harvard about $1 billion ([14:50]–[15:11]).
  • Financial Deregulation: As Treasury Secretary, Summers championed deregulation, laying groundwork for the 2008 crisis ([16:54]–[19:33]).
  • Summers has consistently dodged accountability on these issues, most notably during a combative Channel 4 News interview ([18:00]–[19:33]).

Felix: “There is a very strong case to be made that absent Larry, America would be in a much better place today, that we would have had a less bad financial crisis, we would have had a better environmental record, we would have spent more money on the Obama stimulus, the economy would be bigger…” ([19:38])

Cancellation and Legacy

• Elizabeth: “This is just an astonishing example of someone failing up in a way that's just happening in public in a very high profile way and just nobody does anything. But I think it has really given Summers an epic and broad coalition of haters.” ([15:12])
• The bipartisan satisfaction at Summers’ public collapse is noted (“famous Democrat Larry Summers is being canceled…”), as well as skepticism that “cancellation” will be permanent for someone of his stature ([15:45], [20:55]).

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Segment 2: Antitrust and the Limits of Big Tech Regulation ([24:05]–[39:40])

Theme:
Major US antitrust cases against tech companies (Meta, Google, Microsoft) keep falling flat, raising alarm about whether the US government is structurally able to regulate Big Tech at all.

Key Discussion Points

• Meta Wins Big: Recent antitrust case victory for Meta seen as the latest in a long line of failed government attempts to rein in Big Tech ([24:20]–[24:41]).
• US Antitrust = Blunt Instrument: America’s reliance on antitrust law is contrasted with Europe’s more prescriptive legislative approach, which targets specific issues (e.g., privacy, competition) ([25:00]–[26:00]).
• Founders’ Control and Oligarchy: Many tech companies’ voting structures centralize power in a few hands—especially Zuckerberg at Meta ([27:50]–[28:58]).
• Global Scale & Innovation: Tech monopolies are harder to challenge since their rapid innovation and consumer popularity mean the classic antitrust definition doesn’t always fit ([31:09]–[31:39]).
• Public Apathy: Americans generally like the services these monopolies offer, so there’s little popular will for serious regulation ([35:12]–[35:55]).

Elizabeth: “One of the conditions of monopoly historically is low rate of innovation. And that's definitely not what's happening here.” ([31:09])

Felix: “If your constituents are not coming up to you going, like, you need to do something about this massive problem that is Google, why would you bend over backwards to try to persuade them that they should care about this?” ([38:45])

Notable Moments

• The “GDPR popup” joke—Felix calls the policy’s main effect “the world’s most annoying cookie popups… that do absolutely nothing” ([35:00]).
• Elizabeth references Tim Wu’s insights on how even apparently clear antitrust cases, like Google’s acquisition of Waze, fizzled due to legal technicalities ([35:55]–[36:52]).

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Segment 3: Is the AI Boom a Bubble? ([44:05]–[50:43])

Theme:
Is the immense investment in AI—now eclipsing the dot-com era—fueling another bubble, or is it something different?

Main Discussion Points

• Not a Classic Bubble: Felix distinguishes the frenzy from the 1990s dot-com bubble—AI investment is in real hardware, not just speculative stocks ([44:05]–[45:29]).
• No Greater Fool Theory: Most AI companies (OpenAI included) aren’t public; investments are largely in infrastructure, with little evidence of speculative flipping ([45:33]–[45:39]).
• Risk and Debt: Concerns are limited; even companies like Oracle (with $105B in debt) are seen as having manageable risk with transparent pricing ([48:29]).
• “Crowding Out” Debate: Investment in AI may be sucking air from other industries, but in a stagnating economy, that's arguably a good thing ([49:39]–[50:34]).

Felix: “Most of the money going into AI is hard investment in actual data centers and chips and stuff… There’s not a lot of get rich quick, it’s actually get rich slow.” ([44:52])

Elizabeth: “You can have bubbles just because the equity markets are misallocating funds. When VCs are throwing money at anything that has AI in it, you could end up with a bubble just that way.” ([47:11])

Conclusion

• Hosts ultimately agree it’s not a bubble—at least not yet. Elizabeth warns it could become one if misallocation persists ([50:43]).

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Numbers Round ([53:22]–[58:09])

1. Emily: 25% — Percentage of S&P 500 CEOs receiving personal, home, and security benefits, up sharply from 18%. CEOs are increasingly worried about personal safety, even pre-dating the United Health CEO shooting ([53:41]).

2. Elizabeth: 64% — Percentage of workers saying their workload increased in the past year (EY survey), due in part to poor AI integration ([54:58]).

3. Felix: $236,360,000 — Price of a Gustav Klimt portrait (“Portrait of Elizabeth Lederer”) at Sotheby’s, now the most expensive painting auctioned. Felix adamantly dismisses the claim that Salvator Mundi (the dubious “Leonardo”) holds the record ([56:14]–[57:01]).

Side note: The gold toilet by Maurizio Cattelan sold for just its bullion value, “a little underwhelming” ([57:18]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Epstein Scandal:

  • “He was asking Epstein for advice because… he was thinking: how can I get this woman into bed?” (Emily, [04:13])
  • “His sort of blanket statement was that he regretted his misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein—as if the problem here is just that he was communicating with Jeffrey Epstein and not his own behavior.” (Elizabeth, [05:14])

• Summers’ Realia:

  • “You name one clever thing that he’s done and I’ll name two stupid things that he’s done and you will run out before I run out.” (Felix, [12:34])
  • “He did one of the world’s worst ever fixed income trades when he was president of Harvard…” (Felix, [14:50])

• Antitrust:

  • “The US Government seems to be incredibly bad at regulating anyone using anything that isn’t antitrust. Everything has to be a nail because the only hammer… is antitrust.” (Felix, [25:00])

• AI Bubble:

  • “If the thing that we need to keep the economy growing is banks lending money… then, yeah, it’s really good that the banks are lending money to AI.” (Felix, [50:01])

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Larry Summers’ fall from grace: [02:24] – [24:00]
• Antitrust and Big Tech: [24:05] – [39:40]
• AI bubble debate: [44:05] – [50:43]
• Numbers round: [53:22] – [58:09]

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Tone and Style

The panel combines sharp skepticism with newsroom-bantery humor and deep policy knowledge, frequently subverting establishment wisdom while wielding colorful analogies (“Pig Shagger Jones”, “giant sucking sound for AI”). The vibe is irreverent but informed—ideal listening for finance and tech news junkies or those intent on seeing past corporate or media spindrift.

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For more:

• Harvard Crimson’s extensive coverage on Summers’ emails and fallout
• Felix’s original “Pig Shagger Jones” blog and the comments that got him fired ([11:12])
• History of the John Bates Clark Medal: [16:08]
• Channel 4 News interview with Larry Summers ([18:00])

Stay tuned for Slate Plus’ Thanksgiving hot takes, where Elizabeth brings the heat!

