00:00:00
this is going to blow up because I've listened to these people and I've seen all the online stuff and they they
00:00:05
really are like rabid. It's always the cover up. It's not the scandal itself.
00:00:15
Hi everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Carara Swisser and Donald Trump is definitely on that
00:00:22
list, that abstain list. But are you? Um I think I'm one of the few people
00:00:27
that's not. I feel I know. I was surprised. Uh it's it's um
00:00:33
first off, we have to start we have to change Rosie O'Donnell should legally change her name to Rosie Epstein.
00:00:38
Yeah, I have never seen a lamer attempt to distract people from what is going on.
00:00:45
And by the way, I just want to acknowledge I thought this was going to be old news and blow over. You were right on this. I cannot
00:00:52
I was thinking about it. I was saying last night to a friend. I went I last last week I was in AA on the most
00:00:59
perfect night. Yeah. At Calvin Harris, you know, I like the like the pop 40 DJs concert.
00:01:05
Okay. Uhhuh. I had taken X for the first time in 30 years. What? Oh my god. I like me so much on X. Cara,
00:01:12
I really me. Did you think about me? I'm trying to think. You did not. You were not front of mind. I mean when I
00:01:18
was on Molly and I'm like the music sounds amazing. It was a perfect night and people were
00:01:23
coming up to me and telling me how much they love my work and how important my work is. And I'm like, you know, with my my
00:01:29
pupils that look like frying pans. And that was like one of the best nights
00:01:35
I've had in such a long time. And I thought, would I rather have that again or just to be sitting back in my
00:01:42
hot girl summer watching Republicans eat themselves alive over this? Yeah. I I got to be honest, I am so here for
00:01:49
this. I think it's [ __ ] amazing. I agree. Thank you for acknowledging that. I actually Amanda had the same um
00:01:56
I I you know a lot of people thought it was distraction and I'm like no no no this is at the heart of what he's he has
00:02:02
and and Amanda did make this point. He has trained them into QAnon right he they're going to regret the training
00:02:07
into QAnon which was useful when it was useful but these people really truly believe this and I've spent a lot of
00:02:13
time on these networks so I I know it like you know when you when there's like oh it's no big deal. I'm like, "No, no, this is like I don't know." And and the
00:02:20
pedophile thing is particularly um resonant with them. They they absolutely believe Hillary Clinton had a
00:02:27
basement. They absolutely some of them do. They absolutely believe that there's a there's a cabal that killed Jeffrey
00:02:33
Epstein, etc., etc. So, he it's at the it's at the it's one of the structures of his presidency in a weird way. You
00:02:40
couldn't believe it. I don't believe it, but it's true. But it just it's so intellectually or morally inconsistent. And it's like if
00:02:48
that if Jeffrey Epstein had invited a bunch of migrant workers to his island, we would have nuked it,
00:02:53
right? But as long as it was just pedophiles and this this notion that we're shocked
00:03:00
Mhm. that a man found liable of sexual abuse, which is rape, might be on a list of a powerful man
00:03:07
inviting people down to an island with underage women. Like that's supposed to be a big shocker. Yeah. Well, actually, let's get to this
00:03:13
thing because it's a really important. We have other things we're going to talk about like tariffs and how Elon is bluring the lines between his business
00:03:18
is another thing I think I got right there. Um but just so you know with where Donald Trump is now, he's doing the wrong thing in dealing with them.
00:03:25
100%. When he put that thing out, I was like, "No, no, no, no, sir. You can't. You have to be with them. Even if you're not
00:03:31
with them, you have to be with them." He says he doesn't like what's happening to his MAGA boys and gals. He's urging them
00:03:36
not to waste time on Jeffrey Epstein. Keeps saying he's dead. um he has been throwing his support behind Pam Bondi in in a true social
00:03:44
post and also he was at some uh soccer thing where everybody booed him and he was he clapped at her or he put his fing
00:03:50
hand up like his thumb up but this civil war let me just give people the idea is
00:03:55
is really quite something and the many are demanding that Bondi who they're calling Blondie uh which is funny um be
00:04:03
fired over this memo that found no evidence of a client list or if or Epste being murdered. She's been very explicit
00:04:09
about this. The the Epstein investigation led to the White House confrontation between Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bonino, who's been
00:04:16
pretty vocal about Epstein coverup claims near he made his career. He made his podcast career. That was one of the
00:04:21
structures of his podcast career. He didn't show up work last Friday. There were rumors, of course, he was leaking
00:04:27
all over the place clearly that he's insist he but the administration says he's still on the job. I suspect he'll
00:04:32
fall into line because that's the kind of guy he is, but who knows? Um uh but but but one of the things that's
00:04:39
interesting is the various factionalism. And I'll go through this very quickly. Um uh Fox News is calling this a ticking
00:04:45
time bomb. Megan Kelly never not to weigh in on something grotesque said over the weekend this could actually
00:04:51
cause Trump the midterms. She's against Bondi. I guess Bannon's against Bondi. The I guess Elon's against Bondi.
00:04:58
Charlie Kirk's against Bondi. Laura Loomer. Um anyway, it's really quite something. It's like a weird little
00:05:04
civil war now. I think they're going to fall into line now cuz I think he's going to put the kibash on it at behind
00:05:11
the scenes, but I don't know. What do you think? What What do you imagine? Well, just around perception, right? I mean, first off, it doesn't even seem
00:05:17
that they're that upset about pedophilia. They're that upset about not pursuing a conspiracy theory,
00:05:22
right? And the the the the thing that strikes me is that if someone had
00:05:28
counseledled him on how to appear to be more guilty, it would have been difficult. He immediately gets defensive
00:05:35
and says, "I can't believe you're not focusing on the tragedy of Texas or I'm
00:05:41
thinking of canceling Rosie O'Donnell's citizen." It's he could not be acting
00:05:46
more guilty, right? And it whoever is coaching him is like, "No, don't bring it up. that you know he
00:05:53
could have said this is an important case and the FBI it's up to the FBI how they how they want to handle this right
00:06:00
instead except that he's made his career on it that is the thing he he was very much which I which is almost suicidal because
00:06:06
he's been photographed with him like 67 times there's videos of him like dancing with his you know white man dancing
00:06:13
together um he's clearly been down there he's on the logs um let me the only thing I would say is I know a lot of
00:06:19
people who went down there by the way And and I've told you I was invited to his house once and I declined cuz he's a
00:06:25
sexual predator. Um but um which I told the PR person I'm like no I'm not going to a sexual predator's house. But uh one
00:06:32
of the things that was is interesting is a lot of people who went down there I don't believe necessarily went for sex.
00:06:38
Um I think it was interesting. He was an interesting guy. It was kind of sexy like to giving a ton of money away. I
00:06:44
they giving a ton of money away. Even Bill Gates I think he was bored. I don't know what happened with Bill Gates, but I'm just saying there was a lot of like
00:06:51
like and a lot of what was really interesting to me and Melinda Gates talked about this thing. I was not happy
00:06:56
with his affiliation. Um, someone I think it was Sergey Bren his he and his
00:07:02
wife went were invited down. They went down and the minute they got off the plane, his wife Ann knew what was up and was like, "We're getting the [ __ ] out of
00:07:08
here." Like kind of thing. And so I think I think a lot of people went for cur these things for curiosity sort of
00:07:14
the same way they went to the uh the diddy parties I guess and some of the people went for full-on uh you know uh
00:07:22
abuse of minors that there's it's weird but the fact that they didn't know the people who went that weren't necessarily
00:07:28
doing that is grotesque too in a lot of ways. Would you have gone had you been invited before all this? Well, I'll come back to
00:07:35
that and that is so it's always the cover up, not the scandal.
