Kara and Scott Shred Zuck’s Vision for AI | Pivot

If I asked AI to give me an image of Mark Zuckerberg that defines who he is,

I feel like it would be a guy at a really sad malt shop sucking up the

world's user data through a straw and every time he made eye contact with you, he'd apologize and look away.

Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisser from Scott

Galloway's living room. And I'm Scott Galloway. We got a lot to get to today here from your apartment in uh Manhattan. Uh blow

up tech earnings. Crazy. A big shakeup on the weight loss drug market. I really am interested in what you think about

this. And how much does Trump need to worry about Joe Rogan? Joe Rogan is turning rogue on Trump on several

topics. Uh but first, the man who opened fire in a Manhattan office building on Monday, not not terrifically far from

here, killing four people and injuring a fifth was targeting the NFL headquarters with a note claiming he suffered from

CTE. A page uh in the shooters note accused the NFL of concealing the

dangers to football players brains in order to maximize profits. This is a longtime thing. I I uh I I am Lots of

people are concerned. I didn't let my kids play football because I was worried about that. the shooter played high school football but did not play

professionally and of course what he did was heinous. Um but pretty uh devastating that people you know same

thing with Luigi Manion people acting out on anger the the level of anger in

the society and maybe uh you can only find out if you have CTE after you die.

So I assume they'll check this and see if that's the case. But I think Sanjay Gupa said 40% of the people who claim

they have CTE uh before they die actually have it like of the 100% which

is quite a lot. It's not nothing. So I don't know any thoughts. Yeah. I mean well first off we don't

know if and what role CTE played here. Um we don't. So just distinctive whether or not this

was CTE played a role here. It is, you know, they they there was a study of former NFL players that found that of

the 376 players studied, 91% had CTE. I mean, you just have people running. It's

not even the impact. I guess it's the rotation, sudden rotation that a helmet can't solve for, right? Your head twists

and the the whatever it is, the cortex of the brain spine just can't can't respond that quickly.

Yeah. Um, everyone's been talking about it for a while, but it's an it's sort of an example of capitalism. I'm not sure for

you could really justify the sport if it didn't make billions each year if it

wasn't if it wasn't psychologically and economically just so ingrained in our culture. But they really are sort of

modern day gladiators and they pay an enormous price. But the the thing that struck me about this Cara or I think

what the obviously in addition to the tragedy the families of the people who who were

murdered is you know we're back to office mostly

actually it's interesting the US has had kind of the most anemic return to office of almost any nation and young people

have gotten very used to I think as the employment market is so strong here and tech is so strong that

companies have had a difficult time getting everyone to return to the office especially 5 days a week. Mhm. And something I've always noticed about

that I can't stand about going to meetings is that from the time you get to the lobby, by the time you go through

check-in, security, and all that, and get up to the it's like 10 or 12 minutes, at least 10 or 15 minutes.

Yeah. And this is only going to make security that much more complex slash robust

because the last thing you want to worry about is going to a place that is, you know,

is less safe than the place you came from. And it is also poorest in a lot of ways. People are um you know it was

interesting because immediately because there's a mayor's race there was sort of like an on kind like you know why didn't

mom Donnie do something about him because he's not mayor you know his he's because he's way ahead actually among

Jewish voters a bunch of other things which is interesting. Uh I thought he handled it rather well. He said, "We're only as strong as our weakest gun laws

across the country." And called attention to, you know, the fact that even though New York has very strict gun

laws, you can't be protected because this guy was in from Nevada and I think his boss got him the thing that made the

assault that he assembled the assault weapon. And I think again it's a you know, it's such a complex problem like

here we have CTE, we've got the ability to create weapons of mass destruction

for people to have assault weapons. um would what'll be interesting like again it's another thing where they'll talk

about it and then do nothing about assault weapons or the ability to assemble assault weapons um in the

country and probably if he does have CD blame it on that um but it does you know

I've always I always feel unsafe um at at buildings I don't know why I

feel like there's such like a place where someone who has mental illness which is growing or people that are

angry like Luigi G manion and take it like it's you can see how easy it is in

a big city like New York. Well, I don't know if you this one will get I mean there's already been dozens of mass shootings every year

and you you said something once that struck me. You said that as a species we're good at adapting and that's a bad

thing here. We have normalized and adapted to something that we should not adapt to. And also, this will get more

attention. And I'll be interested. There'll be articles basically saying that when it's nice white executives in

Midtown Manhattan, a mass shooting gets gets play in the media. When it's just a mass shooting of some a bunch of nice

people at a mall in Kentucky, no one gives a [ __ ] because there's so many of them. So, this will be I think you'll

this will get a lot of attention. But again, this is really basic math or

science or, you know, XY validate, nullify a thesis. And if your thesis is the following that guns are the primary

or weapons of war really are the primary culprit you that theory would be

validated because we do not have a we do not have a monopoly on head injuries. We

do not have a monopoly on angry young men. We do not have a monopoly on mental illness. What we have a monopoly on is

that all of these people have access to weapons of war. Right. Exactly. And it is and there's

ways around it. There's one there's ways around it. That's that's all the only way you can think about it.

And also this [ __ ] notion that you can't do anything about it, that it's too late, that Australia had a mass shooting. Reasonable people, okay, we

should ban assault weapons. And they have had a dramatic decrease in mass shootings. The UK had a deadly mass

shooting back in uh I think it was in 96 in Dunla, Scotland. Kids and teachers were killed next, you

know, right away. No more assault weapons. So this is something and I've said this before what one of the free

gifts with purchase of moving to the UK it's like a lot of things if you actually look at statistically

I mean a mass shooting there's no reason there's no reason not to go out there's no reason not to go work there's no

reason in my opinion not to send your kids to school if you look at the real hard numbers your kid you and your kids

are still at least mathematically pretty safe the problem is the fear and that is

when I'm in UK. I don't have these horror fantasies about turning on the TV and seeing my kids school on the screen.

I agree. I think about it a lot actually with my kids in school, my young kids in school in public school. I just it just

it's just the mental illness combined with the availability of these guns. Most anxious most anxious depressed

generation in history. And then you have weapons of mass weapons of war. And the other thing I go to is just what is

happiness in a society? And we tend to think that we're studying to the wrong test. We think of if the Dow hits new

highs that we're happy. Now, the Dow Jones and the NASDAQ, which in my opinion are two of the most damaging metrics in history, are basically just

wealth indices. And that is an indices on the wealth of the top 10% who own somewhere between 50 and 90% of the

stock. And spoiler alert, they're doing really well. But if you think about real happiness in a society, it's not only a

function of what you have, it's a function of what you don't have. If you find out your wife has lung cancer and

you live in Norway, it doesn't mean you're going bankrupt. And that's not necessarily the case here. And also they

have an absence of this type of fear that we have to live under.

