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Trump’s Iran Strategy: Strike, Then Shrug? | Pivot

June 24, 2025 / 55:53

This episode of Pivot covers the recent US strikes on Iran, the implications of Trump's military actions, and the launch of Tesla's robo taxi service. Hosts Cara Swisher and Scott Galloway discuss the geopolitical landscape, including Iran's response and the state of US alliances. They also touch on the challenges facing Elon Musk's ventures, including Tesla and SpaceX, and the evolving dynamics of big tech, particularly Meta's strategies in AI.

The episode begins with a light-hearted discussion about Jeff Bezos' wedding and the foam party that took place. Swisher and Galloway express their feelings about not being invited and joke about the event. They then transition to the serious topic of the Pentagon's announcement regarding Iran's nuclear sites and the US military's actions.

Swisher and Galloway analyze Trump's declaration of military success and the mixed messages from his administration regarding the strikes. They highlight the potential consequences of these actions, including Iran's retaliatory measures and the broader implications for US foreign policy.

The conversation shifts to Tesla's robo taxi service, which is currently in a limited rollout in Austin. They discuss the challenges Musk faces in the competitive landscape of autonomous vehicles and AI, as well as the financial pressures on his companies.

Finally, the hosts reflect on the current state of big tech, particularly Meta's attempts to dominate the AI space and the shifting investor sentiment towards tech stocks. They conclude with predictions about the future of TikTok and its valuation amid ongoing political tensions.

TL;DR

Swisher and Galloway discuss US strikes on Iran, Tesla's robo taxi launch, and Meta's AI strategies in this episode of Pivot.

