Are We Screwed If AI Works? — With Andrew Ross Sorkin

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2026-03-18

YouTube video id: k6bbGt6lSFM

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6bbGt6lSFM

Could AI cause a market crash by [music]
working too well? Let's talk about it
with Andrew Rosorin of CNBC and the
[music] New York Times and the author of
the bestselling book 1929 who's here
with us in studio [music] today. Andrew,
great to see you.
>> Thank you for having me for the show.
Thanks for being here. Really appreciate
it. So the book comes out about four
months ago and I think it's great that
we're speaking now because the worry
that you had brought up in the beginning
and obviously it's all about the
depression and the market crash and the
worry that you had brought up was look
we have 700 billion in capital
expenditures going towards AI companies
and this could all go bust and that
could cause a cascading market crash.
But actually what we're starting to
worry about is the opposite which is
that what happens if it works will work.
Um, and right now we we've had we're in
a moment where last month software
stocks lost a trillion dollars in market
cap because there was this fear that AI
could just displace them and it was
moving at a pace that they wouldn't be
able to recover from. Is there a worry
that we'll have our own type of market
crash but just a completely different
way and that is that AI works and
everybody is disrupted. You know, so I'm
often asked um you know, is there a way
a modern-day way to get to 1929? And
what people are really asking is, is
there a modern day way to get to 1932,
which is 25% unemployment in America?
And I always think the answer is
actually less of a market crash and more
AI. Meaning if you if you ever wanted to
think about what would this country look
like with 25% unemployment, how would
you get there? And I think the answer is
potentially if AI is as successful as I
think we all hopefully wanted to be to
the extent you believe these valuations
are real. All of the math behind it, the
only way that really works to some
degree is to create extraordinary
productivity. And what does productivity
mean? Well, it means a lot of growth at
a lot less cost. How do you take out
that cost? Well, we're both looking at
each other and that's pretty much we are
the cost.
>> Yeah. I mean, the robot employee is
going to be a thing. It'll definitely be
a thing.
>> It's going to be a thing. My kids talk
about it being a thing. I've got
15-year-old boys and we talk about what
they're going to do, but then we talk
about like literally are are we going to
have a robot in our house in 5 years
from now? And what are all the things
that the robot's going to do?
>> Physical robot. might be a little bit
longer, but will you for maybe it's a
decade from now.
>> Will you have a handful of AI assistants
working for you in your various
capacities and at the times at CNBC?
That I I'm sure will happen. But but
here's I'm a little bit surprised to
hear you open to the possibility that
it's going to cause mass unemployment.
[snorts] Um, and and actually we should
talk about the percentage chance that
you think that it could happen, but I am
skeptical and I I'm I'm willing to
change my mind about this, but I'm
skeptical that it's going to cause this
wave of mass unemployment. Maybe it will
in the in the near term, but for
something to be if it does live up to
the dreams that the AI makers have and
it's something as as capable as being
able to do the jobs of let's say 20% of
the workforce, wouldn't you anticipate a
production boom that would come along
with that and help grow the economy in a
way that leads to more things for people
to do?
>> So that to me is the question. It's not
is there more things to do, it's who's
going to have the money to do those
things. So when I think about all of the
young people, and by the way, I don't
think that we have to have mass
unemployment forever either. I think
it's possible that there could be a
painful transition period. And
historically, by the way, when we've
gone through these technological
revolutions, there have been painful
transition periods. And so if you're a
young person today doing the job that
frankly increasingly it appears that a
claude or or chatgpt could even do
whether it's research or putting
together a model or uh being a
parallegal or name your role. You say to
yourself, okay, if you're running one of
these firms that historically hired kids
out of college to do that, are you going
to still hire those kids to do that? Is
there a higher order kind of work that
they can do for you now that you can get
this work done by the AI? I mean, I
think these are the real questions. And
then there's going to be an economic
one, which is, you know, tokens are not
free. AI is not free, but how much
cheaper is it ultimately going to be
than a human? And when you look at the
statistics though, it's very interesting
because software engineers, they're the
ones who all the tokens are being spent
on to do software engineering work to
build websites and applications and and
code. AI is more sophisticated uh in
coding than anything else. But we're
definitely not seeing a wave of layoffs
of software engineers now. And you could
you could sit back and watch these
things code for 24 hours at at a level
of competency as a software engineer and
they're being hired. The the job levels
the job numbers of software developers
on Indeed are going up. You don't think
that in 2 years from now just in terms
of just the magnitude step change in
terms of how good the technology is
going to be that it's not going to get
that much better. I agree. If you just
if if if this is the level,
I I'll bet with you.
>> But if you if you believe in the
technology improving, which invariably
it has to. And by the way, if it
doesn't, then we're in a whole other
different world. Then we're not talking
about what happens in success. We're
talking about what happens in failure
because then then we really will have a
bubble. But if it doesn't improve the
way I think the model makers, by the
way, policy makers, investors wanted to,
I just don't see how we're going to be
sitting around um
doing our own programming. I I just
don't see it. By the way, I I write my
own articles today. I uh wrote this book
without AI. AI was AI was uh was too
late for me. it this took eight years
unfortunately
but 5 years from now do you really think
that people are going to write books
even by themselves I assume you would be
co-authoring a book uh with with AI I
imagine people will be writing articles
at minimum with AI if AI is not doing it
in entirely in which case then there's a
question about sort of what is the role
of the human in all of this
>> so my push back would be on the on the
idea of mass unemployment I definitely
think there will be disruption and I'm
open to the possibility that it will be
what you say. I don't I don't think you
can completely discount it. I I think in
this discussion though and I'm curious
what you think about this. The it's
almost been fully weighed to the we're
going to have mass job loss because we
can see what this technology can do. We
can see its pace of improvement. Um I
think in the public discussion like you
probably remember this Catrini letter a
couple weeks ago where they believed
that okay AI is going to be able to take
over work and then you'll have this
cascading collapse. The thing that I
wonder about is whether the economy
whether businesses in the economy will
be content with what they're doing today
because you'll have the capability
increase uh you know in terms of work
but that also increases the capability
increases of a company and whether
they'll be satisfied with what they're
doing today or then just go after their
roadmap in a way they've never been able
to before because they've been
constrained on labor. But that that
generally assumes that then you have to
be able to massively upsize the size of
the pie. Right? This is this is growth
for everybody. Not just do I think that
companies are going to say I can be in
that business. I can go after that guy.