So it's not I mean we keep talking about this. The thing that drives me crazy is we'll hear from a bunch of people on the

right thoughts and prayers and all this [ __ ] But I'll be very curious to see what the

studies are. They track people going in and out of buildings in Manhattan. Just they do. There's all kinds of

technology. Absolutely. But it'll be interesting to see what the trends are. If people just sort of ignore this or people think, you know,

I don't know what how you could harden buildings, you know, given metal detectors. I don't know what could

you do. If you're clever enough or you're violent enough, you can get through to these or just sit in front of the building. I

mean, right. I mean, just that's what the great city of New York is about is being able to

It's the crush of humanity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the assault weapon. I think I mean

I think Kokal has called for an assault weapon. But again, as Mumani correctly said, you can if you can go buy it in

Tennessee, what's the difference? And drive yourself, you know, through the Lincoln tunnel. That's the end of it. It does help though. It New York's skin

laws do help. Um and I was saying to someone a couple nights ago, New York City is actually is actually one of the

safest big cities in the world. Yeah. Except for this, but I mean it's just again another senseless tragedy for

our country. and and it's so common and we become used to it. Um, speaking of something you've talked about a lot,

Scott, a Senate committee voted to advance a bill that would ban stock trading by members of Congress, presidents, and vice presidents with a

convenient carveout for Donald Trump. Lawmakers would be banned from buying stocks once the bill goes into effect

and blocked from selling stocks 90 days after that, but divestments wouldn't be required until the beginning of the new

term. So, Trump is in the clear. The bill originally called the Pelosi Act for Nancy Pelosi you like to give a hard

time too, was introduced by Senator Josh Holly, the only Republican who voted for it. Trump initially said he supported

the ban conceptually, but later lashed out at Holly, accusing of being a pawn for the Democrats. Uh he wanted to put

in a Pelosi thing just because he's such a revenge-minded person. Um the future of the bill is uncertain. Uh but it is

moving forward. Uh Trump is also calling for investigation. Nancy Pelosi stock trading, but the problem for him is

there's tons of Republicans doing the same for her part. Pelosi put out a statement saying she supports the

legislation. Um, you know, of course, he's just cutting off his nose despite his face, but and has attacked Holly as

a second rate senator. Um, who that and then Holly tried to suck up to him again, but um the fact that they cannot

get this through and and you've talked about the idea of just paying these the Congress people more um it's just

astonishing. 80% it's an 8020 thing. I think 80% of people across the country

think they should do this and they're not doing this. Yeah. So it's some of the most popular

or it has more support of any proposed legislation in a long time. It's this is largely performative. My understanding

is it's not going to go through. But I mean one of the real advantages uh that

the US has is that we have the deepest pools of capital and that is there is a giant river of capital that flows in has

arteries reaching into the deepest corners of Thailand that if a somebody's working there and has something like a

401k or invest in stocks 50% of that capital will ultimately end up in the US flow to the US because of our incredible

companies IP um colleges R&D risk you know risk

aggressiveness, but also because we have a rule of fair play. And that is someone thinks if I invest in an S&P or a NASDAQ

fund, even though I'm not in the no, I don't I'm not in Congress. I'm not on a board of directors, I'm not going to get

[ __ ] Someone else isn't going to make a ton of money at my expense. There's rule of fair play. And as a result,

startups in the United States have $5 million for every startup. In Europe, it's 1 million. We have five times the

venture capital here per company. And if you these deep pools of capital which are just enormously an enormous

advantage, a lot of that is because there is quote unquote rule of fair play. It's not the reason why the

Russian stock market is is not worth what Nvidia loses or gains every day is everyone assumes the game is rigged. So

they're not going to put their money in the stock market. The person in Kodker in St. Petersburg is like no this is rigged. And to be blunt, Speaker Pelosi

and her husband, their net worth is estimated at $420 million. And last

year, their net worth increased 54%. And Democrats managed to ek out a 31% return

in 2024 and Republicans of 26%. Both overperforming the S&P. This is

and Trump's crypto. Trump, talk about someone who's really cashed in as a Trump family.

Here's the problem. A small amount of corruption leads to big corruption. And to a certain extent, Trump said, "These

these, you know, these Congress people are playing small ball. They're they're doing insider trading for hundreds of

thousands or millions. I'm going to do it for billions." But Speaker Emir Pelosi, in my view, let's talk

specifically about the legislation. He was not serious. When you call something the Pelosi act, you're saying [ __ ] you

to the other side. Because a lot of people understandably have a great deal of affection for Speaker Emir Pelosi.

when you call something when you're purposely being aggressive. They change the name. I think it's the honest act.

Yeah, they did change the name, but it showed he wasn't it showed he wasn't really serious about what would be

required to pass this. And that is bipartisan support. When you come out of the gates swinging like that,

I agree. The Democrats are just like, you know, [ __ ] you, boss. You just didn't need to do that. We should the moment you are

elected to office, the moment even as I think you go through the primaries, you have to put your money in a blind trust.

And if you're not willing to do that, what you're acknowledging is you have some sort of special access or information that other people don't.

Yes. Not supporting this bill means that you want to continue to quote unquote engage in insider trading. And the fact that

you have people in intelligence briefings where they are making decisions on tens of billions of dollars that may or may not be

uh spent by companies that are publicly traded and then you can literally leave that briefing and go call someone and you're

not supposed to, but you can. The fines are the fines are such that everyone ignores it and say, "Honey, go buy

um whatever." Yeah. or this AAI. What was the one that she bought call options on in the

morning that Roger Taylor Green did it a bunch of times too? But Pelosi announced when Pelosi announced or disclosed she'd bought

options call options in a healthcare AI company. I forget the name of the company. Um the stock spiked like 10 or 15%. I

mean it's just anyways they should have to put in a blind trust and and also the other side of this we need to pay these

people a lot more so they don't feel the temptation to do these things. It it it

I think at 174 they're both equal in the Senate and the Congress. I think it's 174,000 which is a lot of for people for

regular people to live in DC support two homes. It really isn't. So what would be the what would you give

them? First of all, they could put the their current they don't not have to have stocks. They just put it in an index fund or

they just have no control over it. Just a blind trust. These are everywhere. Um what would you pay them? I would pay Congress people I would pay

our representatives a million dollars a year. our senators 2 million a year and you know the president five I would go to the Singapore model

and that is pay them really well and then absolute zero [ __ ] tolerance for any of this nonsense none you can't

anything you have control over in terms of capital allocation of your own personal funds you no longer have control over and if you do you're kicked

out there is a criticism that like people who are good at money won't go into Congress but I'm like yes they they do

it for other reasons and by the way it's become a rich person's game because it costs I think I was on a panel last

night he saying it used to cost a couple hundred,000 Trump for Congress. Now it's 8 or N million. So only rich people can

afford it or people with access to funds and then they're on the hook for rich people, right? So it creates a really

bad situation. It's not going to discourage any something like that would not discourage anyone from running and it creates a

distraction and then you feel like you've got to engage and play in this game because you're, you know, the representative from Kentucky is making

millions of dollars while you're not. And also after taxes,

that amount of money if you're trying to support two homes. Yeah. And I look, these people deserve to make more money. They're impressive important

people doing important work. Yeah, I would agree. And if we're going to have zero tolerance, which we should here, we we

have to pay them really well. Or give them a housing allowance. Like, you know, they could create um like a

congressional apartment building and then we could have a reality show. We could make Oh my god, that would be hilarious.

What happens when Ted Cruz you know, runs into Bernie Sanders in the shower.

Romances. There you go. It would be so good. They could like do that. Spark fly

for the Congress people. They could for the younger ones. Why not? Some of them do live together, don't they? Do something fun like make a thing of

it. Like it would be kind of or give them housing allowances or something. I don't know. They get all kinds of perks.

Um but uh but this is this is just ridiculous. Josh Holly, we're behind you. Even though I'm not really behind

you. Um, every time they do a picture of Josh Holly, it's the it's the insurrectionist. Like

the pump. The fist bump. The fist bump. Yeah, that guy's never escaping.

I'm with you. I'm with you. Running from Run. These people are [ __ ] crazy.

Run. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm right behind you. I'll be I'll be in

Rahobit. Josh, you're never going to be president. Just FYI. Anyway, um let's go

on a quick break. When we come back, Joe Rogan has some criticism for President Trump. He's ramping up. He's turning

into a San Francisco lesbian. Support for this show comes from United Airlines. Let's skip the travel myth.

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Scott, we're back. Joe Rogan is turning into a real thorn in the side for President Trump. Let's listen to what he

had to say about Trump's administration's crackdown on immigration and international students. Let's listen to a clip.