Video

00:00:00
One of the things that's really interesting about the Trump era is we all move on. Every week is something unprecedented and then it's precedented.
00:00:12
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisser and I am at HQ
00:00:19
Vox and I'm Scott Galloway and this episode is sponsored by IBM. Thank you IBM. I'm jealous that I'm not going to
00:00:27
Bezos wedding this weekend. I had lunch with three guys who shall go nameless who seem like really fun, cool guys. And
00:00:33
they're all going. They're all going. We're not going. You're still not invited. Yeah. Did you see they had a foam party? It was so You, Scott, they
00:00:39
had a phone party on the yacht on the Kuru or whatever the hell they call it. I didn't see the phone party. Lauren and
00:00:45
Jeff were in a phone party, which I have not. It was someone commented to me they hadn't done since they were 25 years
00:00:50
old, but apparently it was for her son who was turning 19. Um, but they had a phone party on the on the deck of the
00:00:56
yacht. Mhm. Good for them. Yeah. The rumor is Lauren has been calling people and saying, "I need I need more single
00:01:03
men." Oh. Um I just I just think it's I think it'd be a really good time. Oh,
00:01:08
yeah. Well, we weren't invited, Scott. You had a outside chance possibly of being invited. Yeah. I think you brought
00:01:14
me down. I think I would have been invited had it not been for my affiliation with you. I know. I feel that that's the case. I feel like you
00:01:20
could have been you cuz you're kind of an interesting man. You're attractive enough for them. You have to be attractive. You're fit. You would have
00:01:26
fit the bill. You drink. You're down for it. You're DTF, as I like to say. Ever
00:01:31
since the scrotum lift, it's all coming together. Yeah. Yeah. I'm also on testosterone. I'm on the NAD. Yeah. NAD.
00:01:38
You're just like like them. I don't know why you're not friends with them. I don't know why the Kardashians have moved their way in and you haven't. I
00:01:43
just don't. There's something wrong. I agree with you. We We can fix it. I actually would have rather Well, no. I
00:01:50
think I'd rather go to the bach party. I think I'd rather go to the wedding. Supposedly the wedding vows include a commitment to provide emotional support
00:01:56
within 48 hours. And uh also it's uh every every uh
00:02:05
wedding plate has a list of items. It says if you chose this wedding, you might also like Oh, okay. Okay. Little
00:02:13
Amazon humor. Anyway, congratulations, Bezos as um anyway, we got a lot to get to today, so let's dig right in.
00:02:21
Obviously the big story. The Pentagon says three of Iran's nuclear sites sustained extremely severe damage
00:02:26
following the US strikes over the weekend, but it's too soon to know whether Iran still has nuclear capabilities. And the administration is
00:02:33
saying different things, including JD Vance versus the president, etc. President Trump declared the mission is spectacular military success on
00:02:39
Saturday, and he claimed the nuclear sites were completely and totally obliterated. Trump also said the strikes
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should force Iran to make peace and threaten future attacks if it doesn't happen. Iran's foreign minister is calling the attacks outrageous and
00:02:51
warning of everlasting consequences. That's an interesting word, everlasting. Um Trump is also now floating the idea
00:02:58
of regime regime change in Iran, posting on true social, make Iran great again or
00:03:03
MIGA. And in fact, as we record this, Iran has launched an attack on a US base
00:03:08
in Qatar, which is home to about 10,000 US troops. Qatar closed its airspace and
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suspended flights as a precautionary measure. A Qatari spokesman says the missiles were intercepted and so far no
00:03:20
injuries have been reported. I would expect more attacks in the region. Yeah,
00:03:25
looks it looks as if they also attacked in Iraq and you never know, but so far this looks like what I'll call a saving
00:03:31
face attack. It doesn't look like it's it looks like they needed to do something. Let's hope this is let's hope
00:03:37
this is all they do. Yeah. And in fact, Israel is continuing bombarding Iran itself at the same time. Though the vice
00:03:44
president JD Vance said on Meet the Press, "The US is not at war with Iran. We're war with Iran's nuclear program."
00:03:49
Vance also attempted to explain why this attack won't lead to a broader US involvement in the Middle East. He is he
00:03:55
is much more on the non-involvement wing just for even though he's doing this for the president. Let's listen. I certainly
00:04:01
empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I
00:04:08
understand the concern. But the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we have a president
00:04:14
who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives. So this is not going to be some long
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drawn out thing. We've got in we've done the job of setting their nuclear program back. We're going to now work to
00:04:26
permanently dismantle that nuclear program over the coming years. And that is what the president has set out to do.
00:04:32
Yeah, it sounds like a long war. Essentially calling ex-presidents dumb is just so ridiculous. What an idiot.
00:04:39
What an idiot. He also a lot of the other people in the administration are countering what Trump is saying. They don't know how much damage is done. Uh
00:04:45
General Kaine particular was like we we don't know because he's an adult and he can say they don't know. Um obviously
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they made an effort to do so. Um a lot of people think it's a bold move. Other people think uh it's going to be part of
00:04:57
a long drawn out war. Uh we'll get to the Trump of it all in a second, but overall thoughts, my favorite thing is
00:05:03
the name of it. Midnight Operation Hammer. Operation Midnight Hammer. Operation Midnight Hammer. I think that was the WhatsApp group planning Heg
00:05:09
Seth's bachelor party where he got his first DUI or it's I'm going to be he got
00:05:15
hammered too from what I see. It's the stage name of a porn star who's addicted to Red Bull. Midnight Hammer. Oh yeah.
00:05:21
Midnight Hammer. Yeah. Look. So I've been thinking about you know you'll be you're proud you'd be proud of me. I've
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been called by two big fairly big networks and asked to come on and talk about it and I'm like okay uh I'm willing to talk about a lot of things I
00:05:33
don't have expertise in. This is not one of them. Um I I see geopolitical
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strength as having three legs of the stool. The first is kinetic power. Uh
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the second is alliances and the third is competence. Um so just in reverse order, Israel has demonstrated more competence
00:05:52
than any the IDF just knows how to do more with less than any organization in the world right now militarily. They
00:05:58
are, you know, they have executed perfectly across some incredible operations, including taking out the air defenses of Iran. And going back to
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kinetic power, we have the most kinetic power in the world. And I do believe that if you're going to spend $800 billion on your military, that you want
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to go uh off your heels and onto your toes and and exert and proactively
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um display power and and offensively
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protect your national interest. So, I think there's a really good argument that we shouldn't be in forever wars. We none of our business, then fine. Take
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military spending down to 200 billion and spend it somewhere else. But Canada's not invading Buffalo. So,
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unless we're going to do things like this that project our power, uh, I don't I don't see why it'd spend so much
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money. And flying B2 bombers that deliver bunker busters, both of which are armaments and ordinances that nobody
00:06:51
else has in the world. I do think it's impressive and sends a strong signal to our adversaries and our allies. It
00:06:57
sounds to me like the operation was executed really well. I do think this was a moment in time to go on the
00:07:02
offense trying to put aside my disdain for the administration. So kinetic power that box is checked. The second is
00:07:09
alliances and this is really where we start to fall down and that is despite having you know we have 5% of the
00:07:15
world's population 25% of the world's GDP the the only successful really successful military operations are
00:07:22
basically a gauge for them is how much support you have from other democracies and in every other military operation like this immediately other western
00:07:29
nations weigh in and offer support and there's coordinated kind of nonverbal
00:07:35
support from unexpected uh unexpected countries including the
00:07:40
kingdom or Jordan and if you'll notice the only countries that are putting out
00:07:45
press releases are Russia claiming that they we have exaggerated the damage done in China saying that here they go again
00:07:51
making the world more uncertain and so going about this is in my opinion the first real example of the fact that our
00:07:58
alliances have somewhat been sequestered to an alliance where it puts us hip-to-hip with Israel which I like cuz
00:08:03
I'm very pro Israel but the reality is the Israeli brand globally is not very strong right now. I I think that not
00:08:10
going into this war unilaterally, strength and greatness are in the agency of others. And it struck me just how few
00:08:16
alliances we have of people willing to Yeah. will people willing the next day to say we of course used they let they
00:08:24
could use our our airspace and we and MI6 provided intelligence. Typically when any responsible president of which
00:08:31
JD Vance thinks are stupid and whereas he's a genius, they coordinate like crazy with their allies to say we would
00:08:37
really appreciate you coming out the next day in support of this and it creates it creates greater I think
