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Let me tell you, Hollywood, buckle the [ __ ] up because this is the beginning of what is a massive change in how
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Hollywood is made and and it it has to happen.
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Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisser
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and I'm Scott Callaway. Let's get you to news because there's so much going on. Scott. Paramount is launching a hostile bid to buy Warner
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Brothers Discovery after it lost out to Netflix. Uh Paramount is going to Warner Brothers shareholders with an allcash
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$30 per share offer valuing the company at around $ 108 billion including debt. That would be uh for all of Warner
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Brothers studio streaming and cable networks including CNN. There's various valuations for the the the cable
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networks um and CNN that are they they valued at a dollar and others valued it
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from three to five dollars. David Ellison has appeared on CNBC a little while ago uh with resting white lotus uh
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bro face saying we're really here to finish what we started. Let's listen to what he said about whether Trump is in
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his corner. What I would say is I'm incredibly grateful for the relationship that I have with the president and I also believe he believes in competition and
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when you fundamentally look at the marketplace allowing the number one streaming service to combine with the
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number three streaming service is anti-competitive. Yeah. The person who's touting his
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relationship with Trump and has the Saudis and Jared Kushner in his deal is worried about unfairness. Meanwhile,
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before Paramount moved, Donald Trump said Netflix acquisition of Warner Brothers could be a problem. It's a normal thing to say. He's a He didn't
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say anything wrong there given the combined market share. But not to worry, he plans to be quote involved in
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decision. He also I know, right? Like they never presidents never do this. Not supposed to. That's the whole point.
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You're not supposed to be involved. That's right. Uh, Trump also confirmed, of course he is, confirmed. He can't
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stay out of this one. Come on. Recently, he met with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos. The White House calling Ted fantastic.
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Sarando said last week he was confident the deal would be approved because it's proconsumer and pro- innovation. But politicians on both sides are expressing
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concern. Senator Elizabeth Warren called it an anti- monopoly nightmare. We haven't seen what she says about the Ellison bid yet. I'm sure she's just as
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mad as that about that one. Hollywood is also up in arms with many warning the deal could negatively impact jobs and
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movie production. Ah, where do we start? Let's start with the hostile takeover, I guess, because that's some recent news.
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Um, Paramount's bid is backed, as I said, by Redbird. That's Jerry Cardelli. Three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth
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funds as well as affinity partners al which is Jared Kushner's private equity firms. Nothing to see here, folks.
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There's a lot to see here. The Saudis and Jared Kushner. That's a nice toxic cocktail of crap. um Trump uh you know
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whether he's going to um weigh in here. Of course he is. Um there's also a 5.8
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uh billion dollar breakup fee that Netflix will pay if the deal falls apart. Um I don't know if they have to pay if they
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pick another one. I I was thinking about that too. I don't think so. I think of course not. Yeah. Yeah. So why don't uh why don't you
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start? I've got lots of things to say, but why don't you go first? Yeah. Well, look,
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it's going to sound strange, but what David Ellison said there, I actually think is is right. I don't I don't
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particularly want the family that's going to potentially control Tik Tok and is trying to is engaging in open
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cronyism by saying we can get this approved because my daddy my dad has his finger up the ass of the
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president. I I just don't that's wrong. But what he's saying on a macro level is
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I think correct. I Let me walk you through my emotional roller coaster. I thought, "Oh my god."
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Like I was so dumb to count Ted Sandos and Netflix out. I thought that Paramount was going to walk away with
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it. Yeah. And do you want to say Cara was right here? No. Go ahead. Go ahead. Did you think Netflix would just
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I did not think Paramount was going to get it. I thought it was Well, that lady is not song here. So I know.
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Anyway, so I mean the first round, but go ahead. So but you know, you never want to
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underestimate Ted's surround. It ends up that Ted very deafly flew to Washington
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and and and had an hour sit down with the president. And Ted, if anything, is
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incredibly likable and he doesn't come across as political. He comes across as super smart. You just like the guy. And
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he's also probably one of the most I don't even say underrated, but one of the most seinal figures in technology and media in the last 20 years. What
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they've done there is just nothing short of remark short of him and Reed Hastings. Let's give him credit, too. Well, Reed, I would say
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Reed is like the visionary, but Ted and his other co-CEO have been probably the best operators in media. They just
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they're just very good. And and so he pops up and all of a sudden I see pictures. I'm like, "Oh my god, that's
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Sly Fox just snuck into the snuck into the hen house when no one was looking." And then Ellison goes hostile. And
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actually, I think other than the president saying he's going to be very involved in taking meetings, I think the president is sort of saying, the
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president said one thing that is absolutely true and correct, and I hope he sticks to it, and that is whoever has
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the highest bid wins. And that's how it should be. Whoever shows up with the biggest check should get this. And if
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they don't, they should file a lawsuit under the Revlon laws. But I personally
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think we talk a lot about affordability. the I mean there's a few things around affordability whether it's lower
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education lower health care costs but also a key component to affordability we don't like to talk about it because it's
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boring is competition and if you let Netflix and HBO
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combine you're basically taking Walmart and putting LVMH on top of it and you have 300 million at Netflix 130 million
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at HBO now there's some crossover there but I think basically the streaming wars
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Some people would argue, well, no, it's about YouTube, but the trai how we traditionally think about streaming,
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that war is over. If if um HBO and Netflix are allowed to merge. So, I
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don't like this. I'd like to see it go to Comcast or it to be blocked with Netflix. I actually think par I mean,
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this is just an antitrust nightmare. Who will not matter? And then I'll turn it back to you. whatever the [ __ ] Sag Ara
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or Brian Cranston or Name Your Star that's gonna, you know, start virtue signaling after they get 40 million a
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year for their [ __ ] No one cares what they think. I mean, we'll we'll nod, but
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you know, they would call their agent if ISIS started started a streaming network if if uh as Ricky Jer said. So, they
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will be a total non-factor here. I'd like to think it's just going to go to the highest bidder. I'd also like to
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think that the economists of the DOJ and the FGC go, "All right, is Netflix going
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to be able to extract unfair pricing from consumers?" And
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sure, and if they're the only game in town, backend back-end revenues are already
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off the table. There's no more Seinfeld deals anymore. But that's what they were doing before that this is what Holly was mad about
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it. You go finish and then I I have a lot to say about this. Well, okay. My point is when you have
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consolidation and concentration of power, it benefits the shareholders of those of those con those the winners of
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that concentration, but a it reduces it creates a lack of leverage for the
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consumer. So prices go up and b it leaks strength and leverage and compensation
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from labor to shareholders. So to a certain extent, I would like to see
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anyone but Comcast or potentially unfortunately Paramount because they're upscale. I'd like to see the deal blocked. And I love Ted Sos and I love
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Netflix. Okay, here's what I think. First of all, it's a bigger market. Like look at the two cases, the core cases. I'm going to
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start with that that just got lost by the Department of Justice was there's plenty of competition for FA for
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Facebook and Meta and there's plenty of competition um uh for Google, right?