00:07:40
And he's handling this exactly incorrectly because all of a sudden he's created a massive cover up of his own
00:07:47
manufacturing and all of his just watching them eat their own tale of conspiracy theory when it comes home,
00:07:52
you know, for you. But let's just you have a situation. Okay, I'm I'm in St.
00:08:00
arts and a Microsoft billionaire invites me on their yacht and I go on the yacht.
00:08:05
Lot of hot people, great party. I go, I have a good time. I leave. What if it ends up there were underage women on
00:08:12
that boat? Did I do my due diligence? It was like I went on this boat. I won't even say who it is, but it wasn't the
00:08:17
top wasn't the founder of Microsoft. It was one of the founders. I know who it was. I Yeah, but I didn't do diligence around
00:08:23
the personal behavior of this guy or whether he had been convicted of anything or whether there were underage
00:08:28
women on the boat. I just went cuz it sounded like a really good time, right? And there I think there were a lot of people quite frankly just caught up in
00:08:34
the strafe here. There were a lot of people who should who deserve scrutiny and to have the reputation ruined or to
00:08:41
have legal legal ramifications, but I think there were probably a [ __ ] ton of people like, "Oh, it's a rich guy who
00:08:47
throws great parties and yeah, and he's he wants to give me a ride to Boston on his plane." He gave a lot of people
00:08:53
rides on his plane. I can absolutely see how people get caught up. The only thing is it was before he was convicted. There
00:09:00
was a lot of rumors about it. I knew them because he was a lot of tech events like and after you I think you have less of
00:09:08
an excuse after after Florida convicted him. Many people knew about that. But do you think every powerful person
00:09:14
has an obligation to conduct a background check on everyone they spend time with? No, it's just it's a world that I think
00:09:20
people aren't familiar with and I think you and I are a little bit. I'm sort of more peripherilally. you go to more of those abuses and things like that, but
00:09:27
there is a like there is a like a world where they all sort of, you know, swan
00:09:32
around. Just like Jeff Bezos's wedding, there's a world like that. And one of the things about Epstein,
00:09:37
like I was at a dinner he was at with 200 people and I got attacked by the
00:09:42
anti-epstein forces. Like you were part of that. I'm like literally I I I never even met him. Like I was near him. I
00:09:49
guess there was a photo where I was vaguely adjacent to him, but I didn't talk to him or anything else. And and it
00:09:56
was so it was really some of that happened a lot. He was at like TED things as I recall. I think that's where
00:10:02
I was where he was. Um but what was interesting is people that actually then took the next step after his conviction.
00:10:08
I'm always like bad very bad judgment on your part to do so. But if he had said
00:10:15
um in my younger days, I love to have a good time. I love to be at great parties. This guy seemed like, let's be
00:10:22
honest, he he was a guy who loved to have a good time. He was giving money away. He invited me to his island. I
00:10:27
went. I had a great time. I didn't I didn't engage in pedophilia. I didn't have sex with underage minors, but I
00:10:34
went. It was a terrible error in judgment. And I apologize if he just said that. But the fact that he's trying
00:10:41
so hard to create weapons of mass distraction gives people an understandable suspicion
00:10:47
that he did more than just go to the [ __ ] island. Right. And it's always the cover up. It's not
00:10:53
the scandal itself. Talk a little bit about the the the I think his misjudging of the depth of
00:10:58
this mania on the right over this issue. I didn't see it. Did you see this? I did not see this.
00:11:04
I told you I said this is not a distraction. this is going to blow up because I've s I' I've listened to these people and I've seen all the online
00:11:10
stuff and they they really are like rabbit around this. Look at what happened to Roseanne Bar. Look at what
00:11:16
happened to like there's a lot of people who became insane over this topic like a
00:11:22
lot like a ton. And even the the average person who isn't right I've noticed a
00:11:27
lot of people putting up like well I wasn't into the Epstein conspiracies but now I am. You know what I mean? like
00:11:33
regular people are now like what what was he doing there? And so he's dragging in reasonable people, I guess, who would
00:11:39
mostly just say, "Gh, this is just ridiculous. I'm not a conspiracy theorist." Yeah. I don't I I find the
00:11:47
whole thing a lesson in uh karma when you fment a conspiracy
00:11:53
theory, you know, and and then they came for me. This is the ultimate example of that, right? What do you think's going to happen
00:11:59
next? Every time I think that Republicans are going to stand up for uh
00:12:06
you know not having Medicaid stripped away from the people who elected them or that that someone who's convicted by a
00:12:13
jury of his peers including Republicans on that of all 34 counts or whatever it is. I think this is the final straw or I get
00:12:21
hopeful that Lisa Marowski or Susan Collins actually pretend to care. I think you're right. I think they're
00:12:26
all going to eventually fall in line. I think they're all going to ring their hands. The only thing is Pam Bondi, I'm curious. She might be the blood offering
00:12:33
here. No, no, I think Dan Bonino is I think he can't he can't give in to this. He can't
00:12:40
like he might that's the thing cuz he's so desperate for attention and love from these people. That's the only thing he
00:12:46
could do is give Bondi up in that regard. By the way, she's terrible, but you know, like is it like a list? What
00:12:52
you want to stack rank the idiots? Um, I I think what it shows is how quickly
00:12:57
this is all going to devolve when Donald Trump is out of the picture. I think they I think this is their I think this
00:13:04
we are seeing their ass right now. And when you say devolve, what do you mean? Meaning there they don't none of them
00:13:10
like they they're so different. Like there was always a problem of the left and the center in Dem politics. There is
00:13:17
that right. There's the centrist people there who thinks the left is too left. There's a left who thinks the centrists
00:13:22
don't understand that, you know, someone like Mandomy is the future. That kind that is normal, right? That is a normal
00:13:29
political party that like like the Tea Party and the the more institutionalists in the former Republican party. But this
00:13:35
group there is they are so on opposite sides of everything. And not just
00:13:41
opposite sides, opposite people who are on the same side on one thing are on opposite sides on the other stuff. And
00:13:47
so the fracturing of this Republican party that Trump has built once he is
00:13:53
gone in some fashion is going to be spectacular because you think JD [ __ ]
00:13:58
Vance is going to hold this together? You think Don Jr., you know, no. None of these people have the power of Trump to
00:14:05
hold this stuff together. And even he is showing signs of not being able to whether it's age or misjudgment or
00:14:12
something like that. But I just think it's going to be a spectacular. you're seeing the signs of what's going to
00:14:17
happen next. I mean, I I think you are. Anyway, speaking of a mess, uh tariff Palooa is continuing. He's saying the US
00:14:24
will impose very severe tariffs on Russia if there's no peace deal with Ukraine in the next 50 days. I'm sure
00:14:29
Putin is quaking in his boots. He's also threatened to hit uh EU and Mexico, two America's largest trading partners, with
00:14:36
30% tariffs starting August 1st. And Canada also back in the crosshairs. In a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney,
00:14:42
Trump said Canadian goods would face 35% tariffs starting next month. Trump cited concerns about fentanyl coming across
00:14:48
the border again as a justification. Uh the ones from Brazil were because he didn't like a case against Bolsonero. Uh
00:14:55
talk a little bit about the Russian blend. I mean, this is just keeps going that if and the markets have not gotten yippy as before. Um some people
00:15:02
including Jamie Diamond and others think it's a problem that the markets aren't paying attention to this. Um so thoughts
00:15:10
I think literally the mar like I said the market just continues to yawn and doesn't none of these things have come
00:15:16
through. EOS backs down. The market seems to be rerooting around it. The companies that are driving the NASDAQ
00:15:23
and the S&P are essentially global companies now that don't appear to be
00:15:28
subject to those tariffs. Right. um AI AI and Meta and Microsoft to a certain
00:15:33
extent so far well except for copper the 50% tariff on copper which including defense
00:15:41
electricity and tech US imports over 40% of its copper and switching to domestic supplies could take up to a decade
00:15:46
industry groups are warning they could slow AI data center growth they have an event tomorrow in Pennsylvania $70
00:15:52
billion investment and then Peter Teal calls JD Vance and says you're about to shut down
00:15:58
AI in the moment There's a whiff that this is going to threaten AI and the seven stocks that responsible for 38% of
00:16:04
the S&P check down 20%. And there's panic buying.