Transcript

[A]

Hello, and welcome to Slate Money, your guide to the business and finance news of the week. I'm Felix Salmon of Bloomberg. I'm here with Emily Peck of Axios.

[B]

Hello.

[C]

Hello.

[A]

Elizabeth Spires of the New York Times. Hello, Elizabeth. Your New York Times contract ends at the end of the year, but it will probably be renewed.

[C]

Yes, I have. I haven't done anything like you haven't.

[A]

Done anything right to cause them to not renew your contract.

[C]

My name is nowhere in the Epstein files.

[A]

And so we are going to talk about a man whose name is in the Epstein files, who did have a New York Times contract and who is not having it renewed because he is stepping back from public life. If you don't know who that is, congratulations on not knowing, but we're going to spend a lot of time talking about him. We are also going to talk about the antitrust fails whenever Big Tech is concerned and whether it is even possible to regulate Big Tech in the absence of the antitrust remedy. We are going to talk about AI and whether it's a bubble. We have a truly spectacular sleep segment with Jasmine Molly, all about Thanksgiving hot takes. It's a great one this week, so stay tuned. It's all coming up on Slate plus Money.

[B]

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[A]

Okay, so I feel like we should talk about Larry Summers this week. One of my favorite subjects. But Emily, this was not actually my idea. This is your idea. Why do you want to talk about Larry Summers?

[B]

Great question, Felix. Thank you so much. Happy to be here and happy to talk about this. The news of the past two weeks, past five years has been Jeffrey Epstein, right? And who did he talk to? Who knew what, who was sending the emails, released the files. I think we're like at peak release the files time because Congress this week unanimously except for one Lawmaker voted to release said files. But even before that, there were many files released. We talked about it last week in the Plus. I recommend the segment where we discussed the grammar of the rich and powerful. So. But then this week, Larry Summers, surprisingly, was sort of the first to take the fall from this recent round of Epstein mania, because we read these emails between Epstein and Larry Summers in which Larry Summers really does not come off well. If you're only sort of tangentially following the story, you might think, oh, he emailed with Jeffrey Epstein, whatever. Who didn't? Who among us. But if you really go in and read the coverage, the Harvard Crimson, I think, had the best reporting and writing on this. You see that Larry Summers was messaging with Jeffrey Epstein after Julie Brown in Miami Herald really wrote this big feature story back in 2018 that really exposed in detail what had been going on with Epstein, you know, in his homes and how he'd been assaulting girls.

[A]

And of course, after he had gone to jail for sex crimes, after he.

[B]

Had gone to jail for sex crimes, Larry Summons was still talking to him. But to me, like, it kind of blew my mind that he was still talking to him after all that reporting came out.

[A]

And.

[B]

And he was literally emailing with him up until the day they. They put him in jail for the second time. And the emails, I mean, he was asking him for advice in what some of the mainstream media was describing as a potential romantic relationship. But if you read the emails in the Crimson reporting, he was asking him for advice because he had a mentee, a woman academic, I believe, who was looking to Larry Summers, who, you know, has this. He was the president of Harvard. He was the treasury secretary. All these things she was to him as like a mentor. And he was thinking, like, how can I get this woman into bed? And messaging Jeffrey Epstein about it at the same time. Jeffrey Epstein has been exposed in this horrible way. I mean, it's pretty astonishing. So he basically, this week, Larry Summers stepped back from, I think, everything he does. He won't be teaching at Harvard. He won't be advising the center for American Progress. He won't be writing for Bloomberg. He stepped down from the board of OpenAI. So that's why I want to talk about him this week.

[C]

Also, this Crimson story is really astonishing. I encourage people to go read it because if you have the sense that Summers is just kind of creeping on this woman and he's talking about it in this oblique sense with Epstein, you kind of really miss how bad and creepy it is because he's asking Epstein for advice about how to manipulate her. In response to one of the exchanges, Epstein responds to him and says, she's already beginning to sound needy, nice. And this guy was. You know, he's been teaching women for God knows how long. And the whole thing is appalling. And when Summers apologized, he didn't really apologize for any of that. His sort of blanket statement was that he regretted his misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein. As if the problem here is just that he was communicating with Jeffrey Epstein and not his own behavior and all of this other stuff.

[B]

I think we should also, before we. I mean, we've laid out all the problems and how he's retreated. They've tried to cancel this man, whatever cancellation means at this point, twice before, because back when he was president of Harvard, he famously said that. What did he say? Women weren't good at science.

[C]

He thinks women have lower IQs and therefore are not as well equipped to be successful in STEM fields, which he.

[B]

Doubled down in his emails with Jeffrey.

[C]

Epstein as well, after having apologized for it.

[B]

Yeah. I also think it's interesting because Felix has this long history. Believe he hasn't spoken yet. Felix has this long history with Larry Summers that I feel like you've talked about, hinted at time and time again on the podcast. But I feel like this is the week where Felix can just tell us what happened with Larry Summers, how Larry Summers tried to get Felix canceled.

[C]

Ooh, I don't know about that story.

[A]

I don't know if he tried to get me canceled, but he certainly got me fired.

[B]

I mean, that's a type of.

[A]

And I think he did try to get me fired more than once. He successfully tried to get me fired at my first blogging job. When I asked a question that Emily asked me a couple days ago, I was texting with Emily, and Emily's like, listen, Felix, I hate to sound like, you know, basic, but is there any evidence that Larry Summers is actually as smart as everyone says that he is? Like, the first thing you read in any profile of Summers is like, two of his uncles won the Nobel Prize in economics. He's unbelievably intelligent. He's the smartest guy in every room he have. Maybe he's a little bit not great on emotional intelligence or managerial intelligence or putting up with fools for caring about journalists or all the things he needs to get on in the world, but really smart. And this is the only thing that everyone always says, on the one hand, he's really smart. And then, so what? Emily asked me Was, why does everyone say this? What has he done?

[C]

What's the example? How has he done so consistently wrong about everything?

[B]

Yeah, I read so many stories and they all said he was smart. And there was never, like an example. And I was like, just. I wasn't saying I don't believe it. I'm just saying, like, tell me what he did. Like, what is the example?

[A]

So the oblique evidence of him being smart is that he won the John Bates Clerk Medal, which is like this prize they give to economists under 40, which is harder to win than the Nobel Prize. And everyone who's won the John Bates Clerk Medal is generally considered to be an extraordinary genius. But again, we're like, why? Like, what did he do to deserve his.

[B]

Yeah, what did he do?

