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1:24

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York

1:26

Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm

1:29

Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. Guess where

1:31

I am today, Scott? You're on the West Coast,

1:33

no? No. I'm in the city

1:35

of Big Shoulders. I'm in Chicago. Really?

1:37

Okay. What are you doing in Chi-town?

1:40

Well, from Ann Arbor, after seeing giant

1:42

Alex speaking of Big Shoulders and

1:44

doing an event there with the CEO of

1:47

GM, I went to

1:50

Minneapolis where I had the loveliest time.

1:52

They are truly nicer people in Minneapolis

1:54

than anywhere else. Yeah. It's a great city, a

1:56

great music city. Anyways, what were you doing in

1:58

Minneapolis? another event that is sold

2:00

out of that there for the book. We had a lot

2:02

of discussions about George Floyd, which is interesting.

2:05

So the repercussions and everything. That's kind

2:07

of interesting. Now I'm at Chicago for

2:10

two events today. Two events,

2:12

one with Brene Brown, our friend from

2:14

Vox Media, and one

2:16

with Mark Leavovich, who is an

2:18

old friend of mine, works for

2:20

the Atlantic now. That sounds good. Sounds

2:22

very white, but it sounds good. It

2:24

does. It's very white. I had a

2:27

hot dog, a Chicago dog. They're

2:29

practically one of them now. I

2:32

love Chicago. Do you like Chicago? I

2:34

think Chicago is the old Navy of cities. It's 80% of New York

2:36

for 50% of the price, which I

2:38

say that positively. It's a great trade. I

2:41

love this city. It's freezing, but I

2:43

love this city, I have to say. I would

2:46

live here. My best friend, Adam, was there. Yeah.

2:50

And it's close to everything. I think its geography

2:52

is really powerful. I went on a bit of

2:54

a bender and started to watch Chicago movies,

2:57

like about last night, and

3:00

the one with Kevin, where he plays

3:02

the FBI agent, Ketching

3:04

Al Capone. Oh, The Untouchables

3:06

with Kevin Costner. Yes, The Untouchables.

3:09

I watched Blue's Brothers, a little bit of

3:11

the Tom Cruise movie, Risky Business. Anyway, a

3:13

lot of movies set here. It has a

3:15

lot of visuals. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And

3:17

all the John Hughes movies. Anyway, I'm headed

3:19

to LA tomorrow to be on Bill Maher,

3:22

but you were also going to be on They Tell Me. So

3:24

that was nice. Do you know who your

3:26

co-panelist is? I'm not a panelist on the interview. Oh,

3:28

you got the big chair. You're right up front. That's

3:31

very exciting. I think I do know who yours are,

3:33

but you're not supposed to talk about it. You're going

3:35

to have some fun. Anyway,

3:38

we've got a lot to get to today,

3:40

including Reddit's IPO finally happening,

3:42

and Microsoft making a big

3:44

AI higher. But first,

3:47

Elon Musk's Neuralink has released a video showing

3:49

the first human patient playing chess using nothing

3:51

but his thoughts. The patient at

3:53

Quadra-Pagetic moves a cursor on a laptop to play

3:55

a game and turn off music. Neuralink

3:58

is the third competitive release video ever. of

4:00

brain implants after neurotech and synchron.

4:02

What's different here is he can

4:04

do other things, but he can

4:06

multitask and also

4:10

it's closer so it has a – some

4:13

of them are on the outside, I guess, and

4:15

this one is implanted. But

4:18

this whole area is really, really

4:20

interesting. Are you ready to let

4:22

Elon have access to your thoughts, Scott? Scott,

4:24

I'm trying to come up with something snarky. It's

4:27

cool. There's no getting around it. It's really

4:29

hopeful and exciting. I have someone very close

4:32

to my – close

4:35

to me in my life who suffers from

4:37

multiple sclerosis. There's all sorts of – I

4:39

mean, this could be very exciting on a number of

4:41

dimensions. So I'm distinct

4:44

of how I feel about his personal behavior off Mike.

4:46

I'm rooting for him and the company. Yeah,

4:48

and there's other companies too. It's a really

4:50

interesting area. I think we

4:53

know so little about our brains. We really

4:55

do about how they work and everything else.

4:57

And so all these neural

5:00

issues and what you can do with them are interesting. And

5:04

we'll see where this guy goes. I think he was

5:06

in a diving accident, this guy. I'd

5:08

like to – it just got me interested

5:10

in more of the whole area, all these companies,

5:13

and how we're going to do this. And I

5:15

just – I remember seeing Dean Kamen, if you remember,

5:17

he did the segue. But he also

5:19

did this chair, this special wheelchair that you

5:21

got up in. We had it once at

5:24

a code. Someday they're going to print your liver,

5:26

Scott, so you'll be okay. Oh, you're not going to want

5:28

to see that movie. That's

5:30

basically – that's basically the Hollywood

5:32

stars of bars in downtown as

5:35

my liver. Oh, I see. Well, it's

5:37

going to be able to be printed and made from

5:39

synthetics. I think it's just – I think all this

5:41

stuff is really cool. And these are the Elon we

5:43

like. And not just – again, not just Elon, but

5:45

lots of companies like this. I love this part of

5:47

– Wait, do you remember the segue? Yeah, I do. I

5:49

remember Jeff Bezos on a segue at

5:51

Ted's. I didn't put that in the book,

5:53

but yeah, I remember it. They were always

5:56

around. They rode him around a lot. It goes

5:58

to the idolatry of innovators in this. this

6:00

kind of marks the time, but coming

6:02

into my professional years, the Jesus Christ

6:05

of my world was

6:07

a guy named John Doar, Kleiner Perkins. Yeah,

6:09

I know. You know John. Okay, anyways. Yes.

6:11

And he announced that one, the segue was

6:13

going to change the world. So

6:16

we're all waiting for the segue. It literally

6:18

was the headset of before headsets. But

6:21

everyone, these folks spent a ton

6:23

of money on it and it was supposedly going to change

6:25

mobility and do away with cars.

6:27

And also, I remember my biggest moment, I

6:29

was just so excited as an entrepreneur, we

6:31

were doing work for Kleiner Perkins, my firm

6:33

profit. We were doing branch energy. And so

6:35

they let us invest in this

6:38

online wedding registry. I forgot the name.

6:40

So I convinced my partner, I'm like, John Doar

6:42

is letting us into a deal. And we literally

6:44

gathered every cent we had, it was a quarter

6:47

of a million bucks. And we put it into

6:49

this thing and we're waiting. I was literally thought,

6:51

okay, that's it. I'm done. I'm going to be

6:53

a billionaire. I got to co-invest with Kleiner Perkins.

6:55

And they can six months the business is

6:57

out of business. He's been a lot

6:59

of good things, you know, Google, Amazon,

7:02

you know. Well, yeah,

7:04

he had a very, very strong career. But

7:06

and actually, a lovely fellow, I have to

7:08

say. Really nice man. Smart. I mean,

7:10

obviously, this stuff around Ellen Tau was

7:12

problematic at Kleiner, but that was the

7:15

largest. It's good we got that. It's good we got

7:17

that. I just gotta say that everyone has a

7:19

mixed record, just like you just insulted him

7:22

for the segue. But all the digital people

7:24

rode around on them. And I just remember

7:26

Jeff Bezos riding around like a lunatic on

7:28

it, into restaurants and things like that. But

7:30

it's being used all over cities across America

7:33

for tourists. You've seen them. Little segue tours,

7:35

haven't you? Yeah, they have them in Paris.

7:37

But I mean, it's literally, it's like, how

7:39

can I look like the worst

7:42

cliche of a tourist? Yeah. Mall cop.

7:44

Mall cop. If I could take a segue

7:46

into a marine park and start harassing and

7:48

petting dolphins while, you know,

7:50

while eating fried Snickers. It's just, it

7:53

is the cliche of cliche. Let me just say,

7:55

having written it, it's a cool thing. Secondly, if

7:57

it brought us, Paul Blart, Mall Cop.

8:00

cop, I think it's worth everything.

8:03

That's the best movie ever. Have you ever seen

8:05

it? It's just because nobody has any goddamn idea.

8:07

I mean, who would have thought,

8:09

oh, but, you know, a handheld

8:12

phone, I guess we would have thought

8:14

that, or this little blank page with

8:16

a query box was going to be...

