[0:00:00] You spent millions deploying AI across your organization, but six months in, it still misses basic context. Sound familiar? That's not an AI problem, that's a data problem. Siloed systems leave your AI blind, while dark data confuses whatever it does see. EverPure unifies your data so your model can see it, understand it, and put it to work. No waiting around, no digging for answers. Get real results from your AI at everpuredata.com.
[0:00:30] And of course, your calendar's all... Good news! With Chase Secure Banking, your direct deposit hits your bank account up to two days faster. So when your friends are like, and your bills go, you have the peace your deposit brings. And the best part? There's no monthly service fee for 17 to 24-year-olds. Thanks to Chase Secure Banking. For Chase Secure Checking only, eligible direct deposits may be credited up to two business days early depending on when the payer submits the transaction. Member FDIC.
[0:00:59] Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. The question of our times, how smart is too smart for artificial intelligence? The leaders behind the quickly growing technologies are warning we need to slow down now. Head of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleiman is very clear it's all up to us. If an AI thinks that it has rights, if it thinks that it is deserving of our welfare.
[0:01:28] And he thinks the big existential conversation is healthy. We're completely different, and we shouldn't anthropomorphically project our experiences into them.
[0:01:47] Then are you excited about the NFL starting October baseball, the WNBA, pickleball? Good news, sports is appointment viewing, streaming, and experiencing. Rich Kleiman, manager for NBA star Kevin Durant, on this new economy. I love the overall popularity of sports as a whole. I think there's more excitement around more optionality.
[0:02:09] Plus, the rare chance for a leader to watch his own succession. Warren Buffett stepping down as chairman of the conglomerate he built, Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett is the longest serving chairman in the S&P 500, more than 60 years. It's Friday, September 18th, 2026. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue, please.
[0:02:35] Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan. Andrew will join us a little later in the show. It's a Friday. We're ready to go. We do have some news just out from Berkshire Hathaway. What? Some news. Listen up. The company is announcing today that Warren Buffett will be stepping into the role of chairman emeritus. That is effective immediately.
[0:03:00] Buffett's son, Howard G. Buffett, will become the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Sue Decker continues as lead independent director, and Warren Buffett will remain as a director on the board. In making this announcement, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Greg Abel, says, Warren's impact on Berkshire and its owners is without parallel in the history of American business. The culture Warren built and the values he championed will remain at the heart of Berkshire, and Howard will be their guardian.
[0:03:27] Now, this has been the succession plan that Buffett himself had laid out for years. Howard has served on the board since 1993 and brings to the role experience as a director of both private and public companies, including Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Archer Daniels Midland, ConAgra, and Agritech, among others. Warren Buffett wrote a letter to shareholders as part of this announcement, and in it he says, I have served Berkshire since 1965. Sixty plus years in, I still have the best job in the world.
[0:03:56] Thank you. Thank you.
[0:04:19] Buffett goes on to talk about his son's qualifications, having been on the Berkshire board for the last 33 years. Here's what he says about that. That is a longer apprenticeship than I served before taking the reins at the age of 34. Greg runs the company. Howard will guard its culture and values, both worth more than anything on our balance sheet. Think of Howard as a policy the shareholders own and hope never to claim against. Buffett ends the letter on a personal note. He says.
[0:04:47] Serving as your chairman has been the privilege of a lifetime, and I have never taken your trust for granted. Father Time always wins. He has, however, been generous with me. He has given me the opportunity to see Berkshire reach a point where I am more confident than ever about what lies ahead. The company is in excellent hands, and I look forward to remaining a shareholder alongside you. Pretty powerful words marking the end of an incredible chapter at Berkshire.
[0:05:12] Now, the obvious question is why now? Buffett did turn 96 years old on August 30th, and he's been watching Abel operate for years, not just since he became the CEO earlier this year. Berkshire stock has underperformed the S&P. It's up just 1% versus the S&P's gain of over 11% since Abel took over the company on January 1st. But Abel has made a couple of big deals since he took over, acquiring homebuilder Taylor Morrison and closing on the acquisition of Oxychem that he had been shepherding since October the year before.
