Greed in Silicon Valley: AI, Power & the Fall of Meritocracy | TSG Ep. 951

He slicked back my hair. Greed is good. Greed is what made America great.

Gordon Gecko coming at you on Textron Gang. Hey everyone. Happy Thursday.

Wow. Thursday, man. This week's flying by.

I'm Alan Shimmel. Welcome to the Textron Gang. We've got another, uh, Rockham soum lineup of, of topics to cover today on the Gang, and we've got our favorite Rockham Soum gang members to, to talk about it with.

Uh, let me introduce you to Terry Robinson, Garima Boal, John Swartz, and of course, Mike Ard. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Thank you for, for coming on.

It's good to see you all. Uh, Mike, you know, the pigs at the trial, as some might say, So, so let me set this a little bit for you. So John has an article up on Textron one AI that you should all check out, but it's really talking about from his perch in Silicon Valley about how the whole ethos of the Valley has fundamentally changed.

And it seems it's taken a while. I mean, I think I've observed this trend happening maybe in the last decade, but it's now just full throttle. And it seems like, John, that all these companies that care out there is, um, you know, how much money they can make, and it's all about the almighty dollar.

And I think the customer's getting lost in this conversation. But walk us through what you're seeing. Yeah, you know, it, so it all hit home for me last week at Dreamforce when Mark Benioff stuck his foot in it.

Um, he got caught by the New York Times. Uh, he basically was advocating for the National Guard to come in and clean up San Francisco, which is the side of Dreamforce. And you know, coincidentally, he's done this the last three years, and he uses it.

He uses the show as kind of a perch to get what he wants. And New York Times also did a report that the reason why he was so pro National Guard is that Salesforce had put a bid into the, to es to, uh, use Asian force. So it was motivated as much by money as it was by politics.

In a sense. Politics is almost secondary to this, the pure greed that's going on. And I, and I remember yesterday, uh, Mike and I were just talking about this a little bit, and, uh, with apologies to Paul Simon and Joe DiMaggio, where have you gone, bill, if you would, what happened to this kind of ideal of the garage, you know, startup, um, discovery, uh, you know, you make products to make money.

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna fight or push back on that. I, I totally understand that, but I think we've actually reached a point now where it almost, we were in an era where the apps were almost incremental to the point where they were silly, but they were about convenience, about making money and about getting more data from the customer, which became part of the product. And I think we, as Mike has said, we've come full throttle, full circle.

This has been moving this in this direction for quite a long time. I think it was underscored by Benioff who subsequently apologized. But I, I, I consider that a hollow apology, honestly.

And I, I just think of this, this valley and the fact that they are so ingrained with the government, it's all a money grab. AI is huge. I understand that, but everything's gone by the wayside in terms of ethics and integrity, the customer.

Um, maybe I, I might throw it back to Mike about what he mentioned about the product and how things have changed from kind of some of the foundational companies that were here and how they address the customer base to where we are today. Yeah, I mean, capitalism is a good thing and always has been. So I don't think anybody's arguing against that in particular, but it does feel like in their PROEs of competition with each other and what they perceive to be threats, they've kinda like turned inward to the point where, um, you know, it's all about how much data we can pull and maybe we're gonna own the future of AI and all these other things.

And that's an interesting theory. But I also think that they're gonna misread the politics of the situation as well. I mean, the short term, you know, greed is good, I guess, but longer term, if it's perceived that AI is costing people jobs, and Amazon was talking about laying off like 600,000 people over the next few years, you know, people are gonna start looking for folks to blame.

They're gonna find those guys in a, in the AI world and start pointing their finger at them. And more of them are gonna vote for folks like the guy who's running for mayor in New York City. So that's, I mean, oh, let, Alan, lemme just point out one thing.

I'm sorry, Alan, I'll get outta the way. But there's this, this common refrain, actually, it's growing, it's growing into a chorus out here, and people are noticing this. And they've been talking about, there've been other folks who have written about this.