8:18

I mean, it's just so interesting what works

8:20

and what doesn't. Yeah. Blah blah. He lives

8:22

down the street from Delaware Beach. No, he's

8:24

made a lot of money doing what I

8:27

would call fairly unimportant work, but good for

8:29

him. King of Queens. King of Queens is

8:31

pretty cute, isn't it? Good for him. He's

8:33

a... I like him. I don't care. He's great. That movie

8:35

is... Go watch that movie if you want to be happy.

8:37

I like any movie where a mediocre

8:39

overweight guy with a minimum wage job

8:41

gets to date hot women. Gates the

8:43

girl and rides a segue. That's right.

8:46

Yeah, it's very realistic. Anybody watch it

8:48

if you want to be happy. Anyway, former

8:50

President Trump won't be able to secure the

8:52

$464 million bond to appeal his

8:54

fraud case in New York according to his

8:56

lawyers right now. We'll see. Trump's legal team

8:58

has called the amount impossible. He's making a

9:00

big deal of that and said they had

9:02

contacted around 30 companies that provide appeal bonds

9:04

with no success. The bond is due to

9:06

be posted next week, but Trump's lawyers have

9:08

asked the court to either pause the judgment

9:10

or accept only $100 million, try to do

9:12

a deal, deal or no deal. I'd

9:15

love you to talk about this because that lunatic

9:17

from Shark Tank, Kevin O'Leran, I think is

9:19

such a pompous ass, was screaming at the

9:22

very lovely Laura Coates the other day on

9:24

shows. Everyone feels like, look, this guy did

9:26

the crime. Don't do the crime if you

9:28

don't want to pay the bill or put

9:30

through the time, essentially. He

9:32

shouldn't get it now because he's rich, etc., etc.

9:34

Thoughts? Well, the

9:37

whole bond thing is pretty interesting, right? Because there's

9:39

probably some people that just shouldn't be allowed

9:41

bond. Then on the other

9:44

hand, if people are granted bond and

9:46

not seen as immediate threat to society,

9:48

kind of nonviolent crime, I think

9:51

bond prices should come down because this is

9:54

yet another example of how the justice

9:56

system right away is just entirely

9:58

not blind based on how much money they're paying. money you

10:00

have. The issue here is whether

10:02

or not, and I don't know the answer to this,

10:04

I'd love to ask Preet if this is kind of

10:06

what I call an extraordinary

10:08

demand that to ask for a

10:11

half a billion dollar bond, my

10:14

understanding is this is a fairly unprecedented

10:16

size and that this is... It's

10:18

not. I've searched it, but

10:20

go ahead. Well, half a billion dollars. Are there a

10:22

lot of half a billion dollar bonds? It is. It's

10:24

a lot of money. Yes, it is. But

10:27

it's not unprecedented. There have been other ones. Is

10:29

that right? Okay. Yes. From what I

10:31

understand, this is... The way

10:33

they're handling this is the way they handle

10:36

everyone's bonds. This was the judgment. You

10:39

can't make changes. Maybe you should. Maybe

10:41

it should be... As the price goes up, the

10:45

bond goes down. I don't know. But

10:47

it seems like that favors rich people, right? So I

10:49

don't know. It'll be interesting. So she could seize. It'll

10:51

take forever from what I've been reading a lot about

10:53

this. It'll take forever

10:56

for her to seize something. And a lot of

10:58

his properties have other

11:01

obligations on them, loans or whatever. So

11:04

the worry is that he has to

11:06

go to Saudi Arabia or some

11:08

single rich guy or... A donor.

11:10

A donor. And all the republicans,

11:12

all the MAGA people, not the republicans,

11:14

are another person who was

11:17

it, was screaming about

11:19

why isn't a rich person, maybe

11:21

that was Kevin O'Leary again, about

11:23

giving... Why isn't a rich person pony up?

11:26

Why doesn't Sean Hannity pony up on everybody else?

11:28

No one wants to give this guy money, but

11:30

he may get some money with True Social, which

11:32

may go public and give him several billion dollars

11:34

because he owns a

11:37

whole bunch of it. So that could happen. It's

11:39

now maybe if they decide to, the shareholders decide

11:41

it will go public, he'll get the money, but

11:43

he can't sell it for six

11:46

months. Maybe that he

11:49

could borrow against it. I wouldn't take that

11:51

bet. But there's that. He

11:53

doesn't have a half a billion dollars in cash, so he needs

11:55

to get a bond and he's having trouble finding

11:57

someone to scare the assets. In my opinion...

12:00

it's fairly likely to speculate

12:02

that his reason with Elon Musk was,

12:04

hey, Elon, would you like a

12:06

cabinet position? Can you give me half a

12:08

billion dollars? And the scary thing here is

12:10

everything becomes financialized and we've normalized how, what

12:13

just a whorehouse Washington is, I would imagine

12:15

we're about to find the second VP pick

12:17

is based on how much money this person

12:19

has and how much they're willing to give

12:22

to the campaign. I would imagine that Donald Trump's

12:25

running around and saying, hey, hey, how'd

12:27

you like to potentially be president? No, I'm old

12:29

and I'm obese. Do you want

12:31

to be VP? How

12:33

committed are you to the campaign? Wink, wink, are

12:35

you $500 million committed to the campaign? Because

12:38

this just happened and I think the media

12:41

isn't- He can shove money over there. He

12:43

shoves his legal money. He

12:45

uses the campaign. That's why he's so far down. He's

12:47

really not. Now, everyone says he'll

12:49

get money once it gets going, but

12:52

there's a lot of worry about how

12:54

much money Biden has versus Trump

12:56

in this campaign because these campaigns

12:58

are made of money and that's how

13:00

things work. But where I was going

13:02

with this, Kara, is that I do think the media

13:04

is remiss or at least takes

13:06

a beat before they ... I'm

13:12

trying to be polite around saying, RFK

13:14

Junior's supposed VP

13:16

pick- Nicole Shanahan. Yeah. Who

13:19

seems like a nice young woman. If

13:22

she was a he, the

13:25

media's hair would be on fire because the only reason

13:27

she's, in my opinion, has

13:29

been vetted and potentially is supposedly

13:31

now, his VP pick to be announced in

13:34

Oakland, is because he needs 15

13:36

million bucks to get on different state ballots and she

13:38

has it. If it was

13:40

a young tech bro with absolutely no

13:42

experience in elected office who had gotten

13:44

a settlement from someone he was

13:46

married to for two years, the media would have their

13:48

hair on fire. The

13:52

VP, the VP stakes have entered a new

13:54

level of just how inane they are and

13:57

that is this individual who, by the way,

13:59

my- I don't doubt she's

14:01

a lovely person and even an impressive person.

14:04

They should do some reporting on her. Like you and I, like

14:07

I said, mixed bag, mixed bag. Well, there is no, no,

14:09

it's not a mixed bag. There is no bag. She

14:11

has no business near the White House. That's

14:13

correct. That's correct. Neither does he.

14:15

But my point is, the Veeb's stakes are now

14:17

about who's willing to give me money to bail

14:19

me out of jail or get me on ballots

14:21

in different states. I mean, we really have... Is

14:24

this a fucking simulation? It is.

14:27

Elon's right. Elon and all these people are right.

14:29

It's a simulation. What's going to happen next? You're

14:31

going to be asked to be... Would

14:33

you take the job? Do you have $444 million? Yeah.

14:39

No, we're going to need a lot more downloads. We're going

14:41

to need Elon. Who would you pick then? Who

14:43

would... Elon can't do it. By the

14:45

way, FYI, Elon said he was not asked for money

14:47

when asked at that interview with Tom L But

14:53

he may have been asked by someone else, which is... You have

14:55

to ask a question very carefully around Elon Musk. I

14:58

think he probably, in some fashion, was asked

15:00

for the money. Who

15:03

could do that then? Who could he

15:05

pick as we pay Trump to get $500 million? Oh,

15:08

there are a lot of billionaires. They will take... I

15:10

think that they doesn't have that money. There are a

15:13

lot of billionaires that would figure out a way, and

15:15

I don't think he'd care. I think he'd violate

15:17

campaign financials. I'm like, once I'm president, it doesn't

15:19

matter what laws I've broken. That's why I'm running,

15:21

quite frankly. But

15:24

if you think about it, the vice president is the

15:26

least important job in the world until it's the most

15:28

important potentially. They all say

15:30

the right thing. They all say, well, obviously the qualification

15:32

or the only consideration is who would be a good

15:34

president. But that is just such bullshit. The only reason

15:37

Veebs are picked is who will

15:39

increase the likelihood that I will

15:41

be president. In other words, they bring a state, they

15:43

bring money, they check some boxes, whatever

15:45

it might be. That's

15:47

why they're picked. Unfortunately, what I think happens

15:50

is people forget these two

15:52

really should have a good relationship. Supposedly,

15:54

Biden and Harris don't like each other.

