A Thanksgiving Monologue

In this week's monologue, Ed Zitron thanks you for being such wonderful listeners. If you ever have a tip, reach out on ezitron.76. Want to support me? Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/ Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at https://discord.com/invite/QUUQUP9szv Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitron Email Me: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 0:39Ed Zitron?

  Hello and welcome to a very special Thanksgiving monologue. I'm your host, Ed Zitron.

• 0:52Ed Zitron?

  And, well, this one's about you. And it's about thanking you for the last year or two. And saying that this show really does mean a lot to me, perhaps more than it should. And this journey has become oddly personal in that the show's allowed me to explore this kind of complex relationship I have with technology, the industry, the media, my peers, my own identity, which all sounds a bit much, I realize. But I mean it sincerely, and I think at this point, you've kind of worked out that's my whole bag. And I recognize I still sound congested. Sophie made it very clear, this is all I'm doing this week. I've got to recover, and I will recover, I promise. But I wanted to say that our humanity is what makes us different from the machines. And that's what makes this show special.

• 1:36Ed Zitron?

  And I'm endlessly grateful for the hundreds of thousands of human beings who listen to or read my work every month. I love hearing from you. I'm so grateful for your generosity, your intellectual interest in my work, and in many cases, great empathy and capacity for good. And the conclusion of the AI bubble, I think it's going to be a referendum on the status quo, a stress test of the tech industry's largest firms and collective intellect and, honestly, imagination. Either I'm wrong and the growth train suddenly sprouts from OpenAI or Microsoft or Anthropic, or I'm right and hundreds of billions of dollars got burned on unprofitable software and even less profitable hardware. While I've complained in the past

• 2:17Ed Zitron?

  about feeling alone in this, I never really have been, and you've all kind of made me realise that. From the early days of my newsletter and better offline, many of you have been calling bullshit on AI too, in my comments, in emails, on the Reddit. And a lot of you are honestly not far from where I am, as far as my breadth of knowledge. I hope I'm helpful in educating you, but already so many of you see with clarity what the stakes are and how to pierce the thick layers of financial bullshit. And you all know, at this point, we're basically living in a paradox. Every day we look at the stock market, it's either red or slightly green. Everyone's kind of worried. Everyone's still posting these headlines, both about being in an AI bubble and also in the midst of the greatest

• 3:00Ed Zitron?

  technological revolution since, whatever half-assed comparison people are even making these days. They're not even really fucking bothering, are they? And everybody is still trying to avoid looking at OpenAI, which is the financial equivalent of a man walking a tightrope across lava while begging a crowd of people to throw rocks at him. Yeah, 1.4 trillion dollars' worth of compute deals in the space of five years. Should all be fine, Sammy. You're still welcome to come on the show, by the way. Your PR person stopped fucking responding to me. Very rude. Very rude. But look, you, the listener, if you feel insane at the moment, it's because all of this is insane. OpenAI plans to burn escalating

• 3:41Ed Zitron?

  multiple billion dollars of revenues that appear, based on the episode I put out a few weeks ago, while they appear a little questionable. And whatever OpenAI actually makes at this point is up for debate, which I think is reasonable and should have happened earlier. And even now, I still have people getting in touch with me saying, "Oh, perhaps the numbers are delayed. Perhaps it's this, perhaps this..." It's not. It's a cruel accounting, I believe it's called. Those numbers were correct to the quarters I had them in. It's time to start accepting where we are. It's time to accept that things are not going well, and that this bubble will burst. It's probably going to be the most egregious "I told you so"

• 4:24Ed Zitron?

  in history. But I don't have to do that "I told you so" alone. I'm not doing it alone. You're coming with me. And today I celebrate you, the listener, and I'm thankful for you for trusting me the many times I've asked you to, when doing so was not really in line with the market consensus. Early on in this show, people, they said I was mad. Would a mad person laugh like this? Anyway, seriously though, so many of you stuck by me early on, even when the entirety of the media kind of didn't. I'm not saying everyone was against me or anything. I'm not that kind of person, other than the fact I'm literally the single most punished person ever. But in

• 5:05Ed Zitron?

  all seriousness, you've all been there with me too. You've given me your time every week, and you're generous with your time too, your energy and your focus too. So many of you are showing up on Blue Sky and Reddit and email, and you're picking up stuff very, very fast. There are members of the media who don't get things that some randos emailing me get. Some of you are picking up some nuanced corporate accounting that took me a lot longer to get out there. So I could not be more proud of you, and I could not really see the show as any more powerful, because, look, what actually changes the world is regular people talking about stuff en masse. I can have whatever successful a podcast I want, I can have however many subscribers,

• 5:48Ed Zitron?

  but ultimately, if there is just a gluttony of people who can look at this bullshit and see it for what it is, I think that changes the world, and you are part of that too. And the distance between my knowledge and your own is minuscule. You are the ones that will make the difference. So tell everybody everything you know. Don't worry about giving me credit. I don't give a shit. I really don't. What I give a shit about is you knowing more and making better decisions as a result. An early piece of feedback I got was never to tell you how to feel and I won't, but I'll tell you what I know and why I feel that way. And I feel very lucky to have so many of you listening. And the end of the year is going to be a more chill thing. I think I'm going to come up with a nice two parter, maybe a three parter. I

• 6:31Ed Zitron?

  have something brewing. I'm still not sure what it is, but we're going to have some cool ones about steam with Steve Berg from Gamers Nexus. He's been an amazing guy up on the show, what, twice already? There's three to cry. It's so cool. I get to talk to cool people. I admire. And in that vein, I also have Nathan Grayson from Aftermath coming on as well in the next few weeks. A lot to look forward to. And thank you for the many emails I've got about me being sick. I really do appreciate you looking out for me. I'm taking care of myself. I have wonderful people close to me, a girlfriend who took care of me as well. And I mean, it's been really nice. My world feels a lot warmer and larger than it did a year ago. And I'm just very grateful for what I have. I don't know what

• 7:14Ed Zitron?

  happened next. Happen next? Jesus Christ, not editing it, Matthew. Anyway, I don't know what happens next. But I do know that there are many, many, many more hundreds of thousands of people who are capable of actually understanding what's going to happen next. And I can't wait to tell you. I'm so lucky to do this show. I'm lucky to have an amazing producer in Matt Asowski and an editor in Matt Hughes, to have Sophie and Robert supporting me on the Coolzoo Media side. It's really cool doing this show. Have a great Thanksgiving. Have a great rest of the week. We'll be back to our regular bits next week. I'm Ed Zitron. Thank you for listening.

• 8:02Speaker 01

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• 8:33Speaker 03

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• 9:04Speaker 04

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 9:17Speaker 05

  Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair.

• 10:00Speaker 05

  This is an advertisement for Zolair, paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.