An NHL Deal with Kalshi CEO & AI with Airbnb CEO 10/22/25

Summary

Squawk Pod – NHL Deal with Kalshi CEO & AI with Airbnb CEO

Date: October 22, 2025
Hosts: Joe Kernen, Becky Quick, Andrew Ross Sorkin
Featured Guests:

• Tariq Mansour, CEO & Co-Founder of Kalshi
• Brian Chesky, CEO & Co-Founder of Airbnb

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Episode Overview

This episode of Squawk Pod spotlights two major interviews:

1. A landmark partnership between the NHL and prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket, featuring Tariq Mansour, CEO of Kalshi.
2. Airbnb’s new product suite and its ongoing commitment to artificial intelligence and AI-powered customer service, in a candid discussion with CEO Brian Chesky.

Conversations also touch on hot topics like fluctuations in commodities, the scale and impact of new data centers, and concerns about AI reliability—framed, as always, with the show’s trademark banter and critical analysis.

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Key Segments & Timelines

1. Market Headlines & Artificial Intelligence Reliability

[02:24 – 17:13]

Rapid Recap of Market Movers

• Gold & Silver: Sizable drops (gold down 5.75%, worst since 2013; silver down 7.1%). Move seen as an overdue pullback after a year of strong gains.
• Crypto: Bitcoin down 3.5% to $108,000.
• Oil: Up 1.3% (WTI at $58); Trump claims India will ease purchases of Russian crude oil.
• Netflix: Missed Q3 profits due to a Brazilian tax dispute but saw best-ever quarter for ad sales.
• Texas Instruments: Shares drop on weak Q4 outlook; trade tariffs create sector uncertainty.
• Mattel: Q3 revenue and profit miss; global Barbie sales drop 17% YoY.

Banter Highlights

• Jokes about AI chatbots’ fallibility and various streaming hits.
• Quips on “how strange” succeeding seasons of “Stranger Things” have become.

Data Centers, Power, & AI's Hidden Costs

[08:58 – 12:09]

• Meta’s Massive Data Center: Meta, with Blue Owl Capital, to build an enormous (1,700 football fields) data center in Louisiana—consuming twice as much electricity as New Orleans.
• Community Concerns: These projects drive local electric costs higher (2.7x in affected regions over five years).

Andrew Ross Sorkin on energy costs:
“Think about that. People are worried about AI taking their job and now they're going to start worrying about them taking their electric, taking their electricity.” ([10:57])

AI Chatbot Accuracy Worries

• European studies show leading AI assistants misrepresent news ~45% of the time.
• Sourcing and distinguishing fact vs opinion still problematic.

Joe Kernen (on chatbot reliability):
“After all that, the answers are wrong half the time. Hey, I got this new drug I designed for you. This is going to be awesome for you. Oh, sorry, that was for some other disease. This is going to kill you.” ([14:00])

General Consensus

• Show hosts express skepticism about full AI reliability in sensitive domains.
• “Humans are going to be involved in this.” – Andrew Ross Sorkin ([14:26])

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2. Exclusive: NHL Partners with Kalshi & Polymarket

[19:28 – 26:05]

Guest: Tariq Mansour, CEO, Kalshi
Moderator: Becky Quick

Context & Deal Significance

• NHL is the first major sports league to partner with prediction markets.
• Kalshi’s regulatory compliance and “market integrity” cited as keys to the deal.

Tariq Mansour (on NHL partnership):
“A league like the NHL partnering with us is a strong sign that prediction markets are here to stay.” ([19:56])

Sportsbooks vs. Prediction Markets

• The partnership challenges incumbents like FanDuel/DraftKings, though Mansour frames it as a technology-driven industry shift.

Tariq Mansour:
“I think there is a business model disruption here…When there is fundamental technological disruption, technology that transforms an industry...there are sometimes critics...What we're really focused on is building a really good product.” ([20:41])

Regulatory Questions & Market Reach

• Kalshi operates in all 50 states, even where sportsbooks are restricted.
• Asserts confidence in their CFTC-regulated structure; acknowledges ongoing legal challenges but points to the federal framework.

Tariq Mansour:
“We’ve worked for years with the CFC to regulate prediction markets and, you know, develop a framework for customer protection.” ([21:56])

Market Activity, Volume, & Seasonality

• Over $2B in trading volume; majority is now sports-related.
• Top markets shift with the news cycle—from elections to sports, to finance, to policy concerns (e.g., government shutdown).

Tariq Mansour:
“It really depends on what's top of mind and what's trending in people's mind and what people have opinions about or what people want to hedge.” ([23:42])

• Current prediction: Government shutdown to last 41.5 days, would become the longest in history. ([24:40])

Future Prospects

• Talks underway with other big sports leagues.
• NHL deal as a template “for us to collaborate with a big four league” and new frameworks for data sharing, anti-fraud, and customer protection.

Tariq Mansour:
“Be on the lookout for more announcements soon.” ([25:30])

---

3. In Depth: Airbnb’s New Products & its AI Philosophy

[27:39 – 37:09]

Guest: Brian Chesky, CEO, Airbnb
Moderator: Andrew Ross Sorkin, Joe Kernen, Becky Quick

Airbnb’s Evolution: More than Just Stays

• Major revamp: 65 upgrades, including new features for making “experiences” social and smarter maps/search.
• Focus on creating “social” experiences by allowing users to connect, message, and stay in touch post-experience.