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They've lost those because the whole landscape has changed. You you sort of pushed off YouTube. YouTube is where
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everybody streams. I'm sorry. Look at the statistic. If you look at any of the watching data, YouTube is far and away
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the most important way, especially young people get their news and information. So, you're leaving out the fact that
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YouTube is enormous here and is the actual competitor. Secondly, there's tons of different you can't like say
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streaming is its own thing anymore. Everything is Tik Tok is part of that. So is Instagram. So the the the market
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is so dissipated that nobody gets a thing like it doesn't nobody gets
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control of anything. I think there's plenty of competition and I think Netflix has a very good case to be made that there's lots of competition. That's
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one. Two, um I don't know. I just got over the weekend I that some Trump
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people contacted me and they were like, "What do you think?" And I said, "I think you know backing the winner is
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what he'll do." And so you noticed him saying Ted was fantastic. and he wasn't pro Ellison necessarily, right? He just
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said competition, which is the right thing to say. And so, you know, Trump's very interested in Netflix because he
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thinks they're winners. And let me just tell you, Hollywood, I'm so sorry to tell you, but they have won because many
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years ago, 15 years ago, Jeff Bezos called them the Albanian army. Do you remember that? Like, they who are they?
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Hollywood has persisted in backing shitty economics, like really shitty
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economics for themselves. They overpay themselves. they over um the just
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everything they do is all about their feathering their own nests and we talk about that with David Zazoff and others.
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It's never about figuring out what's next. Instead, they blame Netflix for inevitable changes that consumers like.
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So, the problem wasn't isn't Netflix. The problem is Hollywood didn't modernize itself fast enough and stayed
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in the same old economics, the same old bat, you know, patting of the backs,
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etc. Um, so it just is like I don't I don't know if I think there's much more
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competition for them than you think. Secondly, they've changed the game they have, but Hollywood certainly had every
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opportunity to do so and were warned. So, um, I put up I'm going to finish my rant in a second, but I put up an
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interview I did with with uh Reed Hastings, uh, Jason Kyler, Reed Hastings who ran Netflix, Jason Kyler, and Chad
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Hurley that I did at Sundance in 2009. And I was like, these three companies are going to change everything. They put
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us in a basement, Scott, and yelled at us for saying what was obvious. This is going to be a streaming environment.
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This is going to all the economics are wrong. The way you people pay yourselves, they stuck us in a basement.
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And I we were like, fine, that these are the companies that are going to take over everything. So, to me, it's Hollywood's own [ __ ] fault for their
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ridiculous salaries. The way they the economics are so they're like it would make, you know, it would make a third,
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you know, an eastern block country blush in terms of the corruption. I think that goes on there. That said, I like a lot I
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think but I and I also think there's lots of different entertainment happening like in podcasts and everywhere else. So there's lots of
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choices. The the the thing about the Paramount bit is this is a group of people who's it's sub it's sub small.
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It's too small by the way and they have an they have an existential crisis. It's all it's like a rich kid buying a yacht.
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This is a yacht for this kid. And you would you would uh you know think about the track record here. Um, it's good to
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know how to run a public entertainment company before buying a very important one. I think the I think I'm sorry,
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David Ellson's a very nice guy, but he's completely inexperienced and over his skis like most of Trump officials like
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like he has no business running this company. I'm sorry. He just doesn't. Um,
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he got played. He gets in fights, stupid fights with people. It's just he's utter
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The only qualification is he's friends with Trump and his daddy has money. I
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and and he makes bad decisions one after the next. So that's another thing. I I mean I don't really care if he wants to
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blow his fortune. All power to him, but he does he's not the best owner of this. It's there's it's a non-economic thing.
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Bringing in the Middle East and sovereign wealth funds, no thank you. I don't think so. And Jared Kushner de
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double no thank you. And the last thing I would say is that Comcast is the bidder that should get this because
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that, you know, they really need to bulk up and they are really good operators. it would make perfect sense. Um, and it
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would it would it would be, you know, they could spin CNN should be spun off the way Versent was and then let's
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figure that part out. Um, but what what what what David Olson was trying to do here was try to get this on the cheap
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and it didn't work. Right? That's what he was doing. and Netflix very deafly by
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someone who is an experienced operator came in and did an end run around him because I'm sorry David you're not very
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smart about any of this stuff and you just you know the fact that you him
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going on and on about unfairness is I'm like listen Richie Rich it's not happening you know call Cadbury the
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butler and let him explain economics to you so I just don't I don't I don't see I think Netflix has plenty to push back
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and I don't think they would have moved forward if they didn't think they had either a legal chance, which I think they absolutely do, or a an in with
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Trump, which from what I can understand from the Trump people, there's a lot against this, but there's a lot of
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people who see that Trump needs to to be a little bit for this, too. Um, so it's not a done deal in that regard, but they
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of course were going to do this. No matter how you slice it, they were going to try to make it into something. So, that's my rant. Thank you.
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So, I a lot there. Um, so let's start with it doesn't matter whether David Ellison would be a good owner or a bad
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owner. We don't get to decide that. And that's socialism. If all of a sudden we start making value judgments on who should own something or who should
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say he's inexperienced, he'll do a terrible job. But go ahead. Well, and AT&T is allowed to buy Time Warner and realize it was a stupid idea
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and then sell it. You know, that's just I didn't say he couldn't. I'm just telling you he would be Hollywood will be sorry if it gets him.
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So, well, okay. So I am sympathetic to one argument and not to the other. The
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argument that you're making is around market definition. And what you're saying is is that the way we would
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define the market in front of a if it goes to the Supreme Court is that no, it's not the market for streaming. It's
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the market for eyeballs and all entertainment and all video. I think that's a really good argument. I personally think that you what I think
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it's its own category. I do think that premium streaming where you acquire subscribers and they pay a monthly
00:14:19
subscription fee, I do think that qualifies as its own market. And I get the argument and I'm sympathetic to it
00:14:25
that YouTube is the biggest streamer. I get it. I've even said that before. But saying that that to a certain extent,
00:14:34
comparing HBO and Netflix to YouTube is a little bit like saying, well, there
00:14:40
are three companies that control all of poultry right now and prices continue to rise faster than inflation, so we should
00:14:45
break up big chicken, which I think we should do. And then the chicken people would say, we're not competing against each other. We're competing against
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beef, poultry, kale, granola. So, I do think this I do think streaming is its
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own definitive market. And I think the evidence of that, Cara, is that as the market has begun to consolidate a few
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years ago, pricing has gone way up. Pricing and streaming is
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is accelerating. So I don't look at this as I
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by far the best operator and the nicest guy and the best American in my view of all of this is Ted Sandos. I don't think
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that's how you decide this. I think you decide who the highest bidder is and then the FDC and the DOJ economists go
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will this extract substantial leverage and capital from labor and consumers to
00:15:32
the shareholders of the oligopoly here and I believe that there's a very solid
00:15:37
case as much as I don't I'm not fond of the Ellison's that it would be good to have a bulked up Paramount a bulked up
00:15:44
Comcast and it might present a leakage of power and leverage and capital from
00:15:50
labor and consumers to shareholders. If you let the Netflix Warner Brothers deal go through
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see I I I think just you again I think you cannot leave YouTube out of this. You just can't. And I think that's their
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I think that's their in the whole is showing the the the like I've seen which show are you watching on YouTube?