00:08:42
emphasis and strength and a unified front. And then the third thing is competence. And this is really where we
00:08:48
fall down in my view because something that Americans I don't think focus on nearly enough is that when you have our
00:08:54
National Guard and our military and agents of the government focused on raiding a Home Depot in Westlake,
00:08:59
California, it it detracts from the focus we should have our military on operations such as this. When you decide
00:09:06
to declare economic warfare on everyone with tariffs that were derived from bad prompts to chat GPT, it shows that
00:09:13
you're incompetent. And then this on this specific operation, Secretary Gabbard comes out and says
00:09:20
there's no evidence they're moving towards a nuclear bomb. He says, "My intelligence community is wrong."
00:09:25
Secretaries Hagath and Rubio state we don't want regime change. Hours later, he says, "I'm in favor of regime
00:09:33
change." These guys just look like they just look incompetent in terms of their messaging, right? Or or he they don't
00:09:40
have control over him. That's really it. He doesn't he doesn't care what any of them say. And they've been trying to
00:09:46
message it. That's for sure. And one of the things that they tried to do is act like this was all part of a chess game
00:09:51
when, as we always notice, he's not playing chess. He's throwing the checkers everywhere and eating them essentially. But um you know, he said he
00:09:58
was waiting up to two weeks to decide on an attack plan. Appeared to be a decoy move or maybe not. Who knows? Which was
00:10:04
effective to call balls and strikes. It if that was what he was doing. If that was what he was doing. um reportedly he
00:10:11
made the decision to bomb Iran earlier in the week according to the Atlantic. Now he also um had a lunch with Bannon
00:10:18
which would show that he was maybe not going to do anything because Bannon's sort of anti- any of this. Um
00:10:25
it's probably a head fake move but maybe it's not. Now Republicans are rallying behind Trump but uh Democrats and a few
00:10:31
Republicans are calling the attack unconstitutional since Trump did not have congressional approval. to be fair
00:10:36
again, balls and strikes, other presidents have done this, have done attacks. Um it's just that he's he's so
00:10:42
violative of most laws that he's done it just seems even worse when he does it.
00:10:47
Um but other presidents to be fair have done this. Um and I think the braggadocio about whether we're
00:10:53
successful. I think probably you say very little. Um uh one of the things that's interesting is that whether it
00:11:00
creates a fracture in the MAGA coalition. Mag is pretending it's not, but there's clearly they're trying to
00:11:06
signal as best they can. They don't like this. Uh even in the soft language they're using, never using his name. Um
00:11:13
but there there's got to be a real problem here because once you get involved in this stuff, you don't get uninvolved. It's very hard to get it's
00:11:20
very easy to get into war, very hard to get out. Um the markets have had a muted response, which is interesting, and
00:11:26
that's what I really think we should focus on because we actually do know something about that. The US markets are up as of this recording. Oil prices
00:11:32
jumped after the strikes this weekend but are falling now. Trump is watching those oil prices. He posted on Truth
00:11:37
Social on Monday morning. Everyone keep oil prices down. You're playing right into the hands of the enemy. So talk a
00:11:43
little bit about that cuz nobody knows what to make of it. They I it must mean that they don't think he's going to
00:11:48
escalate. That would be one thing. That said, if Iran closes the straight of Hormuz as they've threatened to do, uh
00:11:55
those oil prices could spike. It doesn't it's not clear whether they can actually close it or we can open it right back up. Um but nonetheless there's
00:12:03
uncertainty but the the response has been muted. How do you why why do you think that's the case? I I generally
00:12:09
believe Trump is looking to bask in some macho light. This was I do think this
00:12:15
was a well executed military operation. We won't know the extent of the damage and unfortunately because we can't trust
00:12:20
our intelligence services anymore. It's hard to get accurate information and I'm not sure that we can count on Trump. I
00:12:26
don't think Trump did this as an act of support of Israel. I did I think he did it as an act of trying to he got jealous
00:12:32
of this this dick measuring contest where Netanyahu looked like have the bigger package and so he showed up and
00:12:38
he wanted some of it. But I think he's looking to get the hell out of dodge and not and not be drawn into a larger
00:12:45
conflict. And unfortunately, similar to our elected public, the IRGC is run by
00:12:50
the, you know, the Kmeni, who is an 86-year-old theocrat. And who knows what
00:12:56
this guy what's running what's running through this guy's head. No, he has to choose. He has to make a bad choice
00:13:02
between bad choices. But the straight of Hormuz, which everyone is worried about them seizing it up, the reality, Cara,
00:13:07
is that if the straight of Hormuz gets blocked, it hurts China a lot more than it hurts us. You know, China gets 5.4 4
00:13:14
million barrels a day through the straight. India gets 2 million, South Korea 1.7. People just don't realize how
00:13:21
incredibly blessed we are and how productive our economy is. We're actually a pretty much a self-sustaining nation. So if the straight of Hormuz
00:13:27
gets blocked, China gets very upset and pissed off. Now the way it hurts us is
00:13:32
that you could see a spike in oil prices, which would hurt us. And you know, for every for every for every 10
00:13:39
bucks I think a barrel goes up, it it translates to 25 cents in gas here. But the reality is the straight of hormuz
00:13:45
coming under um uh blockage or descent or tumult or chaos hurts Asia a lot more
00:13:50
than it hurts the United States. But still is it's an indicator. I think they won't be able to do that either whether they'll be able to the oil markets are
00:13:57
saying they're not worried. The oil markets if you hadn't known this had happened and you were looking at the markets, you wouldn't know this had
00:14:03
happened. It doesn't look as if the markets are yawning right now. that the markets are saying, and who knows, they
00:14:08
can be wrong, that this will be that Iran will have some sort of symbolic gesture similar to what they did with
00:14:14
Israel, sending over all those ballistics, the majority of which didn't impact them, and that this will quote
00:14:19
unquote deescalate and that and that um Trump gets his macho participation
00:14:24
trophy and we all move on. Yeah. One of the things that's really interesting about the Trump era is we all move on. like it's something that happened like
00:14:31
what was a couple weeks ago something every every week is something unprecedented and then it's precedented
00:14:38
essentially and what's interesting about it is if he look no other president has
00:14:43
tried this and I agree with you I think sometimes you do the big move the big grand gesture and then move out now one
00:14:50
thing that was striking to me was the polling on this thing most Americans don't want anything to do with it even
00:14:56
an attack it's fascinating like that he just did it without allied support,
00:15:01
without polling support, without anything. That is one reason I'm like
00:15:07
this guy, you know, this [ __ ] guy, he's just doing it cuz he wants to he doesn't seem to care about polls. He
00:15:13
doesn't see well, why would he in his, you know, he doesn't have to have to run again really. They had they got it. They
00:15:21
were perfect for a moment or they had the perfect statement. This was this is not a war or an attack on the Iranian people. This was an attack on
00:15:27
facilities. That was that was exactly right. But then they can't help themselves. Well, he can't. He can't.
00:15:33
And he starts talking about regime change. And here's the thing about regime change. It's an oxymoron. When
00:15:39
regime change is forced externally, it doesn't work. It's not truly regime change. So, we tried that once in Iran.
00:15:46
We had there was a democratically elected uh president of Iran. He was overthrown by the CIA and MI6 because he
00:15:53
had this crazy notion that Iranian oil belonged to Iranians. So we we got him
00:15:58
thrown out and we put in the sha of Iran who was an autocrat and ultimately he
00:16:04
was thrown out and then the Islamic Republic came in. 50% of the time where you think you have a democratic regime
00:16:10
change it ends up going back to something else. You can't we should just never be in the regime change business.
00:16:16
It doesn't work. The people have to decide. But at the same time, I'm sort
00:16:22
of I mean, the IDF has done an amazing job taking down their um their uh
00:16:30
defense infrastructure, their aerial defense infrastructure, people. They've killed a lot of like Well, it depends
00:16:36
how you define it. They they've killed a lot of senior level military officers, but there's actually been very little death here, right? I mean, granted, they
00:16:43
keep taking out leadership is what they keep Yeah. And they've sent a very a very strong signal. we've punched. The
00:16:49
biggest mistake you make in strategy is you think you're punching a speed bag. And there's always a lot of unintended
00:16:54
consequences, not only in war, but Jesus Christ, in the Middle East, no one can predict. I mean, it is it is so difficult to predict. There are so many
00:17:01
X factors flying around anything involving the Middle East. And to think that they might not respond, I don't
00:17:07
know. We we can all guess, but at this point, anybody who who lays out what they know is going to happen doesn't
00:17:13
know what they're talking about. You're 100% right. I think the issues this has been good for for Israel. That's what
00:17:19
it's been good for. It's been less good for us. Um but we'll see. We'll see if
00:17:25
if Trump keeps his mouth shut. Like I I do think Vance and the others and Kaine are signaling the we don't know how much
00:17:31
we've hit. This is only to stop the nuclear if they stick to the nuclear program. Iran should never have a
00:17:37
nuclear device period. And that's in our interests. That's that that should be that and they that the question is can