00:16:12
He listens to the markets and he listens to a small group of people including Jamie Diamond I think and I think he's
00:16:17
just going to back down. I think he's playing poker with a weak hand and keeps hoping the other folks around the table are going to fold. Yeah. And I mean just
00:16:24
in terms of what's nonsensical, Canada, arguably our closest ally, largest undefended border in the world. Housing
00:16:30
is a real issue in America. Young people are really angry because the percentage of first-time home buyers is at an
00:16:37
all-time low. The entrance have are paying for the price of the incumbents weaponizing
00:16:43
um zoning such that they can increase or decrease the supply of new houses. And you want to talk about taking inflation
00:16:49
up. What are the two primary inputs for a new house or two of them? Canadian lumber and Mexican drywall gypsum.
00:16:57
You want to make things worse. You want to start talking about panic buying before the tariffs that creates
00:17:03
inflation. The first uptick in an inflation number here. Uh I just think they're they have to fold. And what
00:17:10
happens if inflation really starts to spike and chairman pal who has his own ego says you know what we're
00:17:15
contemplating raising interest rates. Well, Trump has the crosshairs on him, too. But he can only crosshairs so many
00:17:21
people. He doesn't care. He's in there for he's in there at least for the short. I just think the markets the adults in the room
00:17:28
in the cabinet is not a DUI hire uh to head the the defense secretary.
00:17:34
It's not it's not an acolyte to basically pervert our justice system, our attorney general. The adult in the
00:17:41
room here is the bond market, the 10-year, and uh to a lesser extent, the equity markets. and they will absolutely
00:17:48
respond if these tariffs actually become a reality. Uh you're going to see the markets I you mean my co-host at Propy
00:17:57
Markets said what's interesting is that when these things clearly weren't going to happen the markets kind of freaked
00:18:02
out and now the markets have gotten used to him and aren't freaking out and he wonders that okay maybe maybe Trump is so angry he's not being taken seriously
00:18:09
that he'll actually go through with a couple of these things. But what what is so insane and so stupid about these
00:18:15
threats is the following and that is trade agreements take 18 months minimum
00:18:20
just to hammer out not 90 and 90 days what and then they take four years to implement because just the logistics of
00:18:27
trying to track this stuff and figuring out the regulatory bodies that will do it and the payments and the notion that he just sets this
00:18:34
goal and this is why business people shouldn't be president. He just he just
00:18:39
doesn't understand how government works. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't I still believe
00:18:44
playing he played at being a businessman. I'm sorry. Just like it's he was a laughable businessman. I agree. And the thing he doesn't the
00:18:52
thing the overarching construct or philosophy that he doesn't understand about global
00:18:58
trade and geopolitics is that the most in my opinion the most
00:19:03
visionary move in geopolitical history was when after defeating an army that
00:19:08
had put people in concentration camps had uh murdered our soldiers violated
00:19:15
GMA conventions that was the Japanese had brutalized
00:19:21
tens of millions of people across Europe. We defeated them. And what did we decide to do? We decided to borrow a
00:19:27
[ __ ] ton of money and rebuild their nations. Recognizing that if we could create prosperity overseas, it would be
00:19:35
of massive benefit domestically. That was the most visionary thing I believe
00:19:40
ever done geopolitically. And what that set off was a recognition that global trade and prosperity are not
00:19:48
a zero- sum game. It's not a win-lose game. That when Vietnam does really well, they not only export those Nikes,
00:19:55
they start importing them and buying them. You know what was interesting? There was a story uh one everyone's writing the
00:20:00
story which we've talked about for months now which is that suddenly all these other partners are getting
00:20:05
together across Europe with China Europe with we talked about this early but they are suddenly running about the second
00:20:11
thing is a lot of the people here who are here legally are sending all their money back to their countries now and
00:20:17
not spending it here which is interesting before the the the outflow of capital from immigrants here who are
00:20:24
here legally is huge is like gained cuz they feel that this is the place to put
00:20:31
down roots or you know or or the long term and I have to tell you I've heard from so many people about nervousness of
00:20:39
leaving a lot of students leaving this country and maybe not wanting to stay
00:20:45
like before they would have at US would have been the place they would have stayed and brought their incredible talents now they're like I think I'm
00:20:52
going back I think I'm going back kind of thing which I never heard from these people before these kind people.
00:20:58
The analogy I use is that what if one NBA team got the number one that they got the number one through number one
00:21:05
million draft picks? Every other team, their first pick for their team was the
00:21:10
millionth and first draft pick. We get the top million. We get the top people around the world. We get the most elite
00:21:16
of the elite. What do the what do the smartest people in Scotland all have in
00:21:21
common? They left. And the majority that left came to America. And World War II,
00:21:28
the the most elite scientists, including the guy who figured out relativity,
00:21:35
decided to come to America because they didn't like the environment in Europe that was emerging. And now we have
00:21:41
thousands of scientists applying for uh intellectual asylum in France. Y and they're making it they're doing a
00:21:48
lot of things, but crime I mean literally I want to go RFK scientists can get on the plane. They get on the
00:21:55
plane. That's right. And who did what did these European scientists who saw an emerg an
00:22:00
emerging fascism and inhospitable environment? What did they bring to the US? They brought our ability to land on
00:22:08
the moon. They brought not Nazis but people who fled the Nazi regime. They brought chemotherapy. They brought
00:22:13
quantum computing. Oh, and by the way, they brought the bomb folks. And had the
00:22:18
bomb had the scientists who understood how to split the atom stayed in stayed
00:22:24
in uh stayed in Vienna or in Austria. I mean the war could have ended much
00:22:29
differently and instead what we've decided let's take the most elite human capital in the world and let's encourage
00:22:35
them to go back. Yep. Go abroad. Anyway, it it is it's
00:22:41
ridiculous. It's again the biggest own goals of the last 20 years have been the uh unnecessary invasion of Iraq and
00:22:47
Brexit. This could be bigger economically than all of those. I agree. But the problem the only
00:22:53
problem is he is still in this in our inards ripping everything out. Like that's what's happening here. Let's go
00:22:58
on a quick break. When we come back, Google makes a major AI deal and SpaceX invests in XAI. Hm. Someone talked about
00:23:05
that before. Support for Pivot comes from Mint Mobile. If you're looking for ways to
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00:24:04
fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Scott, we're back. The AI talent war is
00:24:10
escalating still. Google just hired the CEO and co-founder of Windsurf, an AI coding startup along with several of the
00:24:17
company's employees. The under the $2.4 billion deal. Google also gets some non-exclusive license to some of
00:24:23
Windsurf's technology. The startup will still operate independently without those key employees. The move comes
00:24:29
after a $3 billion deal between Windinsurf and OpenAI fell apart. Windsor's founders reportedly wary of
00:24:34
sharing Intel with Microsoft. It's the latest setback for OpenAI which has been losing talent to rivals like Meta in
00:24:40
recent weeks. First of all, this seems a little getting to be a little insane. The second thing is um it feels like
00:24:47
everyone's running, you know, trying to get to the borders like some pick someone get all the people they can and
00:24:52
and pick up the land grab in terms of people. And they're also doing non-deal deals where they're trying to be cute