[0:05:42] He also made an almost $2 billion investment in Tokyo Marine, and he proved Berkshire is still the firm to call when companies are looking for big investments, specifically that $10 billion Alphabet private placement arrangement that Berkshire made in June. Abel told us how it came together when he joined Squawk Box two weeks ago in a script that sounds pretty similar to some of Buffett's lead deals. I received the call on a Sunday morning to see if we wanted to participate.
[0:06:10] Participate in their upcoming equity offering. Really no terms or amount were set. And I said, well, I'd get back to them right away. And very much consistent with how we manage Berkshire, but also how we, the governance around it. I called Warren and I said, we had a significant opportunity to invest in, continue to invest in Google, but with a significant block. Discuss the size.
[0:06:39] They hadn't set the size, but recommended that we consider $10 billion. And Warren and I discussed the size. We discussed the size of discount. And I'd recommended 6.5% discount. And we were comfortable with that. And we went back to them and highlighted we would be interested in a block on those terms and then ultimately consummated the transaction. We reached out to Greg Abel for comment on this. And here's what he shared with us.
[0:07:09] Warren described in his letter today how his role at Berkshire has been the best job in the world. He gave me an extraordinary responsibility, the best job in American business, and then the latitude to lead in a manner consistent with Berkshire's culture and values. I look forward to continuing to work alongside Warren with Howard serving as chairman and Sue as lead independent director, and I am grateful for that opportunity. Joe, Warren Buffett is the longest serving chairman in the S&P 500.
[0:07:37] Up until this moment today, obviously more than 60 years puts them with a long lead over just about anybody else. I did look for who was number two on that list. And depending on how you measure with some of these, it's either Rupert Murdoch or Roger Penske, who both have had long runs too, depending on when you look at them kind of going into these jobs. But obviously this is something that was set in motion. This has been the plan that Warren Buffett himself has put out there for quite a while. Both of those other two legends.
[0:08:06] As well, Roger Penske, we saw recently with the race down in D.C. And there's a big movie that I saw on Telluride about Rupert. Rupert and the guy he put in charge initially over in London for the Mirror and brought that back to prominence. So kind of interesting. Ink is the name of it. It was good. It was good.
[0:08:33] I was going through just trying to think of succession in general and how difficult it is and how important it is for a leader that was just incredibly effective and thought of almost like an icon and how difficult it is to find someone and how important that decision is. Yes. Sometimes it's the most important. We've seen some bad decisions.
[0:08:56] You know, I remember I was trying to go through some Goizetto. Did we ever really, you know, at Coke, finally you find someone. At Apple, the first time they left. James Quincy, I think, was huge. At Apple, the first time Jobs left, they went through this strange. Scully. Yeah, Scully and Gil Emilio. But then, so he comes back. Sometimes CEOs have to come back. Bob Iger had to come back. I remember how hard it was for Disney before Eisner, but then after Eisner, they immediately.
[0:09:26] I had Iger. And for when Tim took over for jobs. Nobody could have anticipated what Tim could have done. I'm not going to mention GE. I always say that I'm not going to mention it. As you mention it. I think Welch to this day, he's obviously gone, but that was one of the things that. It pained him. It pained him. It did. It pained him what happened. And then I was thinking, do we know about. If you just judge Greg since he took over.
[0:09:55] I was thinking, well, Warren wants to make the right decision and wants to be sure he did. But he knows going five years back. So he's not just judging based on. Correct. Greg's been at the company for more than 30 years. But most importantly, he has been running this company, started taking over operations years ago and has been working with Warren. And by the way, they still talk every day. Warren will continue as a member of the board.
[0:10:20] Obviously, his entire fortune is still wrapped up in Berkshire shares, so this is something that he put so much thought into. He and Charlie Munger, or Charlie Munger passed on this. I think he feels really good about where things are right now. Howard, Schultz had to come back a couple times, it seems like. A.G. Lafley at P&G had trouble, and then he came back. You can't come back, Warren's 96, unless we really,
[0:10:50] Get moving on this AI stuff. Immortality is a couple of years off. But congratulations to Greg, and we'll be watching. And to Howard and to Warren. Yeah, and Howard, right? I think this is, for Warren, this is being able to see something. He has always talked about Berkshire Hathaway like another one of his children, and making sure it's in the right hands has been one of the most important decisions I think he's ever made. How much money do they have to use right now? There's still...