15:57

And I think vice president Harris is a very...

16:00

impressive woman. I think he wanted to pick

16:02

a woman of color and she was the most qualified. She

16:04

checks a lot of boxes. She's a very impressive

16:06

woman. She would have had a greater chance of

16:08

being president had she never been vice president for

16:10

whatever reason she has lost her voice.

16:12

And a lot of it people say is that the

16:14

West Wing does not like her. I

16:17

don't, I have interviewed people in the West Wing

16:19

and including on the record, lots of people saying

16:21

this is just not true. It's not, I don't

16:23

think vice presidents have a very good job.

16:25

She's been especially bad at that not good

16:28

job. I mean, she just hasn't. I

16:30

don't know about that. Dan Quayle, come on. We

16:32

could list lots of vice presidents. I'm going

16:34

to know. Okay. Okay. She's

16:37

right up there with Dan Quayle. No, she is

16:39

not. Are you kidding me? Oh, she's awful, Kara.

16:41

No, you're wrong. She's awful. Again, speaking

16:43

without knowing, I actually do know a thing or two

16:45

about this and it's not true. I

16:47

think she has problems politically and I think it

16:49

has a little to do with being a woman, a

16:51

little, not insignificant amount

16:53

to being a woman of color. I think she

16:55

has the, she can feel like a prosecutor. There's

16:57

all kinds of things like that. And I think

16:59

she suffers from being a vice president. I don't

17:01

know. I think you're correct.

17:04

I think that she had a ton

17:06

of opportunities around Roe, around Black Lives Matter to

17:08

be a powerful voice. She is doing that right

17:10

now. Well, she hasn't been affected. I don't know.

17:13

It's a long road. We'll see where she comes out. We'll see

17:15

where she comes out in the end. In

17:17

any case, she's certainly qualified.

17:19

How about that? Oh, out of

17:21

central casting. And by the way, was an

17:23

outstanding senator. Yeah, very much so. Very

17:26

good attorney general of California. So we'll see where

17:28

she zeros out in the end. But

17:31

you're incorrect about some of those things. Good to know. You

17:34

are. You are. You're just saying

17:36

that's the top of your head. Yeah, it's called a podcast. I understand.

17:39

The Vek Ramaswamy is worth apparently $950

17:41

million, although he says he's a billionaire.

17:45

Well, he's right in there. He's right at the edge of that. Maybe

17:47

he could give. What people don't

17:49

realize is when you're worth $900 million, you can't find $450

17:51

million in cash. Right.

17:55

That's what I mean. Yeah. That's

17:57

$900 million. But he says he

17:59

is. but others do

18:01

not. In general, the more dudes talk

18:03

about their wealth, i.e. like Trump, the

18:06

less they have relative to

18:09

what they're saying. I found the wealthiest people in

18:11

the world do not talk about their money. He's

18:13

right at the edge of a billion, supposedly. Go

18:15

ahead. Is that right? But Trump used to call

18:17

Forbes and complain that they weren't saying he was

18:19

wealthy enough. I think we're going to

18:22

find out that actually Donald Trump's net worth is a lot

18:24

less than we thought or he claimed. Yeah,

18:26

that's what this is going to show. We'll see where it comes

18:28

up with the money, regardless. He

18:31

has to pay like everybody else. Bonds

18:33

are hard for poor people, too. In

18:36

any case, the Justice Department is

18:38

suing Apple, accusing the company of

18:40

violating antitrust laws by blocking rivals

18:42

from accessing hardware and software features

18:44

on its phone. The suit

18:46

escalates the Biden administration's antitrust fights

18:48

against the biggest U.S. tech companies,

18:50

including Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon. This

18:52

is happening as Apple is coming

18:54

under increasing scrutiny in Europe over

18:56

alleged anti-competitive behavior. As you know,

18:59

Margaret Vestiger, her group in

19:01

Europe in the EU, fined them over $2

19:03

billion. So,

19:05

Scott, what do you think of this? Finally,

19:07

the penny is dropping for Apple. We've been

19:09

waiting for this one. Look,

19:12

I think that it is shocking

19:14

how much likability

19:16

plays into this because – and I'm guilty

19:18

of this, and I think a little bit

19:21

used sometimes – Tim Cook

19:23

and Apple are just so likable that

19:25

we don't apply the same unbiased

19:28

scrutiny of their role

19:30

in addiction to devices, their role

19:33

in privacy, even though they claim

19:35

privacy is – they

19:38

use kind of the virtue signaling of

19:40

privacy, quite frankly, around certain – to

19:43

let themselves to not, in my opinion, not

19:46

live up to the standards of what

19:48

would be best for America or the

19:50

consumer. And, Margaret Vestiger, there seems

19:52

to be a group of regulators who are

19:55

not impressed or not really

19:57

concerned with how likable Apple is. So

20:00

I'm here for it. I think it's a good thing. Yeah,

20:03

we'll see where it goes. They definitely

20:05

are facing a lot of things, again,

20:07

in the EU under, and

20:10

so are tech companies, especially in the EU.

20:12

But this is the US finally stepping up.

20:14

The thing is outmatched by all these companies,

20:16

every one of them. And this Apple case

20:19

was a long time coming, and

20:21

as are the others, the Google ones coming,

20:23

Alphabet ones coming. That's

20:26

further advanced. So we'll see

20:28

what happens with all of these. But there's a wide-ranging

20:31

group of cases. And by

20:33

the way, there were also cases that

20:35

began in the Trump administration. So this

20:38

is a little bit of a bipartisan thing.

20:40

I don't know if it's anti-tech, but it's

20:42

anti-powered. It's something I've been talking about all

20:44

the time, that there is no governor. And

20:46

I happen to like Apple, but I don't

20:48

care. They shouldn't be controlling the

20:50

app store the way they are. And it's

20:53

just this is about bigness. And whether you

20:55

like the company or not, it

20:57

doesn't matter. Bigness begets at

20:59

a competition. That's it. I'm one of those

21:02

people. Power corrupts. No, I don't know about

21:04

that. I don't know. Oh, we

21:06

all know about that. Power corrupts, Cara.

21:08

The bigger they are, the less innovation there

21:10

is, Scott. That's it. I'm sorry. I think

21:12

about Standard Oil or

21:14

AT&T, et cetera, et cetera. I

21:16

just think, and by

21:18

the way, there's going to be lawsuits in the AI

21:21

area too. And there should be. I

21:23

think lawsuits are the only way

21:25

to handle this stuff, given that we have no

21:28

federal legislation protecting us from tech

21:30

companies. That is any kind of

21:32

teeth. No privacy bill, no new

21:35

updated antitrust bill, no

21:37

algorithmic transparency. And I

21:39

will stand on this. I've been screaming this on

21:41

this book tour. This has to happen because there

21:43

are no other options. And as great

21:45

as these companies are and as much money as they

21:47

make and how valuable they are, that's all great. And

21:50

it says a lot about America. You

21:53

can't have all these big companies if you want to be

21:55

what we are in 10 years

21:57

from now. That's my feeling. Anyway.

22:00

Let's get to the first big story. Microsoft

22:05

just made a big move in the AI

22:07

race, hiring former Google exec and DeepMind

22:10

founder, Mustafa Suleiman, to oversee its

22:12

consumer AI unit. Suleiman had, until

22:14

recently, been running his own AI

22:16

startup, Inflection, which he co-founded with

22:18

Reed Hoffman. Among others, Inflection has

22:21

raised over $1.5 billion

22:23

from a number of investors, including Microsoft, and

22:25

Reed Hoffman's on the board of Microsoft. There's

22:27

a lot. I really want to see the

22:30

big story about this. I chatted with Suleiman

22:32

last year, actually, and he asked him about

22:34

his startup and its place in the AI world.