Yes. But there is
some of this is a zero- sum game. It is
not like that the pie can just grow
exponentially. I know there are people
who believe that it could, but
invariably it at least historically
hasn't. There are sort of upper limits
to even what growth could ultimately
even look like. So yes, I I imagine
there'll be people who will do even
more. But I would also say, you know, I
walked in here and I I called Alex. I
said, uh I think I described you as a
what's it like to be a an an independent
media titan, right, in this in this role
that you're in? and you've got a sort of
satellite group of people who you use
and work around you and things like this
and maybe over time you'd hire some more
people here and there but maybe you
wouldn't in the future and maybe you
know the sort of network that you'll
have will be your agents that will do
this for you. Well, if you don't have
those people doing that work for you, uh
what are those people doing? Um I've
told this story before. I myself am a
little bit of a small business. As I was
pro promoting my book, I ended up having
to hire a couple different people,
social media people, this and that and
the other thing. And I was sent a
contract
uh which I needed to fill out. And
typically, I would have sent it off to a
lawyer who would have charged me, I
don't know, [clears throat] a couple
hundred, maybe $1,000. And what did I
do? I took the contract. I put it in his
chat GPT. I said, "Tell me everything
that that's good and bad in this
contract.
It spotted the things that I already saw
and spotted some others. It then says,
"Do you want me to, you know, redline
the contract and um, you know, mark it
up?" I say, "Sure." It then says, "Would
you like me to write a um a cover letter
back?" I say, "Sure." I make some
changes to it. I make sure it hasn't
hallucinated and it's off. But it means
that if every other small business
owner, if you will, operated the way I
did in that moment, all of the lawyers
who do business for small businesses for
things that are not that complicated.
And this these were, you know, there was
very little at stake in this in this
context. But I think that people
wouldn't probably use lawyers for those
things. Now then you say well maybe then
the lawyers are going to have to figure
out you know can they be doing work
that's even higher grade work. What is
that higher grade work? We already have
that higher grade work. It's what big
corporations look at look to them to do
for mergers and acquisitions and other
and other things. But this the small
business lawyer typically hasn't been
doing that work in the past. Well, it's
a worthwhile debate and I think the
answer goes to the question that you
asked in the beginning which is well is
there going to be a limit on growth and
the argument this go back well actually
I'd be curious to hear where where you
believe the limits are because I don't
think it's exponential but I think it
can grow I think
>> if you were to take the example that you
just gave where now you're able to go in
and negotiate this contract with AI well
all of a sudden that's time that you you
know get back money you get back and you
can work on improving your book you can
work on writing another article for the
times researching a segment
>> for the next day squawk box yes I become
that much more productive
>> right
>> but I'm now not employing more people so
I do believe this is talk about
inequality
>> I believe that the the wealth and the
and the great riches are going to go
both to the model makers some of the big
tech companies and probably the folks
who already have had success because
they will be at the top of these food
chains and instead of hiring more
people, they're going to hire more
agents.
>> Definitely possible. I'll just make one
more.
>> Please tell me I'm wrong. I I by the
way, I hope I'm wrong. I pray that I am
wrong. I hope 5 years from now you will
have me back on your broadcast and uh I
will say may a culpa the world is such a
better place.
>> So let me just preface this by saying I
just want to flesh these ideas out. I
think I totally accept the possibility
that you might be totally right on this
one.
>> Can we have the listeners make a gamble
on a prediction market about this?
>> We're going to get to prediction markets
in a moment. I would just say that when
you start to increase what you're able
to do, all of a sudden economic activity
activity happens that you didn't
anticipate before. So for instance with
cloud code, you know, I went and started
building, you know, workflow tool that I
use for uh for this small media
operation that like the people I work
with, we can all gather together and use
it to communicate and track progress and
things like that. And then all of a
sudden I start plugging into services
that I never would have paid for, you
know, as someone who didn't have the
access to the ability to build these
things with claude code. So I think that
as you as you find these ways to be more
productive, there are opportunities and
economic activity that's gets created
far better than the time you might have
spent doing the drudgery work. But maybe
I'm wrong.
>> I want to hear all about your your
modeling a little bit later. You're
going to have to tell me about this app
if you're not that type of modeling.
>> Okay. [laughter]
>> Um, but there are places I'll just just
to end this segment. There are places
where I could definitely see some real
disruption. Accounting to me, I mean,
watching um cloud code go out and build
computer programs, take over my web
browser, take over my computer, and just
go at it. um you see that these things
can work autonomously for a number of
hours and do quite well fix their
mistakes follow prescribed rules and for
something like accounting financial
modeling you know they can go out grab
the the regulations from a certain city
and then go out and then you're that
question of well what about the higher
level work well for accounting you know
maybe you can do financial strategy for
a company but it just does seem like
there are less roles uh than than there
are for so much of that throughout our
entire economy. By the way, take
journalism for example. So you got a
football game on uh over the weekend,
you got the scores, you know what
happened during the game. The value
proposition for a journalist to be
watching that game and to ultimately be
reporting on that game is their ability
to analyze the game potentially as a
sort of a columnist to be able to sort
of explain what happened in an
entertaining way, but maybe have some
insight into the player and and maybe
they had a relationship with the player
and knew what player, you know, had had
been in the exact same position five
years ago. and they have a whole bunch
of different stats and all of these
things. Some of that, not all, but some
of that I imagine
AI in the future will be able to
replicate. It just it just is. There's
other parts, you know, AI can't walk
into the locker room and start to
interview the athlete or figure out what
the coach did two days earlier and try
to get somebody to tell them something
off the record or behind the scenes. And
that'll become a sort of higher order
value proposition. But there's a lot of
things that just we we that are part of
our daily life that I imagine will get
automated.
>> Okay. On the journalism example, I want
to talk about this and then we'll move
on because we have a lot of other stuff
to cover. But this has existed for a
long time. Narrative Science is a
company that's been able to take the box
score and if they see a baseball team
put, you know, gets an eight in the
ninth inning, they'll be like had a
ferocious comeback and won the game
because that's a data point they can
turn. But we still we love watching
ESPN. In fact, and and I guess watching
live sports is the thing.
>> Well, I don't think we're going to stop
watching live sports. The question is,
are we going to read about them in the
same way? you know,
>> the the service you described is looking
at the delta between the scores and then
is able to sort of be able to describe
what happened in a particular way. What
happens when the AI can actually watch
the game itself? You know, if Sam Alman
and Johnny IV have their way, we will
have something sitting on this desk
probably in 6 months from now that may
be watching what we're doing all the
time,
>> right?