I, I, I've heard secondhand. Um, and I did go to lunch with a guy who was in the semiconductor industry who's been around forever. He worked at Fairchild, he worked at a MD, worked at Actel.

And he said, look, I mean, this is nothing new here, but I think what happens, what has changed is there's more money and there's more power at stake, and it absolutely has corrupted people. Sorry, Alan, Chuck. No, don't be sorry.

I'm say your peace, John. I need a little time to step up onto my soapbox. Anyway.

So let me, let me address a couple of things here. First of all, my friends, welcome to the Oligarchy 'cause make no mistake, what we're living in is a tech bro, oligarchy, a vital piece of the Trump Coalition is the Peter Field led brotherhood that went down in Silicon Valley that corrupted what was one of the greatest innovation engines in the history of mankind. Okay?

That's what went down here. Let me tell you something. I've been in tech for 35 plus years, Mike, John, you have two.

Terry Greener, you're younger, but you've been around, right? What attracted us to Silicon Valley, what attracted us to tech was the meritocracy of it. Whether you are white, black, male, female, non-binary, or whatever you want, whether you come from India and Bangladesh or, or, or Idaho.

If you had a good idea and you were talented, you could go into that garage like was and Steve Jobs or Bill Gates and, and, and Paul Allen or, or Hewlett and Packard for that matter, or countless others like Larry Ellison and all these other, you know, people who are now in the tech, bro oligarchy. And, and if you have a good product at the right time, and you got good marketing, you could live the American dream, right? Why did, when I was coming outta school, you had a choice.

You go work on Wall Street and you get like a $800,000 Christmas bonus and go buy yourself a red Ferrari. Or you go work for a startup and you get some options. And look, nine outta 10 startups didn't have such great exits.

But if you got your golden ticket and you were on that 10th startup, man, those options made you a tech millionaire. I've, I lived that dream for 25, 30 years, did the IPO thing, did all that stuff. And the beauty of it, it wasn't just Silicon Valley, it started spreading to places like Austin, Texas and Boulder, Colorado, Boston was always a big tech haven.

New York, everybody down here in Miami, they keep in South Florida, they keep dream dreaming of Silicon Beach and Silicon Island and silicon this, and, but no one ever recreated Silicon Valley. It was the envy of the world. And the politics of Silicon Valley were for every man.

Mark Benioff apologized because one of his main board members who's kind of the dean of Silicon Valley, chastised them in, in public and said, what happened to you? You piece of garbage, right? And then all of a sudden he made that half-hearted kind of, uh, apology.

But the, the real Silicon Valley would, this is, this is disgusting to them. This is not what's, this is tech, bro, oligarchy, plain and simple. I always have a feeling with these guys, and this is not to undermine what goes on out there and all the brilliant ideas and all the hard work, but you talked about meritocracy too.

There's a sense, at least to me, that they haven't earned their riches like this, this is not earned, you know, stuff. This is convenience, this is influence. This is, you know, who you know, and, uh, being Yeah, It's an oligarchy.

That's how an oligarchy functions. It's, it's all, you know, and it is a brotherhood. Make no mistake about it.

It's tech bros. The greed is the point. I mean, too, it's like, you know, it's the greed stupid right?

To borrow from the Clinton campaign. But, uh, yeah, it's just, I've been around as long as you have, uh, Alan and, and I, I remember a lot of those people fondly in silicon, uh, valley and a lot of the personalities and, you know, they'd be abrupt and crusty and, you know, and everything else. But there was a lot of respect for them and what they were doing.

And I, it's hard to find that right now. Yeah. You know, you're in San Francisco, and I would just love to get your opinion on this.

'cause you know, I lived out there for a decade, and I feel like everybody beats up on the town because of the Tenderloin district that sits around the convention center. And, you know, the Tenderloin District has always been, you know, ever since, you know, the gold rush and maybe the days of Jack London. But if I go around the rest of San Francisco and I'm up in Pacific Heights and I'm in the Outer Richmond and the sunset, it's still a nice town.