Brian Chesky:
“We launched services, we launched experiences. And since then, we've been hard at work.” ([28:04])

The Move Into Services

• Targeting local service marketplace gaps (e.g., finding a haircut or makeup in a city)—currently rolling out city-by-city, with focus cities including Paris and Louisiana.

Brian Chesky:
“There's no Amazon for services. People say Amazon's the everything store. It's actually the everything in a cardboard box store.” ([28:54])

Comedy Break

• Joe Kernen: “Is there a feature where I can guarantee I won't meet anyone?”
• Brian Chesky: “Every service is totally…You can prevent me from meeting…Exactly. Yes.” ([29:20])

AI Customer Service at Airbnb

• Custom, multi-model AI agent handling over 100,000 cases, reducing need for human agents by 15%.
• Users get problems solved in “six seconds,” with honest disclosure about AI vs. human agents.

Brian Chesky:
“Customer service is one of the best uses of AI… Our agent is more personalized. We developed a custom interface where it can take actions for you. So it’s really useful.” ([29:57])

Withholding from Deeper ChatGPT Integration—For Now

• No deep integration yet due to inadequate SDK robustness; Airbnb prefers more control over UI and community.
• Concerns raised about not wanting to be “just a product in an aisle” of an aggregator like ChatGPT or Google.

Brian Chesky:
“When you join Airbnb, it's not a commodity, it's a community. And they got to develop the SDK a lot more.” ([31:12])

Brian Chesky:
“You want to make sure you're not just a product in aisle. You have your own little...brand.” ([32:03])

AI’s Disruptive Potential—and Realism About Platforms

• Skeptical that a single platform (ChatGPT or otherwise) will “own everything.”
• Predicts coming “leveling of the playing field” as APIs make AI widely accessible.
• “Gold rush” era: Most current AI startups are enterprise-focused; consumer impact is just getting started.

Brian Chesky:
“Right now it's like a gold rush. Intelligence is the gold and everyone's just making picks and shovels.” ([33:32])

ROI in the Age of Data Center Arms Race

• Discusses Meta’s $27B data center and the challenge that GPU hardware depreciates quickly; urges caution against AI investment euphoria.

Brian Chesky:
“Will this technology generate trillions of dollars? Returns 100% it will...I think we need to be careful about like excitement turning to euphoria turning into mania.” ([35:05])

The State of Travel

• Despite global instability and tariffs, travel remains resilient; people still find ways, even if changing destinations or trip length.

Brian Chesky:
“I've been shocked the last six years with pandemic... wars...massive change. Like travel's been pretty stable.” ([35:57])

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

On Prediction Markets and Sports:

• Tariq Mansour: “A league like the NHL partnering with us is a strong sign that prediction markets are here to stay.” ([19:56])

On AI’s Potential Pitfalls:

• Joe Kernen: “After all that, the answers are wrong half the time...This is going to kill you. I mean, we got to get this together quickly.” ([14:00])

On AI Gold Rush:

• Brian Chesky: “Right now it's like a gold rush. Intelligence is the gold and everyone's just making picks and shovels.” ([33:32])

On Platform Power:

• Brian Chesky: “One company can’t just run the global economy. That’s just not going to happen.” ([32:55])

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Takeaways for Listeners

• The NHL’s partnership with Kalshi signifies emerging acceptance of prediction markets in pro sports, with major volume shifting to sports contracts and ongoing regulatory scrutiny.
• Airbnb is doubling down on consumer experience innovations: making experiences more social and leveraging powerful AI for customer service—while maintaining control over their platform rather than just being another “data layer” for Big AI.
• There is growing unease (and humor) around the accuracy and societal impact of AI tools, mirrored by debates over their infrastructure and power needs.
• The hosts highlight the “gold rush” of AI, warning against short-term mania and pointing out how consumer-facing changes may soon ripple into daily life.

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This summary delivers key themes, granular segment breakdowns, and highlights of both wit and wisdom from the day’s show, keeping the original voices and energy intact.

Transcript

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The heaviest metal credit card of all time, rumored to be one of only 18 in existence, plated with the very same tungsten that forged the international space station and wielded at business dinners like a samurai sword.

[Joe Kernen]

It's a classic corporate power move, but.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The real power move having end to end visibility on your most critical shipments.

[Joe Kernen]

FedEx the new power move.

[Podcast Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] MarketUpdatePodcast or find Schwab Market Update. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Bring in show music, please.

[Katie Kramer]

Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. Sportsbooks look out. The first major sports league has inked a deal with prediction markets Kalshi and polymarket Kalshi CEO Tariq Mansour on his partnership with the NHL and whether more deals are coming soon.

[Tariq Mansour]

What we have done here, and this is what's most important, we have set up a framework for, for us to collaborate with a big four league like the NHL.

[Katie Kramer]

Then Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on new products the travel site has launched to remake your vacation.

[Brian Chesky]

We imagine what if you can Airbnb more than Airbnb. We launched services, we launched experiences. And since then we've been hard at work.

[Katie Kramer]

And how he sees artificial intelligence taking over every corner of the Internet.

[Brian Chesky]

Right now it's like a gold rush.

[Katie Kramer]

Plus, Netflix's membership growth, sales of Barbie dolls are down. Meta and Blue Owl developing one giant data center and AI chatbots are taking over.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I'm not as nervous about that piece of it as you are because humans are going to be involved in this.

[Joe Kernen]

Oh, good.

[Katie Kramer]

But they maybe aren't that accurate all the time.

[Joe Kernen]

No kidding.