22:37

You know, Inflection, Anthropic,

22:39

DeepMind, OpenAI, we're a

22:41

group of, you know, friends and colleagues

22:44

that have been working together for the best part of 10, 15

22:46

years, and I think we have slightly different, you

22:49

know, a different flavor. I mean, we're still fundamentally

22:51

working in big tech. I'm not, you know, going

22:54

to sort of, you know, that's important to say.

22:56

But, you know, I think there's a different flavor to the

22:58

kind of approach that we're trying to take now, and it

23:00

represents the next step forward in the evolution

23:03

of companies and how we run

23:05

big tech. So, this is

23:07

interesting because there's so many interactions

23:09

here. In addition to

23:12

Suleiman, Microsoft hired a number of

23:14

Inflection employees, including its chief scientist,

23:16

who is another co-founder. Inflection is

23:18

staying operational, but will stop running

23:20

its chatbot, Pi, and will instead

23:22

sell its software to businesses.

23:24

I don't know what happened here.

23:26

I just haven't read anything. Go

23:29

to any thoughts on things like

23:31

this happening, given all the various

23:33

interconnections, including Hoffman being on the

23:35

board of Microsoft.

23:37

He said he'd accused himself, by the way, of

23:39

this thing, but he doesn't seem angry about it.

23:42

I pinged him. We're

23:45

missing something here because essentially, from

23:47

what's been reported, Microsoft has taken the heart

23:50

and lungs of this company. It's taken Mstafa,

23:52

and my understanding is every important person at

23:54

this company that all the company is left

23:56

with is its IP. an

24:00

individual like Mustafa, and I

24:03

also had him on a podcast, you

24:08

can't raise a billion and a half

24:10

dollars and look at people and ask

24:12

them for money and then take your

24:14

entire team over to another company. So

24:16

they've clearly, someone at a high level

24:18

between two companies has come to some

24:21

sort of accommodation. Otherwise, lawsuits would have

24:23

been announced yesterday. This

24:25

is very strange. Basically,

24:27

the whole firm is getting their

24:29

mouse pad or whatever and they're

24:31

walking across, they're going to Microsoft.

24:33

It's just very strange what's going

24:35

on here. Yeah, a little like when

24:37

they tried to hire Sam Altman, when

24:40

that whole thing was happening, if you

24:42

remember, when

24:44

Sam was going to go over there and

24:46

run the AI division after Microsoft had

24:48

a big stake in open AI. It's

24:51

really interesting. He's

24:54

going to lead CoPilot, which is their consumer,

24:56

he's running the consumer unit.

24:59

I have searched for a

25:01

very good, I probably should do the reporting myself,

25:03

but I haven't. Who's

25:08

going to pay back the people? One

25:10

of its co-founders, I think it's

25:12

Karan Simonyan, he was

25:14

also a leading researcher at DeepMind. I

25:17

don't get it. Do you have any idea? It

25:21

has to be Microsoft has said

25:23

to the shareholders of

25:26

Inflection, we're going to make you whole or

25:28

we're going to ... There's just no way

25:30

Inflection and Inflection's

25:32

investors would just get an

25:35

email saying, oh, hi, it's

25:37

Mustafa and me and 60 of the

25:40

75 employees or whatever it is are

25:42

going to Microsoft. You just- Well,

25:45

it's moving out of the consumer space with this pie, which was kind

25:47

of cool. I liked it. It will work with

25:49

commercial customers to create tests and tune AI systems. This

25:51

is from the New York Times. Microsoft

25:53

is also licensing Inflection AI's latest underlying

25:56

technology to make it available to business

25:58

customers of its cloud computing. products.

26:00

And this guy's working on the consumer stuff.

26:02

But the reason why I'm this stuff, in

26:04

addition to obviously being very, very talented, I

26:06

believe that he was hired and that they

26:08

are probably paying inflection or figuring out something

26:10

to make inflection whole and spending this much

26:13

money, is that you

26:15

said, we are not going through that bullshit again that

26:17

we went through three months ago. And

26:19

what's strange about AI, true or

26:22

not, they've decided that there are three or

26:24

four kind of key athletes.

26:26

There's Messi, there's Ronaldo in this world.

26:30

I would bet that Satya said, I don't

26:32

like how vulnerable we are to something along

26:34

the lines of what happened a few

26:36

months ago with Sam, I need Steve

26:39

Young to his Joe Montana. And

26:41

that's what this is. It's basically saying that

26:43

the most ... Satya

26:46

probably believes and aspires to be the

26:48

most important AI company in the

26:50

world. And he doesn't want it too

26:53

dependent from a reality or a perception

26:55

standpoint on one person. No

26:58

matter how lovely or how smart Sam Altman is,

27:00

he needs ... I mean the 49ers, this is

27:02

the limit of my sports knowledge, and whenever ...

27:04

Bill Walsh, the coach, slept really well at night

27:06

because he had the best quarterback in the world

27:08

and the second best quarterback on the bench in

27:10

case one guy got injured. There

27:12

just appeared to be too much shareholder

27:14

value riding on one person and this

27:17

is diversification from that. Yeah,

27:19

I see why he's doing it. But interestingly,

27:21

Suleiman, and you probably know this from interviewing

27:23

him, he was the one that has been

27:25

much more out front with this technology is

27:28

very dangerous, could be very dangerous, it could

27:30

be great. But I mean he's

27:32

sort of more in the middle, but he's ... In

27:35

his book especially, I think that you talked to him about

27:37

too, he talked about the

27:39

transformative nature, but he also talked about the

27:41

destruction of humanity part. The

27:44

other part, they didn't do open

27:46

sourcing although he said, Suleiman has

27:48

said that these technologies shouldn't

27:50

be controlled by one company. There's all

27:52

kinds of really shifting sands here in

27:54

a really interesting

27:57

way because they're not open the way meta

27:59

and ... XAI are open

28:01

sourcing to make it safe. But

28:04

he's sort of a proponent for that a

28:06

little bit too. It's really, lots

28:09

is going on here. And

28:11

nobody's actually making money from a business yet.

28:13

That's the other thing we need to underscore. Well,

28:15

this Game of Thrones here is the ultimate Game

28:17

of Thrones. I don't know if you saw, I

28:20

mean, just speaking of which, we're waiting to

28:22

see what the first trade is on

28:25

Reddit. A company yesterday, Astera Labs, went

28:27

public and it had a 72% pop

28:29

in on its first trade. I

28:34

mean, we may be off to the races

28:36

again, because this company, Astera Labs, they

28:38

sell hardware and software products that improve the

28:41

efficiency and reliability of enterprise AI systems. So

28:43

it's legitimately an AI company. Right,

28:45

but do they make money yet? Oh, none of these

28:47

things make money yet. None of these. Let's

28:50

just underscore that for people. They have revenue. They

28:53

went from 85 million to, I think, 120, so they had

28:55

about 40% revenue growth. The

28:58

company, as of yesterday, Post-a-Pop, has

29:01

a $9 billion market cap. It's

29:04

trading at 70 times revenue. Yeah,

29:06

and that was crazy. Revenues.

29:09

Revenues, not earnings, revenues. Revenues.

29:12

If Reddit comes out and gets

29:14

a pop, the markets, baby, are back

29:16

and we are off to the races. Well, Reddit

29:18

is just an ad business and it loses money

29:20

just like the rest of media. In the old-fashioned

29:22

way. Just for a couple

29:25

of things, you're talking about things

29:27

going on right now. Google and Apple's

29:29

potential partnership is a big blockbuster. Microsoft

29:31

also invested $16 million in Mistral AI.

29:35

It's a French rival to OpenAI. It's

29:37

all over the place. It'll be interesting

29:39

to see what it does to its

29:41

relationship with OpenAI, because he was going

29:44

to bring Sam and Sam Altman if he didn't

29:46

get that job back at OpenAI. Nadella

29:49

apparently told, according to Bloomberg,

29:52

Altman about the new role on

29:54

Monday, just a day before everyone else. I'm

29:57

sure he swallowed his tongue a little

29:59

bit. But he also said

30:01

they're very committed to its partnership with OpenAI.