And so it's not like, you know, we have this kind of emergency crisis that people keep painting about that particular city, or am I wrong, Right? Yeah, you're totally right. You're totally right.

This is, I mean, the fact that Mark Bano Benioff, who's a fourth generation San Franciscan, by the way, and he talks about this quite a bit, the fact that he plays into that narrative, which is off. And by the way, go to any major city in the United States, and you're gonna find home. Absolutely.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I go to see my son in San Diego. The problem there is as bad as it is anywhere.

And, and I love San Diego, but here's the point, though, in San Francisco, he plays into this caricature, this, this stereotype, which is totally inaccurate. And he does this as, as kind of a, a way to hold the city hostage. And I think there was a, there's a fair amount of pushback this time around.

And he, he, he stuck his foot in, as I said earlier, and that led to Ron Conway, who does have a conscience. He's the angel investor who was on the board. He's just like, what's the matter with you?

And he walked away, and I think Benioff maybe be as he accumulated billions and billions, and he became more like his mentor Larry Ellison, who has always been this way. By the way, Larry Ellison was the epitome. He was the Gordon Gecko of Silicon Valley before there was a Gordon Gecko.

And, and I think that whole persona has permeated. I think it also is being pushed by people like Mark Andreessen. Yes.

Who, who is among the worst offenders on so many levels, not just, I mean, in terms of, uh, I won't go into it because I don't want to get us in trouble, but he has said some really horrible things and, and he truly believes in them. Um, you know, these, these guys were all the, sorry, You know how bad this has gotten all these guys, they're making Microsoft look good. Yeah, exactly.

That's what I was gonna say too. So, so the mediocrity of Microsoft now is, now, now they're the leaders in ai. And that says so much to me about the state of things.

But again, it's with them, it's, it's ba an Investment. But here's the deal, John, the leaders in AI today are not the leaders. 'cause they're out innovating.

They're the leaders because they're out tech broing, And they're also investing, uh, Money. Well, the circular jerk, right? The circle jerk of investment that we see going on between these five or six different companies.

Right? I never thought I'd ever hear that phrase. Blessings.

The blessings of, of the contractor in the White House building, building his grand bull. That's The other point I was gonna get to these guys are hand in hand with, with Trump. But just to to point out the hypocrisy of these guys, these guys are like, uh, uh, Zeig, right?

They just adapt to whoever's in office. Remember that famous photo of, of Obama flank by Jobs and Zuckerberg? Now you can, you can just insert Trump and you would have Tim Cook on one side and Zuckerberg on the other, and Sam Altman and Ellison and all the rest of this crew.

All of 'em. So I, I gotta tell you the truth I expected of Larry Ellison and Benioff is his evil disciple like Lucifer. And, uh, you know, uh, I, Tim Cook hurt me, uh, that, because I thought Tim Cook had, that's like A dagger.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, You know what, I, I thought Tim was better than that.

I Think there's, I think he, I think, uh, he's near the end and I think he's gonna be retiring fairly soon. He's gonna turn 65 in a few days. And I think he's probably tired of it, but yeah, you're right.

It pained me to see him sell outs, Bend the knee like That. I, I thought he would hold outs, You know, so, So, so there is, there is a conversation happening around dining room tables today, and it goes something like this, little Johnny or Little Jane just got back from college and can't find a job, especially in computer science or any of these other places. And they're starting to ask questions about, well, what are these tech bros up to here?

Because it doesn't look good for, you know, their aspirations for that American dream that Alan was talking about. And, you know, their mindsets are starting to change, and you're gonna see some interesting things in the next couple of years. I hope so.

I think so. I, I really, really hope so. I, I, I, you know, it is, uh, it, it it's just, it, It's, you know, you know, if there is a, if there is a change, and I'm saying this in terms of the government, watch these guys pivot as hard as possible and pretend like this never happens.

Yeah. But the, they will try, they will try to reinvent themselves like they always do. But you know what?