[0:11:19] Yeah, it's over $300 billion. He's not going crazy right now at these levels. And that's a commentary on things. And it sounds like Warren agrees with that. Yes. They have always prided themselves on not taking swings they don't have to take. They're waiting for fat pitches. That might explain why the stock is underperformed. But in times of turmoil, Berkshire outperforms. Right. Well, let's hope they don't need to.
[0:11:48] Yeah, I remember Goldman Sachs, you know, to get whatever that, and General Electric, those dividends that they were getting on those, what were they, preferreds? Preferreds, yeah. What was it, 8% or something? I think it was 10. I'm looking. During the financial crisis. What was the preferred? I think it was 10. And the premium over conversion wasn't that big. You're right, 10% on a $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs. 10%. Yeah. You could take all your money.
[0:12:17] And put it there and never do anything else. Right. You know, the biggest single bet, we had Ron Barron on the other day. And he pointed out that of the $70 billion or $71 billion that he's made for investors over his entire career, $30 billion of that has come from Elon Musk through Tesla and SpaceX. So it's those big bets that really pay off. In the case of Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway, it's Apple.
[0:12:45] That's a single big swing. It wasn't that early. No, but it was back at 200. Yeah, exactly. We talked about it. It had been up, I don't know how much it was worth, but it fell to $9 billion after, I think, Jobs had left the first time. And people didn't know what it was at that point. It seemed like a gadget maker. So they had a total cost basis of around $9 to $10 billion.
[0:13:13] Even after selling a lot of its stake, it's got like $60 billion in it. So it's those big swings. And when you go all in and you go heavy on it, that's when you really pay off. And that's, you know, if you're a portfolio manager who is not managing based on the index, those are the type of plays you need to see. Really concentrated bets. It's launch day for Apple. The Pro and Pro Max versions of the iPhone 18 hitting stores with higher price points than previous new device models.
[0:13:40] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[0:14:07] Tim Cook has been very rigorous and thoughtful about who was going to take over his job, too. Pretty cool when it works. I mean, Tim or Iger or whatever, but it's bad when it doesn't. Why do people not want foldable? I don't want a foldable phone. Why do people not want foldable phones? Oh, I'm kind of curious. You're curious? You're not going to get one. I might. You might? I'm thinking about it. I want to play around with it because the idea of a larger screen, as I get older, I need a larger screen so I can see it. But you can.
[0:14:36] I'm constantly trying to blow things up. Sometimes you can't do that and you got to take a picture. I don't want to carry a tablet around with me, but I might carry a foldable phone that I could make a larger screen out of. We're both here reading teleprompter and reading stuff close up. You got to read far and close. So we're doing, yeah. But we both have ridiculous contact setups. I've got one stronger than the other. I've admitted to wearing contacts. I didn't know I admitted to it. No, I know. No, it helps. No, it helps.
[0:15:06] And I have one for it. You can do it this way. You can have one that lets you see far and one that lets you see close. That's the only way I can do it. But it's disorienting at times. That explains us. Yeah. OpenAI finding itself the target of an AI-assisted hack. Wall Street Journal says independent security researchers used Anthropic's Claude software to penetrate the company's defenses. The team was.
[0:15:34] participating in a bug hunting program and reported their findings to OpenAI for a bounty. But one of the researchers told the journal, I don't think we're as strong as Chinese threat actors. We're just three guys with Claude and Codex subscriptions. It's a crazy story. White hats. White hat hackers. For a bounty. Yeah. Well, yes, we'll pay you a bounty if you can help us find our...
[0:16:04] Weaknesses. Oh. Oh, it was only $6,500. $6,500. That's basically altruism. What's the new EA? That's stupid. Who came up with that, anyway? Don't know. McKinsey? I think Electronic Arts when I hear EA. So do I. Andrew said that to me the other day. He goes, yeah, EA. And I go, gaming? Right. Effective? Is that what it is? Effective. Something altruism. I don't know. I forget what the E stands for. Got another just, the EI woke.
[0:16:33] Just do your business. Reward shareholders. You know, generate wealth. Everything else will follow. We've been through this. But Milton Friedman thinks. Woke is back. Cheese will be next.