00:24:58
with the government. Um, we're not buying this company. We're just buying everything that matters and gutting them. Um, uh, related SpaceX reportedly
00:25:07
invest $2 billion in XAI and that's not all. Elon Musk says that Tesla shareholders will vote on whether to
00:25:13
invest in XAI. Let's listen to what I said about this back in April. It looks like he's not interested in making cars
00:25:19
anymore or he's making other things. He wants to shift Tesla. And I I think you're going to merge XAI
00:25:26
X and this together in a big ones. Yeah. So now SpaceX too like I this is
00:25:32
he's being he's making a a turducken here. Um he said in a post on X that he does not support a merger of Tesla and
00:25:39
XAI but who knows what he's saying. Um I'll uh by the way he also said that
00:25:45
Grock will be available in Tesla vehicles after the launch of Gro 4. users have discovered the model seems to
00:25:50
refer to Musk's opinion also through news articles and expost when answering questions. So, it's it's it's mostly
00:25:55
Musk stuff that they're borrowing from the LLM as um anyway uh talk a little
00:26:01
bit about this. Well, the the more interesting one I think is these aqua hires and that is
00:26:08
some VCs have become it's become so difficult to find alpha or the outsized returns because so many VC firms have
00:26:16
have raised a ton of money. there's just more capital now chasing fewer good deals that some of them have gone really
00:26:23
downstream and are actually incubating and starting companies themselves and then spinning them out. You know, that was kind of what essentially Sam Alman's
00:26:31
um um Y Combinator was doing. And I think what you're going to see is a lot
00:26:37
of if I were a venture capital a young venture capital partner I'd be calling I would try and find 12 really bright AI
00:26:45
researchers and a couple managers and at at various companies and say get together I'm your first 50 million in
00:26:52
find determine a very small slice of the AI world to focus on and if we can build
00:26:59
12 20 50 100 really talented AI people and the focus on your research is
00:27:05
important, but it's not profound. But essentially, what's happening here is that if you're an HR manager, a
00:27:11
recruiter, and you can pull together a couple dozen really wellrespected AI
00:27:17
executives who can show an ability to work together and build [ __ ] The marketplace is so frothy and there's
00:27:24
so much cheap stock that within 12 to 36 months, someone might show up and pay a billion dollars for those 24
00:27:31
professionals to rent you. To rent you. Yeah. or or figure out a way not to raise the antenna of the DOJ or FDC and
00:27:37
do some sort of crazy license that gives you money. But it's got to be a great time to be an AI researcher with any
00:27:45
credibility anywhere. If you are a really talented young partner to VC, you
00:27:50
identify 300 talented AI engineers, researchers, executives, product
00:27:56
managers. You call them and say, "Come start a company. You got 50 million. within 24 months we're going to be aqua
00:28:02
hired at 1 to3 billion because these companies I'm not even sure that the the
00:28:07
techn no one talks about the technology or the company or the brand or the customers making money they're just the war on talent here and
00:28:15
the cheap capital chasing this talent has created alpha if you will
00:28:20
so uh so do you think it's gonna get past the government not for too long I don't know
00:28:25
under this administration yeah although inflection certainly did remember Microsoft got that
00:28:30
But the FTC and the DOJ are mostly now about what bothering media companies.
00:28:36
Who who and what is giving money or bothered to or bothering Trump
00:28:41
or woke media companies. That seems to be their focus. So I don't I I don't think they're going
00:28:46
to I don't know. I think these things I think these things these guys have been so savvy at weaponizing government and
00:28:52
giving money to the right people. Yeah. That I would imagine an aqua hire, right? Um, I was part of an Aqua Kill.
00:29:01
Really? They bought you and killed you. Yeah. I It's really I always feel like I have a pretty good instinct for
00:29:06
business. And when my company L2 was acquired. Mhm. Um, I couldn't figure out what they were
00:29:12
doing. I gave them a list of the most valuable people at the company. Pretty much all of them left. Every decision
00:29:18
they made, it was like that episode of Seinfeld where George Castanza decides to do everything entirely the opposite.
00:29:23
Everything they did was entirely the opposite. I'm not exaggerating. I did a call weekly with my quote unquote boss,
00:29:30
which was hilarious. A group of people dramatically less talented than me that just showed up. Would you like to get that time back?
00:29:35
Well, go ahead. Yeah. And they literally told me, "Don't do anything. Don't do anything. We don't want you doing anything." And I left. I
00:29:43
I hated it so much I left several million dollars on the table. And my partner used to say to me, I used say,
00:29:48
"I can't handle this. I got to get out." And she'd say, "How much money do you get if you just go in for five more mornings?" And I would do the math. and she'd go,
00:29:55
"So, you don't want to just go in for five more mornings?" Oh, right. Yeah. And she would do that to me every week. Anyways, finally, I said, "I'm out of
00:30:01
here." There's a point where you can't anymore. I have had that job. I'm like, "No, I can't." I would say things like, "I think
00:30:07
there's an interesting opportunity to go after Latin American CPG companies and I want to hire two people and start doing research there." And they're like,
00:30:13
"Well, hold off on that." Yeah. I mean they and I now have come to the conclusion that we were threatening
00:30:20
them. So they thought you thought we'll take a competitor off the market. We'll milk them for their cash
00:30:26
flow. We won't make any new investments in the company and this guy doesn't have a good idea in his head. And then a potential competitor is gone.
00:30:33
Yeah. And this company has as I look back on it has acquired a bunch of companies in verticals that
00:30:39
were threatening their mothership. That's no way to create a company by the way. That's This company's done. This company, To
00:30:46
their credit, this company's done really well from a shareholder standpoint. Oh, really? Okay. All right. Well, I still think it's non-creative and awful.
00:30:52
Not using Scott Galloway's god-given talent. That's right. That's right. That's right. What do you think about more [ __ ] The
00:30:59
internet. Sell more [ __ ] on the internet. Facebook's evil. My correct prediction once again about
00:31:05
this doing more of the integrating with this company with all it stuff. Even if he says they're not merging, they're
00:31:11
kind of It's kind of the same thing, right? It doesn't really matter if they merge or not because they're interwoven
00:31:16
in such a way that they're impossible to pull apart. Yeah. I don't I don't These are aqua
00:31:22
hires. We've never seen anything like this. I met a Tesla. What's what he's doing there? Oh. Um I think what he's doing here is
00:31:30
he's trying to create Well, first off, so so everyone says Twitter is now worth $33 billion. Not really. He got his
00:31:38
other company to invest at a mark on that company to give it a $33 billion
00:31:43
cap. He's essentially figuring out that, okay, I've got some really amazing assets and I've got some shitty assets
00:31:50
and I'm going to conglomerate to prop up my shitty assets which are overvalued, specifically Tesla and a little bit
00:31:56
Twitter. And he is a visionary. He wants to bring all these things together with AI at the heart with Twitter providing
00:32:03
all of the data set with I don't know SpaceX and satellites giving better guidance and autonomous driving
00:32:09
capability and his Tesla cars gathering more information and turn it into just
00:32:14
kind of one big AIdriven company with distribution around cars, rockets,
00:32:21
satellites, media. I mean you can see this becoming kind of like Staret,
00:32:27
right? and he is a visionary. Having said this, and this is uh unrelated but I think important. If I
00:32:33
were the FDC, Skynet, if I were the FTC or the DOJ, in my view, the most dangerous monopoly
00:32:39
in the world right now is SpaceX. 60% of low Earth orbit satellites are owned by one company.
