AI’s Big Payoff? Apollo’s Top Economist Doesn’t See It Yet.

Yeah. So of course what's very important in this discussion is that uh we have invented a new technology and that new technology is now being adopted and it's being deployed in many different ways in many different sectors of course and the key issue now becomes when will we begin to see signs of that adoption begin to pay off. Hello and welcome to the Baron Street Wise podcast.

I'm Jack How and the voice you just heard, that's Torsten Sluck. He's the chief economist at Apollo, the big money manager. And he sees little sign so far that the AI spending bonanza is paying off for ordinary companies that aren't at the center of the spending.

That's not as dire as it sounds. He's broadly optimistic on investment markets. We'll talk about that.

First, I'll say a few words about something called 800 volt sidecars, which just might be the key to saving the AI buildout. Let's get into it. Listening in is our audio producer, Emily Sland.

Hi, Emily.

Hi, Jack. — How much experience do you have with electricity? What do you know? What have you done? Have you ever put a 9volt battery to your tongue? — Oh, no. No, I haven't. — Really? That's not something the kids do anymore? I don't do that anymore. I don't remember if that's dangerous or not. It's definitely gross.

What would happen when you did it? — I think that's what made my hair eventually fall out. I'm not sure. — The science was never there.

I went when I was a very small child. My grandmother took me to there's some big science museum in Philadelphia and the guy gave a demonstration of a I think it's called a vandagramraft generator. this big orb that makes electricity and it'll make your hair stand up and like I was the kid that he chose to demonstrate that on and my hair stood straight up and my grandmother was so proud because she had just washed my hair so it was it was in good standing up condition.