00:16:07
I'm just telling you usage time. I get that. But I think streaming is is is part of a the look every decision that's
00:16:14
recently been made by judges on this stuff talks about a broader landscape. That's why Facebook got out of its jam
00:16:20
and that's why do you think those are the right decisions? Yeah, I do actually. I was with them. So, you don't think Facebook is a monopoly? You don't think Facebook
00:16:26
should have to spin Instagram? I think they were and I think they leveraged it. But no, I don't I don't I don't I've said that over and over
00:16:32
again. I think they are abusive of the power they have, but I don't I think there's pl they have plenty of
00:16:38
competition. I think Tik Tok is an entertainment platform and I think it takes up people's however you extract
00:16:43
money from people whether it's through advertising or subscription is the same difference to me and so I think that
00:16:50
they what's interesting is where Disney is on this you know and you know I suspect they're sitting on the sidelines
00:16:56
going oh for [ __ ] sake I I actually know this um that they where do they go
00:17:02
like it seems to me you're going to see a lot like look if Netflix does get Warner Paramount's got to do a deal with
00:17:08
someone come whatever unless they just want to spend dad's money which he he certainly can do but they're too small
00:17:13
right and this was something many years ago I said I I was like I can't believe I'm saying this but Disney's too small
00:17:19
and so where does Disney go to me is really interesting this is what's going to happen for the next couple years
00:17:25
these consolidations whether you like it or not and look I I really think they're
00:17:32
this bringing in the Qataris and the Saudis and Jared Kushner says tells me everything I need to know here like kind
00:17:38
of It's really quite grotesque. I don't think the Saudis should be owning any of our news organizations. I'm sorry, they
00:17:44
shouldn't. And neither should the French. Neither should, you know, Saudis more than the French. But in any case,
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um it just doesn't create, you know, talk about global news. Like, why aren't we discussing what's going to happen to
00:17:57
CNN if it's merged with C? Why isn't that as important as the streaming market? And so I just feel like it's
00:18:03
none of these choices are great, but there it's inevitable that consolidation is going to happen whether Hollywood
00:18:09
likes it or not. I don't mean to be hostile Hollywood, but they sat on their [ __ ] hands. Well, this this is not a
00:18:14
new fresh thing. And what would you I I can't believe I'm defending Hollywood, but what would what would you have had Hollywood do quote
00:18:21
unquote? I assume you mean the creative community. The creative community has watched this slowmoving like growth of ne first of
00:18:28
all, they disdained it. Tribe tried be covering it at the time. I was at I
00:18:34
had death threats from like the writers of that. Well, you had the same thing. It's like are you know with the writers we need 19
00:18:41
people in the like even as I do stuff today for CNN and other thing I'm always like what are you here for?
00:18:47
What are all these people doing here? What are all these people doing here? Every time I go on any go to the Today Show and do a six-inute
00:18:53
segment and there's 14 people in like and I'm sorry I I agree everyone should have jobs but have they really
00:18:59
sat there and thought about and the other thing is this is where I go to ultimately is like who's making the
00:19:05
things that consumers like guess which grew by the way the kid like one of the things I think that is affecting Trump
00:19:11
here is his son and wife like Netflix right like they use it what do consumers
00:19:16
like what has been better for consumers probably Netflix, right? Like what precisely? I just I I just think it's
00:19:24
just a time that this is I'm so sorry to tell you, but you had a chance to change yourselves two decades ago when this
00:19:30
started to happen. Instead of insulting Netflix, maybe you could have copied it. Maybe you could have done more mergers
00:19:36
or more tech technology stuff. Maybe you should have said maybe our economics are insane. like why are we paying I'm sorry
00:19:44
to say I have a lot of friends who are anchors and get these millions of dollars to these anchors when this is when the audience was declining like to
00:19:51
me it's their it's not their own fault but it really is from an economic point and then why do you let David Zazlov
00:19:56
have these massive salaries like why does this go on like essentially so
00:20:01
you know and the other listen I have I'm happy to have tech people actually get in here a little bit um in some ways but
00:20:08
one of the things that drive I'll tell you drives me crazy about this Ellis bit is I was at that meeting where they were
00:20:14
um where they introduced it and they kept saying we're going to take tech and change things and I was like uhhuh
00:20:20
specifically and they're like tech change things AI I was like uh-huh right how right and so I would like some if
00:20:28
they put out a very clear this is our plan we're very transparent all of them I'd like to see it like what their plans
00:20:35
are still I think Comcast should have it all that's my feeling because I think they're I think they have the right
00:20:40
things and you spin and off CNN. Maybe they merge with Versent, but they let me just tell you the news organizations
00:20:46
should get as much consideration here as Larry Ellison and the Saudis should not
00:20:52
control CNN, CBS, and Tik Tok. Sorry, that's just as bad as the stream. It's
00:20:57
worse than the streaming business. So anyway, that's where I am on this. The So it's it's it's interesting is usually
00:21:05
you and I are in different positions. I'm I usually am on your position as kind of the capitalist argument and I
00:21:12
would argue I'm taking kind of the antitrust or the the labor uh consumer argument here. But I think
00:21:18
at the end of the day the decision should be based on an analysis of what has happened in terms of pricing power.
00:21:25
And typically actually the courts while they've made decisions around Alphabet and Meta basically letting them go ahead
00:21:31
or or or having factless remedies in terms of after they find them guilty monopoly power and saying okay here you
00:21:37
have to pay $10. The the primary typically court cases
00:21:43
lose antitrust when they go from four to three and that's what's going to happen here. Y they don't like the consolidation going
00:21:49
to this level. Also, I think at the end of the day, the ultimate litmus test for whether the concentration has gone
00:21:55
overboard here is in pricing. And in the last in the last year, you've seen on
00:22:00
average among the big five, I guess, dreamers, their prices, they've raised their prices 12.6%.
00:22:08
Which is vastly outpacing inflation. So what I would like to see is good economists say what is going to happen
00:22:14
here over the next five or 10 years with three players instead of saying no we don't want just three players in this
00:22:20
market. Your your argument will be the big one and that is what defines this
00:22:26
market and who is included in that. But I do think there's a pretty big distinction psychologically in terms of
00:22:33
consumption, in terms of business model and revenue and why people go to each of these platforms between I get that
00:22:39
everyone's competing for eyeballs at some point. I get that. But I do think these are different markets.
00:22:45
Yeah. I don't I don't I just I watch people as they're shifting and and the time spent that to me it is by the way
00:22:51
these these markets have to consolidate. I'm sorry to say there are o there too many costs and they have to consolidate.
00:22:57
It's not something there's it's it's going to consolidate. It doesn't really matter. And one of the things that's interesting is the Trump
00:23:04
administration through its lawyer making Delrahee who now works for Paramount. This is one of his moves like it feels
00:23:10
making all over the place here. Um is was to say AT&T couldn't buy uh Warner,
00:23:16
right? Which set off this whole thing by the way, which is kind of think about it. So they lost and all the things that
00:23:23
they said were going to happen never happened. like all these Well, they were trying to bulk up against the digital guys. That's right.
00:23:28
That that that mean I I was on record as saying it's ridiculous to get in the way of that. Can I just go through the pricing here?
00:23:34
Yeah. So, let's look at the big five. Apple TV, HBO, uh uh Hulu, Disney, and I'm
00:23:40
going to do 2019 prices versus 2025. Six years, right? In 2019, Netflix was $12.99. Now it's $18.