[Katie Kramer]

It's Wednesday, October 22nd. Squawk Pod begins right now.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Fewer, please.

[Joe Kernen]

Oh, yeah. Sorry.

[Becky Quick]

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on cnbc. We're live from the NASDAQ marketsite in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. And yeah, just speaking of some of those things and I, I mean, sometimes you get wrong facts from it. I was facts. Facts that are wrong.

[Joe Kernen]

One thing for alternate facts, Kellyanne Conway.

[Becky Quick]

Okay, if you ask two of them what the 1929 coverage was for the Philadelphia Phillies.

[Joe Kernen]

What year?

[Becky Quick]

1929.

[Joe Kernen]

You are so nice.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Thanks. Can you believe that? She's running an ad for me. She's running an ad for me.

[Becky Quick]

Thank you.

[Joe Kernen]

No, but with all of them, I've said.

[Brian Chesky]

Are you sure?

[Joe Kernen]

You need to check. Oh, yeah, you're right. Sorry. They will cop to it and not even apologize.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Mine apologizes to me all the time. I'm sorry, I got that wrong.

[Becky Quick]

Well, that's because you don't yell at it. Joe calls it an idiot. No, literally, he calls it.

[Joe Kernen]

No, it says I violate all the. You're not supposed to. Because they have feelings too, apparently. Yeah.

[Becky Quick]

The big news yesterday was what was happening with the commodities, the precious metals in particular. Gold, down nearly 6% yesterday. I think it was 5 and 3/4%. That was its worst day since June of 2013. So a dozen years since it's seen a drop like that, it's indicated down a little bit weaker once again this morning, down to 4,079. But if you look at the drop yesterday, it really just put it back to where it was earlier this month because gold has had such a tear to the upside. The weird thing was there was no real news that premeditated any of this. It was just kind of moving on sentiment or something else. A lot of people viewing this drop as a long overdue pullback for gold. It has run up 20% just in the last two months, and it's still up by about 55% this year. Silver had a big drop, too. It was down by even more, I think. Silver fell 7.1%. It settled at 4,704. That was its worst daily performance since just April 4th of this year. And then if you're looking at crypto prices as well, it looks like Bitcoin right now is off by about 3 1/2% to 108,000 now.

[Joe Kernen]

It's correlated, right?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Well, what is it correlated to now?

[Joe Kernen]

It's correlated.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Right.

[Becky Quick]

Crude oil prices at this point, if you take a look at things, you'll see they're up by about 1.3%, sitting right at $58 a barrel for WTI. President Trump saying that India's prime minister has assured him that the country will ease purchases of Russian crude oil. Probably good news just in terms of what we're trying to do on a defense perspective on defense of Ukraine, but not necessarily great news for the world oil market because obviously oil is fungible. Also, the Energy Department announcing plans to buy a million barrels of oil to start refilling the nation's emergency supply of crude. Good news at these low levels.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Let's talk about Netflix. Joe mentioned that at the top, Netflix missing third quarter profit estimates, citing an ongoing dispute with Brazilian tax authorities. Now, revenue matched expectations rising 17% in the quarter, in line with estimates that was driven by membership growth, pricing adjustments and what the company said was its best ever quarter for ad sales. Netflix's full year revenue growth estimate of 16% was in line with previous expectations. Now Netflix reduced its full year forecast for operating margin to 29%. That had been at 30% prior to that. Now, the company still riding, of course, the success of June's release of K Pop Demon Hunters, its fourth quarter content slate expected to include the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, a new season of the Diplomat, and Frankenstein is going to be Guillermo del Toro, which I saw. You've seen it?

[Joe Kernen]

I did.

[Becky Quick]

Do you like it?

[Joe Kernen]

It was long. I like the guy who played Frankenstein.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I don't know why they did not cite my favorite one though. Black Rabbit. Oh, God, I thought it was so awesome.

[Joe Kernen]

You watched the final.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I have not watched the final episode. Don't tell me what happens.

[Joe Kernen]

I don't know.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So I saw it all.

[Joe Kernen]

No, it's really.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Oh, you shouldn't. With Jude Law.

[Joe Kernen]

Jude Law. Yeah, but it's. It's.

[Becky Quick]

You're baiting him.

[Joe Kernen]

You gotta suspend. Yeah, you gotta just suspend all disbelief. No one could be that stupid as Jason Bateman and do so many stupid things over and over and over again.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

He's an actor. The character. Oh, yeah.

[Joe Kernen]

Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. I'll give you that. Because he's stupid in real life too. Although his sister is really smart. Texas Instruments. Yeah.

[Becky Quick]

The view through the political prism.

[Joe Kernen]

Exactly.

[Becky Quick]

Is that where we're going?

[Joe Kernen]

Texas Instruments shares down sharply. The company forecasting fourth quarter profit and revenue below Wall street estimates. A lack of clarity over semiconductor tariffs plaguing the sector. TI's CEO says when he speaks with industrial customers about investing in building, there's a bit of what he called a wait and see Mode. And that stock down about 8%.

[Becky Quick]

Mattel missing third quarter profit and revenue expectations as tariffs continue to dent the company's North American sales. About half of Mattel's toy sales come from the United States. The company says that North American revenue fell by 12% in the third quarter. Global Barbie sales were down 17% year over year. Fisher price sales were down 19%. Mattel issued full year guidance after pulling targets back in May. Those new projections call for yearly net sales to increase between 1 and 3%. Earlier in the day, Mattel, Hasbro and Netflix announced that they were partnering to bring toys from the smash hit K Pop Demon Hunters to store shelves. Didn't help. Mattel shares that news that they gave us about the guidance, down by 5.6%. And remember, guys, when people were worried about the tariffs and what they would mean, toys were one of the often cited areas that they talked about. And remember, the president at that point said, well, maybe people have to go with one less Barbie doll at Christmas time.

