00:00:00
You're much more promiscuous in loading up your information. Yeah, my attitude is violate my privacy as long as I can
00:00:05
see that my QX60 is one minute away. I I could just eat edibles and order Ubers and watch how close my car is. I find it
00:00:11
[ __ ] fascinating. Why is he making a right turn on Broom? Doesn't he know where he's going?
00:00:20
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisser and I get a
00:00:26
call from this iconic media company that is doing or reporter there and I won't say which company that is doing a
00:00:32
profile on Cara Swisser. You've had one there. And her first uh question was,
00:00:39
"What qualities make Cara such an amazing leader?" And I'm like, "Oh, [ __ ] This is going to be rough. This is
00:00:46
I literally I'm not exaggerating, Cara. I went and made myself a drink and I'm like, "Okay, okay, this is how it's
00:00:51
going to go. this is how it's going to go. And it was literally like getting a
00:00:57
colonoscopy without anesthetic. I just sat there and said, "Okay, it's going to be over soon. It's going to be over
00:01:03
soon." Did you embarrass me? My instructions to you were to embarrass me in some fashion. Well, here's the thing.
00:01:08
When you do these things, what you realize is it's entirely up to them. They could twist your words anyway.
00:01:14
Yeah. and they could use, you know, one or two things I said to support some
00:01:19
narrative that was negative or but I I definitely got the feeling it was gonna it's going to be a giant puff piece, but
00:01:26
we'll see. No, it's not. No, I have a very complex, you know, they'll find someone who I'm not saying you deserve a
00:01:32
puff piece. I gave them I gave them recommendations of people who don't like me. I'm like, they're going to give you an off thereord piece on me, so you
00:01:39
might as well just call them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I do the same thing, but I just make sure they're [ __ ] I I'm
00:01:44
a big believer in what FBR said and that is please judge me by my enemies. I love giving out the names of some people who
00:01:50
hate me. I'm like here she's going to say something to me nice on the record and that not nice off the record. Here's someone who's going to you know I gave
00:01:56
him a range of people. I think it's focused on me helping people get away from old media. I think that's my
00:02:01
impression. Yeah. They wanted to talk about the people you've nurtured and all that stuff a lot. There are quite a lot.
00:02:07
There's quite a few. Yeah. Including you, Scott Galloway. Yes, that's right. Although I I was never really in in
00:02:12
media. I was um No, you weren't. I brought you I always say the same thing. I'm like the most rewarding thing about
00:02:18
our relationship is that it is very purposeful and nice to resuscitate
00:02:23
someone's flagging career and that has been very nice for me. I saw that you
00:02:29
were struggling and I thought, okay, if Tina Fay can do this for Alec Baldwin, there's no reason that Scott Galloway
00:02:35
can't do it for Cara Swisser. I know. Thank you so much. I I just I'm in so much in your debt. I was struggling.
00:02:41
Success has many fathers and failure as an orphan. I remember I remember working at Levi Straussing Company in the 90s
00:02:48
and this is the weakest flex in the world. But the fastest zero to billion apparel brand at that point and then the
00:02:55
fastest one after that was Old Navy but before that the fastest one. What apparel brand? It's literally the lamest
00:03:00
apparel brand in history but it was the fastest zero to a billion apparel brand
00:03:06
and it was owned by Levi Strauss company. It wasn't Levis's. You know what it was? What? Jord? No. Oh, it was like screaming to the world, don't have
00:03:12
sex with me. It was Do you remember Dockers? I love Dockers. Oh god, don't say that. Jesus, stop. Please make her
00:03:20
stop. They had extra pockets. The thing is, I can see that. I can totally see you in Dockers.
00:03:26
Oh my god. They're very comfortable. Oh my god, Scott. I literally have the same clothes since high school. Anyone who
00:03:33
believes being gay is anything to do with nurture, it is so nature. You were
00:03:38
literally born in Dockers, weren't you? I was. I love Dockers. Dockers in a I'm not even going to try and describe the
00:03:44
kind of lesbian fashion or lash extra pockets. That's all I remember. Anyways, back to me. I would walk around. Levi
00:03:50
Stson was my biggest consulting client or profit for like two years in the '90s
00:03:55
and everybody everybody would introduce themselves as the founder of Dockers because it had been so successful. There
00:04:02
would be like nine people who were the not the co-founder but the founder of Dockers. Everybody decided that they had
00:04:07
started this idea and it it it's so interesting. It basically took advantage of this huge trend and that was casual
00:04:16
work Friday was the stay-at-home work from home trend of the '90s and men had no [ __ ] idea how to dress for it and
00:04:23
Docker said just trust us. I use them as as f you know we went to this party last night for Keith McN. Uh he has a Manetta
00:04:30
Tavern here. What a great restaurant, by the way. And he's lovely, let me just say. Um, and it's he's written this
00:04:36
astonishing. It's the best book party I've been to because it was not about the book. It was, but they read from the book. Richard Eye Grant read sections
00:04:42
from it and everything else. Um, and it was great food. They said it was dinner adjacent and then it was bigger than any
00:04:48
dinner I've ever eaten. And he's, you know, I don't know if you know this, he had a stroke. Um, we chatted about it quite a bit. um he he's much he has much
00:04:55
more issues around speaking and his one of his sides of his body, but just a beautiful book that he's written and
00:05:01
they had music and food and everything else really fun. But I wore like such sloppy clothes and I said Amanda's like,
00:05:08
"Oh, I should dress up a little bit." I said, "Do matter what you do, I will be more underdressed." And she goes, "Oh,
00:05:14
okay." And felt better. I show up in like almost pajamas to parties now.