00:23:48
Disney ad free in 2019 when it launched was seven bucks. Now it's 19. Hulu with
00:23:55
ads has gone from six bucks to 10 bucks. HBO Max standard ad free has gone from 15 bucks to $1850 and Apple TV Plus has
00:24:03
gone from five bucks to 13 bucks. So it appears even with just five players who
00:24:08
aren't bulked up, their pricing power has been extraordinary. And again, I I I want to see economists
00:24:15
go, okay, at some point there's too much transfer of power from consumers and
00:24:20
labor to shareholders in a concentrated ol oligopolistic environment.
00:24:28
Yes. Except that these prices are going up because this costs too much, right? They're selling ice cream that costs a
00:24:35
dollar for 50, right? This the price they had to get into just like aren't you the same with AI right now? the
00:24:41
amount of money they're spending for their revenue streams and eventually they're going to start charging us more.
00:24:47
That's obvious. But they are over they had over spent. The reason Hollywood overspent so much is because they were
00:24:53
they waited so long to compete with Netflix. I kept going, you need to pay attention to Netflix. Hey, over here.
00:25:00
And they didn't because they like their town cars and their flowers and their first class tickets and their
00:25:06
entouragees and their staffs. like it was so exhausting to deal with Hollywood. And in some ways, tech was a
00:25:13
relief to deal with, not now, but they were for sure. Um, and so I just feel like these prices were going to go up
00:25:19
anyway. And there's still, even if there are five, they're going to go up until everything settles on what it costs and
00:25:25
what they spend, right? And that's and where people are going. And I I think leaving I think their greatest argument
00:25:32
here for Netflix is YouTube. YouTube. And and but and again, no doubt that's the argument. need you need to watch
00:25:38
what Apple and Amazon and Disney are going to do like what you have to think
00:25:44
of what's next and there's going to be you know handing it over to Nepo Mogul
00:25:49
fine whatever if you want to do that but next is going to be another one of these
00:25:54
and another one so we have to figure out what that means and then what we can extract from these companies like
00:26:00
Netflix in order to help consumers right what can we actually get but I don't
00:26:05
think the Trump administration is interested in any of that, like helping consumers whatsoever. I don't think they're interested. And honestly, of all
00:26:12
people to argue for antitrust, the Ellison's really aren't the ones to be doing it. It's sort of like it's
00:26:18
laughable on some level, but fine. They can they can do whatever they want to do. Uh it's just I don't think the Trump
00:26:24
administration is even slightly interested in consumer pricing whatsoever. No, I think he's positioning it such that they both get so close to
00:26:30
the finish line and gets so hot and bothered that he says, "I need whoever gives me a quarter of a billion dollars to the Trump presidential disco. He gets
00:26:38
this or I give I give a nod to the DOJ or the FDC." Yeah, exactly. The whole thing is so
00:26:43
[ __ ] up because it's so corrupt. And Jared Kushner's should not be in this. I mean, what a ridiculous this guy can't
00:26:49
keep his finger out of any [ __ ] pie. It's really kind of like grotesque in some ways. And of course, that makes
00:26:54
this even that's why I'm like, are you kidding me? You're adding the Saudis and Jared Kushner. Who are you? Who have you
00:27:00
not entered into like you want to give some to Cannon? Like who do you want to like I'm just like what lonesome crony
00:27:07
do you want? Well, it's just when you when you have when you have an $85 billion check there are very few people domest just that you
00:27:15
need to bring in a lot of checkbooks for that. I know. But why that checkbook? There's plenty of check. They have Apollo. That
00:27:20
guy's smart. So I don't know. We'll see. It'll be a really interesting battle royale. And of course,
00:27:25
I don't think they care about consumers. I'm I don't trust my instincts around this any longer because I got this one
00:27:31
wrong. What do you think is going to end up happening here? Well, one of the things that I think someone told me and I I I was that I
00:27:38
think Sarandos has frozen his competition for a little while. Like everybody's frozen now, which I think is
00:27:45
brilliant, right? He's ahead and that he's Look, the stock is suffering obviously, but um I think he's frozen.
00:27:52
I'm always on I always am like what did Netflix do? And then it's turns out to
00:27:57
be the smart thing. I like their ballsiness. I like they take risks. When they did the discs to streaming, boy was
00:28:03
that a [ __ ] existential moment. And then they said no advertising. Okay, we're going to do advertising. We're not
00:28:09
really going to do deals, which was a [ __ ] head fake. A fantastic head fake. Oh, we're doing the deal. I think they believed it at the time.
00:28:15
No, I don't. It was a It's been reported it was a head fake. They were No, no, no. I mean I mean over the last 10 years they have not been inquisitive.
00:28:21
They have build versus Bob was a head fake, but I think
00:28:26
I think he's frozen the situation in place beautifully and we'll see where it
00:28:32
goes. I think this is going to take forever. Like a couple years. Yes. And so that's smart in and of
00:28:40
itself. That's smart. But let me tell you, Hollywood, buckle the [ __ ] up because this is not the this is the
00:28:46
beginning of what is a massive change in how Hollywood is made. and and it it has
00:28:52
to happen. I'm sorry. I know you're all going to now hate me like you hate Scott, but I'm sorry to tell you, you had the chance to change it a long time
00:28:58
ago and didn't take that chance. And you know, they'll talk about creativity and I agree with that, but I don't think
00:29:04
creativity goes away. Um just it's just this is what's going to happen because
00:29:09
this is the industry that it that has not innovated nearly enough as a group of people. Anyway, um I think actually
00:29:17
press has innovated more than Hollywood has. I would say media certainly has. Anyway, not enough either. Um anyway,
00:29:23
let's go on a quick break. We come back. Elon calls for the EU to be abolished.
00:29:29
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00:30:40
Scott, we're back. These metalsome kids. Elon Musk is denying reports that SpaceX
00:30:45
is holding a share sale that would value the company at $800 billion. He posted on X over the weekend that SpaceX has
00:30:50
been cash flow positive for years and only runs twice Julie stock buybacks to give employees investor liquidity. But
00:30:56
the latest valuation might be a sign of what's ahead for the company's future. SpaceX has informed investors that plans
00:31:01
to pursue an IPO in 2026. according to the information. Um, I don't believe
00:31:06
anything Elon says, so whatever. Elon's also uh spending his time because this is an important thing. Um, calling for
00:31:13
the European Union to be abolished. This comes after the EU fined X $140 million for violating its digital services act.
00:31:20
Regulators called the blue check verification system deceptive and also criticized a lack of transparency in X's
00:31:25
ads. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called this EU fine an attack on all American tech platforms and foreign uh
00:31:32
and American people by foreign governments sit down. Marco, little Marco, are we about to see an US EU
00:31:38
showdown? I think people in the in Europe are quite nervous, I suspect. Thoughts?
00:31:44
I I think the EU the EU is just fine. I mean, first off, Musk wants them to break. Who the [ __ ] cares? I I mean, I
00:31:51
don't think anyone's going to lose any sleep over what he thinks. I think there's going to be another Brexit uh
00:31:56
referendum. If I was your Kier, that's what I'd do. I'd say, "Let's do Brexit again."