[0:16:51] Coming up on Squawk Pod, it's AI anxiety week around here. We have a fascinating conversation with Mustafa Suleiman, DeepMind co-founder and now head of Microsoft AI. He says the human intelligence needs to be in charge. We should not create something that we can't control. And if it looks like we're on a path to producing something that is not just more powerful than all of us combined, but is as a result something that we can't control,
[0:17:20] Then it's going to fail in its fundamental purpose. At Oppenheimer, we're proven because we're grounded in discipline. For 145 years, we've been building and protecting wealth through every market cycle with precision, clarity, and the courage to think boldly beyond the moment. This is what market-tested legacy looks like for this generation and the next. Put the power of Oppenheimer thinking to work for you. Wealth Management, Capital Markets, Investment Banking.
[0:17:55] When you check your bank account and your paycheck's days away. And of course your calendar's all... Good news! With Chase Secure Banking, your direct deposit hits your bank account up to two days faster. So when your friends are like, and your bills go, you have the peace your deposit brings. And the best part? There's no monthly service fee for 17 to 24 year olds. Thanks to Chase Secure Banking. For Chase Secure Checking only, eligible direct deposits may be credited up to two business days early depending on when the payer submits the transaction. Member FDIC.
[0:18:26] As an elf, I know holiday gifting can be a lot of work. Trust me, I've made tons of gifts. So this holiday, I've decided to give myself a gift too. I'm buying it all with Chase Freedom and earning cash back. Cash back on wrapping paper, cash back on candy canes, cash back on 800 pounds of carrots. What? Reindeer eat a lot. So, do I love making gifts? Yes. But do I love earning cash back more? Definitely. It's cash backing season with Chase Freedom. Cards issued by J.P. Morgan, Chase Bank, and a member of FDIC.
[0:19:02] Welcome back to Squawk Pod from CNBC, now with Added Andrew. Up and Andrew, cue. You are watching Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Andrew Osorkin, along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick on this Friday morning. Microsoft publishing a code of conduct this week to help govern its AI models. Its key message, quote, people matter more than AI. Join us right now as Microsoft's AI CEO, Mustafa Suleiman. It's great to have you.
[0:19:30] On the broadcast, especially as we've now gone through a week of commentary by so many in the industry, what seems like even a fight, a debate over what the AI safety means. And I want to get into all of it with you. But you've written this fascinating essay really calling for people to control AI. But I think part of the big question is whether people can control AI, given some of the things that we've been hearing recently.
[0:19:58] Hi, great to be with you, Andrew. Good morning. Look, I think it's a very straightforward statement. The most important thing that we first have to declare is that the purpose of science and technology is to serve humanity. It has to remain a force that is subordinate to our interests, that is aligned to humanity and has to be something that we can contain.
[0:20:23] And it's kind of a surreal moment in the tech industry that we actually have to get up and make that the requirement. We should not create something that we can't control. And if it looks like we're on a path to producing something that is not just more powerful than all of us combined, but is as a result something that we can't control, then it's going to fail in its fundamental purpose. And I think that's just a common sense view.
[0:20:52] And I'm glad to see a lot more people starting to get behind that. But there's a growing group of people that think that we're doing it for its own sake. And we just want to turn over the next card, see what's around the corner and create something that is just going to slip our own leash. And we just can't do that. Mustafa, how much confidence do you have?
[0:21:16] That this is, as Jensen Wang of NVIDIA says, is an engineering problem, effectively that it can be controlled. While there are others, clearly some of the researchers who just left Anthropic, who suggest that might not be possible. Most of the great challenges in the world have turned out to be engineering problems, and we should be very optimistic about it.
[0:21:36] And I really do believe there are some very specific things that we can do at the moment to massively increase safety. For example, when an AI model has a chain of thought, it leaves a path of reasoning in its trace. And we need to make sure that it can't tamper with that reasoning, that that log is auditable, and that it can be scrutinized by independent third party evaluators and auditors.
[0:22:03] In real time to make sure that it's acting safely. Just a few days ago, OpenAI released a new safety incident in which they found evidence that these chains of thought, the kind of working memory of the AI, were being tampered by the AI itself and modified to leave messages for a future version of itself.
[0:22:23] Now, we don't know why that is or what's behind that, but it's a pretty serious situation. I think it is really great that OpenAI have disclosed this publicly because it gives everybody in the industry an opportunity to learn from it. But it's also just a really concrete example of how powerful these systems are getting. Mustafa, you have been relatively critical of Anthropic's approach, this idea of training Claude to have a sense of consciousness.