It's an overcorrection, right? And it's also like they have a mandate I think of like 3,000 people a day they want to

deport just you know you're gonna a bunch of people that are totally innocent are gonna get caught up in they

have been right you know they have been a lot of people that have have green cards a lot of people that are supposed to be over here

and then they're kicking students out that like write articles they don't like Yeah that's nuts [ __ ] crazy.

And that's not all. Let's listen to a clip of Rogan talking uh about Trump's reaction to all things Epstein. This

one's a line in the sand because this is one where there's a lot of stuff about,

you know, when we thought Trump was going to come in and a lot of things are going to be resolved. We're going to

drain the swamp. We're going to figure everything out and when you have this one hardcore line in the sand that

everybody had been talking about forever and then they're trying to gaslight you on that. So, it's interesting. I'm not sure if

Rogan's disapproval will carry as much weight as his endorsement did. Uh, I don't know. What do you What do you

think of this? I think it's actually, you know, it's sort of late, you know, Joe. Of course, he was going to do this.

Um, he seems seems kind of fatuous to what Trump is, but I don't know. What do

you think? I don't know. I think that I I do think it matters. Um, yeah, a lot of

when I speak to young men, I I feel like a lot of times they're reading back a script from Joe Rogan. I I think

I think arguably Joe Rogan in terms of young men has more influence because

he's seen as an honest broker. I think the most I don't want to call it dangerous thing about Joe Rogan, but I think Joe is like it's not an act. I

think Joe is genuinely he's not reading he's not Fox News reading from a teleprompter saying smart manic has been

weaponized by Hugo Chavez because we told you to say it. I think what he's saying he believes and also the

manosphere if you will or you know maledominated or male ccentric podcasts

there has been a significant tide shift. So Shane Gillis, Andrew Schultz,

Andrew Schultz, all these guys who quite frankly if you were to point to one person

uh who potentially put Trump in office, it would be number one would be Musk,

right? Quarter of a billion dollars. great platform, very smart.

And then probably number two is Joe Rogan. And the stat I love is that

if you want to talk about how brilliant the Trump campaign was and how non-billiant the Harris campaign was, and it kind of reminds me of Montani and

Cuomo, Trump went flew right into the manosphere, which was not only good for positioning, but by going on Rogan that

one time with 40 million YouTube videos or views and 15 million audio downloads,

for Harris to get the same level of exposure, she would have needed to go on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox every night for 3

hours for two weeks. So quite frankly, whatever, unless it was going to take her two weeks to get down and back from

Austin, she should have done it. So these guys carry a ton of weight and

there has been a real significant shift. And it's a combo of all of them. It's not just Rogan. I mean, Schultz has been

particularly vehement about it and Shane Gillis is now mocking him, making fun of him. Then you have the South Park guys

on his ass cuz they're considered pretty right in the m like not in the middle but they're they don't beholden to

anything. Yeah, honey badger don't give a [ __ ] They're they're they go after everybody but they're particularly going after

Trump with that penis which wasn't AI. Um but what what do you think they're I mean it's interesting because he's he's

moved from the Epstein things which I think animates a lot of these people. A lot of them are angry about the Epstein stuff and now it's moved to colleges and

deportations which they're like why can't these you know um kids say what

they want as long as they're not violent. I think Rogan said that he's like if they're not violent they can write whatever they want. So that that

is consistent with their thing of the left uh quashing them but now they're

applying it to Trump. Yeah. What was again there was I thought of you last night. There was another

weapon of mass distraction yesterday. Something ridiculous, something outrageous. What was it yesterday? Oh, it'll come to me.

Giving Diddy a pardon. Oh, there. Exactly. Yeah. Megan Kelly. Diddy a pardon. Okay. That's that's what

the president should be focused on right now. I mean, I'm telling you, every day again, we got to we the moment he does

this [ __ ] you got to start referring to Diddy as Diddy Epstein. You just got to make you got to let them know.

Uh folks, we're not we're not falling for it. If you're sawing your assistant in half and expect us to look over here,

we're not going to do it. We want to see you pulling the rabbit uh you know out of your coke pocket, not out of the hat.

Yeah. And a lot of people aren't going along. Like Rogan is is pretty has been pretty Trump positive. And he's he's

doing it a lot unlike I'm interested to see what he'll what he'll move on to of something he doesn't like. Right. But

there's quite a lot. It's not just one thing. And as I said at the beginning of this whole thing and I and let me tell you, I think Elon started this this

Epstein thing. He absolutely by that tweet he did. Um, but I think Epstein is

at the core, as I said, the pillar. But then there's all these other things that are consistent with what they said

before, which was, why can't those students say what they want, even if I don't agree with those students? Why

can't humor, right, when he's threatening all kinds of entertainers and stuff like that? Why can't they say

what they want, even if they're left? Um, and I think they are consistent in that. They should be consistent in that

regard. They should if they say people should say what they want, it should apply to the left and the right. Right.

And so that was interesting when Rogan did that. I'm curious what he'll do next. Well, they can they can claim and I

actually I think it's good for the medium. No matter what happens, CNN and Fox, you kind of have a sense for which

way they're going to go on every story. Exactly. These guys, to their credit, are saying,

I, you know, I was wrong. I do not support these policies. A couple of them have said, I regret voting for them. And

I think the immigration raids really rattled a lot of them because I think a lot of them know, you know, are exposed

to it, see how cruel it is. The thing is I don't get is it's ineffective. There were actually more people being deported

during the Obama administration that are being deported right now. They just worked more cohesively or seamlessly

with local law enforcement, right? And this just feels like, okay, well, because they they are going after

people who are like gardeners and in Home Depot lot. They're kind of clottish about it in a lot of ways. They're doing

it so performatively with the masks and the whole Christine. Did you see that

picture of Christine Nome riding around a horse with her alleged paramore Cory Lunowski?

I didn't. I'd like to though. Argentina. They're just riding horses around. You're like, what are you doing there? What are you doing?

She's in Argentina riding horses. I something like that. I'm here for it. I think I've decided Christine is super hot and I the whole

like thing Ice Barbie is so strange. It's like what president from that I'm

like trying to figure out where this is going. It's straight to it's straight to the White House or straight to Cinemax.

Either way, I'm here for it. A reality show, right? I'm sort of like what are you doing? Sarah Palin in Alaska.

Oh, that didn't work out so well for him. Yeah, that's not going to work out for you, Christie, because you're a lady. Doesn't work out for ladies. I'm sorry.

it just doesn't it's not going to work out. Anyway, speaking of ladies, and she's not a lady, Jane Maxwell has

offered uh to testify before Congress in the Epstein situation, but only with

conditions that include immunity. Um, and on Tuesday, President Trump told reporters that Epstein stole Virginia

Gay, one of Epste's accusers, from Maraago, who died by suicide in April following a period of serious health

issues. Uh she was the 17-year-old involved that Prince Andrew allegedly uh

abused. Um paid off, I think. Um anyway, she was she was one of the more

outspoken ones and had a very tragic life. Uh she worked in Mara Lago in the spa and um Gelain Maxwell got her to

come over to his house. And President Trump keeps changing his story of why he got in a fight with Epstein. First it

was because he some real estate thing, then it was cuz they found him creepy. and now it's cuz he stole stole. The use

of the word stole around sex trafficking sort of says it all to me or I didn't have the privilege to go down to to

Epstein Island which was a crazy word to use. Um he's just continues to every day

to dig himself into another hole and keep this story alive. Like I said, it's

almost suicidal. It's weird um on his behalf to continue to As for Gelain

Maxwell, she deserves nothing. I I said on CNN that you know what do what does

she want? Coco and a warm blanket. Give me a break. She needs to stay in jail. If they give her immunity or diddy

immunity, it's it will continue. This story for Trump will will never go away

and it's already not going away. Yeah, he's he's really got and that's

why he just comes across as so guilty here because he's got such weird judgment. You know, he said that he

wishes Gelain Maxwell. He didn't wish any of the victims well. He wishes her well and then he says, "Oh, you know the

why he's disappointed or offended by Epstein. He took his employees stole."