[Joe Kernen]

And you said, Netflix, of course, on the K Pop phenomenon. I had no idea.

[Becky Quick]

The K Pop Demon thing, that was huge.

[Brian Chesky]

Yeah, it was a big deal.

[Joe Kernen]

I know. I don't. You haven't seen it.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I didn't watch it, but I know of it.

[Becky Quick]

Nobody in my house is watching it, but I do know what it is.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It was everywhere.

[Joe Kernen]

How strange can things get two. Five seasons of that? I mean, I saw the first one.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I think, but the first season of.

[Becky Quick]

K Pop Demon Hunter?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

No. Stranger Things.

[Brian Chesky]

Stranger Things.

[Joe Kernen]

How strange.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Five seasons later? How strange.

[Joe Kernen]

I mean, that's pretty strange. You're out. Yeah, you did. Things were very strange in the first season.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah.

[Joe Kernen]

They got stranger in the second season.

[Becky Quick]

I didn't see the continuation.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We got. Let me tell you something that's even stranger. Can I tell you something that's even stranger?

[Joe Kernen]

Meta.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah.

[Joe Kernen]

That's your segue.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah, I'm trying here. I'm trying. This is strange and interesting and all sorts of things. Meta. Forming a 2016 billion joint venture agreement with Blue Owl Capital to fund and develop the social media companies Hyperion Data center in rural Louisiana. Now, Blue Owl is going to own 80% of that venture. Metal will own the rest and oversee construction. It's slated to be completed in 2030. It's being built on a site, it's roughly 1700 football fields big. It's kind of remarkable. Local utility energy company telling CNBC earlier this year that the data center could consume about twice as much electricity as the city of New Orleans on a peak day. Now, what's interesting to me about this is so Blue Owl is effectively in the private credit space we always talk about, sort of, where's private credit? Is this leveraged? You know, is the world of AI leveraged? Well, yes, it is. That's what it is. But it's interesting. It's getting now moved off the balance sheet to some degree of these tech companies as they try to form these partnerships to find people who will help them pay for these things.

[Joe Kernen]

I mean, I'm trying to. We just can't get our head around 1700 football fields, I don't think.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Or the electricity piece. I mean, it's the electricity, by the way.

[Joe Kernen]

I don't know if you know how big that is. Are you just going to gloss over that? What is 1700 football fields? What's 100 football fields look like?

[Becky Quick]

Is it bigger than Manhattan?

[Joe Kernen]

Bigger than Breadbasket?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It might be bigger than Manhattan. I think when they announced this, it was an unbelievable thing. But I was going to say there's a number of these, there's a number of these data centers that Google and Microsoft and others have tried to open or at least talked about opening places and they've effectively shut them down or stopped doing them because the communities don't want them and their communities don't want them because they think their electricity prices are going to go up, which they are.

[Joe Kernen]

Yeah.

[Becky Quick]

When I asked them 1700 football fields, how big is that? And they said it's approximately the size of a complex like the one being built by Meta in Louisiana. So thank you for the comparison.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Thank you for.

[Joe Kernen]

That's where they got the seven they looked up.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

But think about that. People are worried about AI taking their job and now they're going to start worrying about them taking their electric, taking their electricity. So I, you know, there's going to be a whole sort of political and policy implication of just how quickly this.

[Becky Quick]

Gets as prices have gone up. And there was a Bloomberg report just in the last month or so that said that for consumers that live near these data centers, their electricity prices have gone up by 2.7% times versus over the last like five years since these things have been built. So the increases that they've already seen and you talk to the electricity guys, they'll tell you there it is.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It is, it is a large chunk of it. Large chunk of it.

[Becky Quick]

We talk about this on Squawk on the street all the time. They've got this map that they've been using for a while over it. So that's how big. Like Central Park. Think about the immensity of Central park and then look how this.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

But all of these governors who are begging these companies to come to their states, I think in five years from now they're going to be wishing the governors may not be there.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah, the governors may not be in charge anymore. Anymore. You need maybe some longer term thinking. But it is interesting what it could mean for the political calculus at that point and the pushback if consumers feel like they are getting the short end of the Stick on this.

[Joe Kernen]

How big is the.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

The biggest.

[Joe Kernen]

When you're dealing with the biggest solar field. How many acres?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I don't know. We'll. We'll ask chatbots that too. And then be needed for. Yeah, we can just ask at things.

[Joe Kernen]

Yeah. And windfields. I mean, I see wind farms, you see those take up a lot of space as well. I mean, I'm still impressed by Amazon. Like data centers. When you're driving along. See those?

[Becky Quick]

The largest solar power plant in the world is in China. Covers 235 square miles.

[Joe Kernen]

That's big.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah.

[Joe Kernen]

That's bigger than 1700 football fields. Much. Some cautionary news about the reliability of AI. New research shows that leading assistants misrepresent news content in about half their responses. Not to worry, though. That's according to the European Broadcasting Union and the BBC. Researchers studied AI assistance, including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google's Gemini for accuracy sourcing and the ability to distinguish opinion versus fact. And 45% of the responses had at least one significant issue. Sourcing was a major problem for Gemini. Overall, issues of accuracy were found in 20% of responses from all assistants. So I don't know. In the news business, it's even worse if you rely on something that would be a problem.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

That would be a problem.