[A]

And to be honest, I've looked into this a little bit. I'm just going to say that the paper he wrote about noise traders, which I have a copy of, he never actually published. And that's weirdly, like, one of his unpublished papers is kind of one of the most famous things he's ever written. And I wrote about it quite a bit in my book. It's very famous for its opening line. And the opening line is, there are idiots. Look around. Which is such a Larry Summers line. He's just in the mirror.

[C]

If that's really Larry Summers, all right.

[B]

You gotta hand it to him. That's great. I like it.

[A]

It's a good opening line. But that's not what made him famous. Like, when people say that he's smart, what they mostly mean is that if you're sitting around in an economic seminar or a National Economic Council meeting or the Oval Office or the Harvard president's office or something, and you come in with an idea. He used to be a debater when he was undergrad. He would do like, competitive debating. And he has this ability to shut down your idea and to just demolish it very quickly. And everyone's like, oh, wow, I just spent five years working on this thing and you just managed to tear it apart in five seconds. Wow, you're very clever.

[C]

The competitive debater types are so insufferable.

[A]

I think insufferable is definitely top of the list of words that people have used to, to describe Larry. But he also, like, he combines that with having a very thin skin. So I would be rude about him on the Internet on a semi regular basis. He would get very, like, annoyed at me. There was one time when he screamed at me, telling me that I was a disgrace to my profession because I'd Written this blog post saying that he shouldn't be the president of the World bank, because, you know, and I also wrote blog posts saying he shouldn't be the chair of the Fed, basically both for the same reason, which is that these are jobs that require building consensus. And Larry has never been very good at building consensus. He's been much better at, like, tearing it down. And he is building it. But anyway, I asked the same question that Emily asked. I'm going to read this out because it disappeared from the Internet. But I was working for this company called Roubini Global Economics at the time. Larry. I'm not quite sure how aware I was that Larry was, like, on the board or on the advisory board or something like that. I knew that he was relatively close to my boss, Nouriel Roubini. And anyway, I wrote a blog post and the headline, I think, is what got me fired. The headline of the blog post was comment of the day. How Larry Summers is like Pig Shagger Jones.

[C]

Now you have to tell the joke because I did not get this reference at all.

[A]

Okay, so the joke goes. I mean, Emily, you've heard this joke, right?

[B]

I read it this morning when you shared it in this lab.

[A]

Oh, okay. I guess we do have to reference the joke. In case you don't know the joke. The joke is about the guy in the pub, and he's on his third pint of beer and he's like, you see this pub? I built this pub. Am I called Pub Builder Jones? No, I'm the local doctor. I saved Barman Jim's life once when he choked on a peanut. Am I called Lifesaver Jones? No. Every year I supply a huge Christmas tree for the village green. Am I called Christmas Tree Jones? No, but you shag one pig. And so the question that was left in the comments to a previous blog entry that I'd put up, this is back when, you know, blog comments were awesome. And actually Nouriel Roubini's blog comments, or the comments on his website were famously awesome. Basically said that Summer's reputation for intelligence is like the reputation of Pig Shagger Jones. There was some incident in the far off past which presumably the source, but he's actually done nothing to deserve it for years and years.

[B]

That was a comment. You didn't write that.

[A]

That was a comment. I didn't write it, but I did put pick Shaggy Jones and Larry Summers.

[B]

You were then like, this is brilliant.

[A]

This is brilliant. The comment also came with something called the Larry Summers is a really smart guy challenge, which Is if you think Larry Summers is smart, then you name one clever thing that he's done and I'll name two stupid things that he's done and you will run out before I run out. Basically because he has done an astonishing number of stupid things. Like he wrote the famous pollution memo when he was the chief economist at the World bank, which is basically this memo where he said, if you just look at basic economic principles, what we should do is take all of the dirty pollution in the world and dump it on the poorest countries.

[B]

Literally said that in a memo.

[A]

Literally said that in a memo because that, like, maximizes economic utility.

[B]

Okay. I mean, was the memo meant for the public to see?

[A]

It was not meant for the public to see. Also, Larry then came out and said, obviously I was joking because, you know, obviously everyone thought this was incredibly funny. And this is a great thing to joke about when you're the chief economist of the World bank, dealing with trying to help the world's poorest countries. But like, the logic of the memo was actually relatively self contained, you know, like. So anyway, like, this is the kind of thing that he does on a regular basis also, and this is my favorite Larry story. He is so convinced of his own genius, and he is so convinced that he is smarter than anyone else, that he is very bad at listening to other people who might be able to stop him, prevent him from doing really stupid things. I'm sure that he had people telling him, don't be emailing Jeffrey Epstein, that's a bad idea. But he would just go ahead and do it anyway because he has that kind of hubris. He did one of the world's worst ever fixed income trades when he was president of Harvard, where he decided that he was going to build a massive new campus across the river. And he knew that this massive new campus was going to cost a lot of money. And he was also convinced that interest rates were very low and they wouldn't go down any further. And in fact, they were going to go up further. And so he, he reckoned that when Harvard in the future was going to borrow money to build the campus, he wanted Harvard to be able to borrow the money in the future at the interest rates today. So he entered into this incredibly complex sort of future forward swap thingy. And then of course, interest rates went down rather than up. He had to unwind the swap because they never built the campus and he cost the university about a billion dollars.

[B]

Whoops.

[C]

This is just an astonishing example of someone failing up in a way that's Just happening in public in a very high profile way and just nobody does anything. But I think it has really given Summers a epic and broad coalition of haters. And, you know, it was a big enough deal when his this stuff came out of the Epstein files that the Onion immediately did a headline that said, no Larry Summers, Wales Devastated Nation. And I think you really have to, you have to be wrong a lot of times to be an academic who's on the radar of regular people who read the Onion.

[A]

One of the funniest things about this whole bit is like the Republicans are like gleefully pointing at Larry Summers and going, look, famous Democrat Larry Summers is being canceled and losing his career as a result of Epstein. And they're sort of chortling. And meanwhile the Democrats are saying the exact same thing.

[B]

Okay, there were two other things. I feel like I'm being mean. I mean, it's okay.

[A]

This is a safe space. Emily.

[B]

First, I just looked up all the winners of the John Bates Clark medal. And like, I could tell you so many things about so many of these people that are brilliant. Papers like Raj Shetty is on the list. Stephanie Stancheva is on the list, is the most recent winner. She's very brilliant on inflation. Lately I've read some of her work. So I feel like, okay, that's interesting that I don't know Summers work, but just on the other side of the ledger, he was on the OpenAI board. OpenAI did say nice things. They were like, he's been great on our board. I don't know if that's true or not, but they are worth a lot of money now. And they did successfully become a for profit company. They said he helped with that. I don't know.

[C]

So.

[A]

So yeah, so this is something that he's good with, is helping Silicon Valley people get extremely rich.