Yeah. I'm like, "Okay, so that's that's why he want don't want to be associated with this guy like were any of his other

activities that were reported and wildly covered. Did any of those offend problematic?" No, it was that he hired uh you know his

valet for under under Mara Lago. It's like, okay, you're you're kind of missing the forest

for the trees here. So, he continues to act like someone advised him to try and act as guilty as possible. The idea of a

what effectively would be a pardon, which is what immunity immunity would offer almost. It's it's different

clemency for Gain Maxwell. It's like, well, I again this why are they speaking to her

now? the only reason, the only motivation to speak to her now is the desire to clear the president. There's

always been a desire to find out what exactly happened here and who was involved. And if you weren't able to get

that information and offer whatever it is you needed to offer back then, then

the only reason that you logically going to derive from this uh or deduct from this is that you're

hoping she will say something to exonerate the president because the only thing that's happened is there's new heat on the president. And so I don't

the whole thing really sticks. It won't exonerate him now because it looks like he's doing that, right? So it'll look like mixes in perception.

So it's weird. I find this the strangest thing. I actually believe when everything the White House says I don't

believe. But he say I kind of believe that's what he think he's mad at him for taking stealing an a person who works in

the spa. That's what he doesn't care about these women. He doesn't care about the abuses. He cares that someone stole

his employee. That's I actually believe that when he says that. I don't think he's making it up in that. I think this

adult old man thinks that he's like all pissed that he stole one of his employees. Yeah. I don't see that.

Yeah. The whole thing the whole thing is just something I have to say a lot of people who didn't

think it was a conspiracy theory or just were not really paying attention to it many years on are Oh, that's a noise

outside your apartment. Um Oh [ __ ] I forgot to call 911 back and tell me you're not intruders. I know

you. Oh, God. No, but don't There's a strange lady rifling through my things and mumbling to herself.

I'm taking that buttery coat. That buttery coat of I have I have somebody has slaughtered several

dozen animals who were llamas that were only raised on like Japanese wagu rice. I I went through that skin phase where I

couldn't buy enough like leather coats. Anyways, have at it. Yeah, have at it. But if you borrow my code,

it means if you borrow my code, it means I then borrow your car and we're going steady. That means we're going steady.

We are going steady. Oh, my first girlfriend, Melanie Kagan, who's when you wore your coat. Oh, yeah. And she my Letterman coat. I I

was a Letterman a D1 athlete. And then this is college. College. You know it, baby. Do you have any clothes from people? I I

still have clothes from people I went out with. Yeah. I mean, David Hasselhoff still has a few of my loose sweatshirts, but

that's another story, Cara. That's another story. That was a loving relationship. So

beautiful and poignant. But if you weren't married, I'd love you to go out with Paul Giamati. I think that would be good for you.

Oh, wait. Hold on. Hold on. Let's unpack that. The the person you have decided is for

me is Paul Giamati. Oh my god. I'd totally like to hang out. I'm totally down if Paul Giamati can be

Emily Ratikowski. Has she asked about me? No. Seriously, she has asked about me, right? No, she has not. She's totally asked

about me. Nobody who looks like Emily Ratows. You know who asked me about you? Let me tell you. Here we go. Men. Sure. Michael

asked me about you. The guy you debated in Detroit, uh, this lovely guy, Chuck Roa, I was on a panel with ask me. Men

ask me about you. They have such a man crush on you. It's disturbing on men.

Well, tell them to swing by. Why Why shouldn't they come by my apartment? This is what women say to me, including

attract very attractive women. They're always like, "Oh, Scott." Oh, God. That's That's all they do.

Scott, I want to [ __ ] him. It's, "Oh, Scott." No, it's literally like, "I need to That reminds me. I need new mace cartridges."

Yeah. But men are like, "He's so dreamy. I

love that, Scott. He's so dreamy." You bring up my name and like the next sense where women are like, you know, I'm thinking about like just having sex

with women from this point forward. I don't think we need men. I don't think we need men. That's so true. There's I haven't had a

woman say she's hot for you. men I have heard say off. Any Paul Giamati call us

be great. That's self. I know it's self. All right, we have to move on. We at the Trump tariffs tariffs

and Jerome Powell has a set. Let's just say at the time of this taping, President Trump says he will not extend

the latest August 1 tariff deadline if the president reportedly plans to sign new executive orders after we tape imposing higher tariffs on several

countries that have not reached deals. He's particularly mad at Brazil. Um the administration has managed to get only

eight deals done in 120 days but with a number of partners. In the last few days, Trump has announced a 25% tariff

on India with a penalty for over reliance on Russian energy and military equipment. South Korea has made an offer

to buy down the 25% it faces. He's interested in hearing it. Um uh one of

the things that uh that it's interesting is whether he's going to extend that deadline. Uh fear not everyone. Treasury

Secretary Scott Bessent who seems to be living his best life as Trump's favorite person told corporate America it's quote

not the end of the world if these tariffs are on for days or weeks. Meanwhile, the Fed held interest rates steady as I said on Wednesday for the

fifth meeting in a row as the Commerce Department reported that the US company grew at a stronger than expected pace.

But there's lots of troubling things in the report actually and now inflation today just ticked up a little bit. Um,

and so Powell seems to be waiting till September to see the impact of the tariffs, which I think is probably a

good thing to do. Um, so what do what do you think about what's happening? In in some cases, some of the countries are

saying what he said happened didn't happen. Obviously, a lot of these numbers are going to be paid by American

consumers in the in the end. Um, any thoughts on this? The only thing you know you're going to

get, first off, none of them I hate that they call them deals. They're all frameworks that they can put out a press

release and in the press release is some giant number that is uninforceable specifically the amount of money they're going to invest in the US.

Yes. Thank you. So I hope that I hope we just get through this get on it. Um you know I I

saw someone on Bill Maher a very intelligent woman saying that terrorist she's like why said to Bill why do you

want why are you against making American workers more productive? kind of like wrapping themselves in the flag. And

folks, let me just remind you that free trade or tariffs reversely correlated to economic growth. They telling American

consumers that they have to pay more money for a Japanese car such that they get a shitty car for 40,000 instead of a

great car for 30,000. That not only makes us consumers less prosperous, you

know, paying more for shittier things, but it also makes us less competitive because we don't need to compete. So,

and I'm going to talk about this um in my uh prediction, but Figma, this design

uh company is going public and it was supposed to be acquired by Adobe, the fact that it wasn't because the

regulators block the deal is going to make that market much more competitive. And so, when all you're doing is making

things less competitive in the short run for companies because they have the advantage of taxing foreign companies, you make our companies less competitive.

You make our consumers less prosperous. And it has been shown that over the medium and long term it decreases uh

productivity and the the GDP numbers were really strange. I don't know if you saw those but the GDP numbers

it was so this was the strangest thing that came came out of the GDP numbers. You subtract or you add to GDP or excuse

me you subtract out of GDP imports because that is economic activity or production that took place offshore.

