Pivot

AI Spending Spree, Crypto Winter, and Kara's Message to Jeff Bezos

with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway
10 Feb 2026 7 min read 1h 32m
TL;DR

AI spending has reached fever-pitch proportions with four tech giants committing $660 billion annually—comparable to the entire Apollo program—signaling potential overinvestment similar to the 2000 dot-com bubble and 2022 crypto boom. Meanwhile, crypto is collapsing with Bitcoin down 45% and Michael Saylor's company reporting a $12.4B loss, while Amazon's massive capex announcement spooked investors despite the company's improved tax position under Trump.

Key Moments
Kara Swisher
“Explain to me why I should unsubscribe from Amazon Prime if you really want to hurt or send a message to the president.”
Kara introduces Scott's 'Resist and Unsubscribe' campaign aimed at pressuring tech leaders through subscription cancellations.
▶ 1:30
Scott Galloway
“I'm thinking I'm getting about 10,000 unsubscribes a day or 300,000 subscribes over the course of um over the course Anyways, I've done the math here. I think I think I can notionally take about a quarter of a billion dollars of market cap out of these companies.”
Scott explains the scale of his unsubscribe movement after getting 100,000 daily site visitors.
▶ 3:50
Kara Swisher
“if you look at the ads, a quarter of them were AI. Yeah. Uh 15 of the 66 were AI. The last time tech was as dominant in the Super Bowl in advertising, there's been two times in the last 50 years. One was in 2022 when it was called the crypto bowl and it was Binance and FTX and look what in that year that was the year crypto blew up”
Kara highlights that 25% of Super Bowl ads were AI-focused, drawing parallels to previous tech bubbles.
▶ 11:50
Scott Galloway
“I am easily the worst crypto investor in history. I finally threw in the towel and I bought some shares in a Bitcoin treasury company. I bought it at 14 and within 45 days I sold it at $4.50.”
Scott admits his poor timing in crypto investments before discussing the current market collapse.
▶ 19:10
Scott Galloway
“Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft unveiled plans to spend a combined 660 billion on AI buildout this year. That's a 60% increase from last year. Apple is the only big tech company whose capex decreased from last year. And the and the sheer magnitude is just shocking. That's three times the global R&D of the pharmaceutical industry.”
Scott contextualizes the staggering scale of big tech's AI spending relative to other industries.
▶ 26:50
About the show
›
Pivot is New York Magazine and Vox Media's flagship podcast where Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway break down the week's biggest tech, business, and culture stories with sharp analysis and irreverent humor. This episode covers the Super Bowl's AI advertising boom, crypto's brutal winter, and Amazon's massive $200B spending spree.
Takeaways
1
Super Bowl ads signal AI bubble inflating When 25% of Super Bowl ads focus on a single technology (matching 2022's crypto boom and 2000's dot-com bubble), history suggests a correction is coming. The concentration of capital from four companies alone ($660B annually) exceeds pharmaceutical R&D by 3x, indicating potential overallocation to unproven AI infrastructure returns.
2
Prediction markets eating gambling apps' lunch Prediction market apps like Couch saw downloads spike 100% month-over-month while traditional gambling apps (DraftKings, FanDuel) lost user engagement and cut earnings estimates in half. This represents a fundamental shift in how consumers speculate, with regulatory clarity favoring prediction markets over sports betting.
3
Crypto winter reveals speculative excess, Bitcoin remains tangible Bitcoin down 45% from highs; altcoins down 90%. While most cryptocurrencies are pure speculation, Bitcoin has established scarcity-based value as a legitimate asset class. However, it's failing its macro hedge function—not appreciating amid dollar weakness or inflation—suggesting its bull-case narrative needs recalibration.