[B]

Great.

[A]

And broadly speaking, helping like private sector, very rich people become much, much richer. So probably the thing that he will go down in history for the most is that in the 2000s, when he was working for Bill Clinton, first as undersecretary and then as Secretary of the treasury, he basically took the lead on deregulating the financial sector. And he fought with people like Paul Volcker and what's her face who used to run the fdic, Sheila Bear, like, Sheila Bear was like on the other side. Larry was on the deregulation side. And he wound up pushing through this bill called Gramm, Leach Bliley and doing various other things that basically created the preconditions for the financial crisis. And one of the things that annoys me. There are many things that annoy me about Larry. But one of the things that really annoys me about Larry is that he has very, very consistently dodged any kind of questions or accountability for this. There was one interview on Channel 4 News. The great Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Gurumurthy sat down with Larry Summers a few years after the financial crisis. And Larry was like passing through England on his way to Davos or something like that. And Krishnan started the interview asking exactly the questions that Larry was expecting, which was like, what do you think about the state of the UK economy? What should the government be doing? Oh, wise man, help. Can you please drop some wisdom here? And he would intone some standard Larry answers like, well, I think there's a 33% chance it'll do well and a 33% chance it'll do badly. And then Krishnan sort of pivoted and he was like, so anyway, I wanted also to ask you about, to paraphrase, did you single handedly cause the financial crisis? And these questions were quite specific. And also things like, were you adamantly opposed to, to the United States signing onto the Kyoto Protocol? Which he was right. There was a lot of people in the Clinton administration who said we should sign on to this. Larry was like, we should not sign on to this and all of these kind of questions. And so finally, and this is the only time I've ever seen it, Larry gets asked these things that you were famous for doing, like, do you regret doing these? Did you make mistakes in hindsight, like, why did you do them? And he just gets angrier and angrier. And he starts like stopping to even attempt to answer the questions and he just starts attacking Krishna. He's like, you're just being handed these questions by your assistants. You don't know what you're talking about. And this kind of stuff.

[B]

And you're like, wow, his famous strategy for demolishing the argument right there.

[A]

Exactly. Yeah. So like on a very sort of profoundly public sector basis, you know, what has he done for America? I think there was a very strong case to be made that absent Larry, America would be in a much better place today, that we would have had a less bad financial crisis, we would have had a better environmental record, we would have spent more money on the Obama stimulus, the economy would be bigger, all of these things. And while it is definitely true that he has made money for D.E. shaw, this famous hedge fund, or Andreessen Horowitz, where he's an advisor or block, which used to be called square, where he's on the board and all of these kind of places. And now OpenAI I'm sure he was very helpful in terms of helping them navigate the weird road to becoming a for profit. In terms of the country as a whole. I think it's very easy to say that he, you know, if he hadn't been around, things would be better.

[C]

I would love to see some policy analysts do a formal cost benefit analysis of Larry Summers being involved in anything, if for no other reason than it will prevent him from in 10 years popping up again. And because I don't think any of these cancellations are permanent, there's almost nobody who fully disappears in his position.

[B]

I mean, he has reemerged before, so.

[A]

I think if you get cancelled when you're 70, like at that point you just kind of retire. Foreign. Is sponsored this week by AG1. If you want to stay one scoop ahead of holiday season stress and excess AG1 contains your daily dose of essential nutrients. It will support your body's natural defenses and help you stay resilient through the season. AG1 is a daily health drink that has been clinically shown to support gut health and fill in common nutrient gaps. It has five, count them, five probiotic strains and over 75 minerals and vitamins. AG1 is not just another supplement. It's a daily micro habit and it supports whole body health. You take one scoop, you mix it with water, you shake it up once a day, every day. Less than $3 a day with a subscription. AG1 Next Gen replaces your daily multivitamin, your probiotics, your adaptogens and more. It's even available in delicious new flavors like tropical berry and citrus. This is a habit that is very easy to get into. It is incredibly easy to drink. It is just part of your day in no time at all. So head to drink ag1.com slatemoney to get a free welcome kit with an AG1 flavor sampler and a bottle of vitamin D3K2 when you first subscribe. That's drinkag1.com slatemoney slate money is sponsored this week by Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to holiday your way. Whether it's finding the right gift or the right outfit, Saks is where you can find from the perfect Chloe bag for your hard to shop for sister to a Prada jacket for a fancy holiday dinner. If you visit saks.com you'll be astonished at how easy it is to find new arrivals and gift inspiration from I don't know Theres Van Norton, wonderful Belgian designer, lots of floral prints. Just the kind of thing you need to lighten up and brighten up what the darker days that are coming. If you don't want Dries Van Noten, I can tell you Saks has holiday looks for everything. You can get Dolce Gabbana instead. I would recommend flowers. That's my top tip for this season as the nights get longer. But if you don't know where to start, Saks.com is customized to your personal style so you can save time shopping and spend more time just enjoying the holidays. Whether it's an office holiday party, a cozy night in, or a vacation getaway, Saks has everything you need to holiday your way. So make shopping fun and easy this season and find gifts and inspiration to suit your holiday style at Saks Fifth Avenue. What's next on the agenda?

[B]

Emily Felix.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Is big tech ungovernable?

[A]

Ah. Is big tech ungovernable? This is a question we're asking because, well, Elizabeth, why don't you run us through the latest antitrust news.

[C]

So basically, Meta won their big antitrust case and they don't really have to do anything. And this seems to be a pattern for all the big antitrust cases that were initiated during the Biden administration by, among other people, Alina Khan. These cases are just dropping like flies. And so now I think people are worried that antitrust enforcement is just done.

[A]

I think that's right. And we should mention that this antitrust case that Meta just one, was not brought by Lina Khan. It was brought by the first Trump administration. And the Trump administration has historically not been particularly big tech friendly, although it is more sort of AI friendly and it is more crypto friendly this time around. But the big picture here is that back a million years ago, there was a massive antitrust case against Microsoft, which Microsoft won. Google recently won a big antitrust case. Meta just won a big antitrust case. And what we seem to be learning here is that insofar as big tech is something that can and should be regulated, antitrust is just not the tool to do it. And for better or for worse, the US Government seems to be incredibly bad at regulating anyone using anything that isn't antitrust. It's like everything has to be a nail because the only hammer that the government has is antitrust. And if you look to Europe, they are doing, I think, a better job legislating regulation for companies that is beyond just this is anti competitive, therefore it's illegal. But the Americans, for whatever reason, don't seem to be able to do that. And the general consensus in the M and A world these days is, well, now these companies can go off to the races. For instance, classic example is that last year Meta wanted to buy a company called Scale AI. And all of the lawyers at Meta were like, you can't do this. It will never pass antitrust scrutiny. You'll never be allowed to do it. And so instead they wound up doing this incredibly complex transaction where they basically hired the CEO of Scale AI for billions of dollars salary and hired all of his employees and made them all employees of Meta. And the shareholders of Scale AI got paid out a little bit, but not as much as they probably would done, and all of this kind of stuff. And the whole thing was awkward and convoluted just to get around potential antitrust. And everyone's like, well, yeah, we're not going to even bother with that anymore. From this point onwards, just expect more big acquisitions. And it is important to remember that the antitrust case against these companies is relatively strong because many of them, not all of them, but certainly Google has expanded massively through acquisition. It bought like YouTube, it bought DoubleClick. A lot of Google's core business it acquired. Meta's sexiest part is Instagram, which it acquired. It bought WhatsApp. So expanding via acquisition is definitely part of the big tech playbook. And now they're like, yeah, we weren't doing that for a while and now we can do it. But that to one side, I think the answer to the question of whether it can be regulated is, well, it can be regulated, but it's not going to be regulated because the regulation in the United States is all done by the executive branch and rather than by Congress. Congress just doesn't seem to have any appetite to do any regulation.

