July 21, 2026

Canaries in the AI Coal Mine

Canaries in the AI Coal Mine
Canaries in the AI Coal Mine
This Time Is Different
Canaries in the AI Coal Mine

Uber, Tesla, xAI, Meta, and now IBM have all quietly signaled the same thing: AI is too expensive. Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:

  • Whether "gotcha questions" in media interviews (from Tucker Carlson to JD Vance on Rogan) actually work

  • Why Malcolm bought Netflix into weakness after a disappointing earnings report, and picked up Cerebras (CBRS) as a bet against Nvidia's pricing power.

  • The "canaries in the coal mine" for AI spending: Tesla and Uber capping employee AI token usage, Meta and xAI signaling they overbuilt data center capacity, and IBM's ugly pre-released earnings blaming AI infrastructure costs

  • Why Ricky bought VICI Properties, the landlord behind Caesars and MGM on the Las Vegas Strip, as a hideout trade disconnected from AI

  • The other half of the K-shaped economy: falling grocery unit sales at PepsiCo versus surging same-store sales at Costco

  • A listener question on gifting money tax-free to kids for a home down payment.

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Hosts: Ricky Mulvey, Malcolm Ethridge

Engineer: Tim Sparks


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