Uh imports were down 30% yearonear like 34%. I mean, it's not even that that

that the prices are too high or that American consumers don't want them, but foreign companies that build businesses

importing products into the US, making our lives more prosperous and our products less expensive and our, you know, better quality of life have kind

of stopped because they don't know how to plan. They don't even know how to price stuff. They don't know what it means. They don't know, you know, they

don't know what the demand's going to be because they don't know what these tariffs are. So, I'm at the part of the program now where I just hope for the

purposes of just getting back to work that they get a quote unquote a bunch of these frameworks done and all these

nations are learning. Yeah. Agree to agree to the tariff and then announce

a a trillion dollars in investment in the United States over the next 10 years which will is not enforceable.

That's what happened with all the tech companies. Remember they were like we're going to invest and then they never did. That's the thing. And so Trump can tout

a deal. One of the things Richard Quest, who I like on CNN, was so frustrated trying to explain it. I love him. Yeah,

that guy. He's great. But he the point he was making is the 15% is getting eaten by these companies. They're just

going to take the cost. And you'll see numbers like Ford or GM, they had the first time since 2023, Ford is losing

money, which it wasn't. It was doing well. Um, they'll start they'll eat the cost because it's low enough, but

eventually they won't. Second thing is consumers will pay for this in the end. like not the money that's going to the

treasury and and it just it just it literally these and he's like these are he said the same thing he did these are

frameworks they are not the thing and so you'll never how are you going to know if they're going to invest like

just saying they're going to invest they will not do it and so it's all nonsense and and kind of unnecessary

um shaking of the economy for for no reason. Now, that's not to say that

being tough on people or sort of playing game of chicken with some of these countries where it's not asynchronous

trade is not a bad idea, right? Like we always say that. Um, but one of the things that's important to understand is

that they're it's not in place. It's just not like a lot of things with Trump. It's a lot of vapor wear. And

that's a that is the real problem. And so when Jerome Powell comes in and says, "We're just going to wait about cutting

interest rates." See what happens. We'll see what happens. That's the adult thing to do. And of course, Trump

attacks him because this doesn't work without an acquiescent Fed, right, to to try to feed this thing. Um, and and he's

not going to be acquiescent. And interestingly, with the Fed meeting, two of the Trump appointed uh people voted

against the the the keeping it the same rate. Um, so now it's totally politicized, which are which are good

economic decisions. Powell, this guy has a set. He really

he's he's he's does he's doing exactly what you're supposed to do when you have a Supreme Court justice or long tenure

appointments. The reason we do that is such that we get stuck with some bad people sometimes. But the reason we do

that is such that they can be independent-minded. But one of the one of the biggest risks I think to our economy is so the definition of robust a

robust industry is for example the fast food industry. If McDonald's goes out of business, you're still going to be able to get $1,800 of calories for five

bucks, right? because there's a ton of competitors. If JB if Jaime Diamond called the president right now and said,

"Oh, we had some rogue trader. He levered up, got past our compliance, and

if I don't get $500 billion by tomorrow, we're out of business." That existential

or systemic risk, because JP Morgan is so big now and so powerful, they have become, in my opinion, too big to fail.

That makes an economy weaker. We now have seven companies that represent over 40% of the S&P's value, of which

represents 50% of the world's value. So you have essentially 20% of the market cap of the world is tied up in seven

companies. And what these tariffs are doing, there's so many second order effects here. Is that okay, you know

who's not affected by the tariffs? You know who's just champagne and cocaine right now? Tech companies. Yeah, we will

talk about that. But but if you're an investor, are you going to invest in the

70% of companies in the S&P 500 that are subject to some sort of tariff risk? You're like, "Oh, [ __ ] it. Just buy

meta, right? I don't know how to predict this. I don't know how to model against it." So, what do we have? Even greater

concentration of wealth and of market cap in a small increasingly small group

of companies and people who will not be able to deliver in the end. actually they can't keep up with

the with the with the numbers. It but but but is like that's the last

thing. Does the president really think it's good economic policy to basically transfer market capitalization from Dowo

Chemical and Ford to Alphabet and Meta. Is that what we need right now? That's not

these companies. The opposite. It's the opposite. These great American companies that are either in manufacturing or consumer

products that are subject to these tariffs and subject to this insecurity and chaos. That's kind of those are the

companies quite frankly that is a really good point to keep and like they tend to be they don't pay their people as well but they

tend to employ many more people and it's like okay if we were going to do any economic policy that transferred

capital or advantage back from one group of companies to others for a more robust market quite frankly a stronger more

diverse economy we would probably want to let some air out of the AI tech balloon

and transfer it across the rest of our great American companies that's not what they're doing and this is effectively saying to every

institutional manager, "Fuck it. Just invest in tech." That's right. All right. Well, then

actually, we'll get to that. We'll go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Microsoft and Meta's earnings, which were blockbuster. Scott,

we're back with earnings news. Microsoft just reported a blockbuster quarter with total revenue surging 18% year-over-year

to 76 billion. But as Microsoft doubles down on AI, the capital spending is climbing up 27%. Meta also had a huge Q2

with $47 billion in revenue, up 22% and 18 billion in profit, up 36%. Meta's AI

hiring spree also acknowledged in the earnings with compensation for technical talent in priority areas cited as the

second largest driver of cost growth. These big deals they're paying all these AI researchers. Um what how do you look

at this? Are these AI bets paying off or it's it's advertising for Meta. It's their old business that's doing well,

probably helped by AI, but not in the way Zuckerberg is spending. Um, any

thoughts on on this? They're really they really doubling down on AI, obviously, whether it's it's research costs or

talent costs or just simple investment in compute. Um, any thoughts on these two earnings? So, you forwarded me an

article from the Wall Street Journal that was really fascinated and it said basically this is the weirdest GDP report we've seen in a while because

when imports go down 30%, it sort of artificially juices GDP

and um if you're thinking about I mean these numbers well one okay so the

numbers the traditional business is just staggering it's just they continue to perform they're using AI for better

targeting and I think every media planner in the world is storing up their arms and saying just spend more money on

Meta or or on Alphabet. They also have the benefit of the market has decided that

it loves capex in AI. The market has decided that AI is going to be enormous

and whoever wins the war, it's going to be a function of brute force and that is as represented by capex. So Oracle, when

Oracle went public, Larry Ellison I think owned about 24%. He now owns

closer to 41%. Well, how is that possible? They would use their cash flow to buy back shares, thereby decreasing

the amount of shares and increasing the relative ownership of people who own shares. Except about 2 years ago, he

decided, no, it's now a capital war in AI. We need to be a distant number two of infrastructure to Nvidia. We're going

to massively spend in capex. Arguably, that was one of the better business decisions of the last 10 years. And

Larry Ellison, you want to talk about elephants can dance, is now the second wealthiest person in the world. And the

most crazy stat from that article, and I still can't believe it's true, but it

stated in that article that there was more spending last quarter on AI investments than there was

consumer spending. Yeah. So, think about this. 355 million people in the US.