[Joe Kernen]

And I said, anecdotally, I knew this was true because I've gotten answers that I know are not right. And then I say, are you sure? And they go, oh, you know, I wasn't sure. I've actually looked a little more closely and it's the opposite of what I told you.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

It's a little human. A little human maybe for you.

[Joe Kernen]

And after all that, the answers are wrong half the time. Hey, I got this new drug I designed for you. This is going to be awesome for you. Oh, sorry, that was for some other disease. This is going to kill you. I mean, we got to get this together quickly. Can we. It's not six sigma. 30% is not six sigma.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I'm not as nervous.

[Joe Kernen]

Six sigma is one.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I'm not as nervous about that piece of it as you are.

[Joe Kernen]

Really? Okay. Why?

[Becky Quick]

Because of the language models for the. For the censorship of the humans are.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Going to be involved in this.

[Joe Kernen]

Oh, good.

[Becky Quick]

Well, look, I do think that the large language models have. You're going to have more. You're going to have small language models that are more destined to do jobs just like that for the, for the science applications on some of these things too. That's not going to take a broad vacuum of every Bit of information that it can Grok.

[Joe Kernen]

The other day, so I argue with people on Twitter. So, you know, someone say, oh, I.

[Brian Chesky]

Hope you like your tax cuts, fat boy.

[Joe Kernen]

You know, and it's like, my tax cuts. My taxes soared under Trump under that. And you know, I say. And I said to Grok, figure this out. Here's. Here's X. What happened to those tax. And I was amazed. It took them like 10 minutes. But the assumptions and the research figured out everything that they. That they did, they put. I don't know why they put property taxes in there, but all they need. It was much, much easier.

[Becky Quick]

Taxes are no longer. If you have.

[Joe Kernen]

Right, right. Amt they had to do all that, but just to prove to some schmo that that's obviously not why. Or else I would be. I'd be a huge Kamala bro if it was based on my own situation. Is Grok better Sorkin than some of the others? Or could they all have done that? Would I have gotten a similar answer?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I like Grok for news.

[Joe Kernen]

Grok for news.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah, because it's. The Twitter feed is part of.

[Joe Kernen]

So you use. How many are you using now? I've got three. I've got too many.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Anthropic. Anthropic.

[Joe Kernen]

Use Anthropic. Anthropic. Yeah.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Claude.

[Joe Kernen]

Yeah. Okay. I only got chatgpt, Perplexity and grog.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I know we're going off piste and off topic. You want to hear just. Very funny.

[Joe Kernen]

Yeah, I do.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

I was talking to a lawyer the other day.

[Joe Kernen]

Show off topic.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

No, I was talking to a lawyer the other day who was telling me that they had, like, marked up a contract or something, and then they got an email back from somebody else who said, well, here are the changes from Claude. And he writes back.

[Becky Quick]

Who's Claude?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Who's Claude? Did we hire. Is there a new associate named Claude? Yeah, and of course it was. Yeah, Yeah. I thought that was kind of funny. And it wasn't a joke.

[Joe Kernen]

So you need a lawyer. What for, Andrew? What happened?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

No, I don't need a lawyer.

[Joe Kernen]

You said you were talking to a lawyer the other day.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah, yeah, no, I was talking to a. Oh, no, no. I. I actually went and spoke about the book to a whole group of lawyers.

[Joe Kernen]

Yeah. Not like motor vehicle something.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

No, no, no.

[Joe Kernen]

Lawsuit.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

No, not plagiarism. Not yet. Not yet. Thanks.

[Joe Kernen]

Yeah, exactly. When you need a lawyer. Yeah, when you need one.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah.

[Joe Kernen]

It's good to have a good one. That's all.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Better Call Saul.

[Joe Kernen]

Better Call.

[Brian Chesky]

Cheese will be next.

[Katie Kramer]

Coming up next on Squawk Pod, the NHL goes where no major sports league has gone before, a deal with prediction markets Kalshee and polymarket. What happens to sports markets books like FanDuel and DraftKings now that the majority of volume on these prediction sites is sports? Kalshi CEO and co founder Tarek Mansoor discusses it all.

[Tariq Mansour]

I think there is seasonality to prediction markets. So last year at the end of the year, you know, our most popular category was elections. Mid this year we had a lot of volume around when there's a lot of market volatility, financials and economics. And now we're seeing a lot of volume around sports.

[Katie Kramer]

We'll be right back.

[Podcast Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] MarketUpdatePodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you.

[Becky Quick]

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[Katie Kramer]

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[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

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[Joe Kernen]

There's a cleaner in there inside the pad.

[Becky Quick]

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[Joe Kernen]

To get into the toilet revolution. Clorox.

[Katie Kramer]

Use as directed. This is Squawk Pod from cnbc. Here's Becky Quick.

[Becky Quick]

The NHL striking an official partnership deal with Kalshee and polymarket. This is the first major sports league to partner with the prediction market. And joining us right now to talk about it is Tarek Mansour, who is the CEO and co founder of Kalshi and Tarek. Thank you for joining us this morning. This is a big deal. It's the first of the major sports leagues to actually sign a deal, sign a partnership like this. And I guess I wonder, how did this come about?