The public's not as stupid as they think we are. Well, not all of the public, the public, and, you know, not all of it. Yeah, some are, but it's just the damage is done too.

So how do you get off the track? You know, even with regime change. And, and also don't underestimate that large swaths of this world who were not in the tech world already resented the way the tech world operates, right?

It was taking good jobs. It was, you know, replacing taking away jobs. And, you know, a lot of them would say they had it coming, they have it coming, right?

Because, you know, there's, there's so much, you know, you, you talk, so I live here in south Florida. It's not a poor area where I live, but you know, it, it's, it's very common to say, oh, where, how'd that guy buy that house? Oh, he's a tech millionaire.

He's one of those tech billionaires, right? And it's one of four houses he owns. And, you know, and they say it not with admiration, but with resentment.

And, and there will, and you know what, Mike, you brought up the mayoral race in New York. I think that's a perfect example of it. People are saying, enough, we, what, what about us?

What about us? Right? We're not a tech bro.

You know, what's interesting about that though too, is that was a sentiment, I think, among Maga until the tech bros started going Trump's way. Yeah. I think they really felt that way.

And, you know, now they're all in with the tech rows. But I wouldn't make that assumption. I think that there's a significant portion of the right that also is asking these questions.

Oh, No. Yeah. I think that, Yeah, there's a, there's a certain bi there's a, a bipartisan, um, agreement in, in Congress, especially about the power of, of big tech and about its morals and about its technology.

I mean, they're, they're from the extreme right to the extreme left. There seems to be a general distrust. And that's a one of the few common grounds they share is, is the fact that Bing tech is just, can't be trusted, Can't live with 'em, can't live without them.

Hey, let's take a break here. We're gonna come back and, and talk about a another war. This one about browsers.

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It's convincing you that your personal life isn't at risk. Black clerk, digital executive protection, defending the new attack surface your personal life. All right, folks, we're back and we've talked about this forthcoming browser war, and now it's actually here, at least in my opinion, we see open AI is now pulled out their browser, and they're going after Google.

And of course there's been other choices out there, but at least in, in my opinion, OpenAI is the most credible player in this space. And we'll see how this plays out. But Karima, you've been following this.

What's your take? I'm more conscious than thrilled, and I'll tell you why. com as well, uh, regarding this topic, AI browser race when Comet was about to launch, right?

And there was a lot of buzz around, you know, uh, how the, uh, the come browser would, uh, integrate AI and AI agents. Now we see the similar challenge, uh, coming up from OpenAI. 5 billion users of Google through their, uh, browser, which they, they call Atlas.

And they are trying to leverage, uh, 800 billion users, which they have on charge GPT, right? But you know, the caution or the concern I have, I will point out a few features from the Atlas browser, and then probably we can discuss how do you feel about this whole challenge? So the first, uh, feature I was, uh, uh, investigating this, that they are putting browser memories and data retention, which means that, uh, browser memory would be storing context for personalized in interactions, and of, of course, they will have controls for Optane Optout and all that, right?

Another aspect is AI training of browser data. Now, how this training would happen, of course, uh, you need user behavior data. You need, uh, data for interactions and how this is playing around.

And of course, the controls will be there. But think about this. The user con consent and control has complexity to it, right?

So what features you will be opting out, which features you want to log out, uh, and you what kind of mode you have. And I think there is another sensitivity to this that, uh, these whole whole, uh, you know, emerging tech integration into browsers is susceptible to, uh, security risks, right? So this will be a lot of vulnerabilities introduced through prompt injections.

Another area which I wanted to also highlight was, um, AI literacy and comfort gap. And this is again, uh, what we have discussed in the first, uh, part that, you know, this technology is, is hitting a larger masses, a user base, which is probably not that tech savvy, right? So we'll have to ensure that people understand the implications of opting and opting out, right?