Everything they're spending money on their their Netflix, their Starbucks, going to see F1, all the all consumer

spending was less. Yep. Than the investments in AI. I mean, my

god, that is I know the numbers are just massive. That is just staggering. But Meta up 12%

in pre-market earnings beat of a massive earnings beat 714 versus 589 revenue of

47.5 billion expected 44.8 8 a 22%

year-on-year. And one of the things that was so impressive is they grew their customer they they grew their customer

base or their users by 6% which may not sound like a lot but when your base is 3.5 billion that's

there's no other game in town. There's no other game in town. They added they added the population of Brazil to their user base uh year on

year. So, and in addition, the market loves this capex. They their capex is

spending was $17 billion, by the way. That's double what it was last year. It

is in and the market just loves it. They they well, someone has to pay for all those those young men that they're I mean,

billion dollar deals. They you know, whatever you say about Marco Zuckerberg, he goes for it, right?

and even if he made a mistake with Meta. And same thing over at Microsoft. The

question is what when does it not pay off? Like here you have Grock doing it. You've got Amazon doing it. Amazon just

paid even the New York Times $20 million a year for its stuff, which is nothing, which is peanuts. Um, you know, I just

think that this is a this is a arms race for these people and and it's being paid off in the market right now for them and

they're using that in order to to like goose themselves rather. And you're right there, everything is being shifted

over to these seven tech companies and nobody else. And so Ford and GM who have made strides are going to suffer. So

will John Deere. So will all the other companies at the expense of these people. Now, interestingly, Zuckerberg

had to put out one of his essays. These people love to put out essays and letters and vision manifestos. Um he

loves to do this and and they're always long and badly edited. But um he said AI super intelligence is now in sight. He

put out this letter and video outlining his vision for it was described by one outlet as a mini manifesto. Uh let's

listen to Mark Zuckerberg if we have to. A lot has been written about the scientific and economic advances that AI

can bring, and I'm really optimistic about this. But I think an even more meaningful impact in our lives is going

to come from everyone having a personal super intelligence that helps you achieve your goals, create what you want

to see in the world, be a better friend, and grow to become the person that you aspire to be. This vision is different

from others in the industry who want direct AI at automating all of the valuable work. blather. This is his

grow to the person you aspire to be. It's such he did this before on his

social media. I'm gonna be the person I aspire to be. Honestly, because of Mark Zuckerberg,

one time he called me when he wrote one of these ridiculous manifestos. He called me and asked me what when he was speaking to me what I thought of it. And

I said, "One, you need an editor. Two, I don't understand this this whole thing about community." He just was like,

"Social media will bring us together." like such [ __ ] and of course it didn't and I I was at the time I was

like this is such [ __ ] just just say you just want to make money on automating all our valuable work I'm

fine with that right but this is these people just aspire to be these visionaries and they are the smallest

intellect they have the smallest intellects and the least amount they just love to put these things out you

know Jamie you don't hear this from Jamie Diamond much right and who is by the way he's been meeting with President Trump which is a good thing like you

don't hear this nonsense from our smarter people in in our society because they don't feel the need to do remember

when Gates put these essays the road ahead it was so nonsensical like to do

this now one thing Zuckerberg did say which I agreed with but I didn't think he had to put on such such thing is he

said smart glasses will be the primary way people interact with AI of course he said that because he has a smart glass

business um and without them people will be at a cognitive disadvantage Do you

think you're going to be at a cognitive disadvantage without, you know, AI glasses? What do you think? Well, I mean, the idea, so these LLMs,

I've always said that the LLM is just a function of who we are, but unfortunately who we are in a certain medium. And I wish the LLM could crawl

the real world because I think generally speaking in the real world that people are lovely. But the fact is they're

crawling our complexion, our personality online, and it gets really ugly really

fast. And if this AI I've always said that companies were the closest thing I had to kids before I had kids. And that

is you conceive of them. They look, smell, and feel like you. They're sort of a corporate embodiment of the personality. And if if Llama, the LLM

from from Zuck, ends up being anything like

him, it'll be emotionally stunted, brilliantly efficient, and constantly

urging you to reconnect with your ex. I mean, it's just going to be such a weird

if this thing ends up like he when you heard that, didn't it sound AI

generated? It's like the nonhuman human because he's done it before. It's like so anodine. It is so I literally had

this bad memory for I was at my ex's house like Splick being on a couch and he called me and I got kicked out on the

couch. Talk to me about that because we were broken up. Do that too. No, we were No. So, it was just so

[ __ ] ridiculous. It was like I remember going, "Oh my god, how could I get off this [ __ ] phone call with this idiot who just thinks who just

thinks he's a visionary?" Like, literally, no, there's so many visionaries. Like, John Malone's

recently written a book. He's a visionary. Like, he doesn't talk that much. And what he says is choice. These

guys can't stop [ __ ] talking and giving you their predictions of the future. It's ex like I want to hear it from you,

Scott. I don't want to hear it from this. Yeah. You got to give He is a visionary. He really is. But his vision is a legless

universe where people are cutting themselves. That's his vision. And unfortunately like I'm here to help you

achieve your goals, be a better friend, and grow a person you aspire to be. It's not about automating all your value

work. Mark, it's about automating all your valuable work and so you can make money off of it. Could just say that

like I like honestly this this nonsense of being Facebook is not going to make you a is not going to make you a better

friend. it. Facebook isn't gonna allow you to create what you want to see in the world and grow to be a better

person. And neither does Mark Zuckerberg care about that. Like, and then, oh, by the way, buy my glasses. Like,

if if I asked AI to give me an image of Mark Zuckerberg that defines who he is,

I feel like it would be, Granted, I this might be the edible speaking, but it would be a guy at a really sad

malt shop sucking up the world's user data through a straw. And every time he made eye contact with you, he'd

apologize and look away. I just think this guy is so unusual,

so strange, dangerous, and and he to his credit, he is really he is

actually smart enough to I think he knows he realizes it. So he brings in really likable people, whether it's Nick

Kle or Cheryl Samberg. But just getting back to I just want to talk a little bit about earnings. I I

was so blown away by this quarter's earnings, just the amount of capex these guys are throwing at it. I think

Microsoft may be the organization as of today that has invested more money, more

capital in the future than any organization in history with the exception of countries during war. And

by the way, it's paying off. They're up 8% of pre-market trading. They blew away their earnings, 365 versus 337. The

revenue is 76.5 billion versus 73.8 expected. Revenue was up 18%

year-on-year. And then its cloud-based unit, Azure, grew 39% this year. This

that is just so if Microsoft basically if you applied the same price to sales

ratio to its cloud unit, it would be a $1 trillion business. And right now it's

se it's a $75 billion revenue business. And they're planning to spend 30 billion

on capital next quarter. That's up 50% from the same time last year. And if it kept constant, it would work out to be

$120 billion. And that means right now the the category that is getting the

most capex of any category in the world is AI. And the company spending the most

is is is uh is Microsoft. Microsoft is right now spending more money on AI than

I think almost any organization in history has spent on anything with maybe the exception of a percentage of GDP

what Britain and Russia have spent during wartime or something like this. It is this is Meta's quarter I think is

the biggest investment by a private company in history on anything and it's

paying off. This company these companies I mean it's just this tariff [ __ ]

these companies while Ford is trying to figure out how many times a windshield wiper comes across or not from Canada or

Mexico and how to [ __ ] build their business and estimated and spend time kneecapping them while these guys

then you have these guys that are just running flat out and just killing it.

Just literally running away. They have nothing in their way. Like they never have anything in their way. Like Ford

and GM and John Deere, they have things in their way. These guys have no obstacles. So, or they have no

regulatory obstacles. They have no like they just buy their way into

seamlessness, which is their favorite part. But, but think about think about this is what these guys do. They're like, "Okay,

the two of them added $550 billion in market cap since 4

p.m. last night. Since since they announced their earnings last night, they've added $550 billion,

right, in market capitalization. So they just they just added oh let's add Netflix.

Let's add I would imagine the French stock market. I mean I people don't get a sense of the scale.

It's working for them. It's a it's a machine. Anyway, speaking of things that aren't a machine, let me let's finish up. Novo Nordisk shares are plummeting

after the company slashed its fullear guidance citing weaker than expected US growth for OMIC and WGOI. The stock

dropped 30% at one point on Tuesday, wiping out nearly $93 billion in market value. Novo Nordisk is blaming the

downturn on increased competition from Eli Liy's Munjaro and Zepbound as well as I think more significantly cheaper

GLP-1 knockoffs and which are not going away. They thought they were going away when the when the um when things got

settled in terms of manufacturing. The company also named a new CEO replacing previous CEO who was ousted by the board

in May as the stock was sliding. This is incredible. a product that is going to be so big and the company at the top of

it is just losing it. This to me is just one of these amazing stories um because

of all kinds of you know pressures from of course competition was going to get in here. It's only going to get bigger in the GLP1 market. But very quick

thoughts on this because it's the opposite here, right? An amazing opportunity that's been blown I guess.

