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Welcome to The Prof G Pod's Office Hours. This is the part of the show where we answer questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. Hey, Prof G. A. Scott and team. Hey Scott. Hi, Prof G. Hey Prof G. Hi, Professor G. At last week's office hours, I answered your questions or not. Surrounding AI and higher education, the intersection of passion and talent and charitable giving.
What this will be, I think the biggest impact this is going to have on primary education is that chat GPT and Anthropic will be able to offer what are pretty reasonable fact similes of $150 an hour tutor for nearly free. Look at the space you're in and think, am I learning a lot? Am I learning a lot at this company? Do I have senior level sponsorship?
Because the firm doing well is a good culture. Do they pay me fairly? Is there a path that someone has taken in a rational interest or at least a real interest in my future and is coaching me? All of these things are important to ask yourself at a specific organization. How do I approach giving? I try to put it to something I'm passionate about and I think I know something about and that I want to change.
Today we'll answer your questions about OpenAI's recent content deals, Microsoft AI. Why start off the pod with crew jokes and what the dogs morning routine looks like? So with that, first question. Hi Scott, my name is Jack. I live in Southern Delaware. Thank you for the start off there. Thank you for all the great content. I learned a lot of those things to you on your team.
Scott, on June 3rd, you and Ed were talking about some of the content deals that OpenAI has made with Vox and News Corp. Now I had seen that in the headlines before, especially with News Corp, alarm bells went off in my head. At a simple level, I kind of understand how it works. I know as I'm sure you're well aware, till the big AI issues are bias and hallucination, hallucination and bias. Who may have this technology which is still not
rock solid, might never be rock solid, hooking up with news organizations. I'm not just picking on News Corp here that are known for bias. Am I looking at this the wrong way, Scott? I really would appreciate people's thoughts on this because when I heard about that deal like I said, alarm bells went off in my head. Okay. Thanks again for all the great content and hope you and your family are well. Bye bye.
Thanks for the thoughtful question, Jack, from Delaware. Yeah, it would make sense that if they started crawling, I think that's even what Elon Musk is trying to do with his AI offering is to make it non-woag because there is, I have noticed with Microsoft AI, some people call it CHATGBT and also anthropic, is they have put on, I don't want to call it a woke filter, but a more progressive or we don't want to offend people filter. It's
not as hard hitting. It feels more anodine. It feels more safe. It doesn't feel as puncturing. Occasionally people say, okay, D.I makes no sense for the following reasons. I find that it's center left and it's PG-13 and that they have created some sort of technology or governor that attempts to kind of take it a little bit more blue. I say that as a progressive and a little bit more PG-13. I'm not worried that we're going to start seeing
some kind of weird gossipy things that are clearly the post. These LLMs crawl so much data that I think the idea is that they see the relationship between words across different sources and then a string of words and figure out what type of sequencing, if you will, is most common across the sequence of the query that you have put in. If that sounds
like a bad explanation of AI, trust or instincts. So a little bit about the contract. According to the Wall Street Journal, the five-year contract with NewsCore is valid and estimated quarter of a billion dollars or 250 million. But when you break that down, that's 50 million a year. I don't know if some of it's coming, if it's all in cash or some of it's in
compute or, I don't know, we'll see. It's actually not that big a deal. I don't think. As part of the deal, OpenAI will be able to use news material from newscourse publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Barence, New York Post to answer questions from users. So keep in mind, I actually think the Wall Street Journal does call balls and strikes. And strikingly, the Wall Street Journal and PBS, was it the Wall Street Journal and PBS or the Wall Street
Journal and the BBC? I think it was the Wall Street Journal and PBS. Our scene is the two most unbiased news outlets, which I found very interesting. This isn't, they're not crawling fox news here. So this does feel a little bit more, I don't know, nonpartisan, if you will. And also, the Wall Street Journal, I would argue, the de-editorial page has definitely conservative bent, but the newspaper itself, I just think it's a great, great financial
reporting. Also, Barence is very much markets focused. But my sense is these things crawl so much data that they're literally expect rating back something resembling a bit of an amalgam of all, all of the world. Now, having said that, where it'll zero in on, where it gets a bias is from the engineer and you're the engineer here, specifically the prompt
you put in. Now, what I was worried about is that I would say, okay, give me my morning news, business news, give me the business news for this morning in the voice of Reuters with a pinch of, I don't know Anderson Cooper and with some humor from Dave Chappelle. And I would never need to go to CNN and I would never need to go to Reuters and you'd even have more oxygen to suck out of the room of media companies because they could start mimicking
their voice and not pay the many royalties. Having said that, there's been enough of these deals struck now that it does look as if the AI industrial complex has decided that they do need this content. Now, can the LLMs then start create or give birth to their own LLMs that create artificial content that these LLMs can crawl? I'll think about that. That'll send your mind into a bit of a ketamine rabbit hole. Not that that's a bad
thing. Anyways, or are they going to constantly need to continue to get the grist or the coal or the inputs from new content from these media companies? I hope it's the latter. And that's what I'm banking on because you're going to end up with a new high margin source of revenues. So for example, I was thinking about buying Gnett stock. Why? Gnett is being priced as if it's going out of business. I think it's stock as a two or three bucks.