>> In which case, it'll have a persistent
memory about all of our interaction. And
maybe if we're watching the game, it'll
be able to report on the game itself.
>> Okay. But I this is where this is where
I think it's different. The the So
Narrative Science was able to do a great
job with the box score. Maybe AI can
watch the game. Nothing will beat the
reporter going into the locker room and
speaking to the closer and be like,
"What were you thinking when you threw
that fast ball down the middle?" And
then going to the other locker room and
saying, "How how did it feel?" And those
are like correct questions. They matter
to people. They matter. And people, by
the way, Google's Notebook LM makes
amazing podcasts on any topic you could
want.
>> I've seen one podcast, it it did happen.
One podcast hit the top 30 uh trending
on Spotify that was entirely AI uh
created about the Epstein files, an 84
part series, taking those documents and
turning it into a show. But by and
large, we have the ability to create
these shows, and we would still rather
see two human beings have that
discussion.
You're freaked out by that Epstein
podcast, aren't you?
>> No, you're actually giving me an idea.
>> Exactly. He He just pointed for those uh
for those listening, he pointed to the
book 1929, and I'm thinking maybe
>> maybe Notebook LLM could put together an
awesome podcast on 1929.
>> I think you should do that. See what
happens. Be cool.
>> Maybe a little bit of a interesting
Okay.
>> Okay.
>> Here we go.
>> So, all right. We We've done labor. Um
let's go to the capital. Um, so then the
other side of this is we talked in the
beginning about if AI works, what's
going to happen? So there's a labor
risk. There's two though there's two
competing forces here. There's all this
money, you know, betting on uh this
stuff to work. We know that will disrupt
the economy. Like let's just go back to
the, you know, what's what are software
companies going to do? If that 700
billion in capex that the tech giants
are spending this year on AI pays off,
you're going to have this entire
hollowing out of the software industry
of many maybe other industries that I
mean I I was looking before the uh of
the S&P 500 it is one/3. Now part of
that is the tech giants but it seems
like we have these colliding forces
where either that bet needs to go bust
or there's going to be some serious
consequences for everybody else. So
maybe I'll be on the other side of this
one for you. I'm not sure that software
is dead just yet because I think to
myself,
>> sure,
we can build our own model for whatever
app we want to build for our our our
company, but at the same time, a lot of
these software companies already have an
install base. They have some some data,
I imagine, I'd like to believe. And
on top of that, they probably should be
and are using AI too to be able to build
their apps and their software. So I
would imagine unless you think that
everything is just going to be built
either by individuals and companies or
we're all hiring, you know, Accenture to
come and instead of being the integrator
that there's not going to be about
integrating, it's just going to be about
building custom software for everybody.
I would think that some of these
software companies will actually
continue to have have success. There's a
partner at Sequoa who recently said
something like the one the software
companies that will survive are the ones
that are actually managed services with
a technology layer on top like that. I
believe the others he said are just one
iteration away from being replaced by um
the model builders. So I think if you're
really a services company probably
you're all right. Um, but I think I'm
curious what you think about this. The
companies that are not the AI chatbot
makers, right?
>> They tend to think that there's going to
be a set of chat bots. There's going to
be a bot you use when you want to have a
conversation like a chatpt style one,
but one that you shop and one where
you're doing your enterprise and one
your enterprise stuff and learning about
what's going on inside the company. I
just see it consolidating. I mean,
>> I'm with you. I think we are all gonna
have one bot. Now the question is does
that bot
do a sort of secret or quiet handoff to
another bot and it's seamless to us and
we don't even know. Meaning our
interaction is going to be just with our
bot. And it's not just that there's one
big model that's going to do everything,
but it's that our bot says, "Oh, you
know what? Sorcin wants to shop right
now,
>> or Sorcin's looking for this. There's a
specialty shopping bot over here. I'm
just going to hand them off to that bot,
and I'll I'll tell the bot everything I
know about Sorcin so that so that it
feels as if it's the exact same bot
working with them, and then they go off
and do the thing."
>> I think that's probably going to happen.
But it's the interesting thing is that
that I think is the bet among many tech
companies right now. They don't fully
know, we don't know.
>> Mhm.
>> How good the corebot gets. So the reason
why you would hand off to a shopping bot
is because it's difficult to build
shopping capabilities into a general
purpose bot right now. Takes a lot of
planning, special like special
knowledge. Uh but once you get a bot
that can do everything in this AGI way,
maybe that need to specialize goes away
or maybe it can teach itself.
>> Sure. And then we're Yeah. No, no. I I
completely agree. But I do think there
will be at least one How about this? I
think I'll go with there's going to be
one interface.
>> I don't know if it's one bot, but one
interface that you will interact with. I
imagine likely talking rather than even
typing.
>> Yeah. By the way, I'm talking out
constantly to my phone in a way that I
was in six months ago. Do you do that?
>> Definitely all the time. And we I mean,
we have three Alexa Pluses in or Echo in
the house and we're talking to Alexa
Plus all the time.
>> And were you doing that a year ago?
>> No, because the capabilities have gotten
so much better. Like my wife and I will
have disagreements about something and
she's European. I'm American. So, we're
typically fighting over what's better,
the American system or the European
system. We would never we would tell the
we would tell the Echo previously to,
you know, do that and it would play
music or turn the lights off.
>> Are you typing news? Are you typing your
newsletter?
>> I'm typing it.
>> You're typing it.
>> I still believe in in writing unassisted
by AI because to me that's the only way
to think. Type it out.
>> What about texting?
>> Like writing to the bot and then
>> No, no, no. So
>> like an open call style thing.
>> No, no, no. So, no. My wife sends me a
text saying, "Are you late?" which is
typically what I am. And then in it used
to be that I write yes or I'm 20 minutes
behind. I type it. And now I just
constantly like, "Yeah, I'm running
late. Sorry. I'll be there shortly." I
just I feel like I'm doing that all the
time now in a just a completely
different way. So there there's
definitely come a point. So, I'll use AI
for lots of fitness stuff, talking
about, you know, diet, talking about
workouts, and I used to be like typing
it in. I'm like, why am I typing it in?
You just press that microphone button
button, transcribes it perfectly, and
then in it goes.
>> I don't know about you, you into
fitness. I know you are.
>> I used to use My Fitness Pal all the
time. I was like entering in the food
and you could do
>> they had a pretty good database.
>> Yes.