[Tariq Mansour]

Well, I totally agree. You know, this is a big deal, A big four league like the NHL signing a partnership with Kalshi is a testament, I think, to our market leadership, our astronomical growth this year, and I would say, the golden standard of market integrity and customer protection that we have established over the last few years. So, you know, it is, I think it's a seminal moment for prediction markets and Kalshi, because, you know, a league like the NHL partnering with us is a strong sign that prediction markets are here to stay.

[Becky Quick]

There are already people looking at this. The Wall Street Journal wrote this up and suggested that this is a real assault on the sports books like FanDuel and DraftKings. Do you see it the same way?

[Tariq Mansour]

I don't really think about that in that way. I mean, look, I think there is a business model disruption here. And we've seen it with, for example, Airbnb and hotels. We've seen it with Uber and taxis. And so when there is fundamental technological disruption, technology that transforms an industry, I mean, there are sometimes critics or dissidents that come about, and that's part of the course. What we're really focused on is building really good product, building it fast, and improve the market diversity for our customers, which, you know, we're leading on all three, and we're going to work hard to keep. Keep doing that.

[Becky Quick]

There have been challenges because while the sports books are not allowed throughout the nation, you all are being offered right now, everywhere in America. There are 30 sports contracts in all 50 states, even those that restrict standard sports books. And there have been some lawsuits that have come from this, an outcry from the gambling industry groups, legal challenges coming from state regulators, and some senators who are taking up against this as well. How assured are you that this can continue in all 50 of those states?

[Tariq Mansour]

We are very confident in our regulated structure and our regulated setup. You know, we've worked for years with the CFC to regulate prediction markets and, you know, develop a framework for customer protection.

[Becky Quick]

This idea that on a federal basis, it has been legalized by the cftc, but there, there isn't. That's not to say that there aren't politics there. If there was a change at the CFTC that could make it more complicated. How confident are you that this can remain something that you can legally do throughout the country?

[Tariq Mansour]

Yeah, you know, we are confident and comfortable with that regulatory setup. So we spent years Working with the federal government to regulate prediction markets. And, you know, when we think about the announcement today, you know, the NHL deal is really about that. It's essentially a validation of the fact that we have established the right set of customer protection and the right set of market integrity measures to protect our markets, but also the game, you know, to enable this product to thrive in all 50 states. And that's why we're seeing the sort of type of customer growth that we're seeing on Kalshi. And, you know, today we're at a billion dollars of monthly transaction volume. And so we're excited to see that keep growing.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah, it's been growing rapidly. In fact, calcium polymarkets on notional trading volume rise above $2 billion for the first time last week. In the week that ended last week, most of your most popular trading categories at this point point are sports. Correct? Back in 2024, it was mostly politics. Now in 2025, the last list I saw has something like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I think eight of the top 10 are sports categories, led by the NFL and then secondarily NCAA football.

[Tariq Mansour]

Look, I mean, I think there is seasonality to prediction markets. So last year at the end of the year, you know, our most popular category was elections. You know, mid this year, we had a lot of volume around when there's a lot of market volatility, financials and economics. And now we're seeing a lot of volume around sports. It really depends on what's top of mind and what's trending in people's mind and what people have opinions about or what people want to hedge. Actually, this last week we've seen quite a bit of volume on sports. And you may have seen the announcement from underdog, who is going to be hedging some of their positions. So leading sportsbook hedging, laying off risk on Kalshi, which is very much the purpose of these markets. But we're also seeing a rise in volume and things around policy. For example, the government shutdown, where we see startups such as arrived homes also hedging some of their risk on government shutdown.

[Becky Quick]

And what is the latest on the government shutdown? What does the prediction market tell you in terms of when this might end?

[Tariq Mansour]

So we're forecasting 41.5 days. So 42 days for the government shutdown, which would make it the longest in history.

[Becky Quick]

Wow. Tarek, I have to ask you, if the NHL is doing this and this deal has been out there, I assume you're in talks with some of the other major sports leagues as well. Is that a correct assumption?

[Tariq Mansour]

It is a correct assumption. I think, you know what we have done here and this is what's most important. We have set up a framework for us to collaborate with a big four league like the NHL and really they're kind of taking a market leadership position here and how we develop data sharing to combat fraud to ensure customer protection and to preserve market integrity. And I think that same framework that Kalshi has developed with the NHL can be replicated across the other leagues. So be on the lookout for more announcements soon.

[Becky Quick]

And you're paying a licensing fee. Will you tell us what that licensing fee is?

[Tariq Mansour]

We're not sharing specifics of the deal, but really what we're getting out of this is a little bit of a makeover on the product. So if customers log on to Kashi today, what they'll see is we're using the marks so the product looks a little bit more beautiful than it looked yesterday. And we're very excited about that. And what the NHL is getting is our whole suite of customer protection market integrity measures that will help them preserve the important integrity of their game.

[Becky Quick]

Tarek, I want to thank you for joining us this morning. We appreciate your time.

[Tariq Mansour]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Katie Kramer]

Next on Squawkpod, Airbnb B changed the way we travel. How its new products change our experiences when we go around the world. Well, some of us anyway.

[Joe Kernen]

Is there a feature where I can guarantee I won't meet anyone?

[Brian Chesky]

Services you can have all to yourself?

[Katie Kramer]

Squawkpod is back right after this.

[Podcast Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information packed daily market Preview delivered in 10 minutes or including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] MarketUpdatePodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brian Chesky]

And now a next level moment from ATT Business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment.