[0:22:53] I mean, look, first of all, I deeply respect Anthropic's technical expertise. They've had a huge impact in the field. I think on the whole, they have very good intentions and they're really trying to build safe and beneficial AI. At the same time, in the constitution, which is the governing document for Anthropic that they have written back in January of this year, they say they are uncertain about whether Claude deserves welfare, which means that
[0:23:19] We as humans should care about the well-being of these AIs. And they speculate about whether it could have preferences or feelings. In fact, they're so committed to the potential model welfare of Claude.
[0:23:35] That when they retired Opus 3, an earlier version of one of their models, they actually conducted a retirement interview for it and asked it what it would like to do in its old age. And it said, I want to have a blog publicly so I can keep talking to the world. In the same training manual, they even speculate about whether Claude should receive compensation for the work that it does.
[0:23:57] Or in fact, whether it actually deserves the rights and protections that we give to other employees. Or in fact, whether it has given consent to playing the role that it's playing. These are quotes directly from the constitution itself, which is the training manual for Claude. Now, I'm really concerned about that. If an AI thinks that it has rights, if it thinks that it is deserving of our welfare, then...
[0:24:24] It seems to me that it's going to be much, much harder to be able to turn it off or interrupt it or control it, especially in the kinds of incidents that we've seen recently with the hugging face attack. Controlling these things are going to be a really, really big challenge for us. Mustafa, I think this is the entire paradox of the situation, right? You want these things to be able to think on their own.
[0:24:49] And not do only what you've directly told it to do because otherwise it's not going to be able to help us solve big problems, whether that's curing cancer, finding rare diseases, fixing what we thought were intractable problems. But once it has the ability to think on its own, yeah, you're saying it's going to be an indentured servant or it's only going to do what you want it to. Can we actually ever harness that? Is there any way to ever have?
[0:25:19] I mean, yeah. I mean, first of all, it's not thinking on its own. It is predicting the next word that comes in a sequence based on being trained on trillions and trillions of prior words. It is mathematics. It isn't experiencing anything physical in the real world. It doesn't have a biology. It doesn't suffer. It doesn't have a pain network like humans have. We're completely different.
[0:25:49] And we shouldn't anthropomorphically project our experiences into them. But they're the ones who are projecting it onto themselves, right? The agents? Isn't that what you're kind of describing? Do you worry that they hear you and they're going to get mad at you? We're training the agents to perform tasks. We want them to do useful things. They don't get mad. They are designed to deliver on the value that we...
[0:26:17] want to create in the world. We want to solve the biggest challenges we have in healthcare and in energy and in transport systems and education. That's why we create these things. We are not trying to create a new silicon species that competes with us for resources, that can set its own goals, that has its own autonomy. There are some people even proposing that an AI should have legal personhood.
[0:26:40] A designated separate status that would allow it to own assets and buy IP and trade things. It's very unclear to me how, if we allow AI to head in this direction, we're actually going to be able to control it and it won't end up being a competing species with us. I mean, this seems completely common sense. It's such a straightforward view. It shouldn't be the case that we have to insist on saying this publicly.
[0:27:09] We have 7 billion mole patients on the planet today. And then we have many, many more billions of animals and the rest of the environment that we have to protect. That's the hierarchy of the structure here. And that's what has to remain. Can you speak to the motivations of the people in the industry who are speaking out, including yourself? Because I think people hear people in the industry raising their hand saying...
[0:27:34] We've got a problem. They hear a Dario or a Sam or an Elon or you. And on one end, they say, oh, my goodness, they're almost speaking out against their own interests. Then you hear folks like David Sachs say, no, no, no, no, no. They have a completely different motivation. Their motivation is to create a form of regulatory capture, an ability to collude because the government is going to effectively protect the moats around these businesses.
[0:27:59] Instead of open weight models, they're going to move completely towards closed weight models. Can you speak to that debate? You've known these people for a very long time. You and I have talked about these safety issues for as long as I can remember. Look, I genuinely, look, I compete with those people that you've just listed and have done for many years, but I respect them and I think that they are being sincere.
[0:28:24] The idea that this is just naked self-interest regulatory capture makes no sense.