00:32:01
You mean a reverse Brexit? Yeah, reverse Brexit. Let's bring it up for a vote. I think I could save his ass
00:32:06
any um think about it. So, by the way, just to be clear, just
00:32:12
in terms of facteing her, Netflix didn't merge with Warner Brothers. They basically slid into Warner's DMs at 3:00
00:32:19
a.m. like, "You up?" And Warner Brothers said yes before checking who else was in the room. Do I get to run the studio? Do I get to
00:32:25
swan around? Says Dave. By the way, Dave gets the prize here. Dave wins no matter what. Zazz, go
00:32:32
ahead. Oh god. I hope this thing gets stretched out eight 15 years so he'll be 90 trying to spend that money. Um, look, I
00:32:41
actually think the EU is really stepped up and I I have a tendency to look at everything through the lens of Ukraine.
00:32:46
And for too long, the EU didn't have its act together, expecting big brother to
00:32:52
provide this military umbrella and didn't pay their fair share, especially Spain and a couple other countries. And
00:32:57
they are getting their act together. And they've basically said, "America, I love America comes up with a peace plan that
00:33:04
is basically paring, you know, Sergey Lavough's talking points like this is what Russia wants and this is a plan we
00:33:09
want." And the nice thing about this is doesn't really [ __ ] matter because America is America is still relevant and
00:33:15
that it it still has um um surfaceto-air defense systems that are really
00:33:21
important. But the EU industrial base is actually pretty strong, revving up,
00:33:27
producing really good weapons. They have stepped up in terms of financial support for Ukraine. And quite frankly, the US
00:33:33
hasn't has withdrawn financial support and all they really do is sell weapons b
00:33:38
purchased from um from the EU and and deliver them to Ukraine. And a couple
00:33:43
times they've stopped. JD Vance has got in the way of those arm those arm uh shipments. But my point is the US has
00:33:51
become less and less relevant uh in Ukraine and I think the EU is for the first time a union again. And that is I
00:33:59
think the Ukraine war one of the one of the many benefits of this in terms of occupying the space they command is that
00:34:06
the EU is trying to get along and being more coordinated. Uh so I don't I don't
00:34:11
think Musk saying I just not I think it's meaningless. I think it's him gasping for to control the news cycle on
00:34:17
something that's meaningless. They're not going to respond. Why should they? Mhm. Yeah. I think that's right. Now
00:34:22
they're going public. They're obviously at some point going public. but he likes he likes the money and it's a good way
00:34:28
for him to get liquidity I suppose to do other nefarious things. Um I think
00:34:33
they're probably going public this year as they as many people think they are. Um with the EU stuff I just like he's
00:34:40
just I not kidding about rethinking Brexit. I think this is the time like
00:34:45
most people in England think it's a mistake was a mistake. So why not go and revisit it? it would give Star a lot of
00:34:51
power like if he and defocus from his negatives which are quite high from what I understand. Um but the idea that
00:34:59
Europe is a union should be without the US as its sugar daddy is a great idea. I
00:35:05
think I think it just um you know and also there'll always be across purposes
00:35:10
over I mean Marco Rubio's statement could have been made by Obama made a similar statement many years ago like
00:35:18
how dare they regulate our tech platforms and that's fine and good
00:35:23
except we never regulate them. So maybe if we had a little bit more uh control over our tech mogul maybe they wouldn't
00:35:29
have to do this and go so far as they tend to do. That's just my feeling. It it I mean I agree the rejoin pathway the
00:35:38
UK would have to start from scratch because every member nation would now have to approve it and and some may
00:35:45
hesitate. The UK would be expected to comply with a full body of EU laws and regulations.
00:35:50
Um the already the UK government by the way Starmer has publicly ruled out a return
00:35:56
to the EU. Um too bad. And so look it just it it I
00:36:02
agree it makes sense at a 30,000 foot level but I think the politics here yeah probably too much
00:36:07
make it the unwinding was so complicated um that it's probably um is probably not
00:36:15
going to happen in terms of SpaceX. Like I don't I think you know and we're going
00:36:20
to do a predictions episode but I think the new AI in terms of a frenzy around
00:36:25
cheap capital and some stocks just going apeshit next year is in one word is
00:36:31
going to be space. Yeah. And if I were if I were the IR the
00:36:36
head of IR for SpaceX, um I would basically just have one talking point and that is okay,
00:36:43
Meta, you own twothirds of all social media on this thing called Planet Earth. Alphabet 90% of searches on planet
00:36:50
Earth. Uh Amazon 50% of e-commerce and a small piece of planet Earth called um
00:36:56
e-commerce. We at SpaceX have 90% share of [ __ ] everything else
00:37:02
of the the universe, the 100,000 galaxies, the 10 million universes. We have 90% of launch capability. We
00:37:08
control twothirds of the satellites and space is transitioning from narcissism and Katy Perry going into space and you
00:37:15
know billionaires and space tourism which was just [ __ ] stupid and it's moving to connectivity
00:37:22
um which will be uh you know weat communications satellite communic and then the next
00:37:28
frontier where I would invest if I could find the right companies the next huge space I think is going to
00:37:34
be space defense. Yeah. Um anyways my point is already in
00:37:40
SpaceX if you look at what happened in terms of the plummeting price and processing
00:37:46
power the increase in bandwidth the all of these things the the the next seminal
00:37:51
figure we're all going to talk about and have some sort of Musk law or Moore's law is that essentially the cost to get a kilogram of material into space
00:37:58
because of the Falcon heavy or whatever they call it is declined by 90%. Yeah. No, let me let me pay Elama. I
00:38:05
remember when he started talking about putting up all those those low uh low orbit satellites at the time. I remember
00:38:12
having a conversation and I there were two people who were doing this oddly enough. It was Elon who I talked to
00:38:17
about it quite a bit and Jerry Yang had a company like this interestingly after
00:38:22
he left Yahoo. And I was really riveted to this idea and it was such at the I
00:38:28
can't underscore how much of a risk it was at the time. By the way, everybody, this was I know y'all hate Elon, but I
00:38:35
have to tell you this was a great a great move. Like really in terms of thinking ahead like nine steps when he
00:38:42
had his mind not so [ __ ] up, visionary, bold, risky. I think he it's it's decrepit now. But I
00:38:49
at the time it was really something unusual and there were only a few people talking about it and Jeff Bezos was sort
00:38:56
of talking about rockets, but not really. Not like this, not on this like very Kyper, but yeah. Well, they do now, but I'm just
00:39:02
saying it wasn't this it wasn't this sort of systemic put these low orbit satellites and again Jerry Yang had a
00:39:09
company too and I don't know what happened to it but those are the two people I discussed it with and this was
00:39:14
a long anyway I think it has to go public. I think he's got to continue his lead and continue pushing forward. He
00:39:20
lost his lead in Tesla despite the stock going up. It's he's definitely lost his lead. He shouldn't lose his lead here.
00:39:27
Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Meta makes cuts to the metaverse. What a surprise. Scott, we're
00:39:34
back with more news. Meta is considering cutting up to 30% of employees in his Metverse unit, which work on VR
00:39:40
headsets. Since 2020, the division has lost more than $70 billion. Metal reportedly shift savings from the cuts
00:39:46
to its augmented reality glasses, which are very fun thing, but kind of I think minor. Um, meanwhile in the other latest
00:39:53
Meta AI moves, Meta is acquiring AI wearable startup Limitless, which makes a small AI pendant that can record
00:39:59
conversations and generate summaries. And the company has struck several commercial AI data agreements with news
00:40:05
publishers like CNN, Fox, and USA Today to provide real-time answers to queries while compensating publishers. I guess
00:40:12
the $70 billion loss. I mean, you in particular, and me too thought the metaverse was idiotic. Um, I love that
00:40:20
you can make a mistake like this. Mark Zuckerberg can afford to make these $70 billion mistakes and not suffer a second
00:40:26
for it. It was a stupid idea, but he did move from it. I guess that was I think he just wanted to change the name of the
00:40:32
company because he was so sucked up into social media disasters. But at the time,
00:40:37
um, you know, I I I I don't get these pendants and anything else. I I'm not on
00:40:43
board with those at all, including at Open AI. Um, you know, that's the right
00:40:49
thing to do, I guess, right? You should focus on AI and advertising and AI offerings presumably, right?