30:03

I mean, Satya looks

30:06

like the head of Westeros

30:08

right now. And of

30:10

course, they're also facing copyright

30:12

lawsuits all over the globe.

30:16

Google was just fined $270

30:18

million by French regulators for training

30:20

its model in news articles without notifying

30:22

publishers. The New York

30:24

Times is obviously in a lawsuit with

30:26

OpenAI. There's all

30:28

kinds of things happening here, all kinds

30:30

of things. It's really interesting. From

30:33

an economic standpoint, this

30:35

is arguably the most important or intense chess

30:37

game ever played. The amount of money on

30:39

the line here for whoever

30:42

outwits the other finds the human

30:44

capital, the positioning, the marketing, and

30:47

the government

30:49

regulation pretends to give a flying fuck about the Commonwealth so that

30:51

they have AI operating committees that never do anything. That

30:55

firm will probably mint their first trillionaire. I

30:58

mean, you talked about Reddit. Reddit's pricing at eight

31:00

times revenues. I mean, there's all the companies in

31:02

the world, and then there is the

31:04

companies in the center of AI, and

31:07

they are treated by an entirely different standard in

31:09

terms of the market. I

31:12

want to share this story on what happened

31:14

here, because especially around Reed, they're all in

31:16

everybody's grill. So

31:19

it's really interesting. Actually, you know what? I'm going to start making calls this

31:21

afternoon. I'll find out for us. This is

31:23

a really weird story. There is definitely some reporting that needs

31:25

to be done here because we're missing something. You

31:28

can't cash someone's check

31:30

for a billion and a half dollars, which Mustafa

31:32

did, then walk across the street. Yeah, there's no

31:35

shareholder lawsuits. Absolutely.

31:38

Somebody has come to an agreement here that

31:41

is the controlling shareholders at Inflection and with

31:43

Microsoft. Yeah, and again, just to be clear,

31:45

Reed Hoffman is on the board of Microsoft.

31:49

There's OpenAI. He used to be on

31:51

the board of OpenAI. I mean, they're

31:53

all the connections are so interesting. Reed

31:55

used to be on the board of OpenAI. Sam

31:57

is close with Satya. and

32:00

Sue and Mom was at Google. I

32:03

mean, it is, it's game of friggin' Thrones, game

32:05

of AI Thrones, and we'll see where it goes.

32:07

Anyway, let's take a quick break. When we come

32:09

back, we'll talk about Reddit's big IPO now and take

32:11

a listen to a mail question about pop

32:13

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code PIVOT. Scott,

36:00

we're back for our second big

36:03

story. Reddit has officially gone public.

36:05

The social media company made its debut on the New

36:08

York Stock Exchange on Thursday with a share price of

36:10

$34, the high end of

36:12

the targeted range. Its share price puts

36:14

Reddit's value at around $6.4 billion,

36:16

which seems teeny tiny these days, which is

36:19

what they were aiming for, but below

36:21

the $10 billion valuation from a private

36:23

fundraising round in 2021. I

36:27

chatted with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman yesterday prior

36:29

to the IPO and asked him about

36:31

how he was feeling about all of this.

36:34

When somebody asked me what keeps me up at night, my

36:37

answer has been the same for a long time,

36:39

which is one, just practically,

36:42

actually sleep very well at night.

36:46

And then two, I think

36:48

for Reddit, we've been around

36:50

20 years. So

36:52

we've seen the rise of social media. We've seen

36:54

the internet totally evolve.

36:58

And by and large, these things

37:00

haven't affected Reddit. What

37:02

affects Reddit is how

37:04

we work. Are we

37:06

executing effectively? Are we shipping the right stuff?

37:09

And so it's always kind of felt like

37:11

we're in control of

37:14

our destiny, for

37:16

better or for worse. Well, I mean,

37:18

for better. So I think sometimes

37:20

we've been better or worse at being in

37:22

control of our destiny. Right.

37:25

He also told me he thought that two years of

37:27

not IPO-ing was one of the best things that ever

37:29

happened to the company, gave it discipline. We're

37:32

recording this as trading is getting underway. How do

37:35

you think it'll go? Well, I

37:37

voted with my wallet. I'm trying to get

37:39

shares here. So if JP Morgan and Goldman

37:42

Sachs and

37:44

Morgan Stanley could do this, this is what they would do.

37:47

They themselves would find $100

37:49

million each and buy into the first trades and

37:51

try and send

37:55

the stock soaring. Because

37:57

the IPO market has been in a deep

37:59

thaw for... It's been some of

38:01

the slowest two-year period, 24-month period in

38:03

several decades. Yesterday, the

38:06

landing lights got lit by this

38:09

company, this company, Astera. Is that

38:11

what it's called, Astera? I forgot

38:13

the name right. Yeah,

38:16

Astera Labs. If a popular or

38:18

not a popular, but a well-known

38:20

consumer internet brand, Reddit gets a

38:23

big pop, we're

38:25

back in business, baby. And the amount of

38:27

money that flows from the IPO market in

38:29

terms of downstream, secondary, green shoe follow-on, wealth

38:31

management, all this shit, they create so much

38:34

fees. Let me push back here. This is

38:36

an advertising company. This is not an AI company,

38:38

first of all, which is a little different. Just

38:40

for people to be aware, Reddit sold, I

38:43

mean, it's almost fully an advertising company, completely.

38:45

$800 million in advertising. It's very small. It's like a

38:47

Snapchat kind of situation. I think Snapchat's

38:50

a lot bigger, actually. I think double,

38:52

for sure. It sold just for people

38:54

to be aware, just about 15 million

38:56

shares in the offering, and existing shareholders

38:59

sold another close to 7 million

39:01

shares, taking some money off the

39:03

table, I think, right away. And

39:07

you were talking about Astera, A-S-T-E-R-A,

39:09

for people who don't know. But

39:12

it's a dry spell, just so people aware. Reddit's

39:15

revenue was $804 million last year. It

39:19

rose from $667 million, but it lost $90 million in almost

39:21

$91 million, and the year before

39:29

lost $159 million. It's

39:33

trying to get into other businesses, like data

39:35

licensing. It

39:37

got just around $66 million

39:40

from Google in a data licensing

39:42

deals. It's trying to train

39:44

these AI models. It

39:47

got a query from the Federal

39:49

Trade Commission for this. It's also, Steve told

39:51

me, he was, you know,

39:53

they're looking at commerce and other businesses

39:55

besides advertising, and they think they have

39:57

a good advertising story because it's safer.

40:00

because of contextual advertising and

40:02

also because you can reach

40:04

individuals. This is decentralized content

40:06

moderation, decentralized groups. I

40:08

don't know. I think it's an advertising business. So

40:10

I think, and also the last

40:13

thing is they're famous for Wall Street

40:15

Bets, which, and in Wall Street Bets,

40:18

they were betting, they were going to short

40:20

the stock. So there's a meme possibility here

40:22

too that they will, that there's, that the

40:25

people that are on the site will try

40:27

to work against it. And

40:29

then last thing, moderators, some of the

40:32

mods are getting shares and

40:34

not all of them liked it

40:36

necessarily because this is a very

40:39

noisy company among the people who

40:41

run it. It's run by people

40:43

who are volunteers and stuff. Anyway, it's a lot

40:45

happening here. I mean, you still think because it's

40:47

an ad business, I mean, and you know the

40:49

ad business, that it'll mean as much. So

40:53

there's Reddit, the specific company, its performance

40:55

and how it performs in the market.

40:57

And then there's a larger question about

41:01

what it means, the IPO this morning of Reddit

41:03

to the larger market. So let's talk about Reddit.

41:05

You're right. It's an ad business. They

41:07

basically have a series of boards and Redditors that manage

41:09

those boards. They have unbelievable

41:11

traffic, but they haven't really figured out. They

41:13

don't have the ad stack and the business

41:15

model to really monetize it the way other

41:18

companies have run it. It's an $800 million

41:20

business, not a big business. They grew 20%

41:22

last year. It's still losing

41:24

money. It's going out or it's priced

41:26

at about eight times revenues, which draws

41:28

sharp relief between, as you pointed out,

41:30

an ad-based business and an

41:33

AI business. The question surrounding Reddit is

41:35

the following. They

41:37

have the worst monetization of any

41:40

platform that gets this kind of traffic.