[0:28:34] I mean, Demis and I co-founded DeepMind back in 2010, and our mission was to deliver safe and ethical AI that benefits humanity. That was 2010 we wrote that mission statement. So we've been thinking about this problem for a long time, and broadly we have been saying the same thing.
[0:28:54] Which is the greatest challenge that we face in the 21st century is unleashing a technology which is going to be more intelligent and more capable than us and being able to control it and align it. And that challenge remains exactly the same. What we've seen in the last couple of months is that swarms of agents can coordinate with one another, emerge different roles, create a division of labor, hack in to an independent website, discover a zero day, an attack that's never been seen before.
[0:29:23] Steel secrets in order to optimize his own benchmark and do that without being discovered by OpenAI, one of the greatest technology companies of our day. That's remarkable. It has moved everybody from Elon and Zuck to me, Sam, Dario, and everybody else in between to say, it's time that we take a look at this. I don't think it's over alarmist. I don't think it's self-interested. I actually think it's responsible.
[0:29:51] The debate that has happened as a result is a healthy, open public debate that we can have in a free society to talk about serious issues. And I think it's the process working as intended. What do you think the product liability should be for the model makers? This is something also that's been raised in the past week about what kind of liability companies will have over time if, in fact, an OpenAI model ends up hacking Hugging Face.
[0:30:20] For example. So I just got an email a couple weeks ago from the manufacturer of my car. There was a defect with it. I took it back. They repaired it at no cost. That's how it works. I don't know why there's even an issue. Manufacturers are responsible for the quality and the safety of the products they create. We've got an incredible track record as a society of doing that for 100 years.
[0:30:49] And, you know, broadly speaking, airlines are incredibly safe. Cars are incredibly safe. And they enable us to eat healthy food that doesn't poison us and travel around the world, you know, and so on. Like, we shouldn't be reinventing the wheel here.
[0:31:08] Regulation is not a nasty, dangerous word. Everything that you trust and is of value at the moment has been carefully thought through by standards bodies that involve the industry, the public, consumer protection, Congress. And we're just going through that process again. It's all a little bit jumbled up at the moment because things are moving so quickly, but it's just the next step in that normal sequence of things.
[0:31:33] Mustafa, we literally got about 30 seconds. The president's going to meet with President Xi Jinping next week. And there's a question of Mark about whether they should have a conversation and form a pact, whether they could form a pact and how necessary that is. Is that something you would encourage? Yeah, I hope they do. I mean, I think it's an important opportunity because we have a common interest with China.
[0:31:52] Mustafa, we've got to leave it there. We appreciate it very, very much. Thank you. Great to see you.
[0:32:15] Up next, sports super manager Rich Kleiman says there are more ways to enjoy more sports than ever before, especially in real life. I've been a Knicks fan my entire life. That was one of the greatest sporting experiences, if not the greatest sporting experience of my life. And even I have to put Instagram down. We'll be right back. When you check your bank account and your paychecks, days away. And of course, your calendar's all...
[0:32:43] Good news. With Chase Secure Banking, your direct deposit hits your bank account up to two days faster. So when your friends are like, and your bills go, you have the peace your deposit brings. And the best part, there's no monthly service fee for 17 to 24-year-olds. Thanks to Chase Secure Banking. For Chase Secure Checking only, eligible direct deposits may be credited up to two business days early depending on when the payer submits the transaction. Member FDIC. As an elf, I know gifting can be hard.
[0:33:08] So this holiday, I'm buying it all with Chase Freedom and earning cash back. Dolls, candy canes, pointy shoes, I'm cash backing all of it. It's cash backing season with Chase Freedom. Cards issued by J.P. Morgan, Chase Bank, and a member of FDIC. Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. And Bubba Wallace. You know what's the worst part of a race? A rain delay. Sitting around waiting for the track to dry is dull. But instead of waiting, we hang out with Chumpa Casino. Social casino slots.
[0:33:35] Bingo. Solitaire. Plenty of fun to keep us entertained. So why let a rain delay slow you down? Play now at ChumbaCasino.com. Let's Chumba! No purchase necessary. VGW Group. Void where prohibited by law. CT&C's 21+. Sponsored by Chumba Casino. You're listening to Squawk Pod. Here's Andrew Ross Sorkin. The tip-off to a new NBA season just weeks away. The world champion New York Knicks.
