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Zoë Schiffer: Emil Michael, you should turn off your comments on LinkedIn because people can see when they look at your phone.
Brian Barrett: Yeah, that’s a tip for Emil Michael if you’re listening. And then, if you’re listening The Valley of the Uncannywhich you should.
Leah Feiger: And this is the Trump official who is leading the war against Anthropic here. He has this deep connection to the world of technology and is the Pentagon’s public enemy number one of anyone who tries to cross the Pentagon. So the fact that, one, does not have perhaps the best sec in the world? But two, it’s good to make this battle public, it’s something to consider because it’s not just a message to Anthropic in my mind. It is a message to anyone else who would dare to question these policies.
Brian Barrett: I want to go to something higher in the mind. Have you all checked yours? Kalshi or Polymarket recent portfolios? How are we doing?
Leah Feiger: Well, I haven’t invested in ours yet The survivor winners, but soon, soon.
Brian Barrett: No, in terms of things that are surprising but shouldn’t be anymore, the prediction markets have obviously taken over a large part of our lives in many ways for—I mean “us” in general, not the three of us.
Leah Feiger: All three of us text each morning and go, “What did you do at Kalshi last night?”
Brian Barrett: Yes. But surprisingly, not surprisingly, there is a lot of betting going on around the Iran war to keep the thread going. Currently, one of the top bets on Polymarket is “Will the Iranian regime fall by June 30?” The total bet is around 7 million dollars in that market alone.
Leah Feiger: Very sad, Brian.
Brian Barrett: Yes.
Leah Feiger: This is people’s lives. I don’t know. I understand that much of this has become a version of itself. I understand that the stock market and how we do most of all this, but this feels more manipulated to me.
Brian Barrett: Well, and in terms of people’s lives, I mean, there was a big controversy earlier this week about how Kalshi settle a bet or settle a market. There was a market of 54 million dollars in the the fate of Iran’s supreme leader. I believe they said it—Leah, correct me if I’m wrong—they said like, he’s going to be out of office.
Leah Feiger: That is exactly what happened.
Brian Barrett: And then he was blown up by a missile.
Leah Feiger: So technically out of power, but that wasn’t a bet.
Brian Barrett: Because you can’t bet, and they’re like, “We don’t let you bet on deaths here.” So he is out of power, but not really. So they’re always betting if people are going to die, finding smart ways around it and then having a hard time settling these markets, so that’s a problem. The fact that there was a total of 54 million dollars in bounty for this guy from the best people, including one user named MAGAMyMan, who had won $553,000 during all this. It is infuriating. And I think whether any of this is insider trading or not, it’s bad.