00:17:44
it be that and that unfortunately many other people have been dragged in here many other presidents but by the way J
00:17:49
is calling presidents dumb just you're dumb you're dumb why why are you why
00:17:54
that line you're like it was a good line and then you add why are you destroying alliances with former Republicans and
00:18:00
also Americans in our kind of our tendency and our fascination with self-hate we are willing to take a
00:18:07
victory lap in the sense that if you think of us as having four enemies China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran.
00:18:14
The Ukrainian army has beaten the [ __ ] out of Russia and through and through support of from Western Europe and the
00:18:20
US has basically defanged Russia. And quite frankly, if Russia had not gone into Ukraine or if in fact they'd ended
00:18:27
up in Kee within 7 days, I'm not and Russia was still the scary military
00:18:32
power we all thought it was. I'm not sure we would have done this because if Russia had still had its proxies in Syria and could be more supportive of
00:18:39
Iran directly with technology, I think we we would have been less bold around
00:18:44
Iran. So, the West right now when it comes to two of our enemies, Iran and
00:18:51
Russia, we are kicking the [ __ ] out of them and we should we should celebrate that that the that that the West is
00:18:59
winning. The question is, and these guys never asked, I don't think this question is what now? And what bothers me is that
00:19:06
we don't have a unified front with all of our Western allies around what is next within the Trump administration.
00:19:12
That's clear. They can't get their own messaging straight. I was sort of like, what? Huh? Like they keep saying anyway,
00:19:17
it's cuz Trump, you never know what he's going to say at any given minute. Anyway, uh we'll see what happens. We're not experts here, but it certainly seems
00:19:24
the market's going oh well. Okay. Like another thing, what's he going to do next week? Let's hope very little
00:19:29
happens actually. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Elon's robo taxis hit the road. Emphasis
00:19:35
on hit. Support for Pivot comes from IBM. Bigger isn't always better, especially with AI.
00:19:42
Superersized models can drain your budget fast. Smaller ones are smart and can help cut AI cost up to 90%.
00:19:49
Rightsize your models at ibm.com. The AI built for business. IBM
00:19:58
Scott, we're back. Uh Tesla's long-awaited robo taxi service is now on the streets of Austin with a few
00:20:03
caveats. This initial rollout has Tesla employees riding in the front passenger seat to ensure safety. The service is
00:20:09
also currently invite only uh to fans with a geo fenced area of Austin, a small area. Riders are paying a flat fee
00:20:16
of 420. Haha. Uh the launch comes just days after Texas Governor Greg Abbott
00:20:21
signed new law regulating self-driving cars. The legislation takes effect in September and requires companies to get
00:20:26
permit to operate self-driving vehicles. The state can revoke those permits if safety becomes a concern. Uh, you know,
00:20:32
this is just shares are up 10%. I can't believe this because there it's like the smallest
00:20:38
little service going. Um, it's not going to create the billions and bill tens of billions or trillions that Elon has
00:20:45
promised. There are very many competitors. And by the way, VW is getting into the game. The company just unveiled a robo taxi that will be used
00:20:51
by Uber's fleet uh next year. Um this ID they make is be I'd love to have an ID
00:20:57
Volkswagen ID actually. Um great great looking cars, great electric looking
00:21:02
electric cars look fun and interesting to drive. So um who knows what's going to happen here. He's also facing other
00:21:08
challenges. His startup XAI is reportedly burning a billion dollars a month while generating just $500 million
00:21:13
in revenue this year. According to Bloomberg, the company is now seeking $9.3 billion in debt in equity to close
00:21:20
the gap and what SpaceX is calling a major anomaly. Starship rocket exploded during routine testing for the launch
00:21:27
last week. Important law. It was an important test actually. Um I have been saying this over and again his leverage
00:21:33
is very uh tight. He's got a lot of tight. Everything is depending on it's like a jen. It feels very Jengaike
00:21:40
what's happening here. um he often does pull a rabbit out of the hat, but it seems like given the competitors in the
00:21:47
in the both the robo taxi and the car space, the competitors in the in the AI
00:21:53
space and SpaceX seems to be struggling a little bit and and still hasn't gone
00:21:59
public and hasn't provided him the funding he needs. Um what do you think is going on here? It seems a little
00:22:05
precarious for Elon Musk. Yeah, I I think some of your bias is coming out.
00:22:10
He Like it the reason he's the wealthiest man in the world is he's incredibly risk aggressive. That's what
00:22:16
I Yes, he is. And he makes these just dramatic huge bets. The difference now versus making the huge bets he made on
00:22:22
Tesla when he legitimately could have gone bankrupt if didn't get a $50 million loan is that he now has
00:22:28
businesses in space, EVs, AI, marine implants, and any one of those if they
00:22:35
hit to the same extent that Tesla hit for a while. SpaceX is still a remarkable company. the anomaly or the
00:22:40
explosion to a certain to a certain extent that's what makes SpaceX what SpaceX is and that is NASA can't blow up
00:22:47
I've said that you know I've said that you said that absolutely many times so and it it is Starlink is still a
00:22:53
superior service the robo taxi thing I mean it all comes down to this he uses
00:23:00
technology Whimo uses liar which is strikes me as better technology safer
00:23:05
technology and much more expensive cost about a quart of a million dollars to put a lidar enabled autonomous car on
00:23:11
the road. Whereas Tesla's saying if this works, we can produce these things for $36,000.
00:23:17
Now, if they're able to show that they can deploy these things safely, which of which you pointed out, and it's true,
00:23:22
there's some concern, they're going to have a real cost advantage. And they also have a lot of data from the Teslas
00:23:27
already on the street. I think consumers win here. I think I think Whimo is way ahead. Um, but,
00:23:35
you know, we'll see. There's also Zuks from Amazon. There's also the Zuks car which has been testing for a long I've
00:23:41
been in zukses for years. I think the issue is he's he's been slow. It doesn't mean that he can't catch up. You're 100%
00:23:48
right. Like I agree with you. I just think that he's acting like he's the king of this area where he is not the
00:23:53
king. He's the he's he's the come Johnny come lately in this area and shouldn't have been. He should have been far ahead
00:23:59
in robo taxis and sort of the the pace setter. And the same thing with AI. he
00:24:04
should have been the pace setter in AI and one of someone in well all this stuff is going on in AI and obviously
00:24:10
it's still unsettled with various investments there's rumors that perplexity is going to get bought by Apple there's rumors you know there's
00:24:17
all kinds of like who's going to get bought who's going to get sold etc etc but he should have been out front here
00:24:23
and he's not out front what he's succeeded in is areas nobody else will enter because he's so risk uh aggressive
00:24:29
which is great which is a really great quality that he's had he was in areas nobody was in right now he's competing
00:24:35
in areas other people are doing rather well in and that's where I find the
00:24:40
problems for him the only one that is not the case which is in Starlink but the Chinese are coming in the Europeans
00:24:46
are coming in Jeff Bezos is coming in he's in competitive areas and he does it just simply doesn't his his boldness
00:24:54
doesn't work here it's it's a it's a it's a level of quality of service that you provide with these robo taxis that
00:25:01
requires um a little more discipline than just oh well we crashed a couple of
00:25:07
cars. You can't do it anymore because the others aren't crashing. GM was thrown out for crashing. So I feel like
00:25:13
it's not a bias. It's like he doesn't have an adv the the aggression is not an advantage in most of these businesses
00:25:20
necessarily. Cost might be as you pointed out that might be the case but I
00:25:26
think those other companies will figure out a way to bring down cost too. like I don't think he has a a definite
00:25:32
advantage in any of these areas including Starlink at this point. I think eventually they will catch up with
00:25:38
him and sooner than later. See, I see it as if you're going to bifurcate his winners and losers in terms of his
00:25:44
portfolio. My sense of him is he's able to create such a vision and create so
00:25:49
much awareness around the vision that he's able to pull cheap capital forward and run away from everyone else. I think
00:25:55
he's the ultimate case study on first mover advantage and his first mover advantage is apparent at Tesla with EVs
00:26:02
and SpaceX with space launch cargo cargo launch capability. I think both of those
00:26:07
companies Tesla has already provided him made him the wealthiest man in the world. I think SpaceX is going to be a
00:26:12
monster probably the biggest IPO at 26. the other areas where he's a trying to be a fast follower, whether it's AI or
00:26:19
autonomous driving, I don't think he's as good at because there's other people who are already able to sort of, you
00:26:26
know, they have the advantage. The market is already maturing. He's he's better as a quote unquote first mover
00:26:32
than a fast follower. And that's how he would quote unquote bifurcate his portfolio in terms of winners and
00:26:37
losers. I do think Starink though has is going to have challenges now. just that we have no one thought anyone would
00:26:42
catch up to Tesla and I think companies are catching up to Tesla very clearly catching up to whether it's BYD same
00:26:49
thing in Starlink this he is let me pay him a compliment he's always out front on lots of stuff but he's furthered away
00:26:56
his advantage in most of these areas he should have had he bragged about that [ __ ] robo taxi a decade ago to me why
00:27:04
didn't he have it cuz he's undisiplined cuz he can't like it that doing a robo
00:27:09