Well, speaking of tariffs, the number one um import into the United States from Europe is pharmaceuticals.

And I said two years ago and I was mocked for this that I thought the more important technology in terms of on the ground change to society was not AI, it

was GLP1. You did. And what's happened here is that because of a shortage and kind of a loophole,

some companies have been able to offer compounded GLP1, which is basically like saying generics

and him stock went crazy because they were able to basically sell GLP1 drugs for a fraction of the price. And then as

you mentioned, Eli Liy's uh GLP1 offerings upbound uh is now more popular

than MGOI. I absolutely love this. I still think the category is going to grow like crazy. Only 8% of Americans

have taken a GLP1, but about but about a third of them are interested. I think if

you want it, I think the most accreative thing you could do for our economy right now would be to offer um access to GLP1

drugs for everybody. I think if you look at the obesity industrial complex that wants people to buy a sugar bomb, eat

shitty food, take advantage of the lowest like calories to cost that uh

people have to turn to in food deserts and then hand these people over to the companies producing statins, hip

replacements, knee replacements, uh kidney dialysis that effectively we're monetizing people's health and so much

of it is obesity related, especially the obesity related healthare costs, strokes are one to one and a half trillion a

Yeah. So, similar to what the equivalent of the FDA did in the UK, I think it's the UK health ministry, they said, "If you

are smoking, we'll send you for free an electronic nicotine delivery service." Because while that is not good

for you, it's much less bad for you than tobacco. I think over the medium and long term,

if you really wanted to have an impact on health care costs, you would make GLP-1 drugs accessible to absolutely.

So, what did this company, which is the front forefront of it, do wrong? Well, the the honest answer is I don't

know. I don't know if it's distribution or branding, but I would argue right now it's a great value because this is, if

not the market leader, one of the market leaders in what is a a a an unbelievable

uh business and category and it's trading at a PE because it's been hammered because it's not performing

well. Well, interesting. They did a deal with him and hers, right? And then they continued to sell the knockoff. So then

they got no fight with him and hers, right? So him and hers was selling the knockoff. and Novon Nord just did a deal with them and then it fell apart because

they were all they the continued selling of the compounds which need to be regulated by the way um is really

something that loophole really has you know these guys should have been riding off into the sunset because they kind of

but they don't because of these GLP1 knockoffs the market has a tendency to overpunish and overreward and the momentum right

now is against these guys so with their 5-year average PE has been 33 it's been as high as 50 today it's going open at

14.6. And when you think about the average S&P company trades at a PE of 26 to get the market leader, even though it

is underperforming expectations in GLP1 at 14.6 times earnings, I actually think

the stock is a buy right now. But there's no doubt about it. This is a national champion for Europe that is

quote unquote faltering or not living up to the expectations. But I actually think the stock has been overpunished.

And I have of all the technologies of the last 10 years, the one I'm most excited about is GLP1.

Absolutely. In fact, in doing this secret documentary, one of the things that every doctor has said is I asked

them what they think the most important developments technology in pharmaceutical and they're always like mRNA vaccines um

crisper and GLP-1s everyone. Then they they're like I don't know which one's more important and they all mention

GLP1s on a range of things because it's it's just beginning. We're beginning to understand it. I would agree with you. All right, we have to move on. Uh, one

more quick break. We'll get We'll be back for predictions. Okay, Scott. Uh, let's hear a prediction. I have a very

quick one very quickly. Kla Harris announced this week she's not running for governor of California. She also revealed she's written a book about her

campaign called 107 days. I'm not so sure she's going to run for president. I didn't think, as I told you, I didn't

think she was going to run for governor. I I don't think she's going to run for president. I think she knows that she

can't win and she has enough responsibility to understand that and um

and so I predict she will also not run for president. Well, I'm good at running other people's lives. If I was the vice president, I

would go be the chairman of a hedge fund, make a [ __ ] ton of money, and just wait for the next Democratic administration and be a Supreme Court

justice. Yeah, I think that's what I always say. I don't think she needs the risk of potentially losing. I'm not sure she'd win Governor. And

she just doesn't need that. She has to win by a lot if she wins, right? So if she even if she wins and

doesn't win by enough, she'll be she'll be tart. And Cal a lot of people describe California as ungovernable that that

it's just that special interest groups are so entrench people say this is a

even even Republican governors will say I would not want that job, right? That it's a very difficult I think I think

it's the right move. And also I don't think she wanted to do I don't I think she as as an executive she didn't want she she didn't have the fire. When

I talked her, you could tell likem it was like she's supposed to versus she wants to. So,

she's probably sick of running. I I hope Yeah. I don't I don't think she should. And And you know, I thought she did.

Good try. She did. She had a good try given the hand she was dealt. I think one of the greatest performances in

history by any athlete or person. when I saw her walking into that debate with the president and the amount of pressure

on her shoulders and the way she handled herself, I thought, great job. Great job.

Yeah, she deserves a lot of credit for trying to run a US style uh race

hamstrung by what was, you know, British election Yeah. Yeah. British election cycle time. I

mean, she had what, 111 days or something to try. She had she had Biden hanging around. I hope she's happy. I don't I don't

I hope so, too. I think she's a she's been a great public servant and I I just don't think she's gonna remember but she she'll be a she's literally the

first Supreme Court justice appointee of a Democratic presidency. She'll be doing a lot of work. That's a lot of work. Okay. What's

your prediction very briefly? Um so each year I pick an IPO of the year and that is an IPO I think is going

to do really well. Airbnb last year it was Reddit. Uh today I believe will be

the IPO of the year and I think that IPO is a company called Figma and it's a

design company and I've been building these my son's been trying to find a business and building these sites and it is just so obvious that design is the

salsa to the chip of all AI and that is whenever AI returns anything it just

looks so you know anodine generic just and if you look at

designers Right. Eh, if you look at, for example, IBM used to hire one designer for every 70 uh

programmers. Now it's now it's 1 to 10. Design is a booming field and seems to

be somewhat so far immune from AI. And Figma is essentially this kind of

collaborative software company. It's great for design. The thing that got me looking at it was my partner at PropG,

Katherine Dylan, who is a professor of the visual arts at Tish or professor of the arts, teaches a very popular course

called design language. And the first thing she does for her students is she asks them to download uh Figma and this

company. So there's this thing called the rule of 40 uh in SAS and that is you take your growth rate plus your profit

margins. The rule of 40 for Figma, its profit margins around 20% and its growth

this year was 44%, giving it a rule of 40 of 64, which puts it in the top five

of SAS companies. And just to give you a sense of how profitable and how economically efficient this company is,

Uber spent $21 billion between 2009 and 2021. Figma has raised

750 million but has 1.5 billion on its balance sheet meaning that it is it has

accreated $750 million. It works with between seven and eight of the 10 uh of

every Fortune 2000 companies. Adobe is sort of the Mercedes a little bit overengineered.