And it has a ton of content, specifically local and regional content. They own a bunch of local and regional newspapers. And I thought, well, that actually that content is probably very attractive to an LLM that's focused or trying to put out and be more informed in terms of news, if you will. Anyway, that's not again or there. So I'm excited about these
deals. I'd like to see the prices go up. I just did a call with, or I just did an interview with Matt Bellany of Puck News who covers media and he was saying, what does Hollywood get wrong? I'm like, the writer's strike just didn't get it. They're going after the studios. They should be partnering with the studios to go after the LLMs and AI that you can't
squeeze blood from a rock. I mean, Disney doesn't have that much money to give up, but you want to squeeze blood from a giant freaking blue whale carcass, which is AI right now. Anyways, but especially there's all this descent and agita in the newsroom. Why? What creates more descent and agita in a marriage? Financial problems. And when companies are
shrinking and have financial strain, what do you know, mom and dad start arguing? And that's what's happening at the Washington Post and what's happening in media companies all over America is that they are having arguments over money. Thanks to the question, Jack from Delaware. Question number two. I got, this has got calling from Sorkan. Thanks for your podcast. I listen to all four each week and I have a question regarding your brand strategy.
You make two types of jokes at the beginning of the podcast some Mondays and Thursdays, corny or crude. The crude jokes are sometimes funny to the mind of a 12 year old boy. If you think I have the mind of a 12 year old boy, trust your instincts. Even with a 12 year old boy, mind set, however, the crude jokes are often not well received by me and may not be well received by your court group of young males. By way of background, I'm a 57 year old partner in an
accounting firm with 55 employees. I would like to send out links to your podcast to our firm, but do not for two reasons. First, I lead numerous employees and I'm embarrassed by the inappropriate content of the crude jokes. Second, our practices in Washington state were employment
laws are stringent and enforced by the legal community. If I were to send out the podcast link to our employees, it is possible that someone would be offended by the joke and since it was received by his or her employer, I could be accused of creating a hostile work environment. My question is, why would you continue with the crude jokes when you can stick with the corny
jokes for the same amount of work you and your team are putting in to create the podcast? And by doing so, you would create the opportunity to expand your audience across genders and generations and give the expanded audience the opportunity to expand their knowledge, viewpoints, and improve their lives. Thank you for creating content that is insightful, meaningful, and impactful. I'd like to forward to your answer, but I'm not looking forward to the next crude joke.
That is a really thoughtful question, Scott from Spokane. It is a gift when someone gives you what I'll call constructive criticism or constructive feedback. And this is exactly that. It's civil, it's thoughtful, and I want to be clear, you may be right. I don't know. I mean, there's a reason why people aren't crude in media because is it worth the risk of offending people if the kind of the core or the white meat of what you do is excellent or inside
or being funny generally about stuff, then why do you need to go NC17? I do it for a few reasons and I don't know if it's the right way, but it's my way. One, it's authentic. I am crude and profane. That is really me, that is how I think. The corny jokes I like, I like dad jokes, I find crude jokes really funny, and I think that there's more people out there that think like me than not. They're just been told in an overly sensitive environment that they're not supposed to
say these things. And I get it. A lot of this is NSFW and I want to be clear. Young men should not anyone should not feel comfortable repeating these things in a workplace. I'm even just saying, this makes me think I should stop. The way I justify it is that, or at least that rationalizes myself, is that one of the things I don't like about the Democratic Party and Progressives is that we are seen as humorless and that we are so worried about offending people that people
are turned off of us, that we've become so ridiculous with our preferred pronouns, or rather than taking gestures as they're intended, but looking instead trying to find something wrong with someone's comments, take them out of context and then press on the soft tissue and shame them, hoping you'll get a bunch of likes and score a Guardians of Godchapin. I want to create cloud cover for
vulgarity and profanity, not in the workplace, but in media. And one of the reasons I've thought about seriously stopping doing it is that I've had actually parents come up to me with their kids and I think on Jesus the kid is listening to this. Maybe I shouldn't, but anyway, his kids probably have more profanity than I would acknowledge. But I want to take back profanity and vulgarity from the right. I think that it's okay to be an appropriate and joke. You never
want to diminish anybody. You never want to make someone feel bad. But look, if you don't want to listen, if you have that sort of sensibility where you're easily offended by vulgarity or crude jokes, I get it full refund coming your way. And I want to be clear. I don't know if I'm right here, but I am intentional about being authentic into the people I admire, Lenny Bruce, George
Carlin, Dave Chappelle. I just look at these folks and I think of them as progressives, the really faux-mened or gave cloud cover for social change by softening the beach with humor that was quite frankly, an op-pg-13 that was unstarched and crude. I enjoy Bill Maher. I think he's quite crude. But this is something where the jury is out. I don't know. I don't know if I'm right here and
your thoughtful comments give me pause to learn and reconsider my views. So in some, the lesson here, the learning here isn't whether or not I should continue or not continue to have crude jokes or be vulgar. It's that civil dialogue and civil pushback results in learning if you're open to it. And we should all be open to it. We should all approach these issues with a little bit of humility. And that is I'm open to the idea that I might be wrong. Anyways, a long-witted way of saying I
really appreciate the question. Thanks very much, Scott from Spokane. We have one quick break before our final question. Stay with us. Support for this podcast comes from Constant Contact. If you're a business owner, you already know that it's really, really hard to cut through the noise of everyday life. If you want to connect with your customers, you need to break through the noise.