taxi takes a lot of hard detailed work of which he loves a splash, right? And I
00:27:15
agree, he should have gone into e what what what did he sit around waiting to do XAI for for a decade like he was he
00:27:22
was the first person who ever told me about these businesses and yet he's he's an also ran in the in in that space. So
00:27:30
why like I'm I'm saying it's okay to be a pioneer, but the planes are covered with the bodies of pioneers as far as I
00:27:35
can tell. And I think I wish he would just discipline himself and we'll see what happens with the SpaceX thing, but
00:27:42
blowing these things. I get that I always say, well, he can blow things up. There's a point where he can't blow any more things up, right? There is this is
00:27:49
the fourth in a row, I think, of a blow up of these things. Um, he's got to get it right and and make it efficient. Um,
00:27:56
and I don't think they expected this particular thing to blow up and it's costly and delaying and etc, etc. Well,
00:28:03
Star I I still think Starlink I think Starlink's an incredible product and arguably has the most differentiated
00:28:09
product lead of any product that that is that important to people. It's like water for wealthy people is broadband.
00:28:15
It's just and and there's just no comparison especially if you're on a plane and they have Starlink. You
00:28:21
literally you start salivating like oh this is I'm going to be so much more productive on this flight. The extent to
00:28:26
which other competitors can catch up. I've just been contacted quite a lot by the Amazon folks with their Kyper Cooper
00:28:33
Kyper but I don't know what I'd be curious to know is he he controls 60% of low orbit satellites. I don't know. Do
00:28:39
you need 2% 10% 20% to have a viable product? I just don't know what the the technology I feel like everyone's going
00:28:44
to chase him here and he's not going to have that advantage forever. Well, and that's that's what we want, right? We want competition. He'll either innovate
00:28:51
and maintain as lead or he won't. the the the one that I think is his biggest
00:28:57
weakness is I just think X AI. I think he's emotional about it and trying to catch up and he's not even the number
00:29:04
two. He's the distant number three or four mill. They're they're projecting
00:29:09
500 million revenues and I think I think OpenAI is projecting around 13 billion.
00:29:15
Anthropic is projecting about two billion and has carved out sort of an interesting brand as the number two
00:29:21
player, if you will. And they're they're chewing through so much cash at XAI. I
00:29:27
think they're spending about a billion dollars a month. Billion a month. Yeah. Incredible. And he's going really big.
00:29:33
$500 million in revenue. 12 billion a year. $500 million in revenue. He's building out this data center in
00:29:39
Tennessee called Colossus which is powered by over get this 100,000 Nvidia
00:29:45
GPUs. It's going to be the largest supercomputing cluster uh in the world. So, but he's also
00:29:52
facing legal challenges there because of the energy the way he's doing energy. Is that right? Yeah. Because of it's just
00:29:58
he has he had these I don't know why he wasn't first in several of these things previously. the robo I can't tell you
00:30:05
how many times he talked about robo taxis and autonomous cars years ago and I like the I like the vision but I would
00:30:11
like a delivery and everyone else delivered and he needs to focus on I just don't think it's also why did he
00:30:17
have to say it's it's like why did JD Mans have to say they're dumb presidents why did he have to say it's a trillion
00:30:22
dollar business why not not say that because now that's the number he has to beat right he's got to or get to or when
00:30:30
the first robo taxi I got in it immediately dropped down an air freshener. I don't know what that means.
00:30:36
Have you ridden in one yet? Yeah, I rode in one and I was so blown away. I was in LA and I called a Whimo and it pulled up
00:30:44
and immediately I go to an intersection where there's an accident and there's a cop with a yellow vest and those and
00:30:50
cones and I'm like, there's no [ __ ] way this thing is going to be able to figure it out. And it drove like a
00:30:56
16-year-old girl who just got her license. I'm sorry, 16-year-old boy who just got his license. very careful. And
00:31:02
you know what? The thing figured it out. It was unbel it it it said the amount of
00:31:08
sensors and processing power to go, okay, this is a law enforcement official telling me to go into the wrong lane on
00:31:14
the other side of the yellow line and I'm going to do it. They didn't used to be able to do that. Yeah. Because I have
00:31:20
sensed that this person is a law enforcement official and they are waving me over to this lane. I'm It's amazing.
00:31:25
You know what they used to have problems with is is um plastic bags blowing. That was problem. They thought that because
00:31:31
of course the people who really don't like Tesla are doing all the tests with the Tesla robo taxis and they keep
00:31:37
running over like fake children, you know, like dummies and you know that's not any good
00:31:43
for their brand. And so they I would not get in a Tesla right now cuz I don't
00:31:49
feel like they're safety is their biggest concern. I wouldn't do it. I don't like getting him to them as an Uber, but that's a different thing.
00:31:55
That's my bias. That is my bias. I I love robo taxis as you know and so I am
00:32:00
very eager to get in these things but I would not find it safe enough. I would not trust it. I just don't I don't think
00:32:06
they've squared every corner the way I think the whimo people have. Um and I'll I'll be in at zuks. It was a very good
00:32:13
experience too by the way. Um anyway and by the way I wouldn't get in GMs either. This is not an Elon thing. I was very
00:32:19
worried about their um when they were doing their their business. Now maybe they'll come back. Maybe they won't. But
00:32:25
uh we'll see. Anyway, uh, good luck, Elon. Um, I wonder if he's going to the wedding. Do you think he's going to the wedding? Uh, I don't know. No, I don't
00:32:33
think they like each other. Just so you know, Jeff Scott is free if you want. Yeah, I got nothing on this. He'll come
00:32:38
He'll come at the last minute. He'll just show he will completely he'll he'll he'll wait on you hand and foot if if
00:32:44
that's what needs. Well, we're just joking about coming at the last minute. I become the Albert Einstein of sex. And
00:32:50
that is I'll say to my partner, "That was fast for you.
00:32:56
Get it. Get it. Oh my god, that's so bad. You need to up the game on the
00:33:02
penis jokes. Okay, come on. We need some help. Comedy writer. I hope Godzilla
00:33:07
comes without wedding. And the great thing about watching Godzilla have sex as you can see it coming a mile away. Oh
00:33:12
my god. All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, investors sour on big tech. Scott, we're back with more
00:33:18
news. Mark Zuckerberg's support for President Trump isn't a shock to people who know or work with him. According to a report in the Financial Times, which
00:33:24
wrote a very kind piece about you, by the way, recently, those close to Zuck say the shift. Who did the New York
00:33:29
Times write a kind piece about? Yeah, they did. They did. Those close to Zuck about me. Uh say the shift is just him
00:33:36
showing the world his authentic self instead of trying to be a good boy. One former insider said Zuckerberg saw Elon
00:33:41
Musk was popular among the tech bros and there was quote a push to make him cool unquote with new hobbies and wardrobes.
00:33:47
But Zuck and big tech don't seem to be catching the eye of the average Joe. Individual investors are cutting back on buying Magnificent 7 and other tech
00:33:53
giants according to recent report from Vander Research. Um, look, let me just tell you, Mark was always the person
00:34:01
you're seeing now. He was never a good boy. He just did it for a while cuz that's what he was supposed to do. But
00:34:06
he's always been a jerk. Always, always, always. And this stuff that he's doing now is just a version of it. Especially
00:34:13
the outfits and stuff like that. He is so he is so insecure and self-aware of what people think of him. He was always
00:34:19
ever like this and he will always be like this. So that's my opinion. But talk about the the you can talk about
00:34:25
Mark if you want but the big tech with investors. Do you think there's the the the you know the shine is off them. I I
00:34:33
see I I think it's bigger than that. I first off so goes big you know as goes big tech so goes the rest of the market.
00:34:40
And effectively the market has come back and you had essentially almost all of the
00:34:46
losses have been have been um recaptured with the exception of the MAX 7 is still
00:34:53
down a decent amount not a huge amount but they now make up about 34% of the index's market cap and currently their
00:35:01
forward looking PE is roughly 31 um which is higher than the S&P which the
00:35:06
rest of the S&P sits at 23 combined I think it's about 26. But I think what
00:35:12
you're seeing here is a decadesl long reversal in the flows of capital. And
00:35:17
the the worst thing for our economy that I think is going to vastly diminish our prosperity is we have taken for granted
00:35:24
the incredible torrential flows of both human and financial capital from the
00:35:29
rest of the world into the US. And I think that river has reversed. And uh the Euro stocks is having the
00:35:36
best relative performance of the year in comparison to the US market since 2000. In just the first quarter of this year,
00:35:43
26 billion euros flowed into the European equities markets. A significant shift. And this came after 12
00:35:49
consecutive quarters of net outflows. And currently it looks as if in this quarter we're going to see more than 31
00:35:56
billion in total positive flows which would shatter a previous record from 2015. in some carara there's a finite
00:36:03
amount of human and financial capital and financial capital has traditionally over the last 15 years flowed into the
00:36:09
US which does a couple things it lifts the price of our stocks because people want to be in US equities and they go into index funds which is spread across
00:36:16
all our equities and it and it increases the dollar strength and the dollar has
00:36:21
declined despite the fact we're offering greater interest rates if you buy our treasuries because we're no longer seen as a safe bet the dollar has weakened