00:32:44
Y that is not that that is not acceptable. No, this is a this is one private company
00:32:50
who is run by someone who is reportedly a drug addict can turn off and on
00:32:55
battlefield technology that might shape the future of Europe in democracy. Okay, it's bad that Meta has
00:33:02
too much control over the ad market. This is real. SpaceX is the most dangerous monopoly in
00:33:08
the world right now. And they have Do you realize 87% of space launches
00:33:14
weren't from America? They weren't from NASA. They were from one company, SpaceX. Right. Right.
00:33:19
That is a an enormous security risk. Well, speaking of that, of course, he's getting protected by people. Texas
00:33:24
Governor Greg Abbott doesn't want to reveal his and his staff's communication with Elon Musk and his representatives from these companies. ProPublica's Texas
00:33:31
newsroom requested the emails, and Abbott's public information coordinator argued they should not be released in part because they include quote intimate
00:33:38
and embarrassing information. I want I mean, how much more embarrassing can this guy be in public? I don't know.
00:33:43
He's sort of speaking of showing your ass all the time. and this is what he does. Um, interestingly, you know, he
00:33:49
constantly is making a mess. So, it'll be interesting to see who who steps forward. It's certainly not going to be
00:33:55
Greg Abbott who's such a show, but who who could make that happen? Like make
00:34:00
that obviously other companies or or when you say make that happen, you mean a breakup of SpaceX? Not the break up of SpaceX, but like the
00:34:06
comp like that the government has some has more more leverage on them. I mean, obviously more competitors would be one
00:34:12
way, but certainly not will protect DOJ and FTC and an attorney
00:34:17
general that do their [ __ ] jobs. They're focused on the long term. She's busy with EP, the long-term well-being, material and
00:34:23
economic well-being of American citizens. But what I took from the the Epstein thing and what you just said
00:34:29
about Governor Greg Abbott's reticence to let go. I believe that pretty much almost every piece of information,
00:34:36
unless it's just scurless, intimate information on someone's private life, that's for nothing but clicks. Why were they talking about that? Right.
00:34:42
But what this all comes down to is I believe that the basic the this fidelity, this passion, this irreverence
00:34:50
for anonymity, I think has become dangerous. And what do and you brought this up, what do stormtroopers, the KKK,
00:34:57
and ICE have in common or people on campus not allowing Jews into certain parts of UCLA public spaces? They're all
00:35:05
wearing [ __ ] masks. And what I see online is this ridiculous fidelity to
00:35:11
anonymity has resulted in troll farms that are tearing society apart or letting people behave in a way they
00:35:16
would never behave in person, right? And now they're doing it in person. I mean, those ICE people should not to I'm
00:35:23
sorry if their jobs are hard. They picked a they this is the life they've chosen. What has been the most accreative
00:35:29
positive thing among law enforcement in America? I would argue that it is the
00:35:35
following. Body cams. If you're a cop and you run up against somebody who's
00:35:40
mentally ill and treating you like [ __ ] I can't imagine how tempting it is to just punch them in the [ __ ] face and
00:35:46
put cuffs cuffs on them. I I can empathize with that. But because they have a body cam on them and their badge
00:35:53
number and their identification on their vest, they behave in a manner that is
00:35:59
incredibly honorable and shows fidelity to the law. And some of them still don't even
00:36:04
despite the body cams. I I think our men and women in blue are given the situations they are thrust
00:36:11
into every day remarkable and show a lot more patience than your average citizen.
00:36:17
That was a reversal in anonymity. They not only don't have mass, it's like if you're a cop and you're going to use the
00:36:23
full you're going to use the full weight of the federal government and laws where you can deploy lethal power and
00:36:29
incarceration against citizens, then we need to know exactly who the [ __ ] you are and record it in 4D color. And when
00:36:38
you let people put on masks, you're going the opposite way. there's going to be a decline in civility and fidelity to
00:36:46
the law because you just get this rahrh speech that the president said it's okay go in there and if there's a 13-year-old
00:36:53
screaming no my mother is a citizen or you might not put your head you might not put your knee on the head of a woman
00:37:01
working at Home Depot because people can actually see your face that's a good thing and I have and we I have argued
00:37:07
for this I don't believe I believe social media in these platforms should force identification. You could still
00:37:14
have accounts that are anonymous. If there's a a person who needs an account to talk about women's rights in wherever
00:37:21
the Gulf, you could figure out pretty easily, is this person using an anonymous account because they're in
00:37:27
real danger? Are they doing it just under just to tear at the fabric of society or let people engage in depraved
00:37:33
behavior? But anonymity in my opinion is one of the most in our fidelity and our
00:37:39
mis are conflating the first amendment with anonymity is one of the most damaging things in our society. It goes
00:37:46
back to the Epstein list. Let it out. Let it out. Release the Epstein list
00:37:53
on this one. At the same time, Democrats have to put away this [ __ ] purity test on everything. People are human and if
00:37:59
someone ended up on a plane going to an island, a party, and there's no evidence that they engaged in anything, then it's
00:38:05
like, okay, forgive them. Yeah, they had poor judgment. They didn't. But release, for God's sakes, release
00:38:10
the list and governor grab a everything that happens at a level of governor or senate. What do you think is embarrassing? What
00:38:16
do you think's in there? What's intimate embarrassing? They're they're probably saying, "Give me money and I'll make sure I'll
00:38:24
That's more than embarrassing." They're saying intimate and I'm just It was a weird choice of words, right? Intimate
00:38:30
and embarrassing. The Nixon tapes. The Nixon tapes eventually got got
00:38:36
released. Everything should get released. I agree. I agree. I think everything should get released. I think it creates unless it's people should be able You
00:38:42
said something I always thought was really powerful. People should be able to have secrets and that is if it's just
00:38:48
people's private lives. Okay. I don't think you have a people have a right to publish everything. I do
00:38:54
believe in privacy. I do believe that people should be able to have secrets. But when it comes to national security,
00:38:59
government regulation, conversations among our elected representatives, I believe that for defense reasons, you
00:39:05
can say it needs to be sealed for a certain amount of time, but eventually be clear folks, it's all going to come
00:39:12
out. And what's going to happen to their behavior? It's going to improve. Well, you know, it's interesting. I'm seeing online a lot of people when these
00:39:18
ICE people go in now sort of normal people they were bothering a janitor and all these doctors and nurses were like
00:39:23
get the [ __ ] out of here or show your face like this guy was and they're like you're and the cop which who was not
00:39:29
getting beaten up in any way cuz the video showed it was like you're assaulting an officer and she's like I
00:39:34
am not s I am not doing that take off your mask like you're seeing a lot of people personally offended by it and
00:39:41
it's not the American way to hide your face I think that's what in the Superman movie the Bad guys are hiding their
00:39:46
[ __ ] faces all the time and not Superman cuz he's a very handsome man. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break and we come back, Elon Musk and
00:39:53
Don Lemon go to court. Don Lee Mole. Support for this show comes from Upwork.
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00:41:00
Scott, we're back with more news. This is just a quick thing. Don Lemon's lawsuit against Elon Musk and X over the
00:41:05
cancellation of their partnership will go to trial. Musk team had tried to convince a judge to strike the complaint. San Francisco judge ruled
00:41:11
that Lemon credibly alleged Musk had committed fraud by false promise. He'll probably win. Elon still won't pay him.
00:41:16
As a reminder, Lemon filed the suit after ex canceled his partnership a few hours after he taped a contentious
00:41:21
interview with Musk. Um, I don't know if Don will win this one, but it's good that he gets to go forward. We'll see
00:41:27
some interesting emails with Linda Yakarino and stuff. I hope he gets his money. Hope they all at X there's there's a whole bunch of people from
00:41:33
Twitter who haven't gotten their money. They all should get their [ __ ] money. Elon, give them their money. You know, even if you don't like them, give them
00:41:39
their money. So, we'll see. He probably won't. I love Don Lemon. I I I like the fact that he I think got fired from CNN, then
00:41:47
got fired from Twitter, and I think he's one of these people that's doing really good work. If you follow him on his his
00:41:53
Lemon Drops podcast, what I appreciate about what I appreciate about Don, I also appreciate about Megan, even though
00:42:00
I don't agree with her politics, it's clear they work really [ __ ] hard. They do. She's and and I like I really appreciate
00:42:07
people who've achieved a certain level of celebrity status and probably economic security and just show up and work really hard.