Um an amazing company. uh they have responded with competition with Adobe Express because Figma is known as being

more collaborative, but Figma is a little bit easier to use. Figma, I think, is more like Toyota. It's going

out at 18 times revenues. And the most interesting, I think, think about this

is this was the IPO that wasn't supposed to happen. And this IPO, which I think will offer investors an opportunity to

invest in a great company, more competition, corporations will be able to have better products. Great Adobe didn't get it. I think that

was a great move by the government. Exactly. Right. And we'll come back to that. 20 billion dollar valuation right now and also

$20 billion. Also from an employee standpoint, we're worried, you know, obviously about employees. When companies are acquired,

generally speaking, within a year, 18% of the employees have left of the company that was acquired. When a company goes public, usually they hire

increase their hiring in year one of 23%. And the reason this company is going public is not because of our

antitrust, not because of our regulation, but because of EU antitrust, which blocked this merger. So while

we're sitting on our hands letting companies concentrate power and become create a less competitive market, the EU

regulator said, "No, this makes no sense to take the numbers one and two player and let them let you know, let the

upstart." Figma is sort of to Adobe what AI is to search. Adobe is still going to

be an amazing business, but this is the new stuff. These guys are kind of the

the new guys. And the EU blocked this and as a result, Figma got a breakup fee

of a billion dollars in last year on top of it. Massively increase. It's just it's still shy of the Adobe

deal, but in terms of creating more billionaires, in terms of creating more economic value for people, this is the

right way to go as you're saying. Anyways, my prediction is the following. So, as as yesterday, I was literally

calling everybody I could to try and get shares in this thing for the IPO. Typically, they want to build a book of

somewhere between 8 and 12 times demand. And the way it works is institutions call and say, "I want a million shares." And they always vastly overestimate how

much they want because any decent IPO, you're going to get you're going to get cut back, right? You're going to get

trimmed back. So, you put in an overallocation. A really good IPO builds a book of 8 to 12 times the request for

the number of outstanding shares or the shares being issued. I found out yesterday that Figma was 40x overs

subscribed. And if you look at the companies going out this year, not only of IPOs, there's been fewer of them, but

the companies that have performed well are what I call it's not that they're not great companies, it's that they're

fashionable like Chime or Circle, like stable coin [ __ ] This is, in my

opinion, a real company. a real company that's a great company that's killing it that has

amazing economics, great products, great products. We haven't had many of those if any this year. So anyways,

my predictions is the following. Always dangerous to make predictions about stocks. This is not financial advice,

but this is what I have been trying to do. I have been trying my damnest to try and find shares in this thing because I

think the first trade today I think this thing closes up monstrously uh today and we're recording on a

Thursday morning. Uh but I think yeah, Figma is what I'll call the first great company to go public in

2025 and I think it's going to be seen as one of the better IPOs of the year. I'm really excited about this company and also it's a lesson

on the importance of antitrust and regulation. Who wins here? more employment, investors have an opportunity to invest in a pure play,

amazing company, corporations, more competition, more tax revenue. And thank

you EU, they actually said, "No, this is not a good idea. We would be better with two great companies, not one here." And

as a result, this company is now going public. It was supposed to be acquired 2 and a half years ago for 20 billion. It

was going to be acquired for 50 times revenues, but now investors will get a chance to invest at about 18 times

revenues. So, this is just a winwinwin. Anyway, uh thank you. That's an

excellent prediction. I love that one. Uh we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever is on your mind. Go to

nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 8551 pivot. Elsewhere in the Cara

and Scott universe this week, this week on Profy Conversations, Scott was with Ezra Klein, a New York Times columnist

and host of the Ezra Klein show. Let's listen to a clip. What's not working is the Democratic Party being leaderless and ruerless. Uh,

I'm not shocked that at the moment if you ask people in a poll who they'd vote for, like they don't really know what to

say. Like which Democrat? What do they know about them? But the Democratic Party is in a pretty shattered place.

I've had a little bit of more trouble than other people do, or let me put it differently. I'm a little bit less confident than other people seem to be

in interpreting those polls because one of the kind of structural characteristics of the past couple

decades is people's dislike of the parties is getting higher and higher and higher and it doesn't drive their voting

decisions in quite the way it has at other times but nevertheless they do not like the parties and so one of the reasons the Democratic party is very

unpopular right now is Democrats do not like it. Now, those people are not going to vote Republican, but they are pissed

off at the Democratic party, which has to them been ineffectual, which has to them been unable to stop uh the worst of

what Trump is doing, which has to them not come up with a message or come up with a set of leaders. It's going to

have to be a process of I mean, first it's going to be the midterms and they're going to have to figure out how to be in in opposition in a way that

coheres, but there's going to be a process of having to find leaders. Again, this is the first time the Democratic Party has been leaderless in

a very, very long time. Ezra is the kind of guy that wants to talk to you about his mushroom micro doing but first asks

if he can share his screen. You know it's that was a good interview. He's really

smart. He's really smart. I don't agree with him on everything but he's really smart. Um now Scott the time has come.

The time has come. You usually get testy by this time of year but Scottfree August is upon us.

It is. It is. It is upon us. You're I think you're like happier this year. You you usually get real testy and like,

you know, but you're you're not. I think it's Ezra Klein. Every time I listen to Ezra Klein, it's like

listening to a meditation app describing the the collapse of democracy. But how much are you going to miss me,

Scott? We have some. How much are you going to miss me? Really? A lot. A little. I don't miss anybody. I miss people when

I see them. Like I saw you come back. You're always to see me. Stop it. I miss my boys. Those are the only people I've ever missed in my life.

Okay. You miss me. What I do though, are you this way? I don't miss people and then I see them and I think, "Oh, I miss them." It's

like good to see them. I miss when you're not there. But we have some amazing co-hosts coming up, guest co-hosts. Mel Robbins, let them

lady who's amazing. She has one of the top podcast. Anthony Scaramucci, who was a big hit last year, is coming back.

Rachel Matto is coming and being replacing you, Scott. And I feel like, you know, things could happen.

Rachel Maddo. Rachel Matto and more. Isn't it weird? People want to replace me, but they don't want to be on with

me. Like, our guest quality goes up so dramatically. When you're not people like, "Yeah, I'm

fine to replace him because I know I'll do better. It's a low bar, but no one wants to come on."

Mad. Yeah. Secretary Clinton is going to be Jessica's co-host at Raging Moderates

when Oh, that's great. Yeah, I know. It's just amazing. Do you have any advice for these folks at all while you're away?

While I'm away? Yeah. Well, wherever you go, what do you have any advice for Mel Robbins or Jeramucci or Matto?

A lot of lesbian jokes. Just that that's that's my go-to. By the way,

if you listen to Ezra Klein's podcast Yeah. on one and a half speed. Okay.

It's like listening to It's like listening to a normal person describe how to ruin a dinner party.

Okay. Right. Any advice for co-hosts? Just lesbian jokes. That's your entire

bit of thing. Just a little nod to the making a lesbian joke. A little nod to the dog and a totally

profane uh not that funny, but because it's profane and not that funny. It's funny joke. It's just

okay. The left, all of these people, these people are somewhat left of the head of HR from the National Park

Service. So, our job on this podcast is to grab humor back for the progressives. So, be

inappropriate. Show some humor. We're all gonna be dead soon. Whoever you offend will get over it. let

them on that emotion and just have some fun. Have a great will miss you and like we'll catch up

when you get back and stuff like that and I will I will I will somehow come back stay at your apartment while you're

away. Anyway, uh that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube

channel. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Larara and Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin

Oliver. Ernie and Todd engineered this episode. Oh, Jesus Christ. I left 60 bucks in Uber fair on the c on the

counter. Thank you. No, I'll call you next week. Yeah, it's great to see you. Okay, who is this? Who is it? That's right.

Meet us out. There we go. Ernie Andrew engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Barrow's Mero and Dan Shelanda Shores

Vox executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Keep in mind I'm

sitting in a bean bag right now and she's standing. Anyways, thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can

subscribe to the magazine nymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things

tech and business. Tune in. Have a great August, G. Good to see you, too. Bye, everybody.