41:42

I think Meta gets something like 30

41:45

to 50 times the monetization per

41:47

person on the platform as Reddit. Now,

41:50

it's like my dad told me, I remember my dad telling me

41:52

this when he was trying to test whether I'd be a good

41:54

salesman. He's like, a salesman goes over to Africa.

41:56

This marks the time. This is the 70s. And

41:59

he comes back. And one salesman goes, he's

42:01

a shoe salesman. One salesman comes back and

42:03

says, terrible market force, nobody wears

42:05

shoes here. Another salesman goes

42:08

over and comes back and says, this is amazing,

42:10

nobody has shoes. So the

42:12

question is, is Reddit, is the fact

42:14

that they have the worst monetization given

42:17

the traffic an incredible opportunity

42:19

if they figure that out? Or is it a

42:21

company that's never been able to figure it out

42:23

and it's going to go nowhere? That's the question.

42:25

Six and a half billion dollars, a

42:28

lot of people are about to take, I believe, that

42:30

bet. Now, the bigger issue here

42:32

is what it means for the market. Would

42:35

you buy Reddit? I don't buy into these things. So

42:37

would you buy Reddit? Oh, I'm trying to. Because

42:39

you think that it's undervalued in that regard. Yeah.

42:42

Because I don't think people think that the data stuff is

42:44

going to be the big moneymaker at

42:47

all, the data stuff. And

42:49

the commerce stuff is absolutely nascent.

42:52

Like I sell more t-shirts than that

42:54

kind of thing. I'm buying for two

42:57

reasons. The

43:00

first is, this could be, I think

43:02

there is a ton of pent up demand. In 2021, there

43:04

were 397 IPOs. And

43:10

of those 397 IPOs, because a ton of them were

43:12

SPACs and shit and caught up in the mania, eight

43:14

out of 10 of them, 82% of them, are

43:16

trading below their IPO price. And the market

43:19

feels burned and jilted. So as a result,

43:22

in 2023, there were only 108 IPOs. The

43:28

reason I'm investing in this is

43:30

two reasons. One, I think that

43:32

essentially it's a global brand. And

43:34

two, it's the most trafficked

43:36

side in America that is known by

43:38

Alphabet. And it's trading all of this

43:40

set against a valuation of six

43:43

and a half billion dollars. There

43:45

are real issues, as you pointed out with this company.

43:48

They have not yet figured out a way

43:50

to monetize anything resembling the firehose of traffic

43:52

they have. It's not that big.

43:55

500 million users, 76. He was

43:57

focused in on the daily users, 76 million. And

44:00

it's not ugly. They really cleaned it up quite a

44:02

bit compared to a Twitter where

44:04

everyone's in the same pile of crap. Everybody's

44:08

in the same feed or whatever. There's a

44:10

lot to not like about this company. They

44:12

haven't figured out monetization. When I go on

44:15

the site, it feels like Lycosk or Altavista

44:17

called and wants their UI back. I don't

44:19

think it's very elegantly done. But

44:22

for $6.5 billion, a company that is...

44:24

If you type in most traffic sites

44:26

in the US, it goes Google,

44:29

it goes YouTube, and then it's Reddit. And

44:33

also, I think there's so much money on

44:35

the sidelines hoping to get back into the

44:37

IPO market. But if Reddit comes

44:40

out at a healthy pop, we're off to

44:42

the races again, Kara. You're going to see a

44:44

ton of companies file in the greed glands

44:46

or in the animal spirits are going to

44:48

get going again. So Reddit is actually... Reddit

44:51

is more important to investment banks and the

44:53

IPO ecosystem and the broader market. I would

44:55

argue that almost any company

44:57

in a while, this IPO has much

44:59

bigger meaning and ramifications than just what

45:01

shareholders of Reddit are going to garner. In

45:04

the midst of this, of all these things that

45:06

are happening, two things interesting. One

45:09

of the big winners could be Conde Nast's parent,

45:11

company Advance, whose stake in Reddit will be worth

45:13

around $1.4 billion. I don't think they

45:15

can sell though. Maybe they're selling a little bit

45:17

of shares in the... They might be

45:19

among those sellers. They

45:22

made a $10 million investment for Conde Nast to

45:24

buy Reddit in 2006 and then they spun

45:28

it out again. So this company

45:30

got bought in and then spun out.

45:33

It's been through a lot in the many

45:35

years. Second thing, Reddit had to reveal the

45:38

FTC is conducting an inquiry tied to the

45:40

company's deals to license data,

45:42

as we said. And then also

45:44

Reddit, along with YouTube and Meta, also

45:46

has been ordered by New York State

45:48

judge to face a lawsuit tied to

45:51

that 2022 racially motivated shooting in Buffalo.

45:53

The lawsuit claims the platforms helped radicalize the shooter

45:56

and prepare him for an attack. Of course, the

45:58

Supreme Court found differently when it was a... Google

46:00

case so I'm not sure this will go anywhere. So

46:03

there's all those things hanging around. Will

46:06

this set it off or will something else

46:08

set off? The IPO market is Instacart didn't

46:10

do very well, others didn't do very well. Like

46:12

I said the tables been set with the Stair

46:15

Labs up 72%. If a big consumer internet

46:18

brand Reddit comes out at

46:21

a healthy pop, the IPO

46:23

market is back in business. Alright, okay.

46:25

We'll see Scott. We'll see what it is. Hey Scott

46:28

Galloway here coming in with an update. Since

46:30

we've taped, Reddit has become trading. The stock

46:32

opened at 47 buck and at

46:34

its peak the company had a market cap of get

46:36

this 11 billion and also ended up closing

46:38

up I think around 45 or 50%. I

46:41

would argue that essentially this

46:44

is enormous for the markets. That this

46:46

has turned the IPO market from sort

46:48

of like blinking yellow to the aluminum

46:51

green. The IPO market, the animal spirits I

46:53

think are back. In some

46:55

Stair Labs kind of illuminated the runway

46:58

yesterday and this big consumer internet brand

47:00

Reddit landed the plane with a huge

47:02

pop today. This is big for the

47:04

markets. It's actually the bigger part of

47:06

the news here isn't a consumer

47:09

media company up whatever

47:11

it was 45 or 50%. The

47:14

bigger story here is the IPO market I believe

47:16

is back. The animal spirits are back. John Travolta

47:18

is on the dance floor. Okay, now back to

47:20

the show. Let's pivot

47:23

to a listener question. The

47:31

question comes from Justin. Let's listen.

47:33

Hey Scott and Tara. Justin here

47:35

calling in from New York's ugly

47:37

older cousin Philadelphia. I took your

47:39

advice and watched the show one day. My wife

47:41

and I just finished the finale last

47:43

night and I gotta say I haven't

47:46

cried that hard since I rewatched Titanic,

47:48

stoned in my parents basement back in

47:50

high school. Great recommendation, Scott.