[C]

That's true. And I think we should talk about why big tech monopolies are different from monopolies in other industries. And one of the things, especially with the companies that are dominating the S and P right now, is that in a lot of cases, founders have a different class of stock, they have more voting power. And so you have this power concentrated not just among a handful of companies, but a handful of individuals. And that sort of creates a situation where you have a sort of oligarchy and you really have to trust that they're going to police themselves, which they've sort of demonstrated that they have no desire to do.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Like Facebook and Google both have dual class share structures. Microsoft doesn't. Nvidia Doesn't. Amazon doesn't. Tesla doesn't. And even at Google I don't really see a problem. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of dualclass share structures and I'd love it if it went away in Google. But I don't see any real evidence of like Larry and Sergey having outsized control over Google. They seem to be pretty hands off these days. The real problem is Mark Zuckerberg, who has total control over Meta with his minority shareholding. And that one is problematic.

[C]

And he's a good example. I have a friend who sold a company to Meta years ago and we were. This was when there are rumors going around that Zuckerberg might run for office. And I asked him if he thought that was possible and he laughed and said no. Mark already thinks Facebook is its own nation state and this is when they were also working on a cryptocurrency. So I think that's another concern is that there's this sort of streak of neoreactionary thought in Silicon Valley now that you can just sort of work around the government and by virtue of doing that create a kind of oligarchic state.

[A]

We are definitely living in a world where the biggest companies in the world are multinational companies. This has been true for a while. But you know, if 20% of your business is in the United States, then it's actually sort of intuitive that it's going to be hard for the United States to really get a grip on what you're doing. If you look at the big Meta scandals, you know, the biggest scandals of all have been in places like Myanmar and like, who's job is it to regulate that? It's hard to answer that question.

[B]

One thing, I mean, we talked about this a little when we talked about the Google winning its antitrust case. And this kind of goes back to what Felix was saying too, which is just that antitrust law, these companies are big and powerful. Whether they're monopolies in the classic sense of what you think a monopoly is is debatable still.

[A]

I think they are, but that's, you know, you don't need.

[B]

Yeah, I'm convinced because like Judge B.E. boasberg in his decision, you know, he was like, you know, since this case got brought, the technology has changed and the competition, like the market that you'd have to examine has changed. And TikTok sort of came out.

[A]

Oh my God. TikTok was just the gift for Meta. Like, it's amazing how much Mark Zuckerberg is thankful for TikTok right now, for Just being this, like he can just point to TikTok and go, well, obviously it's winning, therefore I'm not a monopoly.

[B]

But the point remains that this stuff, this technology, social media, it all moves really fast. And today's big tech company doesn't have to be tomorrow's big tech company. Now I can undercut that argument pretty instantly by just pointing to like a Microsoft who we all thought was cooked and is still a huge multi trillion dollar company. So I don't know, I think what's.

[C]

Confusing here to maybe even, you know, legal experts who are looking at it is that one of the conditions of monopoly historically is low rate of innovation. And that's definitely not what's happening here. You could argue that their sort of amount of market share makes them a monopoly just by default. And also that they have pricing power that maybe potential competitors don't. But the fact that they can sort of innovate at this size, either by acquisition or their own R and D efforts, I think it makes it much harder to make that antitrust case.

[A]

Yeah. And remember that, you know, if you're looking at the big advertising duopoly of Google and Facebook, do they really have pricing power? I think the jury is out on that. Are they charging more for ads than in a more competitive market they would? I'm not sure.

[C]

There are not really alternatives if you want to do targeted, like highly targeted advertising.

[A]

That's true. But both of them run on auction mechanisms, right? Both of them are just like they set all of the people who want to buy ads and run real auctions.

[C]

I mean, they can modify the auction results too if they think that the auction process is not doing its job.

[A]

I mean. Yeah, but I just think that in general, I'm not convinced that people are paying vastly more money for ads on Google and Facebook than those ads are worth. I think they wouldn't do that if they weren't making money from them. But yeah, they are monopolies. The interesting counterexample, you're absolutely right, Emily, that Microsoft is still a multi trillion dollar company. The one that isn't is Intel. Remember like the big Wintel duopoly of the 90s where you had Microsoft and Intel joined at the hip. Microsoft has continued to do well. Yeah, intel, not so much. It's just kind of disappeared.

[B]

Yeah, you can't just coast on this stuff. And you know, like if we think about the big monopolies, you know, that started antitrust law, like eventually they would have run out of steam. Ha ha. Literally. These were railroad companies, eventually innovation came and eclipsed them. So if one were like a free market type of person, you could argue that it's going to be fine because something new is always going to come along and knock a monopoly off its sorry tracks rails in the Google case, you know, AI, ChatGPT, et cetera.

[A]

The question which then arises is that even if the monopoly is here today, gone tomorrow kind of thing, which we can sort of grant x hypothesize, does that mean that these companies shouldn't be regulated? I feel like these companies are incredibly powerful and have tentacles that reach around the world and into our very souls and it's a good idea that they are answerable to someone other than just shareholders.

[B]

Yes, I agree with that. I think antitrust just doesn't. It's not the right thing, it's not the right hammer. You gotta come up with a new hammer. We have policymakers and lawmakers now who have zero appetite to invent a new hammer. And I don't know if they have the brains. Look around, there are idiots.

[A]

Do we really want Marjorie Taylor Greene like, let's legislating big tech.

[B]

I mean, I don't know. It doesn't seem like there's a good idea out there for how to do it. And there's so much pushback on any kind of regulation all the time. There's like no space for it to flourish. It seems like there was a little.