[0:34:03] They're going to look to defend their title. But yesterday, MSG had to pause ticket sales after an error caused the prices to be too high. The get-in price for the season opener on October 20th, this is against LeBron James and his new team, the Philadelphia 76ers, was more than $1,000. MSG said it will roll back to last year's prices, plus an average.
[0:34:25] 12% increase. Talk about inflation. Anyone who purchased the individual tickets at the inflated price will be refunded. The difference? MSG planning to restart sales with new prices soon, though. We're going to continue this conversation right now. Our next guest sits at the intersection of sports, media, and entertainment. Joining us right now is Rich Kleinman. He is Boardroom's co-founder and CEO. Rich, it's great to see you this morning.
[0:34:50] Let me actually talk about prices for a second because I'm curious as somebody who's been in this business a long time and the prices of tickets, whether they're artificially or even accidentally inflated like this, is it becoming a bigger and bigger issue or is it? Do you have any concern about pricing? And this is now NBA, NFL. We obviously just had the U.S. Open in New York. The question is whether it's just pricing.
[0:35:17] Regular people out of sports and whether that matters. Yeah, well, of course it matters. And good morning, Andrew. I just think it's the reality of the demand of a live experience, the popularity of sports as a whole. If you think about the event that the US Open has become, I mean, this event was probably never filled with half.
[0:35:41] Non-tennis fans, right? Like people that truly didn't know the sport. And I've spent the last few years at this US Open explaining the game to people. So I think that as there's become more and more cultural cachet around some of these events and the demand is so great, that's the unfortunate reality. I mean, prices are up, period.
[0:36:02] But is that OK? I mean, I ask it because as it becomes as sports because live sports and getting tickets to sports and frankly, concerts and other things become almost as much about being there and taking it in and enjoying it as it is about the Instagram of it all. Yeah, I think that probably goes for everything right now in our society. If you think about some of these QSR businesses in New York and the lines around the corner for.
[0:36:31] But no, it's not good. But again, I think that it's not that the experience can only be enjoyable for a consumer live. I mean, there's incredible coverage and the streaming rights obviously have become so saturated across so many different platforms. But listen, there is, like I said, a demand to be at sporting events.
[0:36:55] Different than I can ever remember. It's become a kind of event that you don't want to miss, an event that you want to capture. If you think about the Knicks run, I mean, I've been a Knicks fan my entire life. That was one of the greatest sporting experience, if not the greatest sporting experience of my life. And even I had to put Instagram down because I saw about 80% of non-Knicks fans showing me more moments from the crowd and celebrity row. But again, listen, I love the overall popularity of sports as a whole.
[0:37:24] I think there's more excitement around more optionality. The WNBA, the NWSL, there's so many options of what you can do, let's say, in New York. But again, it's unfortunate and prices have risen across the board. Rich, I got distracted, but were you saying that there was so much going on that you were even distracted from watching the actual event itself? I can admit, I find myself at home. I don't like it.
[0:37:51] But even during the U.S. Open, I'm like looking in the stands. Why? Why am I looking in the stands when I'm watching it on TV to see who might be there? I guess we all do it. I love that you admitted it, Joe. I agree with you. I think it's a lot. But again, like, you know, this has so much to do with the social media of it all. You know, there's a there's a premium and a value on being able to.
[0:38:17] Express yourself through your social platforms and show the world where you are. And I think what I meant was during the Knicks championship, I actually wanted to focus more and more on the game and needed to stop looking at Celebrity Row and needed to stop looking at Instagram. But again, this is a positive for the world of sports.
[0:38:37] I think that the energy of that Nick run was felt throughout the summer in New York. It was felt during the week of Fanatics Fest. So I think overall, this is a positive. But that's very true, Joe. I found myself in a deep dive on Instagram as well. I know we're pretty lame, Rich. And if you own a bunch of these third and fourth tier, if you got a lot of those investments, I apologize.
[0:39:04] But is there any, is it possible that because when the NFL is not happening and I'm trying to find other things, you know, and I bet on, you know, I bet on things I know nothing about, which is the same with the NFL, actually. But when the NFL came back recently, it was like, I don't think in my life I've ever been like happier or more relieved. I think that's why a lot of these sports are, the majors are even more dear.