00:40:56
Yeah. Look, I, you know, easy to pat ourselves. I was the original hater of headsets and metaverse. I said it when
00:41:02
it wasn't cool. Uh, where everyone was talking about spatial computing and and then I said the Apple one was just as
00:41:11
[ __ ] stupid. We have an instinct. We the things we can eat and the things can
00:41:16
eat us don't come directly at us. They come at us from the side or behind us. And so we are very Have someone walk
00:41:23
behind you in Manhattan just for a block. And you start getting very uncomfortable. And no one did any goddamn consumer
00:41:30
research and what they found when they did research was that 40% of people within like 20 minutes were nauseous
00:41:35
because you're not supposed to have your peripheral vision cut off like that. And the idea of a bunch of cyborgs rocking
00:41:42
around in their own world even when they were outside. It was sort of anathema to like everything. I never liked the outside stuff. I like
00:41:48
the inside movie watching work stuff. But go ahead. I thought it was so it was all so [ __ ] stupid. The legless univer
00:41:55
also the legless. Yeah. Didn't have legs as it turned out. The whole thing the whole thing was
00:42:01
ridiculous. But when you're meta you can you can burn 70 billion. Um, so this was
00:42:08
like a I don't want to say a speed bump for him. It was definitely a pothole. Yeah, he does move fast when he [ __ ]
00:42:14
up. Well, I don't has it really. I mean, this has been a good five years, right? No, it's actually been a while. He kind
00:42:20
of loves have he loved this thing. He really did. Remember the dressing thing and where and then no legs. But the
00:42:27
remember he was like, I think I'll try I think I'll dance with like Rihanna or whoever the hell. So stupid.
00:42:32
Yeah. I don't look I I don't I do think the place where all of this R&D will pay
00:42:39
off is in smart glasses. I do think Meta is going to have a very strong offering there. You think it's a big market though? I
00:42:45
don't think it's I think that at some point we're a lot of us are going to have kind of whatever
00:42:51
you want to call it virtual VR AR enabled glasses. I not glasses they're going to be the
00:42:56
AirPods with video. I'm I I just I'm still not into these pendants either. I don't like
00:43:02
I've never understood those. I I think it has to be like in your ear. Like I feel like in your ear.
00:43:07
What you're saying is the the most practical vision is that the AirPods get more harmonious with your iPhone,
00:43:14
right? And your iPhone becomes your headset. And you're walking by. You're looking for an you're in Soho. And you think, "Oh, I love Crosby. What I love this
00:43:20
street. What apartments are, you know, hey Siri, what apartments are available here?" And it and you hold up your phone
00:43:25
and as you scan around, it tells you what apartments are available in the building you're looking at, right? and what they're going for and
00:43:31
click here to speak to a broker. I mean, there's just a lot of stuff. I feel like that's how it's going to go. But these I would Would you wear a
00:43:37
pendant? I'm like I feel like an old person. I've fallen and I can't get up. I don't know. No. I mean, I've been forgetting to put
00:43:43
on my diaper. She falls every 5 minutes. Yeah. No, I wouldn't wear a pendant. I
00:43:48
wear I wear a bunch of crazy bracelets on my wrist, though. I still have my hotel because I find it useful. I wear
00:43:54
this cuz it's a watch, too. But and you're used to I wear this because it makes a random sexual encounter more likely if I have a
00:44:00
panory. But let me just say the one thing is on that I did I'm ignoring it. Um on Star Trek they all had those
00:44:07
things that they hit. I think that's where this is coming from. Remember they always hit it and talk to it. The little
00:44:13
thing their little chest thing. I don't remember that. Captain Kirk always hit this little um
00:44:18
metal on his on his chest. I just want to know who was hit and Lieutenant Uhuru.
00:44:24
They had a run on the show. Do you remember? Anyway, um speaking of which, the New York Times is suing Perplexity
00:44:30
AI claiming besid New York Times is also Speaking of which, good segway. Speaking of which, and Captain Kirk getting it
00:44:37
on. No, I was just thinking more AI stuff. I've moved on from that. Um by the way, New York Times did two ballers lawsuits.
00:44:43
Once against the Trump administration for the Pentagon crap they'd pull. Um but the New York they're suing
00:44:48
Perplexity AI claiming that the AI startup copying drew millions of articles. The lawsuit also alleges that
00:44:53
Perplexity used paywalled stories, sometimes attributed hallucinated content to the Times. Uh, the Times says
00:44:59
Perplexity ignored multiple requests to stop for nearly two years. I mean, oh yeah, Perplexity. They're always in the
00:45:06
middle of this. They feel like they're the bad guys. Like, I don't know what is happening over there.
00:45:12
Yeah, but you hear less and less about Perplexity. Yeah, I know. It feels like it's kind of um fading
00:45:18
away. some of the research analysts here at Prop use it and they like it. But um
00:45:24
yeah, I look I've I've said for a long time I thought the old school guy should band together and basically hire Barry
00:45:31
Diller to be their the tag dog and go after these guys and say look you know if you're going to
00:45:38
I mean the I really enjoyed actually your I think it was your interview with Jessica
00:45:43
Yellen and she said something I love insight that's obvious but you this is news not noise Jessica Yellen
00:45:48
not Jessica she's great. Yeah. Not not Fed chair Janet Yellen. Yeah, right. Jessica Yellen.
00:45:54
Yeah. Uh, anyways, she said something that was so I love obvious insight. I thought I
00:46:00
didn't think of it that way. And she said that traditional media still
00:46:05
shapes the narrative. All these platforms, they're all inspired. It's like they provide the coal. And you may
00:46:12
burn it and offer different means of electricity on different platforms, but the coal, the the raw content that
00:46:19
shapes all of this comes from the NT, the Washington Posts, CBS. I mean, it
00:46:24
starts on traditional media. And the problem is is that these guys need to get more aggressive about recognizing
00:46:32
that value from the downstream people who are making all the money. Because and I said this when I first went on the
00:46:38
board of the New York Times like we got to turn off the Google crawlers. Right. Right.
00:46:44
And and we got to consolidate with the Murdochs, the guys at the FT, the new
00:46:49
houses at Condon, and we got to license it all and create a bidding war because Bing was still a thing back then. And I
00:46:56
remember the lawyers were like, "That would be antitrust." I'm like, "We're dying here. We're dying. And you're
00:47:03
worried about antitrust that if we bind together and try and license our content, they're very nervous people.