[C]

Bit of Republican appetite for a while for antitrust stuff. And then I think part of what happened was, you know, all the big tech CEOs beeline to Washington and sucked up to Trump and then that just sort of changed the political winds. But one of the things that I think would have to happen here is that there has to be more of a public backlash to the fact that these, you know, organizations are unregulated. That's part of what happened with Europe and data privacy, which has been very effective in curbing some of the worst aspects of what meta does. But here there's no appetite for it.

[A]

I think very effective is putting it a bit strong. It has made a little bit of change, maybe at the margin and it has created the world's most annoying GDP pop ups on every single website that everyone loads and do absolutely nothing.

[B]

I accept the cookies.

[A]

But I want to ask Emily a question because there's one multi trillion dollar mega cap company that we haven't mentioned yet, which is your favorite company, which is Apple.

[B]

Love Apple. Although I actually have. I have a story maybe I'll share another time. About why Apple might be falling off my tree.

[A]

I think the way in which people really genuinely like Instagram, they like Apple, they like Gmail, you know, they like Google Maps. Like the products, the consumer facing products that these companies ship are good products. And as a result of that, there isn't a huge amount of public anger at these companies. You know, there can be books by Jonathan Haidt about how like our children's brains are rotting, but ultimately people are really upset about grocery prices. People are not really upset about their Gmail storage is running out.

[C]

People are not really upset because they're also sort of not terribly aware of the extent to which surveillance capitalism is happening and they're being exploited in some ways by these companies. But since you mentioned Waze, I want to go back to the Google Maps Waze merger, which was in one case the sort of death knell of antitrust and big tech. When Google acquired Waze, there was a lot of concern internally that the merger was going to be blocked because it seemed like a slam dunk antitrust case. But the reason why it wasn't was that the court had trouble sort of distinguishing between Google Maps and Waze. And what they came up with ultimately was that Google Maps tells you where you are and Waze tells you where you're going, which doesn't make any sense to me. But if you want to read more about this, I had just interviewed Tim Wu about his new book and he was part of the Biden era antitrust efforts and he pointed to that as the really like, oh, this isn't going to work for me.

[A]

It wasn't Waze. For me, the it was doubleclick. There was this really big Google competitor online in terms of selling ads on the Internet. Facebook was good at selling ads on Facebook properties. Google had its business selling ads on Google search results. But then there was the entire rest of the Internet where you would go to slate.com and see an ad and who was selling that ad. And there was this other company called DoubleClick that was selling that ad and Google bought DoubleClick and then there was no one to compete anymore. You know, if you wanted to buy an ad on Google, if you wanted to buy an ad off Google, you needed to buy it from Google. That was when Google really consolidated the monopoly.

[B]

I guess to go back to what you were talking about, how people like these big companies and like these monopolies, it's like going after businesses because they're too big. It's just not the right frame because being too big isn't necessarily bad in most consumers eyes. Like we like too big. We like the iPhone because everyone uses the iPhone. If it wasn't too big, we would have a bunch of different phones and it wouldn't be good. Like it's not. You have to be more drilled down. Like maybe Europe isn't doing it right with its cookies agenda. But like at least they have a specific criticism. You know, your privacy is at risk and they regulate that. Or like environmental regulation. They're not like companies are too big. They're like companies emit stinky smoke and it's bad for you and like we'll go after that. So I don't feel like big tech's critics have really well articulated what is wrong with having big tech companies. Beyond like your privacy is at risk which we've talked about so many times on the show and we've all said like, do people care about that? Unclear.

[A]

They haven't articulated it. Mostly because it's difficult to articulate and also because, yeah, it's hard to argue people into an attitude or an opinion that they don't already have. Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you're a member of Congress, what you want to do is you want to sort of reflect what your constituents think. And if your constituents are not coming up to you going like, you need to do something about this massive problem that is Google, why would you bend over backwards to try to persuade them that they should care about this?

[C]

It's not just that, but it is job of politicians sometimes to sell a policy, especially if they think it affects voters and voters don't understand it yet.

[B]

And they're good at doing that. Like think about the death tax. We had a whole Slate Money talks on how they sold people on believing something about inheritance taxes that didn't matter at all.

[C]

But the biggest thing is that the, you know, voters have to be convinced that there's real cost to them and the cost to them of data privacy is not always apparent. So I think you would have to have a more obvious consequence for letting these companies get big. It would have to be something like, if these AI companies keep getting their way, your electricity bill is going to go up 10 times what it already is.

[A]

Which it won't.

[B]

But it is.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, okay, maybe it will. We will talk about AI and bubbles and bills in the next segment. Slate Money is sponsored this week by Vanguard. Are you a financial advisor? If you are, I think we should talk bonds for a minute because capturing value in fixed income is not always easy. Vanguard bonds are institutional quality that means top grade products across the board. Vanguard sets the standard for what dependable investing should look like. Their philosophy is that the best active strategies should be shared across the team so every client benefits from the collective brain power. The bond market is complex and Vanguard takes a steady approach focusing on reliability and consistency versus going all in on risky bets. Vanguard's lineup includes over 80 bond funds that are actively managed by a 200 person global team of sector specialists, analysts and traders. Their long standing establishment and scale allows them to to invest across all kinds of sectors, maturities and geographies. Which means they can spot and act on opportunities that others might miss. So if you're looking to give your clients consistent results year in and year out, go see the record for [e-mail] audio that's vanguard.com audio all investing is subject to risk. Vanguard Marketing Corporation distributor Slate Money is sponsored this week by Quince Right now is the season of cold mornings and holiday plans. It's the time of year when you want your wardrobe to be simple but also warm. You want stuff that looks sharp, feels good and just includes things you'll actually want to wear. That's quints. And quints pieces make great gifts too. It's famous for its cashmere. It's famous for its linen. These things hold up. The quality of Quint's products is amazing. They last for years and it has gifting covered. Beyond clothing, have you picked up anything for home or bath or kitchen or travel to share or even keep this holiday? You can do it all at Quince. They even have Dom Perignon champagne if you want to give someone something super special this Christmas. This season's lineup is simple and smart. $50 Mongolian cashmere sweaters and wool coats that are equal parts stylish and durable. Their denim nails the fit and comfort all at a fraction of what you'd expect to pay. They partner directly with ethical factories and top artisans. They cut out the middleman and that means they deliver premium quality at half the cost of other high end brands. So give and get timeless holiday staples that last this season with quince. Go to quince.com slatemoney for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N c e.com slatemoney free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com slatemoney. So yeah, that's the perfect segue to the AI bubble debate. And I think I want to try and frame this question thusly, which is we all remembered the dot com bubble. There was a bunch of speculation in the stock market and a bunch of stocks that were worth nothing wound up trading at crazy levels and everyone thought they were getting rich. And then the stock market plunged and everyone lost all their money. And that was bad. And people said, well, that was a classic bubble and bust dynamic. And people started talking a lot about tulips. And now we are in a world where the amount of money pouring into AI dwarfs the amount of money that was pouring into.com stocks in 1999. And so people are naturally using this bubble word. And my feeling about this is that there is something worth talking about in terms of the sheer amount of money that is going into AI and that is on some level, therefore preventing investment in the entire rest of the economy. Because there is a finite amount of money on some level. I mean, we can argue about that, but there is this giant sucking sound for AI. It is actually quite hard to get investment if you're not an AI company these days. And there are dislocations in the economy that are being caused. We were just talking about like this is increasing the cost of energy for normal Americans because there's so much demand for energy from data centers. And so AI is so heavy, economically heavy, that it is changing the dynamics of not only the economy but also the stock market. You look at Nvidia as the most valuable company in the world and I think that's an interesting dynamic. But at the same time, I just really get irked every time someone uses the word bubble to describe it. Because it's definitely not a speculative bubble. Most of these AI companies and most of the money going into AI is like hard investment in actual data centers and chips and stuff. It's not like I'm buying an H100 chip today because I think I can sell it at a profit tomorrow. It's not like the greater fool theory. There's not a lot of get rich quick, it's actually get rich slow. OpenAI is saying we're not going to make money until 2030.