00:05:20
That's what I'm doing. Yeah, you can get away with that though. It's sort of your brand. I know. I can't. I don't know why
00:05:25
every once in a while. No, not really. Not really. I'm gonna I'm gonna get my Dockers and find them and wear them with
00:05:31
you on something we do. I think that we should officially I think if Vogue ever decides we've just [ __ ] had it with
00:05:37
this Matt Gayla [ __ ] and they want to jump the shark, they should invite us. They should absolutely invite. We would We would literally put an end to
00:05:44
that whole thing. We would put an end to it. Oh my god. Anna Winter. Anna Winter, if you're listening, if you need a
00:05:50
reason to retire, do you know what? I'm going to somehow get that message to her that she should invite us. Maybe they'll do a tech one and then we'll show up as
00:05:56
like a we'll dress like Elon or something. Back to me. So, in the '9s when I started Red Envelope and because
00:06:02
I had a shaved head, I was white, had outdoor plumbing and a pretty good gab.
00:06:08
I could raise tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars for my crazy e-commerce startups. And I'd raised so much [ __ ] money for Red Envelope. And
00:06:14
we'd all, you know, I was the brand guy, so I thought, "Oh, we got to build a brand." So my college roommate David
00:06:20
Kerry who was the head of magazines I think at Condast. Yes. He's he'd always
00:06:25
been just a lovely guy. We were friends. But I used to fly to New York cuz I wanted to hang out in New York and spend
00:06:31
overspend on Vanity Fair and um Vogue magazine, these ads for Red Envelope.
00:06:38
And literally the weapon was the coolest place on the planet was the Vogue cafeteria. Did you ever eat there? Oh,
00:06:44
it's Oh, yeah. It was beautiful. And it was all these ridiculously beautiful women and hot gay men. And then Sai New
00:06:51
House and Anna Winter would be sitting in the corner and you'd walk in. I remember thinking, I got to move to New
00:06:57
York. And I would buy these $120,000 a page ads. I don't even know if they worked or not, but I just wanted to go
00:07:03
to lunch with my friend David Carrie. I probably spent seven or eight million bucks of other people's money just so I
00:07:09
got to eat in the cafeteria. Well, that's nice. That's a good thing. At the common cafeteria. Certainly. Well, we've got a lot to get to today, so we got to
00:07:15
move on. Including Meta's creepy new AI app, Pete Hegsth, and Tulsi Gabbard's continuing sloppiness around like
00:07:23
digital privacy and protection of their stuff and Disney's latest earnings. But first, tensions between India and
00:07:29
Pakistan are escalating after India launched military strikes against targets in Pakistan this week in retaliation for deadly attack in
00:07:35
Kashmir. This conflict is happening at a pivotal economic moment. India is doing trade deals with the US and the UK and
00:07:41
Pakistan is emerging from a years'sl long financial crisis. You've also got China recently uh allied with Pakistan
00:07:48
recently calling Pis Pakistan an ironclad friend and an all-weather strategic uh cooperative partners
00:07:54
partner for his part. President Trump has offered to help to diffuse things saying if I can do anything to help I'll
00:07:59
be there. Of course the Trumps themselves are doing some some deal with Pakistan too a personal deal. So there's
00:08:06
that thrown in there. Both countries are uh nuclear powers. Um I I in fact
00:08:11
interviewed Christian Amenpor so I'm going to channel whatever she says in my comments and pretend they're mine. Yesterday she had a lot to you know it
00:08:18
was an interesting inter interview but this is sort of the the day conflict. Any thoughts? Well yeah whenever there's
00:08:25
a border skirmish with nuclear powers you have to take it very seriously. And on a much less substantive level India
00:08:32
is a big trading partner with us on the economy. you could see oil prices and gold prices uh skyrocket with that kind
00:08:39
of instability. But when two nuclear powers who border each other start you know arguing it's very scary and it can
00:08:46
all be sort of reverse engineered to of course the west uh specifically the UK dividing up India into Pakistan in a
00:08:53
very sloppy way that's created all sorts of uh religious and regional tensions and fights over Kashmir and um China
00:09:00
will probably or China is a very strong ally they describe themselves as an ironcloud friend of Pakistan uh India
00:09:07
has very strong relationships with Japan and Isra Israel and the UAE. I just hope the adults show up and and diffuse the
