This week we are joined by journalist and cultural commentator Sam Sanders, of the Sam Sanders Show, to unpack the lessons Hollywood is learning from its latest unexpected success: mega-viral sensation Kpop Demon Hunter. We discuss how Sony lost out on much of the movie's profits when it signed over the rights to Netflix–though arguably helped preserve its business during the Covid downturn by doing so–and how the success of KPop Demon Hunters at least partly vindicates Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos’ controversial claim that the experience of going to a movie theater is “outdated.” Sanders mostly agrees, suggesting that the theatrical experience will essentially go the way of opera–once a wildly popular medium that eventually settled into a narrow and extremely rarified niche. The songs are good too.

We’re also joined by Odd Lots co-host Joe Weisenthal to fact check President Trump’s claim that the “stock market needs tariffs and ask college students about their AI habits as they head back to school. And, finally, we explain why, love them or hate them, tariffs are making your Pumpkin Spice Latte (not to mention any pumpkin spice cat litter you happen to buy this fall) more expensive.

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This week on Everybody’s Business from Bloomberg Businessweek, Editor Brad Stone and Stacey Vanek Smith talk Fed independence, Cracker Barrel, as well as the upcoming wedding that’s already moving markets.

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What does it say about the prospects for an artificial intelligence “golden age” that some of those who most enthusiastically predicted it are now tamping down expectations? Earlier this week, in what looked like damage control over the release of a new version of ChatGPT, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said investors have been inflating a speculative bubble in AI. He predicted “someone’s going to get burned.”

Altman and other AI insiders seem more or less fine with that, arguing that asset bubbles often coincide with technology breakthroughs. The thinking goes like this: the dot-com bust was bad, but at the end of it we had a new information infrastructure that led to lasting economic growth. Maybe that happens this time around, but there’s reason to think an AI bust would be economically devastating—and not just for businesses that bet heavily on the software and data centers needed to run it.

On this week’s episode of Everybody’s Business, we explore the potential economic fallout of an AI implosion with Ed Zitron, a skeptic who makes a compelling case for panic in a recent essay and on his podcast, Better Offline.

In other words, rather than continuing to embrace the new technology, maybe it’s time to hate it. The argument boils down to a problem of misalignment: For years, big tech companies have dumped hundreds of billions of dollars into developing ever-more advanced large language models (LLM) (like OpenAI’s GPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude). Much of that money has gone to chipmakers, especially Nvidia, which sells the graphical processing units needed to train new models. All of this spending has sent asset prices soaring, creating a dynamic in which index funds are heavily weighted to a single industry—which you guessed it—threatens to crash the entire stock market if it falters. A similar dynamic may be playing out in the world of private credit, which tech companies are increasingly tapping to build data centers, creating another economic risk.

At the same time, there are signs those wildly expensive LLMs are failing to generate commensurate financial returns. These include the blowback to the release GPT-5, which OpenAI had promoted as potentially god-like but which many users say is actually worse than the last version. There’s also a recently published study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that showed the vast majority of pilot programs involving so-called generative AI failed to lead to revenue growth.

Also on this week’s episode:

• We discuss the struggles of fast food companies with Bloomberg Businessweek’s Deena Shanker. Normally, they thrive in times of economic uncertainty, but McDonald’s has been struggling, partly she says because the company’s food is no longer seen as cheap. One exception to this trend? Taco Bell, which has thrived because it’s managed to keep prices low while being just unique enough to go viral on TikTok.
• Finally, for our underrated story, we preview Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s big speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday. Get ready for some extremely low-key fireworks.

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