00:47:08
Anyways, the this is if you really if you think about there's there's value ad
00:47:15
and then an influence and then there's ability to monetize it. And the real tragedy of old media is that its
00:47:21
influence is winning from a viewership standpoint, but in terms of the actual stories that get circulated online,
00:47:27
they're sh they're still shaped by traditional media. And I hadn't thought about it that way. I thought that was really insightful. Yeah, absolutely. That's where they get
00:47:32
their thing, especially the New York Times. Like, there's certain ones they get it from and others. I mean, no one's quoting very much from Los Angeles Times
00:47:40
anymore. A little bit. They do it every now and then a good story, but um it's it's a very small number. Wall Street
00:47:46
Journal, Washington Post still to an extent, although again although as much as it's its news editor is trying hard
00:47:53
to do it, it's you know, it's a declining asset. But um but you're right. Absolutely. But I like the New
00:47:58
York Times did it anyway. And I like that they sued the Pentagon. You know, I like that Costco sued the government
00:48:03
about tariffs. I kind of you're seeing, as I said, a little bit of a backbone here. And I I think Meredith Levian is
00:48:09
really sharp in terms of they got to do this. They got to put it on record. So, what I don't get, though, again, why
00:48:14
wouldn't the NT bind together with every other media organization and go after Perplexity? They do. I think they kind of do. They
00:48:20
They talk to I think they coordinate. I mean, maybe they don't, but I think they probably do. I don't know. Anyway, Perplexity, stop stealing our [ __ ]
00:48:26
Okay. Thank you. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear some
00:48:34
wins and fails. Do you Would you like to start? Uh, you go first, Sure.
00:48:39
Well, I want to say congratulations even though we aren't one of them for the Golden Globes best podcast. Uh, lots of
00:48:45
people tried to get it like um uh Ben Shapiro was like paying a lot of money for marketing to get it.
00:48:50
I didn't even know they had that. The nominees are out or the No, no, this was a big thing happening. So, so their armchair expert with Dax
00:48:56
Shepard. It's not us, just so you know. Um, Call Her Daddy, Good Hang with Amy Polar, The Mel Robbins Podcast, Smart
00:49:03
List. I love those guys. And Up First from NPR. Uh, no Joe Rogan, no Megan Kelly, no Ben Shapiro, those kind of
00:49:10
things. Those are all great. I Those are all great podcasts. Great. I think Mel Robbins is great.
00:49:15
They're all great. Oh my god. Probably the smartest guys cuz I like them so much. The smartest. Although I like the NPR people. I say
00:49:21
the NPR people. Anyway, congratulations. Of course, it should have been us, but Yeah. Yeah. next year.
00:49:26
But but congratulations. And my fail is um Well, you know what? Soon enough, you're going to be so old. They're going to give you a lifetime achievement awards.
00:49:32
They're going to go that way. Oh, you think I'm already getting those? I'm already getting those. I'm really already getting those. It's kind of
00:49:37
crazy. Um my feel is um you know, sticking with this um this deal. This is
00:49:44
happening. Hollywood really has failed to understand. They're still fighting
00:49:49
previous fights and I think they have to start thinking about what entertainment is and how things have changed and
00:49:56
they're always um they're always just talking about the last turn of the screw and it's it's kind of over in a lot of
00:50:02
ways. And so therefore, how do you like I am I still get struck by the two most
00:50:07
popular movies with consumers were weapons and sinners are very creative oneperson things. Um and I get their
00:50:16
inclination to fight for uh theater to you know they want to be in the theaters for longer. This is this fight with
00:50:22
Netflix over 14 days over 45 days and they want to be in the theater. Well if
00:50:27
you want to do that then make yourselves an economic world where you can do that. Like it doesn't mean you can't do it. It
00:50:33
means that you can't just blame Netflix for doing its business. You have to
00:50:38
figure out how it is. You if that's what you want, figure out an economic way to do it instead of bitching and moaning
00:50:45
about Netflix. Like I I'm sorry. They've made a product people want to buy and they have a theory. So have your own
00:50:51
theory. And I really wish Hollywood would take that. If you want to be in theaters, figure out a business where theaters work economically, even if it
00:50:58
just breaks even, instead of um blaming everybody for your woes, most of which are due to economics that don't work
00:51:06
anymore. And that's that's for everyone across every industry. Everyone else doesn't moan this much. Hollywood likes
00:51:12
to moan about. Thank you. I can't wait to see if an extra from Star Trek decides you're the devil like
00:51:17
they did with me two years ago. Yeah, they will. I I sorry, I just can't I don't want to hear it. I like do
00:51:23
something about it. Thank you. I like it. Um, so I don't they're both
00:51:30
kind of fails, but I'll position one as a win. Traditionally, American armed services when a combatant is disabled
00:51:36
and no longer presents a lethal threat, we offer them quarter, which is essentially mercy. And I had Admiral
00:51:43
James Debridus, uh, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, which by the way is the coolest title ever.
00:51:49
Yeah, I know. Supreme. I just you know what ladies don't or or guys when you're at a bar don't go up and say may I meet
00:51:56
you say hi I'm the supreme allied commander of NATO and just take it from there. Your name is Supreme Allied Commander
00:52:02
Pivot 100%. I'm getting in trouble for suggesting certain people have sex and propagate.
00:52:08
Okay. One guy called me and said he felt objectified. I'm like well dude we've been objectifying women for thousands of
00:52:13
years. Why can't I objectify you? Anyway, um was that Jake Tapper? By the way, I
00:52:19
still think Marco Burough is probably just [ __ ] a crazy weirdo in the sack. What do you think?
00:52:24
What do you think? He's not speaking to me because of our last I agree. Let me just say I You can
00:52:29
blow up Ezra Klein all you want, but Michael Barbaro wins hands down over there. Ezra Klein's had a glow up.
00:52:35
Oh my god. I got to tell you, he's like, "Hello, ladies." I told you my safe word with Ezra.
00:52:40
What? Maybe. All right, move along. Move along. Uh,
00:52:48
call us, Ezra. Um, all right. So, Venezuelance, build more housing. Well, there's some [ __ ]
00:52:54
shoot people out of the water after they're floating there after. But listen, there's actually I I just want
00:53:00
to break down why we offer quarter to to enemy combatants when they are no longer
00:53:06
a a threat to us. One, it's just the right thing to do. We're human beings. We we treat people better. We we have a
00:53:13
certain decor around humanity and we set a strong example for the rest of the world. the Imperial Navy in World War II
00:53:20
machine gunned uh sailors who were in the water. Uh so did so did the the uh
00:53:25
so did yubot and the Nazi from the uh the third Reich Nazis did the same thing. We did not. If enemy combatants
00:53:32
were in the water, we scooped them up and we put them in a prisoner of war camp. It's the right thing to do. Number
00:53:37
two, it gives you tactical advantage on the field because if people think
00:53:42
they're going to die anyways, they're less likely to surrender. If they believe you will give them quarter,
00:53:48
they're more likely to say, "I surrender." And also, you get incredible intelligence from the people who do
00:53:53
surrender. So, you can interrogate them. And then third, and finally, when you when you when you blow and murder, and
00:54:00
these aren't war crimes, these are murders because this isn't a war. These are murders. And when you when you
00:54:05
murder two people clinging to a capsized boat, what you're doing is you're putting our own Navy Seals in harm's way
00:54:13
because other nations do in fact cooperate and have a certain decorum here. There even rules in war. We
00:54:18
decided at the end of World War I that poison gassing was probably not the way to go and everyone respected that. We
00:54:25
now have laws. We have laser technology where we could blind everyone out on the field. We have bio we have boweapons and
00:54:32
all nations have decided no let's leave that out of our toolkit it could get really ugly really fast and generally
00:54:38
speaking and generally speaking when combatant enemy forces have captured or overrun
00:54:46
American forces they often times take them prisoner one because they think they'll get money for them and they're
00:54:51
worth a lot but two we have traditionally offered quarter to them so
00:54:56
this is morally wrong it's tactically stupid and it puts our servicemen and
00:55:02
service women in harm's way. Well said. Well said. Uh my Supreme Allied Commander Pivot. Well
00:55:08
said. My loss here is I'm just sick of these ridiculous conversations around affordability with no substance. And
00:55:16
that is everyone talks about affordability and they expect a magic [ __ ] wand to take egg prices down.