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[Brian Chesky]

There in time for International Sleep day. You've got AT and T5G so you're fully confident, but the vendor isn't responding. And International Sleep Day is tomorrow. Luckily, AT&T 5G lets you deal with.

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AT&T 5G requires a compatible plan and.

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Device coverage not available everywhere.

[Brian Chesky]

Learn [e-mail] 5G Network.

[Katie Kramer]

You're listening to Squawk Pod with Joe, Becky and Andrew up in Andrew.

[Joe Kernen]

Q.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Welcome back to Squawkbox. Airbnb rolling out a series of product updates, including some new social features and expansions to its AI powered customer service tools. We got a lot to talk about. First right here on CNBC is Brian Chesky, Airbnb co founder and CEO. It's great to have.

[Brian Chesky]

Thank you very much.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Let's talk first about some of, some of the new products that you're rolling out, what this all means. We talked when you first announced this sort of revamp of the app.

[Brian Chesky]

Yeah. So last May, we completely reimagined Airbnb. We imagined, what if you can Airbnb more than Airbnb. We launched services, we launched experiences. And since then, we've been hard at work. We had 65 upgrades, and we launched three things or three big ones. Number one, people are telling us when they go on Airbnb experiences, they want to meet other people. And so we thought, what if we built features for people to see who's going. You can keep in touch after and you can message them. So now experiences are much more social. We made it much easier to find Airbnbs. We've completely revamped our maps. And then finally, with AI, we have AI customer service. Now. You can have your problem answered in, like, six seconds. This is really, really hard to solve, AI for customer service. So the team worked really hard on this.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

How much are people using some of these new services in terms of, I remember, you know, trying to find somebody who will either cut your hair or do something for you or get your makeup or all of those kinds of kind of things.

[Brian Chesky]

One of the things we learned is you still got to go city by city. Airbnb started in here in New York City. I know Uber, when they launch, they launch city by city. So we're really focused on a couple cities. Paris, Louisiana. And it's really, really starting to take off. So I think in the next year, you're going to see a lot of traction with these products. There's no Amazon for services. People say Amazon's the everything store. It's actually the everything in a cardboard box store. And so we think there's a service platform that can be really big. And experiences, we think that could be a multibillion dollar.

[Joe Kernen]

Is there a feature where I can guarantee I won't meet anyone?

[Brian Chesky]

Services you can have all to yourself?

[Joe Kernen]

You can.

[Brian Chesky]

Every service is totally.

[Joe Kernen]

You can prevent me from me.

[Brian Chesky]

Exactly. Yes.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We have first happened, I think you and I had a conversation about whether people would use it to find somebody great.

[Becky Quick]

Yeah.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

And then go off and try to create a sort of a third party, one on one relationship with them.

[Brian Chesky]

Yeah. That can happen in marketplaces because we're travel and the demand and supply come from different cities and they don't usually go to the same place. Again this not as frequent, but yes. Any recovery recurring service in this, a local market. What happened?

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Tell me about the AI piece of this right now because.

[Brian Chesky]

Yeah, so we.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

That's the conversation everybody's having.

[Tariq Mansour]

Yeah.

[Brian Chesky]

I mean obviously we're pretty, pretty knee deep in AI and we're not deep in the research level. We're deep in application layer. And so basically customer service is one of the best uses of AI. Now a lot of people like with AI, they start with agents and one of the most common ideas is a travel agent. We thought instead of helping you plan, let's do the hardest problem. I'm locked out. I have a problem. I need to alter my reservation. I feel unsafe like the hardest problems. So we use 13 different models trained on tens of thousands of conversations. Our customer service agent has handled over 100,000 conversations. It's reduced the need to contact an agent by 15%. So now we're rolling it out globally. Our agent is more personalized. We developed a custom interface where it's user. Like a user interface with, where it can take actions for you. So it's really useful.

[Becky Quick]

I will say the first thing I ask whenever I get on one of these chat situations is am I talking to a real person?

[Brian Chesky]

Yes.

[Becky Quick]

Do you answer honestly when?

[Brian Chesky]

Yeah, yeah, we are very clear about when you're talking to an AI agent.

[Becky Quick]

If I want customer service, I basically want.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Yeah.

[Brian Chesky]

And we can, you can go right to a person very quickly and the AI is really good at escalating you to the right person very quickly as well.

[Becky Quick]

Okay.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Okay, so here's one for you. You have not integrated with your pal Sam Altman's chatgpt, so why not?

[Brian Chesky]

Funny enough, I was talking about this idea and we talked about integrating different applications. I said if you want to do this, you need the SDK software developer kit and the iPhone. They developed a great software developer kit. I said, we don't all want to just be data layers. We want to be able to have robust services. So I'm very close to Sam. I talked to him. I was aware of the development of this product and we'd love to be a part of it. The SDK wasn't Quite. Quite robust enough for the things we want to do. When you join Airbnb, it's not a commodity, it's a community. And they got to develop the SDK a lot more.

[Becky Quick]

What does that mean? It has to give you more control over.

[Brian Chesky]

Yeah, like when you go to the iPhone, they have this really robust software developer kit and you can basically create whatever user interface you want. It's really robust right now. It's like these little modules and I think it would be a little bit. It just needs to be a little bit more robust.

[Becky Quick]

Is that because you want to maintain control of your community and not basically share that with anybody else? You'll use their stuff, but.