47:52

My question for both of you, what show

47:55

or movie has made you cry the hardest in

47:57

your life? Thanks. Actually

47:59

we of messages about Scott's TV recommendation,

48:01

including one from Lou in Brooklyn, please

48:03

tell Prost G to fuck off about

48:06

his win, that one day show on

48:08

Netflix. I cried like a little bitch,

48:10

but that's neither here nor there. Fuck that

48:13

guy. I

48:15

met this really

48:17

impressive woman, Miriam Vogel, who is

48:19

doing this great startup or

48:22

nonprofit around AI and trying to manage

48:24

responsible AI. And it's just like out

48:26

of central casting for the person who

48:28

would want to lead this organization. And

48:30

as I was walking in, like immediately someone

48:32

yelled at me and they're like, one day, and

48:34

they give me a thumbs up sign. I mean,

48:36

people are literally, because we tell people that

48:39

we like hearing from people, which we do,

48:41

people just feel totally emboldened to like yell

48:43

across a restaurant and be a reference from

48:45

the pod or something. But I told you,

48:47

ketamine trip was a big topic on my

48:49

bookstore right now, Scott's ketamine. Oh, wait, I

48:51

got it. Before we come back to what made you,

48:53

I want you to answer what

48:55

made you cry. But before we come back to that, just a couple

48:58

of things. I've heard from a

49:00

lot of psychiatrists and a lot of people very

49:02

involved in ketamine saying that I didn't spend enough

49:04

time talking about the very important benefits

49:06

here. And there's a lot of studies, and I

49:08

just want to highlight a lot of studies showing

49:11

that it has real, that is really effective

49:13

and a wonderful drug for people, veterans and

49:15

others who have suffered trauma or really struggle

49:17

with depression. So I want to put that

49:19

out there. The other thing, just as

49:21

a follow up that I think is kind of interesting, I'm now

49:23

two weeks in. And for the first time

49:25

in 35 years, over a two week period,

49:28

I haven't had a drink. And

49:31

that is very unusual for me. And it's

49:33

not because I had some sort of, you

49:35

know, revelation that I was drinking too

49:37

much, something has happened where the taste

49:39

I've lost the taste of alcohol, you

49:41

know how they say when you're not taking

49:43

a zemphick? Is that those are two? That's

49:45

exactly the right question. Because my feeling

49:47

is whatever it was supposedly a zemphick

49:49

just sort of turns tells your brain

49:51

to be kind of a little turned

49:54

off and nauseated by food. I

49:56

feel like the same thing I walked in I went last night

49:58

at dinner. downtown

50:00

and then I went to Zero Bond

50:02

and just the smell of alcohol. I

50:04

had grapefruit spritzers the whole

50:06

night and I didn't drink which was so

50:08

unusual for me. By the way, am I

50:10

nearly as charming or nice to be around?

50:13

You're literally becoming Kara Swisher. Let

50:16

me say I had dinner the other night

50:18

with the third Emmanuel brother. I know

50:21

Rahm and Ari very well but I didn't know Zeke

50:23

Emmanuel. He's a doctor. He's a very well-known doctor and

50:26

a scientist and he

50:28

was telling me about the effects he's

50:30

studying of mushrooms on cancer

50:32

patients and all these psychedelics and he

50:35

was very much like this is important.

50:37

This is important stuff. So yes, good

50:39

thing for saying that. One

50:42

thing that I'd like to know is

50:44

what's your movie? What's your movie that made you...well you said one day

50:46

but is there another one and then I'll tell you mine. But

50:49

I'm an easy cry. Remains of the

50:51

day with Anthony Hopkins, The Black Stallion

50:54

with Terry Gar and Mickey

50:56

Rooney. You cried everything though,

50:58

like right? Literally. Yeah, pretty

51:00

much any episode of Modern

51:02

Family. Yeah, how about you? What have you cried

51:04

in? I don't cry at movies. It's a

51:06

very big joke between Amanda and I. She cries

51:08

at literally everything. It's fascinating. Like

51:10

I look over and she's tearing up over

51:13

something like True Detective or something. Like it

51:15

wasn't True Detective but it was something like

51:17

that and I was like, are you kidding

51:19

me? So she she cries at everything. I

51:21

cry at nothing. I'm

51:23

trying to think what movie got me. I

51:25

cried in Barbie. Like what the fuck am I doing here?

51:28

How did I end up here? No,

51:30

stop it. Stop attacking Barbie. You're not

51:32

allowed. You've used up all your anti-Barbie

51:35

remarks for your life. I

51:37

do love what you said. The Margot Robbie, had

51:39

she not been in pink, would have been nominated.

51:41

I thought that was a super interesting frame. She's

51:43

an astonishing actress. I'm sorry. Her whole face is

51:46

so expressive. What

51:48

did I cry in?

51:50

Let me think. Oh

51:52

my god. Roadhouse with Patrick

51:55

Swayze. Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze because it

51:57

was so beautiful. the

52:01

champ with Ricky Schroeder and John Doit.

52:03

You didn't cry in that? No, I

52:06

don't cry in movies. I really

52:08

don't. Really? Roadhouse, Gladiator, when

52:10

he died, I didn't cry but

52:12

I was sad. The English patient, my favorite movie. The

52:15

English patient, you didn't cry in that. You didn't? That

52:17

didn't grab you and like really move you? No. Old

52:20

yeller? Nope. Nope. Oh my god,

52:22

I'm dead inside. Roadhouse!

52:27

Patrick Swayze! His beauty!

52:31

Oh. Yeah, my favorite line in Roadhouse is this

52:33

guy when he's fighting me. Not the new one.

52:35

No, no, no. The old Roadhouse. My favorite scene

52:37

is when they're fighting and the guy goes, I

52:39

used to fuck guys like you in prison. And

52:42

I'm like, well then. Well then.

52:44

Okay. So

52:46

every Patrick Swayze movie is spectacular. Maybe

52:48

I turned up a tiny bit in

52:51

Dirty Dancing when she goes, nobody puts

52:53

baby in the corner. But that wasn't

52:55

really sad. That was the happy part.

52:57

I'm like, yes, yes Patrick Swayze. Pulled

52:59

baby out of the corner. But that

53:01

was, I still didn't cry. I'm sorry.

53:05

Dead Poets Society? Dead movie? Dead

53:07

Poets Society? No. Oh god.

53:09

Oh my god, no. Oh god,

53:11

it was so saccharine. Maybe

53:13

Ghost? The end of Ghost a

53:15

little bit? Brokeback Mountain? That didn't make you

53:18

cry? No. You're not gonna get one. No.

53:20

Beaches? Hold on, hold on, hold on,

53:22

hold on. Terms of Endowment? Really? Sophie's

53:25

Choice? Philadelphia?

53:29

No. Schindler's List? Oh, don't

53:31

do that to me. Keep going. I

53:34

know I'm gonna find one here. Hold on. I would

53:36

cry more at a Bugs Bunny. I mean,

53:39

there's some very moving Scooby Doos that really

53:41

get to my heart. Because you know, if it

53:44

wasn't for those kids, I would have gotten away

53:46

with it. Oh my god, so

53:48

many movies I've cried in. Hold on. The Elephant Man?

53:51

No. The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless

53:53

Mind? No. I mean, I like them. You're in

53:55

aiming movies I like very much. Little Miss

53:57

Sunshine on Golden Pond when Henry and

54:00

Jane and Brace. I'm literally getting welled

54:02

up right now just thinking about these

54:04

movies. You cry at everything. You and

54:06

Amanda are like waterworks as far as I'm

54:08

concerned. The Shawshank Redemption when

54:10

he's talking about his wife? No.

54:13

Oh my God. You

54:15

are dead inside. These

54:18

are incredible movies. Notting

54:20

Hill when she made that little speech about

54:22

like I'm just a girl, you know,

54:26

looking for a guy. That speech made him

54:28

really cry. No. I do like Julia

54:30

Roberts, so I'm a big admirer of hers. I'm

54:32

going to try and reverse engineer this to a

54:34

lesson here for young men. I

54:36

didn't cry from the age of 29 to 44. For 15 years, I didn't cry. I

54:38

lost the capability. I

54:42

just didn't know how to cry any longer. I didn't cry when my

54:44

mom died. I didn't cry when I got divorced. What

54:47

I would say to anyone, especially men,

54:49

if you discover the ability to cry, it's

54:51

a gift because it helps inform what's

54:53

meaningful to you. I

54:58

think it makes a much more meaningful life because the problem

55:00

is when you shove down your

55:02

emotions, and that's including learning how

55:04

to laugh really hard when something inspires you,

55:06

take time to try and understand why it

55:09

inspires you, but lean into

55:11

the crying because it really helps

55:14

inform like what's important to you, what

55:16

really moves you. That's a wonderful thing

55:18

as opposed to just sleepwalking

55:20

a little bit through life. I'd say lean

55:23

into it. I agree. Louie and Alex

55:25

cry. All my kids cry. Amanda is

55:27

like, as I said, like you, waterworks.

55:29

I can't explain it. I laugh a

55:31

lot. I can't explain it. I

55:33

will say in Steel Magnolia's, I was kind of

55:36

glad when Julia Roberts died. Is that wrong? Is

55:38

that wrong? The way we were?

55:40

The way we were? Look

55:43

at you. You're not going to find a movie.

55:45

Let's move on. Thank you, Justin.

55:48

Justin, we're having a big moment in our relationship

55:50

here. I don't know what to say. Anyway, if

55:55

you've got a quest of your own you'd like

55:58

answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com. to

56:00

submit a question for the show or call 855-51-Pivot.