00:36:28
about 10% the dollar has been the weakest of the kind of mature economies currencies because the reality is caris
00:36:35
a lot of people are waking up to the notion that it's been an incredible run but we're going to invest some money in
00:36:41
Asian, Latin American and European stocks. Yep. Absolutely. I think it's we are not the as you said last week the
00:36:48
shine is off our country in terms of brand equity and stuff like that and we'll see if it returns obviously if if
00:36:54
the economy does better etc. But it certainly is. It's not a surprise. Um, as to any thoughts on Zuckerberg? I
00:37:01
think he's always been the same way. I don't think he's changed one little bit. He's an unusual guy. I don't, you know,
00:37:08
he's very performative. He's very performative. You know him much better than I. I think this is I think most of
00:37:13
these guys didn't get enough attention from women as younger men. Yeah. I just And are constantly I I don't know. I
00:37:20
just think this is very these guys there's some something broken about these guys that they would I don't
00:37:26
understand the point of all deep insecurity. That's all it is. It's like he's always he's just um he he like
00:37:33
sweated insecurity since the get-go. He was always somehow trying to impress. What do you think? I mean literally the
00:37:38
first thing he said to me is you think I'm an [ __ ] don't you? And I don't even know you. Like it was so weird and
00:37:45
performative and I don't know whatever. Mark be you. I'd love to know who he is.
00:37:50
Actually, would be interesting. And if he's a jerk, he's a jerk. And in AI news, Sam Alman says Meta has offered
00:37:56
his employees signing bonuses as high as hund00 million in an attempt to poach staffers. Let's listen to what else he
00:38:01
had to say about Meta on the Uncapped podcast. Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor. And you know, I
00:38:08
think it is rational for them to keep trying. Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they've hoped. And
00:38:14
I respect like being aggressive and continuing to try new things. And and I and again given that I think this is
00:38:19
like rational, I expect that if this one doesn't work out, they'll keep trying new ones after that. Was so good at
00:38:25
insulting the backhanded compliment. He does this all the time. He's really so obvious and good at it. But um you
00:38:32
know that's you know it's not the only grab meta is making for AI competitors. The company's also discussed buying
00:38:37
perplexity AI before investing in scale AI. Um you know this is what he does. This is what Mark does is he pays and
00:38:44
pays and pays and burns through a lot of money and tends to win. In this case, I think he's going to have a much harder
00:38:49
time. Again, as we discussed with uh Elon Musk, there are competitors here and they're good competitors. Um I think
00:38:56
probably Google is probably OpenAI's biggest competitors. Of course, there's Microsoft, there's Apple once it decides
00:39:03
to, you know, uh get, you know, pull its pants on and get going. Um, so I don't I
00:39:08
think it's a little harder for him to win when he was only in the social media space and here he is in a much bigger
00:39:14
space and it's going to be a lot harder. He's not necessarily as good at this. So your thoughts again I kind of bifurcated
00:39:21
open AI has become the hertz and anthropic is is the avis right the
00:39:28
number numbers one and two the but but meta I think is still arguably gains
00:39:36
more market cap from AI innovation this year than any other big company because
00:39:41
what I see is a company that has incredibly strong leadership and very
00:39:47
strategic thinking from Mark Zuckerberg which has sometimes been to the detriment of society real large. He's
00:39:54
the second largest purchaser of GPUs and he has 170 trillion tokens of Gris to
00:40:02
stuff into that furnace of GPUs in the form of data collected across
00:40:08
platforms where four and five people outside of China are on these platforms you know every day. So he has he has all
00:40:15
the assets. Now, how does it manifest in terms of shareholder value? I don't think it's llama or some sort of
00:40:21
consumerf facing AI program. I think how it manifests in terms of um in terms of
00:40:27
shareholder value is I just think it's going to be a pretty grim year. I think the I think anyone that's not meta
00:40:35
is going to have basically a very very small offering at can next year because
00:40:41
I think their offering using AI is going to be so incredible to advertisers. It's like, "Oh, you you can only spend your
00:40:47
budget is 100,000. We'll produce a commercial for you in about 2 hours with decent prompts. We'll optimize the media
00:40:54
plan. You give us the objectives." And they're just going further and further up and down specialize. Yeah. Up and
00:41:01
down the food chain of the one and a half% of the economy. I mean, it they're they're not even they've already gone
00:41:08
after the big guys. They've already gutted WP Omnicom and to a lesser extent Puby which has Embrace Technology.
00:41:15
They're going to go after regional agencies now. They're going to go after small producers that produce these
00:41:22
little commercials for Toyota of Northern California and they're going to say using our AI you don't need to go
00:41:27
anywhere else. You don't need creative. You don't need media planning. You don't need So what you're saying is the area they have already excelled in. They will
00:41:32
continue. They don't really need to win the open AI consumer product thing. They don't need a consumerf facing AI. Even
00:41:39
if llama doesn't compete with open AI and with anthropic or with clo or
00:41:45
claude, I don't know what they're calling it. No, it's not CL. It's not CL. It's Claude. My best my best
00:41:51
employee at L2 was a a French Canadian woman named Clode. Okay. Uh, by the way, if someone who's a Canadian immigrant
00:41:58
who was on the Yale gymnastics team shows up to your office, just hire them automatic hire. All right. Elite
00:42:03
athletes, individual sports, female. Anyways, the back end, the the tech stack they're offering to marketers
00:42:09
right now, it's like, okay, good luck competing with that. And the only people that can compete with it are Alphabet
00:42:16
because they have such incredible dominance around YouTube and then they can feed it with still what is 89% share
00:42:23
of search. But I just look at I just it just we're just a can it cracks me up.
00:42:29
Pretty soon Meta's Beach is going to be San Trope. They're going to be like, "Do you want to come to San Trope?" this
00:42:34
entire week. It's the Meta Beach and all of the rest of you will invite you come
00:42:41
to your we're going to come to the best party uh before your execution. It just
00:42:48
strikes me that any of these people would accept an invitation to go to Meta Beach. They don't have to win everywhere. That is what you're saying.
00:42:54
Essentially, they can just win in these areas that are they're going to win among companies looking to looking to
00:43:01
acquire marketers and spend their media dollar. I think it was John Womaker who said half the money I spent on
00:43:06
advertising is wasted. Uh the trouble is I don't know which half. Meta Meta can
00:43:12
tell you and Meta can say I tell you what instead of wasting that 50% with other people bring it to us spend 30 of
00:43:19
it save 20 and and we'll go from 50% not knowing where it's going or it's not effective to to 10 to 5 to 3 to one
00:43:26
because we'll test it a million times. I think the question is can Chad GBT hold on to its Kleenex, you know, name like
00:43:33
are they Google? Are they Google synonymous with it? Yeah, we'll see. We'll see if they can. Um, last thing,
00:43:38
President Trump has extended the deadline for the Tik Tok ban by 90 days. Yet again, this marks the third
00:43:44
extension after an initial deadline of January 19th. A reported deal came to a halt amid US and China trade tensions
00:43:51
earlier this year. JD Vance was supposedly doing this with the guy who left Waltz or he's sort of left. I don't
00:43:58
know where they put him. Um, but that's who was working on it. It looks like they're not even working on it. And so
00:44:03
tech Tik Tok was having a lot of parties at Khan. So I don't know. What do you What do you Look, I think Tik Tok is the
00:44:09
most undervalued company in tech right now. It's trading at the same valuation as as um Open AAI with 15 times the
00:44:17
revenue. It's trading at like one and a half to three times revenues depending on if you're looking at forward or trailing 12 months. Everyone thinks, oh
00:44:24
well, what about the insecurity, the overhang that's keeping that valuation low because of uh insecurity around the US market. It's clear that Trump has
00:44:31
decided he likes Tik Tok. He's not taken seriously. It's likely not going to be banned right now. Jeff Yas owns 15% of
00:44:38
the company, gave $und00 million to Republican candidates, and only 20% of
00:44:44
the revenue comes from the United States. So, this thing is a juggernaut. And also, just personally, I think it's
00:44:50
the most addictive of all the platforms. I could I could right now go upstairs,
00:44:56
take off my shoes, take an edible, and be on TikTok for 28 hours and not know what happened. I just think it is in
00:45:02
that algorithm is incredible. They continue to grow. And the notion somehow
00:45:08
that he keeps extending these deadlines, I mean, they they will never come to the
00:45:14
table. Why would they? Why on earth would they take anything this guy takes
00:45:19
seriously? So, I think it's an incredible company. I think they're going to be one of the if they ever decide to go public, if the Chinese will
00:45:26
let them go public, it'll be I was even and I like to talk about what I'm doing to to show you know rather than giving
00:45:33
financial advice, what am I doing? I have been diversifying out of US stocks into European stocks for the better part
00:45:39
of a year now. I'm also contemplating going into the private market and going to one of these secondary markets
00:45:44
whether it's setter or some of the others and seeing if and when I can pick up a block of bike dance because I think
00:45:52
at a valuation of 300 billion I think this there is no company performing as well at this price to sales ratio as Tik