00:42:13
Yeah. And I like I think he's fear I I'm a huge fan of these new niche media
00:42:20
companies. I just I I like them. I'm rooting for them. And so I hope I this is what happen. He's going to take him
00:42:26
to court. I my guess is the must attorneys are going to go will fight and
00:42:31
intimidate and try to embarrass him, but legally we don't have a leg to stand on. And when they realize he's not backing down, they'll settle with him. And I
00:42:37
hope he gets a big check because it was embarrassing for him to accept a job, ask real questions, and then be fired
00:42:44
unceremoniously. And he should he's entitled to whatever severance he's legally entitled to. Yes. Yes. He should have never signed
00:42:50
it, but that's another issue. Um I agree with you at the niche media companies, but there's a very big difference between what Don Lemon's doing and what
00:42:55
Megan Kelly. I get that she works hard, but she works hard insulting women, screaming about things. I just if that's
00:43:01
the way you want to make your business, it's fine. But it's grotesque. I'm sorry. And a lot of these companies,
00:43:07
some of them are amazing. And some of them are just a bunch of hacks. and they both
00:43:12
I'll use others whe whether it's Puck or the information or what they're trying to do with the Daily Beast or Axia or
00:43:20
even if you don't even if you don't agree with them the way they equate themselves. I I'm here for these little niche media
00:43:27
companies running the Daily Wire. I hate their [ __ ] but I totally respect what they've built. See, I have a I have a thinner I have a
00:43:34
much bigger It's got to be well done. Even I I don't I like the bull work. I don't agree with a lot of stuff they do,
00:43:39
but they actually do journalism. The ones that don't are heinous. I'm sorry. They're just they're just hacks, and I
00:43:44
don't like hacks doing well, even if they're exciting and innovative in some way. Um,
00:43:49
okay. Now, do traditional media. I would agree. Same thing. Same thing. I have the same filter for those. I agree.
00:43:55
I agree. Anyway, um like I had this interesting argument with Alex because I was he was insulting CNN or something
00:44:01
like that and I said, "You know, the reporters of CNN are great and you don't have to like the night stuff and you need to distinguish between them." And
00:44:08
he said, "I can't." And I I we had a great discussion about it. And I I would agree with him. If it tends too much
00:44:13
towards the screamy and not the amazing reporters, I have a problem with it, too. All all the stations, not
00:44:20
the problem is it's the screamy stuff that makes all the money. Cara, I get it. That's why I don't like the small ones that do it or the big ones or
00:44:26
their shitty reporters or they have, you know, um disingenuous work. I just don't
00:44:32
like it no matter what. Anyway, uh tech speaking of someone who's disingenuous, tech investor and Trump adviser Mark
00:44:37
Andre said universities will pay the price for promoting diversity and alleged discrimination against Trump
00:44:43
supporters. Andre made statements and messages uh sent to a group chat with White House officials and tech leaders.
00:44:49
He's always doing this. He's such a If you've ever gotten a text from Mark Andrees, he's so high-handed, it's kind of ridiculous. The investor said he
00:44:55
views Stanford and MIT as mainly political lobbying operations fighting American innovation. He's got to [ __ ]
00:45:01
be kidding me. The messages discuss the counterattack against universities and called for National Science Foundation
00:45:06
to receive the bureaucratic death penalty. Um, they never keep these group chats confidential, and I suspect Wayne
00:45:13
doesn't care. Um, I'd like them out because you see what an arrogant [ __ ] he is. But, um, uh, you know, again, as
00:45:22
usual, they say things very firmly as if things don't have nuance. Parts of MIT and Stanford and lots of universities,
00:45:29
including conservative ones can be can have a lot of problems and parts of them are great. And again the same thing he
00:45:36
can't distinguish between that and has decided to say things like they des they will pay the price they will die a death
00:45:42
all this like there's so much like drama with these these men I I I actually agree a lot with what
00:45:48
Mark said and I don't well that's clear and in our occasional disagreements why
00:45:54
people show up um so uh that and how sexy I am. Can I before you begin
00:46:02
explaining why I rant when No, when you have a point I think you do it from a place of real thinking
00:46:08
about it. I think he does it because he's an unpleasant piece of [ __ ] and so they backfill into an ultra-conservative
00:46:15
point where they just want to tech little correct they want to cash subsidies and then not pay taxes is
00:46:20
where it all comes from. He gets break after break after break and then he pretends America. Yes. Exactly. Go ahead. So look, 60
00:46:28
years ago, 12 back black people at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale combined, that was a problem. We needed race-based
00:46:33
affirmative action. The DEI apparatus has become so large and so, in my
00:46:38
opinion, unuseful, and it creates more problems now than it solves. 52% of gay
00:46:44
men go to college, 34% of straight men. Uh Harvard's freshman class is 60% non-white, but 70% of those non-whites
00:46:52
come from upper inome homes. The academic gap between black and white was double what it was from rich and poor 60
00:46:57
years ago. It is now flipped. So what we need is affirmative action based on the
00:47:03
primary arbiter of your success moving forward. And that is how wealthy or not wealthy your household is. Correct?
00:47:08
Because we still have an economic apartheid because of our checkered history in this nation where black and
00:47:14
Latino households only have 20,000 in wealth and whites 150,000. Quite
00:47:20
frankly, there has been too much privilege crammed into the small number of non-whites who are rich. Tyler
00:47:25
Perry's kids shouldn't have a better chance of getting into college. Having said that, my industry is guilty of
00:47:32
artificially constraining supply such that we can raise prices faster than inflation. Uh,
00:47:39
which is total [ __ ] We should be letting in more kids. And we have let in a prepoundonderance of international kids relative to domestic kids. He was
00:47:47
right on that. Not for diversity, that's lying, but because they pay full freight. And we love kids from Honduras
00:47:54
or from Italy who pay the full tuition, the full sticker. So, we're not inviting
00:48:00
them for diversity or for DEI. And it has come at the cost. the cartel, the
00:48:05
artificial scarcity, the lvmehing, the rejectionist exclusionary culture trying to be a hedge fund uh for LVMH as
00:48:13
opposed to a public servant has crowded out a lot of unremarkable uh good American kids who might have
00:48:19
remarkable futures. He has a point, but the culprit, he positions it as if it's
00:48:26
as if it's if as if it's non-whites who are the problem or advancing the rights
00:48:32
of non-whites or women. That's not the problem. The problem is a system that
00:48:38
has basically said we're going to reject too many kids. We're going to sit on the
00:48:43
GDP of Costa Rica and only have 1500 kids or what do you know? Harvard and
00:48:49
create some Vaseline over the lens that letting in the the Taiwanese daughter of
00:48:55
a private equity billionaire somehow diversity. It isn't. International students are outstanding. We love having
00:49:01
them. giving kids with adversity in their background. Maybe it's a kid from the inner city. Maybe it's a kid who
00:49:08
struggled with his sexual identity. Maybe it's a kid going through transition. Fine. But how we solve the
00:49:13
problem and how we come together is the following. Every university in this nation that has over a billion dollars
00:49:18
in endowment should grow its freshman class faster than population growth or lose its tax-free status. Here's what we
00:49:24
need. We need to let in more international students, more trans kids, more gay kids, more white kids from red
00:49:30
states. We need more kids. You know where you don't have this argument is
00:49:35
community colleges because if you just show up and pay the [ __ ] tuition, you're in. So we don't have all this
00:49:40
agit and all this problem. So instead of arguing about who gets in and who doesn't and creating unnecessary agita
00:49:47
in between special interest groups, which is totally unnecessary, we just need to let in more kids. UCLA 74%
00:49:55
admissions rate. When I applied, I was unremarkable. Now it's 9%. We need to just let in more kids such that people
00:50:02
like Mark Andre can't cloud a very real issue or use that as cloud cover for
00:50:07
what is this thinly veiled ultraconservative viewpoints that quite frankly come across as a little bit
00:50:14
bigoted and hateful against special interest groups who needed a leg up. I'm going to insert myself. He's a
00:50:20
grievance person. Everything is a grievance and it all relates to his unhappiness at growing up or whatever
00:50:25
happened with his family or whatever. Everything always is a grievance with this guy. And let me tell you, it was
00:50:31
from the start when I started covering him. He was always agrieved by someone or something. And it was always someone
00:50:37
else's fault. Always. This has been literally when he was selling Netscape stock. It was Netscape's fault when he
00:50:43
was doing this. It was Microsoft's fault. It was This guy can never find fault with himself. One,
00:50:49
but if he wants to solve the problem, it's pretty easy. He went to an amazing university, the University of Illinois,
00:50:55
Illinois. By the way, public universities will educate twothirds of our kids. And a lot of them, including the University of Illinois, are doing
00:51:01
their level best to live up to their mission. And that is to let in not only just amazing, freakishly remarkable
00:51:06
kids, but just good kids that might end up being freakishly remarkable. If he wanted to change things, and I walk the
00:51:11
walk here, I do this. He should be giving a [ __ ] ton of money to the University of Illinois under the condition of the following. Let in more
00:51:18
kids. And guess what'll happen, Mark? More Republican white kids from Kentucky will get admissions.