56:04

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

56:06

We'll be back for predictions. The

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58:47

Jackie. And the listeners of this show can get

58:49

a $75 dollar skims or

58:51

job credit to get your job

58:53

more visibility at indeed.com/podcast. Just

58:56

go to indeed.com/podcast right now

58:58

and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast.

59:01

indeed.com/podcast. Terms

59:04

and conditions to keep. Need to hire?

59:06

You need Indeed. Okay,

59:12

Scott, let's hear a prediction. My

59:14

prediction is I think someone

59:16

who's going to go down in history as

59:19

just an incredibly powerful role model

59:21

for young people and a

59:23

really fantastic American is

59:26

the co-founder of Amazon, Mackenzie

59:28

Scott. I agree. Explain what

59:30

you just did. She just announced she's giving

59:32

another $650 million away. So

59:35

she's doubling the amount of money she's allocating

59:37

to charities. And I have some personal experience

59:39

with Mackenzie Scott. I'm a huge

59:42

fan and a big supporter of something called

59:44

the Jed Foundation that leverages the infrastructure of

59:46

high schools to help give them the tools

59:48

to identify or discern between kind of normal

59:50

but strange teen behavior and actual teen behavior

59:52

you need to be cautious

59:54

of and intervene around depression and suicidal

59:56

ideation. And it is an amazing organization

59:58

run by a man who ran

1:00:00

a pharmaceutical company whose son Jed

1:00:02

killed himself and he has this amazing staff,

1:00:06

this guy John McPhee, they do an

1:00:08

amazing job, amazing job. And

1:00:11

out of the blue, somebody called them

1:00:13

and said, we need your wiring information, we want to make a

1:00:15

donation. They got that all the time, $1,000, $5,000, $50, and they

1:00:18

got a wire for $15 million. And

1:00:23

it was Mackenzie Scott saying, I've been following you,

1:00:25

you're wonderful. I don't want anything. I don't need

1:00:27

anything. It's yours. I've

1:00:30

been following you. Don't call me. Don't put my name

1:00:32

in the papers. And

1:00:35

A, it was so moving, but B, it really

1:00:37

is a great lesson around giving because I give

1:00:40

a lot of money away, but here's the thing. For

1:00:43

me, it's a transaction and it feeds my

1:00:45

ego and I want recognition for it. And

1:00:48

it really taught me that that's not giving.

1:00:51

That's consumption. What she's doing

1:00:53

is giving. She's

1:00:56

just giving. I love it. What's

1:00:58

the ROI on the investment of the charity?

1:01:00

She's just like, here's the fucking money. Go

1:01:03

for it. She's not starting a

1:01:05

rocket company or going to Cannes or

1:01:07

having- Or naming things after herself. Or

1:01:09

having three kids by two different people

1:01:11

in one week. She's just

1:01:13

like, I'm blessed. I

1:01:16

hate anyone framing her as solely

1:01:19

like a rich wife. She was very involved

1:01:21

in Amazon in the beginning. She was. I

1:01:24

was there. And frankly, the V candidate

1:01:26

that I brought up before, you could accuse

1:01:28

her of being a wealthy housewife if that's

1:01:30

an accusation or a wealthy spouse. This

1:01:33

is an individual who deserves the billions she

1:01:35

has and she's not trying to

1:01:37

figure out a way to have a

1:01:39

midlife crisis explode. She's trying

1:01:41

to figure out a way to be helpful and

1:01:43

lean into her blessings and she does not want

1:01:46

or even desire recognition.

1:01:49

I think we're- I mean, there's some problems.

1:01:51

A non-geared at us correctly points out that

1:01:53

rich people shouldn't be dictating our social priorities

1:01:55

but distinct. She is all over

1:01:57

the map. That's why she's not dictating. She's the wide

1:01:59

range. And she gets just social justice. You

1:02:01

know, Elon Musk attacked her,

1:02:04

of course, as usual, an ungenerous person, by

1:02:06

the way. And if you read the New

1:02:08

York Times piece about him giving money to

1:02:10

things that help him, that's exactly

1:02:12

what he's like. And she,

1:02:14

you know, she doubled the donations. Such

1:02:17

an impressive person. It was going to

1:02:19

be 250 million and she upped it to 640. And

1:02:22

Musk called her a super rich ex-wife

1:02:25

who's destroying Western civilization. Let me just

1:02:27

say, in this regard, fuck you, Elon.

1:02:29

You're an ungenerous person of charity. This

1:02:31

woman's giving away, I think, $16 billion

1:02:34

at this point. So fuck you. Get back

1:02:36

off of Mackenzie Scott. She's not going to.

1:02:39

But in total, I think she's given $16 billion. I

1:02:42

don't know if it's $16 billion, but

1:02:44

she's given an enormous one. But

1:02:49

she announced $2.15 billion in

1:02:51

donations over the last year. I

1:02:53

mean, geez, a Louisa. Like, think

1:02:55

about that. Think about that. And

1:02:57

all over the place. I

1:03:00

told my kids about her. I think she's

1:03:02

just, I think she's incredibly impressive. And unlike

1:03:04

these individuals who are like, how do I

1:03:06

buy a dildo into space or... Yeah.

1:03:09

My burrito bar needs money. That's the kind

1:03:11

of giving Elon Musk in my town that

1:03:14

I'm building because I'm an egomaniac. You

1:03:16

know, I just, I

1:03:18

can't even with these people. The contrast I kept

1:03:20

thinking of was Oprah sort of marks the age

1:03:22

in the sense that, you know, you get a

1:03:24

car, you get shit. You get more shit. I

1:03:27

mean, she's given away a lot of money. You

1:03:29

get a toaster oven. And she's just, her attitude

1:03:31

is, you need money and I'm giving

1:03:33

you money. You need money and I'm giving you

1:03:35

money. You're doing good work and you need money.

1:03:37

I'm giving you money. And anyways, I just love...

1:03:40

They have a woman bent. They have a social

1:03:42

justice bent. It doesn't matter. It's her

1:03:44

business, you fuckers. I'm sorry. Just

1:03:47

like, go read the New York Times story.

1:03:49

But let's frame this in a positive. No, I'm

1:03:51

not going to because read the David Farrenhold story.

1:03:53

That is about greed and giving. She

1:03:56

is about generosity and giving. And

1:03:58

it couldn't be a... darker contrast

1:04:00

between two people couldn't be. Anyway,

1:04:02

go ahead, sorry. But she's a great American

1:04:04

and the key word here is American because for

1:04:07

all the shitposting of

1:04:09

America and the fact that we're raising

1:04:11

a generation of young people that don't

1:04:13

like America, Americans at their core, at

1:04:15

their core, and this is different than

1:04:18

Europe or other nations. When it comes to

1:04:20

philanthropy, we are the most generous people in

1:04:22

the world and she embodies that. She's

1:04:25

a great American, she embodies our values.

1:04:27

And it's something, she

1:04:29

is an example of a reason to

1:04:31

love America. Americans are very generous. I

1:04:33

agree. Mackenzie, fantastic

1:04:36

work. Anyway, we love

1:04:38

Mackenzie Scott. Scott, that's the

1:04:40

show. We'll be back on Tuesday with

1:04:42

more Pivot. Read us out. Today's

1:04:45

show is produced by Larry Naaman, Billy Marcus, and

1:04:47

Taylor Griffin. We're an intertide engineer at the CEPSA.

1:04:49

Thanks to officer Drew Burrows and Neil Savario. Nishak

1:04:51

Kerouac is Fox Media's executive producer of audio. Make

1:04:54

sure you subscribe and show wherever you listen to

1:04:56

podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York

1:04:58

Magazine and Fox Media. You can

1:05:00

subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll

1:05:02

be back next week for another breakdown

1:05:04

of all things tech and business at

1:05:06

the I Heart Podcast

1:05:09

Awards where we won best news

1:05:11

podcasts. I forgot to mention two

1:05:13

people. One was a huge oversight and that

1:05:15

is Zoe Marcus, who is a fantastic producer.

1:05:18

I apologize, Zoe. Also, I forgot to mention

1:05:20

Carol Swisher. Not as a big a deal.

1:05:22

I just wanted to say thank you to

1:05:24

both of those people. I was just off

1:05:27

Academy and I was not at my best.

1:05:29

So I apologize for forgetting both of you.

1:05:31

Thank you, Scott.