Took a long time. It was It was
annoying. I had to constantly go in
there. Now I'll I only usually do it for
like a week at a time cuz then I sort of
fall fall off the wagon. But um I'll say
just ate a sandwich. This is you know D
and it will say yeah that was 300
calories and it knows all of the the
macros and it can keep it going for you
know weeks or months on end.
>> I do that too. I program in like all
right I want to like follow this I it
was Peter but I won't talk about anymore
like this health guru's advice. Can you
give me uh like recommendations and
count that stuff? And the crazy thing
that you could do is after you've
inputed that data for a while, what do
you get in my my fitness pal? Just a lot
of data. In a chatbot, you could be
like, "Tell me about my trends. Where am
I weak? Where am I strong? What happens
when I'm traveling versus when I'm not?"
And you get real insights from it. It's
nice.
>> Have you asked it to assess you?
>> Oh. Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's a
little narcissistic to do, but yeah, but
it's also Yes. And when are you going to
get that type of analysis from someone
who's you're speaking with all day long
and has drawn from all the literature?
It's impossible.
>> If you say, "Please be my biggest
critic.
>> Let me just tell you, this thing can be
pretty harsh."
>> Yeah. Well, that happened to me with the
fitness stuff where it was like, "Don't
worry about the four slices of pizza you
ate." And I was like, "Can you be a
little bit tougher?" And it's like,
"You're weak and you're breaking."
[laughter] And I'm like, that's what I
want.
So, um,
the the interesting thing that you've
been talking about along this line on on
your book tour has been if the AI
companies can't make good on all the
money that's been invested and there's a
lot of debt there, then we could see
some form of crash.
>> Um,
has the fact that they're starting to
make real revenue changed your
perspective there or made you feel a
little bit better? for OpenAI is now at
a $25 billion run rate and Anthropic at
a $19 billion run rate. Although those
numbers might be
>> I feel better about it in two contexts.
One is that they're making more money.
And two is that I think when you really
dig under the covers of a lot of these
commitments that these companies have
made to others, meaning data centers
that are being going to be built on the
back ends of these things or even some
of the investments that we heard being
made. Nvidia, you know, early on saying
they were putting in hundred billion
dollars. And I think when you realize
and then we were looking at them and
calling them circular deals and whatnot,
that they really were going to come in
tanches, that everything was tranched
and and those tanches make it safer
because it doesn't mean that you're
going to go out and spend $100 billion
tomorrow even though you don't have
hundred billion dollars today. So, I do
think that there that there um hopefully
a we're in a bit of a better situation
in that regard. I still don't think
we've taken full account though of
two component parts of this. What
happens in great success
from a technology perspective
in terms of the efficiency of these
models? Could we ever get to a point
where you actually don't need all of
these data centers where a lot of the
compute moves to the edge and then all
of a sudden the economics of that sort
of get upended. So you could you could
see it get upended on that side and then
the other side is you know could the
depreciation schedule of these chips
either be way shorter or way longer than
we think and how is that going to work?
So I think there's still a whole bunch
of of pieces of the puzzle that we
haven't figured out. Yeah, that's the
that's kind of one of the hypotheses
we've been playing with on the show now
is did Apple just do it right where
Apple it becomes the infrastructure for
AI where it happens on your phone and on
the Mac Mini and the models become so
efficient or purpose-built that you
don't need the data centers.
>> It may very well be that that's where
this lands by accident. Having said
that, I would imagine that this should
be the greatest opportunity for Google
and Alphabet effective or Alphabet to
truly take share because
Gemini,
if built the way I think it should be
built, should be able to move you around
their phone in shocking ways, right? It
should be able to move into any app,
control any app, do everything
throughout the phone.
I can't imagine that Apple, which really
has made its name around privacy and
controls and sort of a walled garden,
even under this new deal that they're
going to have with Google using Gemini
as sort of their Siri, are going to let
whatever that is, go super deep
throughout the entire phone.
>> And so I would imagine
that's why I've always I've always
thought this should be Google's time.
>> Yeah.
And here I am holding my iPhone and I
love my iPhone more than anything
>> products too. Yeah. But we haven't seen
it yet. And even though Google's AI is
better, people haven't left the iPhone
for um for they haven't left the iPhone
and gone to Gemini. Um so the book is
1929.
>> Y
>> uh 20 weeks on the bestseller list.
Congratulations.
>> Thank you.
The thing that's kind of scary is I
think part of the reason why it's I mean
it's about something that happened about
a hundred years ago and it's getting a
lot of attention and I think part of
that is because
>> people see parallels to now. It's we're
in our own roaring 20s. We have our own
market that's rip roaring with a lot of
people, you know, maybe even more uneasy
about it now than they were back then.
So, you know, I think a lot of folks
look at the book and and think, "Oh,
it's a warning about today."
>> And the truth is two things. One is when
I began writing this book, I wasn't even
thinking about today. That was not even
on my radar. It was really much more
about trying just to bring the public
back to this moment so you could
understand it. Because frankly, I
didn't. And I thought once I got into it
and started to understand these
characters and who they were and what
they had done, I thought, "Wow, this is
an amazing world.
The other part of it though is I think
it's not just about today in a certain
way. I know people have looked at the
parallels today, but I think I think we
as uh the public citizens um are always
trying to play this sort of pattern
recognition game
and we are always looking at history to
try to understand the present in some
ways. So, by the way, when I was working
on this book back [snorts] in 2021,
I want to say the whole GameStop
phenomenon was happening.
>> And I remember the publisher of the book
was like, "Andrew,
uh, could the book come out like now?"
And I was like, "No, no, I'm totally not
finished at all." But you could have I I
could have imagined if the book had come
out then, you would have said GameStop
and AMC and meme stocks and all of this
was was also like 1929.
If we had had
>> Can I can I say something about that?
You were on the show I think in 21.
>> Yeah.
>> It was during the co times. We were all
in lockdown. You went to your home
studio. I was still in San Francisco and
I asked you that.
>> Yeah.
>> And you said,
>> what did I say? The problem that I saw
the problem in every financial collapse
>> is the debt.
>> Yes.
>> And so that so in the GameStop that was
the end of the discussion because it
wasn't debt that was being taken on. Uh
but one of the interesting things that
you've said repeatedly on the tour
obviously made clear uh in the book is
that there if there's too much leverage
that's where you have a problem.
>> It's the dry tinder. It's the dry
tender.
>> The problem is that we don't know. And I
just find it astounding that we don't
know where the debt is in the system
because so much of it is happening in
private credit.