00:51:24
Yes. He will not do this. So, one of the things when he goes ma I the tell is mainly political lobbying operations for
00:51:30
fighting American innovation. Shut the [ __ ] up. It's the same thing that he does all the time with all his
00:51:36
arguments. He's he's frequently wrong but never in doubt and it's exhausting with this guy. Thank you.
00:51:45
All right. I'm just saying I I think you make a good faith argument about the the DEI bureaucracy, but the but the
00:51:52
solution of these guys is to kill rather than try to figure out what the best way of getting the most kids in. They do not
00:51:59
care about what you care about. They would never give the money to create that vocational thing. They would never
00:52:04
go for they are not solutions-based ever. They are tear downbased and they
00:52:09
really don't like people. I mean ultimately they don't like people. And by the way, if you saw Margaret Juice
00:52:14
with a poor person, I'd be shocked like that. He like he he just doesn't like they don't care. And I think you do. So
00:52:21
that's why I allow it from you and not from them. Even if you agree with me, thanks for your grace. But you are you have good faith. You
00:52:27
have good There's a difference between disagreement under good faith and disagreement cuz you're a giant [ __ ]
00:52:32
[ __ ] who needs therapy about his his parents. I got a little of that. I got I know that. I know that. Okay. All
00:52:37
right, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for I did Molly Calvin Harris. Mark, come with me.
00:52:43
I can't believe you have to do Molly with Carara Swisser. Anyway, I would never do it with you anyway cuz we'd hug and then things weird things would
00:52:49
happen. Okay, one, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Support for this show comes from Into It
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conditions apply. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and
00:53:52
fails. I shall go first. You go first. I saw two movies. One with Mr. Louis Swisser on uh we saw F1. I thought it
00:53:59
was a solidly good movie. Brad Pitt looks fantastic. Um, there's a young uh
00:54:04
guy in it, I'm blanking on his name, who plays the young driver. He's amazing. The whole thing is delightful and you
00:54:10
know exactly how it's going to end. You don't there's not a stitch of I'm going to go out on a limb here and
00:54:16
assumes he he wins a race. He wins a race, right? But he, you know, he's he he tries to let the kid win, but
00:54:22
he wins. And of course, and then, you know, he's like it's like a Clint Eastwood movie. This thing you've seen 109,000 times. That said, I learned a
00:54:31
lot about cars and about tires. I like a lot about tires. There was a one sexy lady technologist in it who I love who
00:54:38
is his love interest. Um, and I was I wanted to go to F1 after it. I have to
00:54:43
say I was like, I would like to go to F1. This was really interesting. And the whole there's a little technology in there. Fantastic movie. Superman also a
00:54:50
great movie. I have to say I liked F1 better, but I can see why everybody Superman is goofy, funny, it is so not
00:54:58
woke. It's just goofy. It's just there. Superan has always been an immigrant. It's always been a tone of this this
00:55:04
series. He comes from another planet. There's always this thing of him being from Krypton. I thought the guy who played him was delightful. And the whole
00:55:11
and I thought uh Rachel Brnahan was fantastic. She was in Mar Marvel's Mrs. Masel. I thought the whole cast was
00:55:18
great. It was so [ __ ] goofy. It was like there were jokes all over the place. And there was one character, this
00:55:24
guy who plays Mr. Terrific, another person I've never seen. So funny that whoever did this has an amazingly good
00:55:31
sense of humor and I think they brought it right where it belongs. I thought I like Henrik Cavil but too brooding too
00:55:37
all the Superman's before Chris Reeve who I thought was wonderful too brooding. Now it's really fun and I I
00:55:43
see why it's getting it's what everyone wants. It's a [ __ ] relief to go to that movie and there's a dog in it too
00:55:48
and then Supergirl shows up and she's like a badass partyier and it's just fun
00:55:54
fun fun. So that's my my win. My fail is Trump attacking um Rosie O'Donnell and I
00:55:59
thought Rosie No, Rosie Epste. Rosie Epste. She called her a threat to humanity. Um
00:56:06
she moved to Ireland, by the way. I thought Odana's reply was so fantastic. She did it a bunch of places, but she
00:56:13
called him King Joffrey with a tangerine spray and I love that. And I called her Oiana Terrell.