00:55:21
It's pretty basic. If you want more affordability, there's there's actually common sense solutions that are hard and
00:55:28
take time and take investment. One, we need to build 5 to 10 million more homes. We need to weaponize the private
00:55:33
sector. Pardon? 8 million. Sorry, I've been saying 8 million. Go ahead. We need to weaponize the private sector.
00:55:39
It's 40% of the consumer price index. So, housing and housing has become too expensive. So, we need rent freezes
00:55:46
don't work. Rent control does not work. What works is providing incentives to the developer community and getting rid
00:55:51
of these nimi laws and committing to building y as you said 8 million houses over 10 years manufactured homes which on site
00:55:58
are 50% less expensive and bring down the cost of housing folks it's time universal healthare I
00:56:05
add using new business new building methods they have there's all these really creative new ton of cool stuff and by the way take
00:56:12
down tariffs and and some of these manufactured homes out of China are incredible uh it's time universal healthare We
00:56:18
spend $13,000 per person. The rest of the G7 spends $6,500. We need a national system that
00:56:24
introduces real bargaining power into the system. And a Medicare-like public option
00:56:30
available to everyone under 65. You lower it by two or three years, every year for 10 years to give the private
00:56:35
sector time to adjust. It is time. And you would, by most analysis, you would reduce
00:56:40
health care spending by 15 to 25%. That's about a quarter of our deficit. And then we need a 10-fold expansion of
00:56:47
public higher ed income linked tuition caps. Basically, your tuition is based on the income of your parents. And also,
00:56:54
if you have over a billion dollars in endowment, Dartmouth, Harvard, everyone else, it's not growing your freshman
00:57:00
class faster than population growth, you risk losing your taxfree status. We're not [ __ ] Chanel bags. We're
00:57:05
public servants. And then finally, and this goes back to my statement on Netflix, massive antitrust. The our industries
00:57:12
are becoming way too concentrated. And when they become this concentrated chicken, there is a big pharma, big tech. I mean,
00:57:19
go through all the big a go through all this [ __ ] Have you been doing drinking with Amy Clolobashar? Is that what's happening?
00:57:26
Oh, I love Senator Kay. She's a lot of fun. Love Senator K. But the problem is we
00:57:31
think that, oh, if we tariff people and give money to farmers, that's going to bring down prices. I mean, folks,
00:57:37
do basic [ __ ] math around what actually works around bringing down com. By the way, kiss and make up with China.
00:57:45
Kiss and Will some people get hurt. Yeah, they make [ __ ] really cheap. You want to listen to this headline. Trade surplus
00:57:51
with China just rose to uh a trillion dollars. Whatever trade circle, you know, it doesn't they haven't been
00:57:57
stopped by this people. Sorry. They've been Okay, here's some stats about I I have a China podcast now.
00:58:03
It's called China Decode. The percentage of exports going to the US from China has gone from 17% of their
00:58:10
exports to 10%. Meanwhile, since pre-COVID, since 2019, they have
00:58:15
increased their exports 40%. So, folks, people all around the world are bringing
00:58:21
down inflation by buying China shred. 82% of the gifts under the Christmas tree this year, our guests are from,
00:58:27
wait for it, China. You You want to be able to buy your kids seven gifts, not five? Kiss and make up with China. They
00:58:34
are better at making cheap, low IP [ __ ] than us. Should we have trade agreements that recognize they're not allowed to
00:58:39
steal our IP, that they have to let our stuff into the markets? Yes. Get rid of all these trade restrictions. Zero
00:58:45
tariffs, zero free trade agreements. All there's a breaking story. The White
00:58:50
House plans $12 billion for farmers facing trade war followed. Why don't you just not do the trade war in the first
00:58:57
place, Donald? Thank you. You want to talk about socialism and taxing some people and then
00:59:03
redistributing it to farmers who aren't who are no longer competitive. And quite frankly, China's not coming back. Oh,
00:59:08
but let's let's give a bunch of money to the Argentinians who the Chinese are now buying soybeans. Anyway, this it doesn't
00:59:15
make any sense. But if you want to talk about affordability, we one, we need to bring down the cost of housing. 8
00:59:21
million homes in 10 years. There's a there's a clear blue line path to doing that. Two, tuition price caps. Expand
00:59:27
your freshman class. Uh three, we need national uh we absolutely absolutely
00:59:33
need nationalized socialized medicine. Bring it down eligibility for Medicare option two to three years age age elig
00:59:39
eligibility over a decade. And finally, massive antitrust concentration equals a
00:59:46
leakage of power and economic viability from the labor force and from consumers
00:59:52
to shareholders. And there's always a healthy tension between shareholders and or between capital and labor. Capital
00:59:58
has been kicking the [ __ ] out of labor for 40 years. And it's starting to hurt the economy because the top 10% that
01:00:03
owes all the share owns all the shares is now responsible for 50% of the [ __ ] consumer economy. All right. I like it. I like you
01:00:10
becoming a communist and allied commander of pivot. Um it's a capitalism. I know. Just you know Trump just
01:00:16
promised executive order to block state AI AI regulations. Also get out of there Trump. Anyway, we want to hear from you.
01:00:23
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
01:00:29
call 855-51 pivot. Elsewhere in the Karen Scott universe this week and on with Caris Fischer, I spoke with
01:00:34
prolific author Margaret Atwood, she of the Handmaid's Tale. We talked about how women are bearing a
01:00:40
lot of the cost of the Trump administration's policies and the parallels she sees in Handmmaid's Tail. Let's listen to a clip. All dictatorships do this. I can't think
01:00:48
of one that has not. Sometimes they have nice slogans at the beginning, women hold up out of the sky, etc. Um, but it
01:00:56
doesn't usually play out. It it sometimes plays out that a a select
01:01:03
group of women get fairly high-profile positions. And you can see that in the Trump government. There are a number of
01:01:09
of cabinet people and certainly the White House spokesperson. They're all women. Um, but that doesn't translate
01:01:17
any more than it did with duchesses into the lives of ordinary women.
01:01:23
Anyway, she was great. She was a really interesting and very long interview. Um, okay, that's the show. Thanks for
01:01:29
listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us
01:01:34
out. Today's show was produced by Larara Naman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher. Ernie Rertdat engineered
01:01:40
this episode. Jim M edited the video. Thanks also to J Burroughs, Mia Seo, and Dan Shalon. Nishad Kura is Vox Media's
01:01:46
executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox
01:01:52
Media. You can subscribe to the magazine nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for
01:01:57
another breakdown of all things tech and business. Care, have a great rest of the week.