>> Well, private credit 100%. I mean, look,
I think that and we're seeing right now
a lot of handwriting around private
credit. A lot of questions about what
that whole market's going to look like
and if that market seizes up, what does
that do to lending and other parts of
the economy? What does it do to real
estate? What's I mean, you could you
could see how it could have a big
impact. I will say one thing we haven't
really wrestled with is the private
credit business really can't fall apart
before frankly the private equity
industry falls apart. Meaning, if you
think about it, who has taken on the
biggest loans from private from the
private credit space, it's often times
the private equity players or some of
these tech players or some of these. So,
the private credit people can't lose
money
unless the other people lose money
first.
>> And we really haven't sort of grappled
with with that. And that's in large part
because so many businesses today are
private companies. And the marks, the
sort of valuations are not in the public
market. It's not a day-to-day operation.
And there is a a whole sort of universe
that I'd put in the category of mark to
makeelieve. And the incentive system is
such that you want that mark to make
believe to go on as long as possible
because if you are the equity owner, you
don't want to mark your market down
because by the way, then you can't raise
new money. By the way, if you're the
private credit firm, you actually also
don't want them to mark it down because
it's going to therefore impact your own
value. I mean, so you can see it's a
cascading effect. So, I think there's a
whole lot of people who are sort of
holding on as tight as they can, hoping
they can sort of bare knuckle this
thing. Maybe we can get to a place
where, I don't know, Kevin Worsh gets in
the seat and we get some lower interest
rates and things kind of ease off and
make maybe maybe the world gets a little
easier.
>> Okay. So I definitely want to get into
what's happening in private credit today
and I think that for listeners you know
if we have technology listeners who
aren't fully right into this can you
just briefly explain
>> what is this private credit private
equity thing and why isn't happening
okay in the big banks but briefly.
>> Yeah. very basic. Um, in the old days,
you'd go to a bank. If you were a
company, you go to a bank, they give you
a loan, you need you need money. Post
financial crisis, in large part because
of a lot of the regulations that were
put in place. Um, there became a whole
other world where people basically
created funds that look a lot like
private equity funds. You go out and
raise maybe a billion dollars and you'd
say instead of using that billion dollar
to go off and buy companies, we're going
to loan that money out to folks. And by
the way, we're not going to give you the
money back for 10 years. So, we're going
to give out a 10-year loan and you'll
get the money back in 10 years plus
hopefully. That's the concept. And
that's what private credit is. But what
it means is the banks are not doing it
anymore. It's living in this sort of
private arena which means that there's
very little transparency around it. And
then on top of that you had a lot of
private equity firms that by the way
started buying up software companies and
other things from called Thomas Braavos
bought a lot of them. There's another
company called Vista that's uh bought a
lot of them. A lot of software companies
a lot of SAS companies uh you using the
revenue the sort of the monthly
recurring revenue from those businesses
to pay down these loans. You take an
enormous loan so you go buy one of these
companies. Well, if you decide the
software company is no longer a thing
and may not have this reoccurring
revenue, all of a sudden its value has
to come down and all of a sudden
therefore they would have to lose all
their money and then if for the credit
guys who loan the money, they would also
there therefore then lose money too.
>> And that is the worry that a lot of the
money that's funding this AI buildout is
coming from there.
>> Yes.
>> Okay. Well, there are starting to be
some shocks in private credit and I want
to speak about what that might mean and
whether that is going to be the source
of further problems and then we'll talk
a little bit about uh prediction markets
and um and maybe the Fed the new
potential Fed chair when we're back
right after this. And we're back here on
Big Technology Podcast with Andrew
Oorin. He's the author of this great new
book 1929 20 weeks on the New York Times
bestseller list. Um, so let's talk about
this issue with the private credit. If
we keep going on what we were talking
about pre-break,
uh, Reuters recently writes, "Private
credit alarm bells echo 2007 subprime
warning subprime warnings. There is
growing risk that the mounting stress in
private credit could spill over into the
public securities market. Black Rockck,
the world's biggest asset manager with
some 14 trillion under management, said
Friday it had limited withdrawals from a
flagship debt fund after a surge in
redemption requests. A few days earlier,
alternative asset manager Blackstone
said it raised the redemption cap on its
BC private credit fund to meet record
withdrawal requests. We're also seeing
similar issues with Blue Owl. Um and
then some companies are going bankrupt
including um an auto parts supplier
first brands and a car dealership uh
color. So is this the beginning of the
unraveling? And why are people panicking
about this? Now
>> the reason they're panicking is is not
just that there's potentially something
underlying concern in the economy. It's
that so many of these funds were sold to
the equivalent of the retail investor.
is not just to the pension fund that is
supposed to wait for 10 years uh for the
loan to come due and then get paid off
at the end. A number of these financial
services companies have created what
they're calling semi-liquid products. So
effectively you can buy into the fund
and when you buy into the fund it looks
like a stock. It looks like you're
buying a stock. You can buy it on any
given day. However,
it's called semi-liquid for a reason.
You can't sell it on any given day. On
most days, you can sell it, but if too
many people rush towards the exit at the
same time, the firms are allowed to say,
"Excuse me, we're not sending you your
money back right now. We're putting up
the gates." And that's what you see
happening right now. And so that's
creating its own concern, that sort of
run on the bank kind of feeling. Now the
financial services firms behind these
funds would say look this is a feature
not a bug it's in the literature if you
actually not just read the fine print
but if you understand what the product
is that's what it is
but I think anytime you have a product
where you think you can get your money
back and you really can't people get
anxious
>> but it's uh it's not AI right like I'm
looking at it and it's it's car
dealerships and auto parts suppliers
Mhm.
>> I mean, I think that that those are just
a couple of a couple of the examples of
companies that that have struggled, but
I think there's a broader question about
again
>> because technology I don't want to say
tech technology is volatile, but maybe
it is. And because technology can change
so quickly, there's sort of a real
question about like what is the future
really like, right? And if the future
really is different than where it is
today, that also is a problem. Well,
this is sort of you used the word
exponential earlier in our conversation
and this is sort of where the rubber
meets the road, right? Because all this
money is being invested on in AI data
centers, hundreds of billions of dollars
this year, hundreds of billions of
dollars last year, probably more the
year after um in the belief that AI is
improving on an exponential. And so
private credit is funding a good chunk
of it, right? You have companies like
Blue Owl, for instance, who's funding a
lot of the development.
If you stopped getting that exponential
progress, that would basically be the
thing that could cause a panic and
that's where you get the nope, you
actually can't take your money out and
things can go belly.