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If you've ever seen a celebrity memoir and thought, what could they possibly write about? The answer to a lot of times is nothing so we have to make up the jokes to fill in the blanks. Yeah, so if you want to know what's in there but you don't want to waste your eyeballs strength, we're going to tell you what's in it. So, hop along for the ride. Who are we? We are two best friends and two comedians who had enough time to read a full book a week.
We live in New York so we think we know everything about everything and we're going to tell you what's what. And if we're wrong, that's part of the fun. So if you are interested in celebrities, in literature, in a good time with your pals, tune into Celebrity Memoir Book Club. The podcast but we read the book so that you don't have to. You can listen to Celebrity Memoir Book Club wherever you get your podcasts. Let me can't wait to hang. Welcome back question number three.
Hey Scott, I'm curious what role and meditation, journaling and morning routines playing your life, if any. Thanks for all you do. So I wake up about 5am. I do a cold plunge and then I review my journaling from the evening before. And then I do a bunch of breath work and then I work out. I do a bunch of yoga and then I do about an hour to an hour and a half of meditation. None of that is true. The role of meditation, journaling and morning routines in my life, they play almost no role. Why?
Because I go to sleep around 2 or 3am. I like to write. I like to hang out with my dogs. I like to surf the internet. I like to watch television. I like to call my friends on the east and west coast back in the United States. And I like to hang out without anybody except my dogs and my brain. Sometimes I have a drink. Sometimes I take an edible. I'm not drinking as much I'm trying to cut down my alcohol intake. But that is me time. That is me time. And what does it
mean when you go to bed at 2 or 3am? It means you get up. I usually get up around 9 or 10. But I don't really get going. I go about 10, 30 or 11. And it fits really well this time zone. Because nobody that works with me is up until noon my time. If that plus I work with all these millennials who are probably walking their dog and prospect park until about 11am after getting their 43 dollar coffees. Is that wrong? Is that a stereotype? Is that a stereotype? Anyway,
my morning routine is I get up. I have coffee. I read a bunch of news. I hang out with the dogs again. If I'm really motivated, I'll do some exercise. Sometimes I put it off. I try and work out about four times a week. I've worked out four times a week for about 40 years. It is my antidepressant. But for me, it's really about taking in information. It's not an attainment time for me, but it's about
coffee. It's about trying to have a nice breakfast. I hang out a little bit with my partner, catch up with her, and then just sort of ease into the day, if you will. But for me, it's about digesting a ton of information. And then America wakes up around 7am and I kind of start my work day. And I usually, right now, it is 7pm. I'll be working until 9pm tonight. And I'll hell breaks loose around noon. And my calendar's just kind of stacked. But when I was in college, I rode crew. And I had to
get up at 5.15 every morning and then bomb to Marina Del Rey, where I would row. And I think it was called Bologna Creek for five or seven miles. By the way, hands down the worst athlete and all of D1 sports you're listening to right now. And usually I had gotten fucked up the night before with my fraternity brothers. And so I would row for about a mile and a half and then throw up over the side. And everyone would freak out and say, shit, like, well, that's not going to make the boat
go faster. Who threw up? Well, I must be gallow and I was like, people are so uptight. I'm like, come on. None of us are going to the Olympics. Anyway, anyway, see above where's D1 athlete and you say, like, history. But I decided after I left a crew that I would never get up early again in my life if I could help it. And two, I would never get my heart rate above 100 beats per minute. I am so over cardiovascular. I was like a giant fucking vein. I was six two, six two, 185, 190. I've been
basically the same weight for 40 years, although it's shifted. It's shifted. Now, I have enormous ankles. Why does that make me laugh? I don't know. Anyways, I decided I wanted nothing to do with cardio. I wanted nothing to do with the mornings. I am not a morning person. I would like to figure out meditation. My friend Sam Harris is like kind of the goo around the stuff. I'm sure it's good for you.
By the way, see above. I'm not sure this is the right way. It's just my way. Daddy is not a morning person. He is not a morning person. Oh, he loves the evening. I think that's why I moved to New York. Seriously, California is all about the day. New York is all about the night and boom. As soon as I went back to New York and it was like a Wednesday and there were great places to go at 11 p.m. I'm like,
hello, hello. Count me. Count me in. Count me. Count New York. Here I come. Anyways, don't love the mornings. Don't love the mornings. The good news is in Britain is that the mornings are really gray and you feel as if you're missing apps of fucking lootly nothing by just being at home nestled around your coffee. Thanks for the question. Not a morning person. Not a morning person. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice
recording to office hours at propgmedia.com. This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer and Ju Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Propgie pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice as read by George Han and please follow our Propgie markets pod
wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday. Please, if you can right now and you enjoyed the show, go to Propgie markets and subscribe.