[C]

I think that's pretty standard for early stage tech though, that sort of timeline.

[A]

No, it is, but what I'm saying. But OpenAI isn't even a public company, right? There's no speculative bubble in OpenAI stock. Because even if there was a greater fool you could sell it to, you're not allowed to because it's not listed. And then there's a bunch of teeth sucking about. Well, a lot of this is debt financed. And what happens if these People who are borrowing money to build data centers wind up defaulting on their debts, then that could hurt the banks and then the banks. We could then have a financial. No, come on people. You know, like OpenAI is not borrowing money. The companies that are borrowing money tend to be extremely credit worthy. Like Amazon is out there borrowing $15 billion. Like Amazon is going to be able to pay back its money. Oracle is the interesting one. But Oracle is actually paying real credit risk money to parts of the credit world that are willing to take that risk. Right. This is not what we saw in the 2000s where a bunch of people thought they were making risk free AAA investments and they turned out to be super risk lending into the data center. AI world is lending with their eyes open and lending with your eyes open generally does not cause systemic problems.

[C]

Well, but the number of AI companies that are kind of their fates are a little bit intertwined I think makes this a little bit different. So Oracle has just extraordinary amount of debt even for a tech company that finances itself via debt. And as a result people are buying more Oracle credit default swaps because there's a little bit of head scratching about how this is all going to work if they can't.

[B]

Meaning people are betting that Oracle will default on its debt.

[C]

Yeah. Or they're hedging against it. So I don't think it's totally not a concern. But the other thing is that you can have bubbles just because the equity markets are misallocating funds. When VCs are throwing money at anything that has AI in it, you could end up with a bubble just that way.

[B]

So are there two kinds of bubbles then? Because when I was listening to Felix talk and say like these companies are investing in real things, it's not like greater fools, it's not like tulips. Tulips are real, I think, unless birds aren't real anyway. But like now I'm thinking about the dot com bubble. Maybe that wasn't a bubble because some of the dumb companies people were throwing money at then were Amazon.

[C]

That's a misallocation. Again, like that's. I do think that again there are types of bubbles. The one that I think people think AI is as speculative because they sort of use bubble as synonymous with overhyped and they don't really think about any technical definition of bubble. And in that case, if that was happening, you would have just a lot of speculative investors coming in without really understanding what they're putting money into. But with misallocation that doesn't have to happen. It's just the investors are putting money into companies that are shitty companies just because they managed to crowbar AI into the definition of what they do, regardless of whether it's central to the product.

[A]

And that was exactly what I was talking about when I was talking about the weight of AI in the economy. It does have this kind of sucking sound. And there probably are objectively good investments that are struggling to raise money because so much money is going to AI instead. But I just thought I'd look this up because I work at Bloomberg now and I have all these numbers at my fingertip. Total debt at Oracle is $105 billion, which is a lot of money. But the market cap is $565 billion. Right. It's five times as much. So you can say that Oracle is overvalued, but you would need to wipe out more than half a trillion dollars of equity before that debt became really at risk of defaulting. Is there a risk of default there? Yes. Are people paying for it? Yes. Are people hedging against it? Yes. But when people are worried about that, when people are buying these hedges and buying these credit default swaps to hedge the risk that half a trillion dollars of equity is going to get wiped out and go to zero, then that is a sign to me that people are super aware of the risks.

[B]

And this crowding out thing that you guys are talking about, people are investing in AI, then they're not investing in other things. I feel like what I've been hearing lately and seen argued more lately is just that. But thank goodness for AI because people are investing in it at a time when the whole rest of the economy is like a stinker, like AI.

[A]

The argument AI is keeping the.

[B]

It's keeping the economy.

[A]

If the thing that we need to keep the economy growing is banks lending money, basically that is the thing that creates money and causes the economy to grow. If you're a monetarist, then yeah, it's really good that the banks are lending money to AI because they're certainly. Or to data centers because they're suddenly not lending money to. To, you know, Argentina.

[B]

But like there. Is it crowding out or is it just like the only place anyone wants is like, willing to go. It's not like there's other good stuff happening necessarily.

[A]

Exactly. The rest of the economy is kind of looking a bit meh. So it's kind of understandable that people aren't wanting to invest in it.

[B]

So is it a bubble? And I'm so confused. I feel like I'm more confused than ever.

[A]

I'm going to come out and say it's not.

[B]

Not. And Elizabeth I don't think it is.

[C]

Yet, but I think it's creeping in that direction.

[B]

Emily I think bubbles are fine. That's my third way.com was very formative, you know, for me and it was fine.

[A]

My favorite ever DM was instant messaging. I think back on like AOL Instant messenger back in the 1990s and when I was in New York and I had a colleague in London named Aditya Chakraborty and I'm like, this is a bubble. I'm like, and you know what happens to bubbles, don't you? And he replies back immediately, they float.

[C]

They delight small children.

[A]

They delight small children. Yeah, exactly. Nothing wrong with the Bible. Fudge.

[C]

This podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[A]

Sleep money is sponsored this week by Intuit QuickBooks managing cash flow can be one of the hardest parts of running a business, but it doesn't have to be. With Intuit QuickBooks, you can transform your cash flow and your business. QuickBooks money tools bring your money and your books together in one place, offering real time insights into your cash flow so you can get paid faster, pay bills smarter, and even apply for funding, all without switching platforms. And with QuickBooks money management tools, your books update automatically with every payment and bill so you spend less time chasing invoices and more time making smart decisions. QuickBooks can help you gain real time insights and reveal critical cash flow trends so you'll be more empowered to make the right decisions to sustain growth. QuickBooks isn't just accounting software, it's financial confidence. So try it today. Learn [e-mail] money Again, that's quickbooks.com money Terms apply. Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments, Inc. Licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Let's have a numbers round. Emily, do you have a number?