>> There's a whole bunch of things that
could go wrong by the way, including, as
we said earlier, the technology could
get so good that you don't need the data
centers. I mean, I imagine long term
that AI is going to be very much like
the internet on steroids, which means it
will be here for a very long time and we
will ultimately need these data centers.
That is to me not really the question.
>> Mhm. [clears throat]
The bigger question is whether there's
going to be like a timing mismatch that
there's going to be some period of time.
The same way, by the way, we had a dot
bubble and bust where the economics
didn't match the investments at that
time. Now, Amazon is still here. The
internet is still here. It's bigger than
it's ever been, but
for a period of time, it didn't really
work the way it was supposed to. And I
think that something similar could
happen in AI. The one other thing about
data centers which is a little bit more
nerve-wracking is it's not like putting,
you know, people compare it to putting
fiber in the ground or
building the the railroads. You put the
tracks down
because once you build a data center,
you probably are going to still want to
upgrade those chips relatively
constantly. So, it's unclear whether the
investment ever either stops or even
slows down. I mean, look, I'm so
addicted to this phone, I buy a new one
every year or two,
>> and so I imagine people are going to
want the latest, greatest, next
technology. And so, what does that look
like,
>> right? But the current the current
Nvidia chips are actually the the
current Nvidia chips are actually being
rented at prices higher from when they
were were bought. I mean, that just
shows, I guess, the demand. But I'll
tell you one story. I was in Utah uh
skiing earlier this year, and we were on
the ski lift with the guy, and I was
like, "What do you do?" And he's like,
"Well, I build data centers out here." I
was like, "Oh." And I was like, "What do
you think?" He goes, "All of this will
go bankrupt."
>> Really? [laughter]
>> I mean, I I don't think he has the full
picture, but that's I think what it
looks like to someone who is in
construction and sees the level of
buildout that's happening and it just
doesn't compute. It's unlike anything
they've ever seen.
>> But it paid for the lift ticket.
>> Did pay for that lift ticket. So, good
time. Well, he's like, I'm gonna get
paid.
>> Exactly.
>> Right. The question is about the person,
you know, footing that bill. So, there
is a an interesting um in the times that
we're in, there's this sort of
interesting argument that I'd love to
put to you and and get your perspective
on. Um I'm sure you or maybe you haven't
seen this. There was a post that went
kind of viral on X called the prison of
financial uh mediocrity. And the
>> prison of financial mediocage
capitalism thing. Well, basically it was
this person who talked about why we're
because we've talked a little bit about
about, you know, risky bets and this
person talked about how I'm he said,
"I'm absolutely betting the house that
long degeneracy is the prevalent
socioeconomic theme of the coming
century." The and here's what he writes.
The implicit deal used to be simple.
Show up, work hard, stay loyal, and
you'll be rewarded. Companies offered
pensions. Tenure meant something. Your
house appreciated while you slept. The
ser the system worked if you trusted it.
Staying at one company for 20 years, he
says, is now a career liability, not an
asset. Wages grew 8% while housing costs
doubled and debt payments for young
people increased 33%. The math doesn't
support patients anymore. And this is
sort of getting back to this theme of
debt and the economy and speculation and
bets when they shouldn't be made.
Basically, what this person is saying is
because the system is broken for so many
people, that's why they're going to
things like crypto prediction markets
and and sports betting. What do you
think about this?
>> So, I I don't disagree with the last
part of what you said, which is that one
of the reasons why people are moving to
prediction markets and moving to what I
would describe as the sort of lottery
ticket approach to life, it's a little
bit yolo. Yes.
>> Um is a function of the inequality that
we have in this country. I would argue
to you that the American dream actually
shifted in the 1920s of all
>> uh times to this to this um
scenario of of the lottery ticket
scheme. I think what happened was you
had a lot of people coming from all
parts of the country into big cities.
They were seeing the wealth that was
being accumulated and they thought how
am I going to get a piece of this? only
way to get a piece of this is some kind
of qu, you know, get-richqu scheme.
That's the only way I'm going to get
there. And so, you had this sort of
lottery ticket approach.
What I haven't seen the tweet you're
talking about, but what I think this
person is referring to
>> is [clears throat] what I I call the
Leave it to Beaver American dream. This
was the paint by numbers American dream.
This was sort of a 1950s American dream.
If you went to college and you worked
hard, you get a job, you get a house, a
spouse, two kids, and a dog with a white
picket fence and it all kind of works
out.
I actually think that was an historical
aberration. That was not the way it used
to be.
>> Mhm. [clears throat]
>> If you look at the 1920s, it was not
like that.
You look at the 1930s, it wasn't like
that. The leave it to be for American
dream that I think this individual is
referring to began post World War II in
a universe in which the United States
was a monopoly power. Every other
country in the world was out of
business. There we we owned everything.
We were the only player. We and as a
result you had the rise of the middle
class. You had unions.
We could charge monopoly rents. If you
really look at when wages in America
started to stagnate when late '7s, early
' 80s. Why? Because the rest of the
world all of a sudden came online and
all of a sudden we were competing again.
>> For the first time.
>> Yes.
>> And all of a sudden we started to raise
questions about whether that Leave it to
Beaver America, Leave it to Beaver
American dream could still continue.
First of all, by the way, the Leave it
to Bever American dream was a very white
dream. Was not a dream for all of
America. They did not benefit during
that period. And as I said, I think it
was actually an historical
collaboration. I thought it was a 30 or
40year period of time
that obviously happened, but I don't
think you can always go back and look at
that and say, well, that's the way it
should or could could be cuz I think we
live in a completely new universe,
right? But the argument that this person
is making is basically saying that the
only place people feel agency right now
is in the casino. even though they know
that prediction markets are rigged with
insider trading, that's where they feel
like they actually can control their
life.
Look, I've experienced this in a very
unusual way. Um, you know, anchoring on
CNBC in the morning. I remember during
the spa
um what would you call that? The spa
trend, the spa craze or even the
GameStop craze. You know, I would be
cautioning people
>> in the morning. I would say, "Look,
guys, this back thing is gonna end
badly, folks. This GameStop thing, it
cannot. It just I've seen the movie. I
know how it ends. I'm telling you." And
the reaction that you would get was,
"Andrew, you are so paternalistic. Stop
trying to protect me. You are not
protecting me. In fact, by you thinking
you're protecting me, you're protecting
the man." That's what they would say.