00:46:00
Tok the overhang of the geopolitical risk of the US is vastly overestimated
00:46:06
in terms of Tik Tok's valuation or by dance's valuation yep So, we'll see. They're probably going to do nothing.
00:46:11
Like, I think it's just an all I I I I honestly they'll probably just decide suddenly and we'll have some strange
00:46:18
deal, but certainly Elon's not may not be part of it the way that people thought would be. Um, they thought he
00:46:24
had the insight. All this she doesn't scare this all this armwaving that Larry Ellison that that
00:46:30
that Trump's going to get to carve up Bance's US operations like a like a cake
00:46:36
and give it to his Republican buddies. She's just like, "Let Yeah, let have at it. Good luck." Do what you want. Waste
00:46:43
your time. Continue to excel. Anyway, waste your time. Uh, we'll see. It probably will they'll probably do it sometime around the next election would
00:46:50
be my guess. We make the mistake of believing that Chinese companies like America are run for profits and shareholder value. The run for control.
00:46:57
He's not going to give up control even if it costs a lot in shareholder value. Anyway, Trump made a big deal of it and
00:47:02
now of course it's off to the side as it's mostly the same thing. We're on to something else. I don't even know what we're going to be on to this week unless
00:47:09
Iron D drives us back in. All right. Uh, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear
00:47:17
some wins and fails. I I'm Shall I start? Yes, please. Um, I love I
00:47:23
actually was very um with some stuff in Los Angeles. both Bob Iger's the I think
00:47:28
it's the Angels soccer team and others and the Dodgers have donated have been doing things donate in the case of the
00:47:34
Dodgers they donated a million dollars to assist families impacted by immigration raids it's a small amount of money but I kind of like that they stood
00:47:41
up a little bit there people are showing little signs even Bob Iger with they put out uh t-shirts about immigration for
00:47:47
their um the soccer team did I like little standups I'm I'm seeing a lot of really cool little standups all over the
00:47:54
place but people who should have stood up a long time ago show, but I um I I I
00:47:59
really appreciate them. And the one I appreciate the most uh in terms of a win was your uh your side piece, Jessica
00:48:06
Taroff, on raging moderates. Uh your co-host called uh Trump called her a
00:48:11
disgrace to television broadcasting. I think she's killing it on the five and
00:48:16
she does a very good job in your show, but on the five is where he notices it, just so you know. Um and I thought uh I
00:48:22
thought that was great that she got I loved it. And I was like, "Go Jessica." She's a standup gal is what she is. And
00:48:29
I really appreciate how she does that. I really I like And she sticks to it. She's very firm, very clever. She's very
00:48:36
funny. Um, and so I like all these people that are doing little standups that are that that um that they do, but
00:48:41
she's my favorite this week of all of the different ones. Uh, my fail is are are the the Medicaid cuts that are
00:48:48
coming. Um uh well I had two fails but this is these cuts that are coming to
00:48:53
Medicaid are going to eviscerate certain states like West Virginia and others um
00:48:58
because um it's it's just it's going to be so bad when these if these cuts are
00:49:04
passed. Now, I know it seems like we've forgotten about the big beautiful bill, but when it goes into effect, I think it's going to have some of the worst
00:49:11
um states like uh West Virginia, Kentucky, others, um they're reliant on
00:49:18
this program and uh these deep spending reductions with the states taking over them is those states it's not going to
00:49:24
happen. And so that's I feel sorry for these people even though they I think the way they vote it was against their
00:49:30
self-interest. Uh but it still is, you know, these are states that are behind
00:49:36
already and they're going to be more behind um going forward and that's unfortunate. Yeah. So I I love your I
00:49:43
was not expecting I love your your win. That'll mean a lot to Jess. She has a a lot of respect for you. Your opinion
00:49:48
matters a lot to her and you know she's doing something right when Trump calls her out. Um so I think she wears that
00:49:54
correctly. She should as a badge of honor. Um I have sort of two wins or a win and a prediction. My first win is a
00:50:01
little less serious. Uh have you seen the series Mob Land? No, not not yet. No, it's outstanding. Is it? Um yeah, it
00:50:08
really just the the cast, the writing. Really just a fantastic Tom Hardy, who I
00:50:14
think is just a movie star. Oh, it's with who who else is in it? Oh, Pierce Braz.
00:50:20
Yeah, he's great. He's really He might I wouldn't be surprised if he gets an award. I think it's time for him to get
00:50:26
some recognition. He's very handsome. Patty Considine, who actually played one
00:50:31
of the leads in um um uh House of Dragons, is in it. Um uh
00:50:39
there's just the cast is just the cast is fantastic. It's very violent. I I like my mob story
00:50:46
about the UK. The guy who plays um uh oh
00:50:52
gosh, what's his name? uh Daniel Betts. He plays the rival family, the Pierce
00:50:57
Brosman character, the the patriarch of the rival mob family. It's just outstanding. It's such um good
00:51:03
entertainment. And also, it took me it's taken me about 4 hours to figure out how
00:51:08
to [ __ ] download Paramount Plus. Um I mean, it's like I haven't watched a lot
00:51:14
on Paramount Plus, and boy, it's not easy. Uh but anyways, my win is and for those of you who who enjoy media, Mob
00:51:21
Land's fantastic. My other win is more of a prediction and that is Reed Hastings in my prediction joining the
00:51:27
board of Anthropic. And the reason why is I think Reed is arguably one of the
00:51:33
brightest business people in the world in terms of pulling off the biggest pivots. And when I look at Netflix's
00:51:38
Achilles heel, it's the following. YouTube is able to uh capture a minute for half
00:51:45
the price or 40% of the price of Netflix. Why? because they pay the
00:51:50
creators directly and it's a commissionbased program. So if Netflix could say to a doc person, I'll give you
00:51:56
a million dollars for your documentary knowing they'll get two million back, that's a superior business model and that's what YouTube has. And I think
00:52:03
YouTube is going to do potentially to Netflix what Netflix did to Comcast and
00:52:08
Fox. So, as a result, I think Reed Hastings, now on the board of Anthropic, is going to announce within 12 months
00:52:15
that he is partnering with Anthropic, who by the way is looking for big, big
00:52:20
deals to take some oxygen away from the number one, Open AAI, and that Netflix
00:52:26
and Anthropic are going to announce a tick- tock like competitor that slices
00:52:31
and dices the fattest longtail of content in history, and that is the Netflix library, of which 99% probably
00:52:38
gets 1% % viewership and they'll slice it and dice it, have it be open source so creators can add voiceovers, do have
00:52:45
fun with it, and they'll launch a competitor that attempts to recognize that this newest generation is so
00:52:51
attention diffused and Tik Tok is so strong that they'll take the AI from anthropic and
00:52:58
the content of Netflix and launch a Tik Tok competitor. I think what's interesting about YouTube is they have
00:53:03
no production costs the way now there was an interesting thing uh that this great analyst always does is that you
00:53:10
know and then there's TubeB which sort of does that too right it goes to the it's a really it's been growing like
00:53:16
crazy because of the way it selects things for people in in the in the long tail of content essentially and what's
00:53:23
interesting about it is that they can survive together because some creators want the want the money to develop on
00:53:30
YouTube you you know, it's pay your own, you know, bring your own bring your own liquor to the store, to the to the
00:53:36
restaurant. And so, I think they're they could live together. But you're right, Netflix is is under will be under siege
00:53:42
from YouTube if YouTube starts to pay for production a little bit more. Anyway, it's an interesting it's an
00:53:48
interesting time. It certainly is. Um, that's a great one. That's a really good one. Anyway, uh uh we want to hear from
00:53:55
you. Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot
00:54:00
to submit a question for the show or call 85551 pivot. And elsewhere in the Cara and Scott universe. This week is on
00:54:06
with Cara Swisser. I spoke with writer and political commentator Molly Jungfast about her new um memoir which details
00:54:13
her relationship with her mother. Let's listen to a clip. Sometimes the children of narcissists become stuck on trying to
00:54:20
fix their relationships with their narcissistic parents despite the fact that there's not any
00:54:27
role for them to play and that they they over sort of become overly guilty
00:54:33
because of that. And that made so much sense that it made me think that that's what I did. I know all about that.
00:54:39
Anyway, it was a great interview. Uh do you remember Erica Jong, Fear of Flying? Yeah, it's a great book. Let me tell
00:54:46
you, all of my mom's friends had that book. Yeah. Yep. Well, this is a daughter who's a really good political
00:54:51
commentator now. And this book is really good. Actually, it's a really interesting and it's not very long.
00:54:56
Always a thoughtful woman. She is. But this book I was I was sort of well, I have I have similar experiences. Anyway,
00:55:03
uh that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Uh
00:55:09
we'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Larara Naman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, Kevin
00:55:14
Oliver, and Karen Ruff. Ernie and her Todd engineering this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Seo, Dan
00:55:19
Shalon, and Kate Gallagher. Nako as Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your
00:55:25
favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at
00:55:31
nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and
00:55:36
business. women out there. Do you really want men who are more sensitive and more in touch with their feelings? All that
00:55:42
gets us is two people crying in the car trying to parallel park. Happy wedding, Jeff Bezos.