00:56:18
I thought AOC had the tweet of the week and it reads, "Wow, who would have thought that electing a rapist would have complicated the release of the
00:56:24
Epstein files? She's good. She's good. She's good. I love these women that like slap the
00:56:31
[ __ ] [ __ ] out of this guy. But what a f like what is he doing? Rosie, he's he
00:56:36
like I don't know what his deal Rosie O'Donnell. He's obsessed with her. This has been going on for a long time. He's obsessed with getting people to
00:56:42
look away from possible implications of pedophilia. No, it goes back. You remember speaking of Megan Kelly when she used to do a
00:56:48
good job with this? Well, his abstain. That's all I have to remember. Anyway, I'll fail Trump
00:56:55
victory, Rosie. Okay, your turn. Uh, so I'll I'll I'll excuse my win and
00:57:01
my fail for a personal indulgence here. As you know, my father passed away last week. I wanted to talk a little bit
00:57:07
about him and a couple of the takeaways over the past few days. My father was
00:57:12
born out of wedlock in 1930 in Sydney to a woman who was a domestic helper, a
00:57:17
nanny for the McVicker family, a rich family in Australia. and one of their daughters was childless, which was a
00:57:24
crime back then. And they said, "We'll adopt your baby." And they gave her some money and she agreed. And then she had
00:57:30
the baby, changed her mind and basically convinced her boyfriend, my grandfather,
00:57:36
to meet her at the docks. And they immigrated back to Scotland. My dad was raised in depression era Scotland. He
00:57:43
says his first memory was during the Clydesbank I think it was called raid where the Lithua bombed um some docks
00:57:50
and some factories and he was very he felt a real sense of patriotism. He was 15 when the war ended but he said when I
00:57:56
love this image he said when he was 10 him and his buddies in service to their nation. Anyone with an accent in their
00:58:02
neighborhood they would follow around and take notes on them and then report them to the authorities. He's like if
00:58:08
someone had an Italian accent, they assumed they were a spy and they would follow them around. I love that story. Anyways, he at the
00:58:14
age of 17 lied about his age, wanted to join the RAF, and he was told he was too
00:58:20
tall to be a pilot, so he joined the Navy, and within 48 hours of joining the Navy, uh, and and saying he could swim
00:58:27
well, he was jumping out of a helicopter practicing pilot rescue in a freezing North Atlantic, trying to put a 150lb
00:58:34
dummy back in a basket. sent his money home uh to his mother
00:58:40
so he could save to come to America. Got home after serving honorably in the Royal Navy for two years and found out that his mom had spent all the money on
00:58:47
whiskey and cigarettes which kind of scarred my father and has always had a really unhealthy relationship with
00:58:52
money. But um but basically made the best decision I have ever made and that is he took a huge risk and came to
00:58:59
America where he met my mom, his second wife and um uh uh had uh I was born to
00:59:08
his second wife, my sister who's been an enormous source of uh love and reward for me for a long time by his third
00:59:15
marriage. He uh he really did live kind of the American dream. One of my
00:59:20
favorite stories was when he first got to San Diego, he interviewed to be a salesman at a candle manufacturer and
00:59:26
the HR person said, "How long have you been here?" And he said, "Two weeks." And she said, "You got to wait here." And she brought in her boss and said,
00:59:33
"We have to hire this guy. He's only been here two weeks and he's already learned to speak the language."
00:59:40
And my dad um my dad, you know, had a a pretty nice life. But the reality care is my father
00:59:47
wasn't a very high character person. He had four marriages, four divorces, left his
00:59:53
last wife when she had late stage Parkinson's, wasn't as kind as he could have been uh to me and my mom or to my
00:59:59
sister. And that created a lot of tumult in my life. And that gets to
01:00:05
uh some of the some of the learnings. The first learning is having gone through this. Uh first of a lot of people I've gotten about 6 or 700 text
01:00:12
messages and emails from you and other people who have been very supportive and nice and I just want to say thank you. It does help. Uh but also just to be
01:00:19
grateful. Uh I've been sort of overwhelmed by gratitude even though maybe it wasn't purposeful. Um again the
01:00:27
best thing that happened to me was being born in America. My dad took that risk such that I could be born in America. I
01:00:35
have broad shoulders. I'm tall. I have a good voice. And I have made an exceptional living communicating. And
01:00:40
all of those things I inherited from my father. And there's no reason not to be uh not to be grateful for th uh those
01:00:46
things. And that helps a lot just to just to focus on the good stuff. And then
01:00:52
about the the advice I would have for anybody uh that I learned with my relationship which was tumultuous at
01:00:59
times with my father is the following and that is
01:01:06
about 20 years ago I decided look I I used to go back and forth. I had very conflicted relationship with my father
01:01:12
because he wasn't very good to me as a kid. And so I would get angry at him as an adult and think I don't want to be a
01:01:17
very good son. And then I recognized and it's been an enormous unlock in my life. Just imagine the son you want to be or
01:01:26
the partner you want to be, the girlfriend you want to be, the employer you want to be, the boss you want to be, and hold yourself to that standard and
01:01:32
stop keeping score. And it was such an enormous unlock for me. I've had such a wonderful relationship with him for the
01:01:38
last 20 years just trying to be a a generous and loving son and not think about whether or not I was in the the
01:01:44
the debit or the surplus category. And I've approached that's just been such an enormous unlock for me in the rest of my
01:01:50
life. Thinking about what kind of partner do I want to be, what kind of friend do I want to be and living to that standard, not keeping score. And
01:01:57
that started with my decision to try and be uh a loving generous son regardless
01:02:03
of uh uh what had happened in our rel relationship previously. Anyways, I'm
01:02:08
writing this book on masculinity and I digress to these three pillars of masculinity of being a a protector,
01:02:15
provider, and a procreator. You know, my dad did protect his country. He took huge sacrifices and put himself in
01:02:21
personal risk to try and do the right thing and served his country. He did provide for two families and obviously
01:02:28
was a procreator, had two kids and uh four grandkids, but it's also a
01:02:33
cautionary tale. He never was really able to speak to think about others in a
01:02:38
very generous way. So even when my sister and I were thinking about whether or not we should have a service,
01:02:45
um we decided not to because the reality is the sad truth is nobody would show up. He didn't have any friends. He didn't really have has anybody other
01:02:51
than his daughter and his son who care about him. And so it really is a cautionary tale. But my dad did serve
01:02:58
his country. He was he did he did his best. He checked the primary box I think
01:03:03
around being a father. And that is he was much better to me uh and his daughter than his father was to him. Uh
01:03:10
anyways 95 lived a lived a very rich life. And um his son and his daughter
01:03:16
will miss him terribly. No Scott. I'm so sorry.
01:03:21
Almost made it through. It's okay, Scott. This is your best quality. Don't think it's not. Let me
01:03:27
just say the best I know your sister just a little bit. She's wonderful. Um, but the best thing he did was give us
01:03:33
you. That's nice. Thank you. Anyway, now you got me crying, Scott.
01:03:40
There you go. We'll have to go through this with Lucky at some point. There you go. We have a party. Four four wives, four divorces. When you
01:03:47
were Yeah. in 70s California with a strong J Glasswegian accent. You could not only think with your dick, you could listen
01:03:53
to it. God, he had a good he had a nice time. Yeah. And you and then his son last week
01:03:59
was in a visa having Molly. Winw win.
01:04:05
No, I'm serious, Scott. You were a journey and I really appreciate that about you and I think you took a lot of lessons from your dad. You had a tough
01:04:11
time and it sounds like your mom was the real uh strong person for you. But um uh
01:04:17
it's still it's you're you're from where you're from, right? And that's what makes you the person you are. Anyway, I
01:04:22
really appreciate that and uh um whatever you need, all of us are here for including all your listeners and me
01:04:28
too. Um anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to
01:04:34
nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 8551 pivot. Scott, I can't believe
01:04:40
you made me cry. Um, elsewhere in the Cara and Scott universe, this week on with Carara Susher, I spoke with
01:04:47
astrophysicist and author of the new book, More Everything Forever, Adam Becker. Let's listen to a clip.
01:04:52
I think that a lot of what's happened in this country over the last at this point
01:04:57
10 years, uh, has shown like the kinds of risks that we as a society take by
01:05:04
having billionaires, by allowing that kind of concentration of wealth. It erodess the democratic fabric of the
01:05:11
country and at this point our democracy is in mortal danger and may already be
01:05:17
lost. That was a that was a particular it's a great book. It's about the idea of more everything forever which is a lot of
01:05:22
sort of these tech people think when in fact it's more everything forever for themselves. Anyway, it's a great book. He's really interesting. He sort of
01:05:29
knocks away all the myths around living on Mars etc. Their dreams that are not good for most of humanity but is good
01:05:35
for them. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube
01:05:41
channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, uh, read us out. Today's show was produced by Laram and
01:05:47
Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin and Kevin Oliver. Ernie and Todd engineer of this episode. Thanks also to Dub Burrough Mero and Dan Shalon. Nakura is Fox
01:05:54
Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for
01:06:00
listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box Media. You can subscribe to the magazine nyag.com/pod.
01:06:05
We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Thanks to everyone for all your warm wishes. It helps a great deal.
01:06:13
[Music]