Because I do think that people think
that they have agency in these casinos
and they want the lottery ticket. That's
what they want.
But I I it's just such an irrational
thought to me that I can't even think
straight about it. Yeah. It's I mean
it's not institutional debt, right,
which is what causes these crises, but
it is I think it's a pretty big risk
right now for the societies where this
exists. I mean, you you've heard the
stories, I'm sure, of people taking
their student loans and putting them
into FanDuel. Now, I I'm sure that
doesn't happen all the time, but
everybody out there is sports betting,
and a lot of people are losing. People
forget, by the way, about lottery
tickets. I don't know if you've ever
thought about this. You know, in most
states in America, you cannot buy a
lottery ticket with a credit card.
>> It's illegal. You can only buy it with
cash or a debit card. And the reason is
because they don't want people to
overextend themselves by buying lottery
tickets. And yet we've now built this
entire apparatus
for even much larger gambling,
if you will in terms of prediction
markets, sports betting, and everything
else. And people are just yoloing it on
debt.
>> Yeah. I mean, one more thought about
this. Um, in the book you highlight that
actually in the 20s in the era of
speculation they talked about it as
democratizing finance which is a tagline
that's come back.
>> I mean it's what Vlad Taniff talks about
all the time democratizing finance
>> co of Robin Hood. Yeah.
>> C of Robin Hood. I mean that's the whole
idea is is trying to uh democratize
finance trying to you know the
prediction market guys would say you
know you have an expertise in something
I want you to have access to be able to
make money using that expertise. So, but
then the question would be well why
should people be shut out from these
like why why just you know let's just
actually bring it full circle the
private equity people have made a ton of
money by exploiting this ability to
invest in opportunities that are not
available to the everyman so why should
they be shut out of or why should they
be cautious when those that have this
brighter appetite for risk are doing
great
>> so
this is a Great question you're asking
and it's really like a philosophical one
more than anything else. In the United
States, uh we have investor laws that
effectively suggest if you don't have a
million dollars that there's certain
types of investments typically in
private equity, venture capital, and
other things that we don't allow you to
make because we think they're risky. And
the view is that if you don't have a
million dollars or are sensibly educated
enough, but we'll take the education
piece out. The sort of money dollar
number is sort of used as a proxy for
that in some ways that
without the million dollars, you can't
afford the loss. And the truth is
depending on how you run a country and a
social safety net and a system if you
can't afford the loss then the loss gets
fully socialized.
>> So
this becomes the fundamental question.
Now you could also argue that we have
socialized losses for banks during the
pandemic. We socialized losses for well
everybody. So there is a question about
who we're socializing losses onto. But
that's a little bit of how at least I
think about the risks the risk schema if
you will. Um, you know, one of the
things I thought about when I thought
about this crash in 29 was it seems like
our institutions have done a good job of
keeping us out of potential crashes
since maybe with regulations or
bailouts. I mean, we have $30 trillion
in debt in this country. So maybe that
will come too. Well, one of the lessons,
the big lesson of this crash in 29,
and I think we learned it in and Ben
Bernank, who did his thesis on the the
the Great Depression at Princeton, sort
of put it into effect in 2008, is when
you have a crash, you can't move into a
period of austerity. You actually have
to throw money at the problem. As
politically unpopular as a bailouts are,
the Federal Reserve needs to throw money
in. The problem with that now is we've
now did it in 2008 and it worked as
unpopular as it was. By the way, we did
it again during the pandemic. So now I
think we have a playbook or we think we
have a playbook. We're like, okay, we
can avoid a really nasty situation if we
just print money,
>> right? But you're right, we have $38
trillion of debt now. By the way, back
in 1929, there was a government uh
surplus, a budget surplus at the time.
And the next time, well, someone's got
to probably write a check for $5
trillion or whatever it's going to be.
And so if that happens, you tell me, is
there some invisible line that becomes a
red line where the investor class in the
world says, "We're going to lend you
money, but you got to pay us like two,
three times what you used to pay us."
And if that's the case, then you do move
into an austerity period. And then all
of a sudden, you are back in the soup.
And this is kind of what I was was
setting up is that we through these
crisises um when the Fed has stepped in
have had decent independence of the Fed
>> and it doesn't seem like that's going to
be the case. Like those walls are in the
middle of eroding. There's a criminal
probe from the White House into drone
Powell about this renovation that he did
of the Fed headquarters. And um right
now uh Kevin Walsh who's been nominated
is uh that nomination is being actually
held up by Tom Tillis who's not happy
with the fact that the executive is is
or the White House is you know
influencing the Fed in this way. How
important is Fed independent how
important is Fed independence um from
politicians who obviously will want that
money to be spent no matter what um if
we're going to have a system that
doesn't get into another crash. So I'm
generally of the view that Fed
independence is hugely important
especially because typically if you do
get into a crisis situation you often
have to make hugely politically
unpopular decisions. Um if you just were
playing politics you might not do some
of these things and that's a problem.
The question that I don't think we will
know until a year or two or maybe even
three from now is Kevin Worsh who I've
known by the way for many years um who
is very very bright
clearly has gotten this job in part
because the president believes that he's
going to follow what the either the
president wants or that [snorts]
currently their thinking is aligned
>> to lower rates
>> to lower rates. It'll be very
interesting to see whether a Kevin Worsh
stays in line with the president. I by
the way think he could be an independent
actor ultimately because interestingly
once you get this job the job is yours.
It's a little bit like becoming a
Supreme Court justice. There are people
that the president's appointed uh that
have then um you know decided decided
against him. So I think it's possible.
The other thing is the Fed is a little
bit like the Supreme Court also in that
just because you are um the the chair in
this case.
Kevin isn't the one who is the isn't the
only vote, he has to convince all of
these other people to do what he wants.
And I would imagine the first six months
it's going to be a challenge to get
everybody uh to to back this this view.
I think that there might be a honeymoon
period. Maybe they uh they sort of
>> throw a bone
>> throw throw an early bone. But I think
there's going to be meaningful
disagreements on that board about which
way the economy is going and how fast to
act. Especially, by the way, if you have
a continued war in the Middle East in
Iran and you know, we have this jobs
issue. We obviously have continued
inflation issue.
The answers are not so obvious.
>> Yep. All right, let's do a quick
lightning round before we go.
>> Okay. Um, how do you stay in such good
shape? I mean, you are doing CNBC, The
Times, writing a book. You're busy. My
fitness pal.
>> Uh,
>> what's the secret?
>> Well, maybe it's Chat GPT now. Uh, what?