How, uh, AI centric design of Atlas would work. And think about these things like if there is a reduced traffic on authentic, uh, websites, for example, because there is algorithmic intervention of agents, uh, putting you to different kind of websites and maybe chosen websites or personalized content or context, right? How the biases would be built.

And, you know, not everybody would be represented in that bias, right? So things like that is a lot of, uh, concerns I have on the table. And of course, now, Mike, you would ask me that, you know, where these discussions are taking place, how can I be part of this discussion and how I can build a governance around it?

But I, I have to say this as a technologist, that, uh, we need to lead this, right? We need to lead this independent oversight. And, um, like media houses, like yours, uh, tech strong TV plays an important vital role in this oversight.

Because if we do not bring regular external point of view or multi-stakeholder evaluation or systematic oversight of these AI applications, I think we will remain blindfolded. And that is what would be needed. And of course, I don't have a straightforward answer.

Maybe, you know, you guys have more insights into how the Silicon Valley is thinking about it or how, you know, the more developed countries would take, uh, the space and say, okay, we, uh, own the space and we build an audit mechanism. We o uh, build an, um, uh, accountability mechanism into all this. So it is also subject to kind of seeing how all this plays around.

I am quite skeptical about this whole thing be just because of the fact that it is hitting the masses. You know, we have seen this whole technology revolution, uh, in let's say critical infrastructure area or defense area, or mining area, which we probably are not concerned that much about, right? Because it doesn't hit like 8 billion people, but browsers, everybody's using it.

And one more thing I want to kind of highlight, that if you work for the government and you start using these browsers, how your identity will be mapped and what kind of data is, is being pulled out of your, uh, browsers is also, uh, subject to kind of, you know, consideration. So let me just summarize that big tech is experimenting on millions of people without any regard to the implications thereof, Alan. Well, but, but you know what?

This, we've seen browser wars before, right? Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, uh, Google, uh, Chrome, chromium based, you know, seems to have one of the day. This one's a little different though, right?

I, and, and I'm gonna bring you back to when Google, uh, launched the Chromebooks, right? The promise of Chromebooks is you could go buy a device for $300, $250, and instead of running Mac Os or Windows, you really didn't care what os you ran, it ran, it all ran through the browser. The browser was the interface, the browser was the ux.

This is that battle on a whole new level. 'cause what we're talking about is not just the browser, we're talking about the new ux. How are you going to interact with your world, right?

The idea of running apps outside the browser on your device probably are gonna go away. You could run the apps right on the browser and the way you, it, it may not be typing. You may talk to it, you may, you know, the whole in human computer interaction here is changing.

And it may not be a browser window in terms of what we normally think of as a browser window. It may just be a talking head that I talk to and it pops stuff on the screen for me or whatever, right? This is, I mean, is it a little, am I being a little farfetched?

Maybe, but not that far. Not that far. And so, you know, the, so the, the, the, the spoils of this war are huge, right?

To the winner goes the spoils. I think you're gonna see, now Google has the incumbents chair, but it's the old way. So they're gonna want to do incremental, start building AI into my search results and, and this kind of thing.

I think open AI, perplexity, they're all gonna try something. But I think there's a tremendous opportunity here for something just totally revolutionary new that does away with the hu the the traditional human computer conduit of interaction and using AI more like thought check One difference, which, uh, you'll feel yourself, right? I mean, comet was launched a few days back, right?

So I was also curious and inquisitive to try it out. I went into their like, uh, website multiple times, but I didn't download it. Why was that?

Because I didn't have the trust, Right? I could do this with Google. I do this with Chrome because they have built that trust.

And until, and unless I see registries of AI model, which they are using Explana, uh, explanation of, uh, you know, how these agents work, uh, some kind of explanatory reports which are out there, I wouldn't, because, you know, ignorance is bliss. I always say that, you know, people who don't know would try and use it, but people who actually understand that how the data, user interaction, user behavior is kind of recorded and used on in the leverage of these big tech companies, I think we'll be very, very conscious about it. So let me throw some metrics.