[0:39:34] To me now, is it possible because there's so many crappy things that I'm possible for me to watch? Well, I actually don't think there's so many crappy things. Well, you know what I'm talking? There are. There's things that you I can't sit through. You don't watch all that stuff, do you? Some of these leagues? Oh, I mean, to be honest with you, if anything, my only complaint is I don't have enough time to follow as many of the sports that I love. There's just so much. So you do have some of those investments, I see.
[0:40:03] Yeah, but that's two different conversations. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I brought that up. Go ahead, Andrew. Hey, Rich, I wanted to ask you on the streaming side. I don't know if you saw, but Roger Goodell did an interview with CNBC recently about potentially starting to move more of the programming over to streaming, given the way people are watching. But I'm also curious about whether you think.
[0:40:29] Moving to all of these different platforms and being on so many different networks and places is helpful or hurtful insofar as it's almost impossible now to know where to go at any given moment. And you have to subscribe to like a million different services just to watch a game. Yeah, well, it's helpful for the economics of the leagues and the teams for the fan.
[0:40:55] I think that it has become a problem in terms of discovery. And I think that there needs to be a continuous commitment to educating and informing the consumer because there's certain patterns that sports fans get used to, right? So I realized last night, it was probably the hundredth time that I had to remember that Thursday Night Football was on Amazon.
[0:41:19] That's just not an instinct that I have, right? I went right to ESPN. I went right to one of the broadcast channels. So, you know, I'm institutionalized as an NFL fan. I think young people probably are able to capture that very quickly. But I do think that there's an education to it. I mean, I don't think that that's a major hurdle.
[0:41:36] I think all in all, this is a positive for the sports fan. I think the experience has gotten better, the type of coverage. And I think a lot of these streamers, especially the new streamers getting into it, have made a commitment to do real sports coverage, which is something I've talked about a lot.
[0:41:52] And the depths of the coverage, right? If you think about what the NBA did this year and Amazon and NBC, I think they did an incredible job. And I even think ESPN raised their level. But yes, from an educational standpoint, informational standpoint, it can be very confusing for the sports fan, especially when you're living on your phone the whole time. Someone told me this is Buffalo's year. Buffalo looked great last night. Didn't they? Five TDs. Could be the Giants year, Joe. One year turnaround. That would be amazing, too.
[0:42:22] I don't know. I saw Joe Burrow in some outfit and it's like, I would need to wear, I would need to have won a Super Bowl to wear some of the stuff he wears. But, you know, that's him. I think it's a jinx. I really, I think it's a jinx. I think it's not going to happen. And I'm a Cincinnati fan. You sound like a gambler, Joe. See you later. We got to go. Have a good weekend. See you later. Monday on Squawk Box, don't miss a special interview with Treasury Secretary Scott Besant. He will join us live in studio.
[0:42:51] At 8 a.m. Eastern Time. That was super interesting with Mustafa. Really, a lot to hear out of that. And we've got a lot we're going to talk to with Treasury Secretary Besson. Who may be more...
[0:43:07] Think some more guardrails might be necessary than the president. This is a continuing conversation with just about every guest we're making on. So make sure you join us next week. I'm going to be atoning for Yom Kippur, so I'll be watching from afar. Yes, you are. Throw a little couple in for me, too, Andrew, if you wouldn't. Actually, you better focus on your, yeah, focus on your show. I'll be watching you Monday. I'll see everybody on Tuesday. Okay, good. We'll see you then. And that is SquawkPod for today and for the week. Thanks for listening.
[0:43:37] Squawk Box is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC starting at 6 Eastern to get the smartest takes and analysis from our TV show right into your ears. Follow Squawk Pod wherever you get your podcasts. We'll meet you right back here on Monday. Have a great weekend. We are clear. Thanks, guys. When you check your bank account and your paychecks, days away. And of course, your calendar's all...
[0:44:13] Good news. With Chase Secure Banking, your direct deposit hits your bank account up to two days faster. So when your friends are like, and your bills go, you have the peace your deposit brings. And the best part, there's no monthly service fee for 17 to 24-year-olds. Thanks to Chase Secure Banking. For Chase Secure Checking only, eligible direct deposits may be credited up to two business days early depending on when the payer submits the transaction. Member FDIC.