[Brian Chesky]

Well, that's a separate topic. That's a separate topic. And we. That's a business decision of just kind of like, do we want to put our inventory on Google? But then does Google dismediate us? And we chose not to put our inventory on Google Search to make it indexable, you know, like through, like the hotel finder. We didn't put it there, but we do. We do pay for SEM. So it's. That's a business question. I think we would probably want to be a part of. Of ChatGPT and other platforms, but you just want to make sure. It's almost like you go to a retail store and there's a brand, the retail store. You want to make sure you're not just a product and aisle. You have your own little.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

That's. I was going to ask. So, you know, ChatGPT just came out with a new browser. Yeah. I don't know if you've been playing with it. I've been playing with in just the last 24 hours. It's fascinating, but it could have. Ultimately, I would think it could disintermediate yourself because it's seeing all the things you're browsing on.

[Brian Chesky]

So I'll tell you. I'll tell you what I'm saying.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

At some point you're going to hit the chat and you may never even go to the.

[Brian Chesky]

Yeah, that's a couple things to say. Number one, one company can't just run the global economy. That's just not going to happen. And so the idea that like, one Chatbot, one company is going to do everything. Well, let me ask you a question. How come Apple didn't create every app in the App Store? Because one company just can't create Airbnb and Uber and Spotify. There's a lot to build, a lot to do. We're going to and if one company did create everything, you're introducing a huge amount of bureaucracy, privacy. So we're all going to have to work together. I think is going to lift up a lot of companies and so they can be distribution. But if they want to vertically integrate every single thing, it's going to be very, very difficult. So I don't think it's going to.

[Becky Quick]

Draw the attention of regulator.

[Brian Chesky]

Yeah. Beyond the fact that probably regulators don't want one company to own everything. But again, I think we're at the very beginning. We're also in this period where if you go to the top 50 apps in the App Store, number one is Sora, number two is ChatGPT, number three is Gemini. Those three apps are AI apps. Imagine AIs like electricity. Those companies got this magical new technology. They're electrified. Apps 4 through 50 don't yet have it. Over the next three years, you're going to see everyone having it and everyone's going to have access to basically the same models because they're all available via API. So suddenly the playing field will start to get a little more leveled. And over the next three years, you're going to see a lot of consumer apps. Right now it's like a gold rush. Intelligence is the gold and everyone's just making picks and shovels. I'm on the board of Y Combinator. Almost every startups an enterprise company, there's not a lot of consumer companies yet. Daily AI doesn't change the world until it changes the daily life of regular people. And that doesn't happen until most consumer apps are AI.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Okay, so what about the economics of all this? So one of the news stories we've been talking about this morning is Meta is building this $27 billion data center down in Louisiana. They have effectively partnered now with a private credit firm called Blue Owl to try to offset some of the risk for them. They take sort of these short term, four year leases. They guarantee some of it, I think over 16 years. But this is the future of how these things are going to finance. But there's also a lot of leverage in that. Do you think the economics of this makes sense? Is there an ROI that you think you could that people in the valley can point to, or is this a religion?

[Brian Chesky]

I would say this. Will this technology generate trillions of dollars? Returns 100% it will. There's no question. I'm looking at how daily life is going to clearly change. The more money everyone raises, the sooner they're pulling that timeline up. And it's not going to pay back in just a few years. And the challenge with some of this infrastructure investment is the GPUs depreciate. So the GPUs depreciate. You need to have a payback within that depreciation window. And I think that's that we're pulling the windows up faster the more money we invest. So I think we need to be careful about like excitement turning to euphoria turning into mania. So I think if it's excitement, we should be, we should be feeling good.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Where are we in that?

[Brian Chesky]

We're, we're leaving excitement. We might have left excitement.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

While we have you here, can you tell us about, you know, what's going on just in the travel business, YOLO economy?

[Brian Chesky]

Yeah, I think, I think, you know, it's funny for all the tariffs, for all the instability in the world, people still travel and you know, a few basis points here and there, currency exchanges change it. I've been shocked the last six years with the pandemic with like wars with massive change. Like travel's been pretty stable. It's one of the things people don't want to give up now. Travel changes when the economy changes. People maybe don't do that international trip, but they get in a car and they just still travel.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

So. But are you seeing either international trips change? I remember, I think you were one of the first people who were saying there were people who had changed like, like where they were going. But that's where they're going the days they were going. Yeah, people were leaving places on Thursdays, coming back on Monday nights because they didn't have to go to, they didn't have to go to the office.

[Joe Kernen]

Yeah.

[Brian Chesky]

A lot of people like over Thanksgiving people used to go away on like a Wednesday, come back on a Monday and now they'll go away on that previous Monday. They'll like, they'll, they'll make longer trips. People are doing more near term destinations. You know, Europe is doing really well over the summer. So, but, but it's, it's trips are longer. People are traveling more with other people and they're, they're traveling more nearby as well.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Brian Chesky, thank you.

[Brian Chesky]

Thank you very much.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

Really, really interesting. Always, always, always. Thanks for coming in.

[Brian Chesky]

Thank you.

[Katie Kramer]

That is Squawk pod for today. Thanks. Thanks as always for listening. I've been off for a few days. It is so great to be back here with you on the pod. Squawkbox is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern. Get the best of our TV show, the latest headlines and newsmaking interviews right into your ears when you follow Squawk Pod wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow.

[Andrew Ross Sorkin]

We are clear.

[Joe Kernen]

Thanks, guys.

[Podcast Announcer]

Cnbc, Sport on the Record, your front row seat to sports and business. From commissioners and owners to media executives and top athletes.

[Joe Kernen]

These are Rembrandts. I'm telling you.

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