I think, well, there's two things. First of all, I'm gonna let Alan go first and see how it goes. Well, Let me go ahead.

90% of developers use ai, 40% don't trust it, but 90% still use it. But go ahead, Mike, That's for hobby court, not for production. And the second thing about this is, you know, I'm open to using a different browser and I've been using Google Chrome forever, but the current Google Chrome experience is crap.

And so it's, I'm like, willing to think about something else here. You know, what was that? Like, somebody has an article or a book out talking about how, you know, the big tech is running down the, I believe the technical term they uses and ification of the web.

And, and that's what we're getting these days. So if the browser kind of gives me a better experience, you know, I'm hoping it does. I, but I agree with Garima.

I, I know for certain they did not think through the security issues. So I'll just wait to see what Alan experiences and, you know, in six months I'll come back. I can't wait to use it and I'll let you know, right?

Um, but that's Interesting to see. They, they, they will We'll be booking our airline tickets as Ellen is booking from, uh, this website, which she's using for years, right? Mm-hmm.

So we'll know about it. It's, this is how you know your daytime. It's gonna be Interesting where They around.

Go ahead, John. It's gonna Be interesting. What?

Oh, yeah, sorry. There's gonna be interesting what they do with, with Atlas. I mean, they refer to it as an AI browser agent.

And I, I wonder how Johnny Ive, and that whole IO acquisition plays into this. Like maybe that's a mechanism or delivery of some sort. But I also think that open ai, it's an uphill battle.

I mean, as, as bad as, or as mediocre as the Google experiences, they've embedded the AI agents across Gmail, docs search Chrome, Android. So it's quite a, it's quite a task, but you're, it's, it's gonna be interesting. I also think, I wonder if Perplexity ends up becoming part of another company like Apple, for instance, and that shakes things up.

But I'm, I mean, I'm all for some al alternatives to Chrome. I also will point out one more alternative, which is in making is confidential ai. Because some of us who are more aware of the technology revolution, I think we will pivot into some kind of a confidential models for, uh, using these kind of industrialized applications and for the larger masses who don't care how this user interaction and how the data is being captured.

Maybe the, this is the answer to that, that question, but for me, I think I'm leaning towards some kind of a movement for confidential ai. Kareem is reading my mind. 'cause that will be a topic next week.

So we'll come back to that. All Right, on that note then, let's take a break here and come over. Come back to our C block today, which is, uh, regarding face facial recognition, that, that's been a controversial one.

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Contact us today and tell your story to the world in the most powerful way with Textron Group. Hey folks, we're back. And as Alan alluded to, facial recognition technology is going to court.

There's a lawsuit that's aimed at the Dolans who own, um, Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks and The New York Rangers. And I think they have a piece of the liberty. And, um, the, an issue here is apparently, at least according to the suit, um, the Dolans have what amounts to in enemies list that they don't wanna have in the garden.

And they are using facial recognition to enforce that. And the suit says that's part of a larger cultural issue that is at the heart of that particular lawsuit. But Terry, you wrote this story up on Security Boulevard.

Is this gonna become the test case for facial recognition and how we use it and don't use it? It maybe, I mean, New York lawmakers had sort of raised the alarm last year about this. They had heard tell that the facial recognition, uh, technology wasn't being used as advertised by Madison Square Garden, which, you know, ostensibly was to protect the garden.

And all the fans who come in from some sort of attack, you know, the terrorist attack or some untoward activity, um, I don't think much happened between the time that the lawmakers sent their letter out last year and the time that this suit really started gaining some, some traction. But, but maybe it should be the test case for, um, how it's used. Uh, of course, it's just also something is really rotten at Madison Square Garden in their security, you know, department overall.

And, and maybe just in the, the business of the garden, because the guy that brought this suit really was bringing a suit, uh, you know, first and foremost about disability discrimination because, um, basically the head of security there and, and, and other people were using private information about his health condition, he's diabetic, um, you know, to bully him and, uh, and, and sort of publicize it in the workplace. And, you know, I, they called him old and weak. He's 49, by the way, um, and, and diabetics.