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This episode stands out for the following:

  • 60
    Most shocking

Episode Highlights

  • Trump's Military Operations
    Trump declared the mission a spectacular military success, claiming nuclear sites were obliterated.
    “Trump also said the strikes should force Iran to make peace.”
    @ 02m 39s
    June 24, 2025
  • JD Vance's Controversial Statements
    JD Vance claimed, "The US is not at war with Iran. We're at war with Iran's nuclear program."
    “He is much more on the non-involvement wing.”
    @ 03m 49s
    June 24, 2025
  • Midnight Operation Hammer
    The operation against Iran was dubbed 'Midnight Operation Hammer', sparking various interpretations.
    “I think that was the WhatsApp group planning Seth's bachelor party.”
    @ 05m 03s
    June 24, 2025
  • Elon Musk's Challenges
    Elon Musk faces significant competition in the robo taxi and AI spaces, struggling to maintain his lead.
    “It seems a little precarious for Elon Musk.”
    @ 22m 05s
    June 24, 2025
  • Mark Zuckerberg's Authenticity
    Zuckerberg's shift in persona reflects his true self, shedding the 'good boy' image.
    “He's always been a jerk. Always, always, always.”
    @ 34m 06s
    June 24, 2025
  • Meta's AI Ambitions
    Meta is aggressively pursuing AI talent and innovation, aiming to dominate the market.
    “Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor.”
    @ 38m 01s
    June 24, 2025
  • TikTok's Undervalued Status
    TikTok is trading at a low valuation despite its massive revenue. It's seen as the most addictive platform.
    “I think TikTok is the most undervalued company in tech right now.”
    @ 44m 09s
    June 24, 2025
  • Medicaid Cuts Impact
    Upcoming Medicaid cuts could severely affect states like West Virginia and Kentucky.
    “These cuts are going to eviscerate certain states like West Virginia and others.”
    @ 48m 48s
    June 24, 2025
  • Mob Land Series Review
    The series Mob Land features a fantastic cast and is highly recommended for fans of mob stories.
    “Mob Land's fantastic. The cast, the writing, really just outstanding.”
    @ 50m 01s
    June 24, 2025

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

  • Bezos Wedding Humor00:33
  • Market Reactions11:26
  • Regime Change Debate15:39
  • Robo Taxi Competition23:53
  • Zuckerberg's Insecurity34:19
  • Meta's AI Strategy38:01
  • TikTok Valuation44:09
  • Sensitive Men Debate55:42

Words per Minute Over Time

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