I try not to eat too much food after
basically 6 or 6:30 cuz I I try to be
bed by like 9 or 9:30.
>> That helps.
>> Well, but I'm also waking up at 4:30, so
it's a little complicated. So, I think
food late at night is is the enemy. And
I don't drink at all.
>> At all. When was the last time you had a
drink?
>> Oh my goodness. I can't even remember.
Maybe a sip of like my wife's margarita,
you know, at
>> Christmas time or something, but like
hardly nothing. Okay.
>> And I'm reverse to sun.
>> Sun.
>> Sun.
>> Just sun in general.
>> Yeah. Like I wear hats. I'm like always
like
>> that's helpful.
>> I just think it's good for good for the
skin. hand lotions.
>> Yeah,
>> agreed. All right. Um, thank you. That's
a mystery I've been wondering cuz I mean
for someone with your output, it's very
impressive. Um, all right. Why not wait
for the next crash to invest?
>> Why not wait for the because the truth
is it could be a while. And
[clears throat]
you know, famously [snorts]
to bring it back to 1929, Charlie
Merrill, who was the co-founder of Meil
Lynch, famously told everybody to get
out of the stock market in 1928. and you
would have thought, "Oh, this guy is
really smart." Except the stock market
from 1928 to September 1929 went up 90%.
So, it's possible that if you're
waiting, you could be waiting four or
five years and then even if it goes down
25 30% from there, you've you missed it.
Exactly. Uh Dealbook is is one of the
best. Um what do you think the key is to
running a great event?
>> The Debbook Summit.
>> The summit.
I think that the best events are those
events that have these sort of memorable
moments. Uh that there's like little
takeaways that everybody who's watching
it is looking and not only seeing not
necessarily seeing the same takeaway,
but that they're looking for these
little morsels. Um but you can't can you
plan for that? like Elon Musk telling
someone to f themsel can't I mean having
>> you can't plan for it but you can in a
in a way I mean I do think that I spend
an extraordinary time often times 20 30
hours prepping for each of those
interviews I mean it's was a wild
situation the month or two beforehand I
really
>> [snorts]
>> um basically like do practically nothing
except that and you can't control an
interviewee
but I think if you have lots of
different places that you can go and
places you can move the conversation
around to um you can create opportunity.
>> Why doesn't Jeff Bezos speak more often?
I mean, he was at Deal Book.
>> He was at Deal Book two years ago.
>> Yeah, I feel like every time he speaks,
it's a very worthwhile conversation, but
he doesn't talk.
>> I completely agree with you. I think
he's he's fascinating. I think he's uh
got some very fascinating views. And not
just that, I think he's obviously in the
middle of everything between Amazon,
what Blue Origin's doing, obviously the
Washington Post.
>> Mhm.
>> You know, one thing that he said during
that interview, which I do think maybe
explains why you don't hear as much from
him, is I asked him um what he feels
misunderstood about,
>> right? And he said that he gave up a
long time ago on being understood. He
said it was hard enough to be understood
by your family,
>> let alone the idea that you were ever
going to get the public to really
understand you.
That might be your answer.
>> That could be it. Um SpaceX IPO
obviously biggest of all time. Do you
think it outpaces Open AIS?
>> Oh, I imagine it does. I mean, I if
we're talking what I think the numbers
now 1.75 trillion dollars with a T.
>> I think right now Open AI isn't doesn't
start with a T yet, but maybe
>> it will.
>> It could. It could, but I don't think
it's coming in on two two T's yet.
>> Not yet. Do you think there's going to
be enough money to fund all these IPOs?
If you think about SpaceX, OpenAI,
Anthropic going out within a year and a
half of each other. I think the big
question is, you know, we're talking
about these extraordinary valuations,
but we need to really see how much each
of these companies plans to raise
>> because it's not that they're raising
$1.75 billion. They could very well
raise a billion dollars and still have
that
>> kind of valuation. So, I think we're
going to have to really dig into what
these filings look like when they come
out. I imagine they're going to want to
raise a lot of money.
>> I imagine they're all going to want to
raise a lot of money. And that's why I
think there is such a race to go first
because I think it gets to both the
question and I think almost implied
answer which is you know if SpaceX goes
in call it June and they take a big
chunk of money out of the market if you
will then whoever comes next may have a
little bit less you know smaller bite
and whoever comes after that probably
has a smaller bite after that. What do
you think of these new leaders Dar Amade
Sam Alman? They're less careful than the
rest, it seems.
>> Um,
you know, I find them fascinating.
>> You know, they are real founders.
>> Yes. And I think one of the things that
we've all become accustomed to in recent
years is a lot of companies are no
longer run by the founders. They're
they're run by managers and operators.
And I [snorts] think when you are a
founder, you have this um
you have a license, an authority to sort
of really either make decisions or and
not just make decisions, but say things
sometimes that are unpopular. I mean, I
by the way, I give great credit to to
Dario in this whole wild fight he's
having with the Pentagon for just how
outspoken he's been at a time, frankly,
when most CEOs in America,
>> you know, are are hiding under the table
right now.
>> Yeah. I think lack of care, like l being
less careful, that's a compliment for
me. Yeah. I think that they they speak
in a real way.
>> Yeah.
>> Um I hope that doesn't go away. Although
when you see that it tends to u All
right, last one for you. Could we have a
market crash today on the magnitude of
the 1929 crash?
So here's the good news. I think it's
hard to end up in 1932. 1932 is 25%
unemployment and an economy that goes
truly truly south. In 1929, we had a
stock market that fell about 50% between
October and November of 1929.
But people forget by the end of 1929 the
stock market was only down 17%.
>> The reason everyone got flushed out and
it was such a crisis was because
everybody had taken on such
extraordinary debt. People had been, you
know, put down a dollar they had been
lent 10 to one. And so when the market
fell 50%, nobody could hold on long
enough to get back to even negative 17%.
they had to sell their home, mortgage
their house, lose their job, all the
things. I think that's harder to do
today in part because individuals don't
have that much leverage um in the
system. So, I'd like to think not and I
also think we have this extraordinary
playbook which we now know works to some
degree. Mhm. [clears throat]
>> But I think when you layer on AI and
technology and
the current state of national debt, it
could all get complicated pretty quick.
All right, the book is 1929. Andrew Ross
[music] Orin, thanks so much for joining
us.
>> Thank you for having me.
>> All right, everybody. Thank you for
being here. We'll see you next time on
Big Technology [music] Podcast.