So I mean, 40 nine's hardly old, um, these days. But, um, in filing that suit, all of this other stuff came out about their security practices and, uh, the mishandling of, of, uh, data. So yes, you're right.

Madison Square Garden has an enemies list. Um, it's pretty interesting because that could include, you know, guests, lawyers, customers, sports fans who might have former players, former players, Charles Oakley, former player, Charles Oakley. Yeah.

And, And soon to be Terry Robinson. So there You go. And soon to be Terry Robinson who might have expressed frustration about the Knicks losses come on.

Now, you know, who doesn't follow the Knicks and expressed some, you know, frustration on that part. I mean, they've done pretty good the last couple of seasons, but it's, it, it, you know, the list was fairly broad of what they looked at. So you wear a t-shirt, you know, you, they recognize your face.

Um, there was one woman who was targeted who is transgender, and she was, you know, targeted for no other reason than her gender identification. It wasn't as if she had done something. James Dolan was being accused of sexual harassment by, you know, another woman.

And this guy that filed the suit had been asked, uh, by the head of security to record, you know, phone conversations that could be used to, uh, dissuade and intimidate her going forward. And that's where he drew the line. He said, Nope, not going to, you know, not gonna do it.

Um, the guy who filed the suit, by the way, um, you know, was the, he's not like some low level employee. He was the VP of shared security services. So he was up the food.

Well, let, let me say this. First of all, if the Dolans would put as much energy in the building winning franchises as they do into this crap, maybe we wouldn't be sitting here that the last time the Knicks won a championship was my Bar Mitzvah in 1973. Okay?

And the Rangers when, you know, mark messier before he went out the door. But that being said, are the Dolans any different than the president telling the Department of Justice Go indict this one, he's an on my enemies list. We live in a country where having an enemy's list is, is okay.

It's okay. Yeah. It's a okay.

Yeah, right. When Nixon did it, they wanted, they ran him outta town. No, today it's, it, it's Course we had morals, then we had principles.

Now it's okay, but they're my enemies and I'm, and this is my toy, and I'm going to use my toy the way I want. Whether it's the Department of Justice or Madison Square Garden Security Team, right? Well, so it's no longer that, that kind of thing.

An NMAs list is no longer a deal breaker for politicians, for, you know, business people at the top of the heap. It's, you know, it used to be, but It would be, I again, welcome to the oligarchy. Exactly.

We, I'm sure there are other owners, other owners who are watching and wondering, maybe we should do the same thing. I I wouldn't just count, I wouldn't just count Joe Laker from doing it for the Warriors. I, I, you know, it's, I I think the Warriors put a good, a good product on board.

Well, they do. I know I do, but I just think, Well, they go to a ws An enemy or perceived, you know, the enemy's list thing has become so prevalent and so pervasive that I could see it used in limited cases. Not, not to the extent, maybe to the Knicks, but to a shorter, shorter extent.

Well, I, and and it's not just public sports. It's it's everywhere. It's, it's everywhere.

It's A whole bit, it's the workplace, you know? Well, which is also part of this. But yeah.

Um, yeah, that, that's who we'd become or that's the direction we're heading in. We're, and we're comfortable with it. Not us, we're not comfortable with it, but I'd still like to see the next win.

I, I, I confess I do have a list. It's called the Techstrong Gang Friends List. And it's very nice and it's opening, welcoming, and everybody should come.

Yeah, We like that kind of list. That's a good list to have. Alright.

Murray. It, it was like a badge of honor to be on Nixon's enemy list, wasn't it? Back in the day.

Yeah, It was then. Right? Somebody considered a badge of honor to be be on other enemies list.

Yeah. Charles Oakley's not losing, no sleep over it. Awoke.

All right, I think we're gonna call a ARAF on this version of Text on Gag. It was, it was a little controversial and heated today, folks. Um, as usual, we've got Text Drunk TV coming up.

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