[B]

Uh huh. Yeah.

[A]

What is it? What is it? Emily, what is your number?

[B]

Great question.

[A]

I'm trying to be meaner to Emily this week because we're worried that we're too female Heavy on this show and we don't have enough male energy.

[C]

Are you trying to prevent us from ruining our workplace?

[A]

Exactly.

[C]

Because there's two of us and one of you.

[A]

Exactly.

[C]

It doesn't look good for you.

[B]

Well, people will have to just figure out what we're talking about. My number is slate money. It's an hour long and later. You have to Google to understand what we talked about. My number is 25. It's a percent. It's the percent of CEOs at S&P 500 firms who are receiving personal, home and security benefits. And that's up seven points from last year. This is numbers from the Conference board and ESS Gage. They looked at, you know, public filings. The thing is that the CEOs are very scared right now, and they're spending a lot of money.

[C]

Is this a Luigi Mangione effect?

[A]

What's it up from?

[B]

Up from 18%.

[A]

And this is security benefits. And what was the other thing?

[B]

It's personal and home security benefits. So it's like a security detail. It's like a home security system. It's like paying for bodyguards, protection for your family, just to keep you safe in public. And the spending. Interestingly, the data covers a period mostly before the United Healthcare CEO was shot dead in Midtown Manhattan. Like, CEOs were already getting afraid before that. So this number is only going to go up. And anecdotally, I'm hearing colleagues say, like, yeah, the CEOs are showing up to meetings with bodyguards now. They're all very scared. So that's pretty interesting.

[A]

Elizabeth, what's your number?

[C]

My number is 64. And that's also a percentage. And that's the percentage of people who believe that their workload has increased in the last year. And this is according to an Ernst and young survey of 15,000 workers. And it's attributed to partly to AI because there's been a lot of poor integration and training around AI. And so people are. Are ending up spending more time trying to figure out how to apply AI to stuff than they are using it to be more productive. And they're also just producing more stuff to do that. I think everyone's sort of calling work slop now.

[A]

So I'm going to ask you the same question I asked Emily, and Emily knows the same question that I would ask everyone when I had the percentage at Axios.

[B]

What's the time series?

[A]

What's the time series? Is that higher than normal? Is that lower than normal?

[C]

Yeah, it doesn't have a baseline.

[A]

We will go back to these people next year and be like, how many people think their workload has increased? And if it's lower than 64, we'll know this was a meaningful number.

[B]

Do you guys think your workload has increased this year?

[A]

I've only been at this job for, like, a month and a half, so don't ask me.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Okay. I feel like mine's the same.

[A]

My number is 236,360,000, which is the number of dollars that was spent on a painting at Sotheby's on Tuesday.

[B]

Oh, I got an alert about it.

[A]

The portrait of Elizabeth Lederer is by Gustav Klimt, and it's the most expensive work of art ever and the first work of art ever to sell for more than $200 million. And I am going to die on this hill. And if anyone starts talking to me about Salvador Mundi, I will kill them. No.

[C]

Oh, I.

[B]

Thank God I didn't say anything about Salvador Mundi. Elizabeth, we dodged a bullet.

[A]

There is another painting that was allegedly by Leonardo and MBS bid against himself in a fit of complete idiocy and wound up paying more than that for. But, like, in terms of actual money spent on a painting by people who are bidding against each other, the most expensive work of art ever at auction was this Klimt portrait, which is very pretty, but it's not very important.

[B]

Is that number adjusted for inflation?

[A]

No, that's nominal. Adjusted for inflation is probably also still the most expensive, but I haven't done the math on that.

[C]

I have to point out that was not the most important art sale, in my opinion. We've talked about the.

[A]

The fucking toilet.

[C]

Yes. Mauricio Catalan's toilet, which sold to your Ripleys, believe it or not.

[B]

Unbelievable.

[A]

On a single bid. There was no bidding war. The Sotheby's conceit was the opening bid is going to be the value of the gold in the toilet, and then we'll get a bidding war going from there. Well, Ripley's bid the value of the gold in the toilet, and there was no further bid. Now, they did actually pay about $2 million more than the value of the gold in the toilet because of the buyer's premium that you need to pay when you buy at auction. So they wound up spending about $12 million on this toilet. But, yeah, this was a little bit underwhelming. I'm sure Sotheby's wasn't super happy about that result. And poor Stevie Cohen is just. Basically, all he's getting is, like, the value of the gold. He could have melted it down and probably made just as much money.

[B]

I'm trying to come up with a gold toilet joke but I'm burnt out guys. I don't have one. Something about flushing the money. I don't know. I don't know. But maybe it wasn't good art. Maybe it was just a gold toilet.

[A]

It's not as good as the banana. On which note, I think that is. That is it for us this week. Many thanks to all of you guys for writing in [e-mail] Many thanks to Jessamyn, Molly and Shenaroth for producing. Many thanks to Micah Phillips for making sure that the right button was pressed and we are actually having video on YouTube and stick around for a slate plus which this week Elizabeth is on Thanksgiving I think. Yes it is some Thanksgiving hot takes.

[B]

Gotta listen.

[A]

Yeah. And then we'll be back next week with Austin Goolsbee which is going to be lots of fun for our Thanksgiving special. See you then. Slate Money is sponsored this week by Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to holiday your way. Whether it's finding the right gift or the right outfit, Saks is where you can find everything from the perfect Chloe bag for your hard to shop for sister to a Prada jacket for a fancy holiday dinner. If you visit saks.com you'll be astonished at how easy it is to find new arrivals and gift inspiration from I don't know, theres Van Norton, wonderful Belgian designer, lots of floral prints. Just the kind of thing you need to lighten up and brighten up what the darker days that are coming. If you don't want Dries Van Noten, I can tell you Sachs has holiday looks for everything. You can get Dolce Gabbana instead. I would recommend flowers. That's my top tip for this season as the nights get longer. But if you don't know where to start, Saks.com is customized to your personal style so you can save time shopping and spend more time just enjoying the holidays. Whether it's an office holiday party, a cozy night in or a vacation getaway, Saks has everything you need to holiday your way. So make shopping fun and easy this season and find gifts and inspiration to suit your holiday style at Sex fifth Avenue.

[C]

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a.

[A]

Very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited.

[C]

To be clear, that's half price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means a half day. Yeah, give it a [e-mail] Switch a front payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required.

[B]

New customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow 135 gigabytes of network busy taxes and fees extra semen Mobile Com.