00:09:14
tensions because typically these types of crazy conflicts are real exogenous
00:09:20
shocks. It's not the [ __ ] you're worried about that gets you. It's the [ __ ] you're not thinking about. Well, you
00:09:25
know, Cristian was saying that it requires really good diplomacy and she's worried about the Trump administration
00:09:31
because the US has always been a key person here and she said into a vacuum something always flows. And so that
00:09:37
would be China. and you know there are these complications of the Trump's personal financial interests um in in
00:09:44
the countries uh and it it just makes a big mess of it and she was worried there wasn't someone who could like they'll
00:09:50
send in that idiot Steve Witco or someone like that to deal with it rather than someone more competent and if
00:09:56
Steven Miller becomes the national security ad I mean seriously so over his skis um and doesn't like brown people
00:10:04
from what I can tell um and uh so they it's a real problem if you don't have the US in a in real fighting shape among
00:10:11
these people to sort of shut the whole thing down. Um and you know it's another one of these conflicts. The next one
00:10:17
will be possibly Taiwan. And so there's going to be one conflict after the next as China starts to really flex its
00:10:23
power. Um especially as its economy is uh suffering uh because of the tariffs,
00:10:28
it'll it'll want to it won't expand elsewhere. I think anyway we're not experts on this but uh I would recommend
00:10:35
listening to Scott interviews lots of foreign uh experts and I just did Christian and so listen to them but um
00:10:42
but still troubling for the for the for the stock market for the economies and for stability in general with all the
00:10:47
different conflicts around the world. I thought he was going to be the settle president but I guess not. Um Open AI
00:10:53
will abandon plans to place its AI business under control of a for-profit entity. Instead, it will transform its
00:10:59
for-profit subsidiary into a public benefit corporation controlled by the nonprofit parent, which I think was they
00:11:05
were considering a lot of things. The decision was made after talking to civic leaders and AGs of California and
00:11:10
Delaware, who would need to sign off on the plan. Obviously, they didn't like what was, you know, the possibilities.
00:11:15
Sam Alman, CEO Sam Alman said the changes will still allow the company to access $30 billion investment from
00:11:21
SoftBank. As a reminder, Elon Musk has been attempting to block the company's restructuring. His lawyer says the announcement changes nothing, which
00:11:27
means he didn't really care about the nonprofit part if this is what they're doing. Uh, obviously he wants his vague
00:11:32
because that's what Elon wants. Um, I talked to to um Sam and Brett Taylor
00:11:37
about it. And I think, you know, I was like, this is a a back walk. Um, they were like, no, because we were
00:11:43
considering lots of things. Then we got feedback and we made the decision and said that the Musk thing had nothing to
00:11:48
do with it. And it was evidenced by the fact that Mus didn't pull the lawsuit after uh they did this and they felt
00:11:54
like they still had enough ability to um um you know to to raise money. I think
00:12:00
their issue is they've got to raise money and at the same time reward people and then they have a lot of people
00:12:05
feeling they should stay true to their original roots which was an was a missiondriven company. So probably will
00:12:11
be a good thing for them to get this in their rearview mirror and then move on. Um but I don't know if you have any thoughts. So I I I'd love to speak to
00:12:20
prear someone who's close to the issue but my general take uh on first blush is
00:12:25
the following and that is uh Elon Musk has absolutely catalyzed this and that is just as there's lawfare I think this
00:12:32
is what I would refer to as nomenclature fair and that is the judge a judge the
00:12:37
attorney general essentially told open AI that the proposed transition doesn't fit the the strict criteria for
00:12:43
transition from a nonprofit to a forprofit and so effectively What they've done is by saying, "Oh, no, just
00:12:49
kidding. We're one of these ridiculous private benefit corporations that a bunch of VCs could virtue signal and say, "I still want the money, but I want
00:12:55
to pretend I'm actually helping humanity." I think it's the most ridiculous corporate classification in history. Um, they they go back and say,
00:13:02
"No, we're a not for-p profofit, but they're lifting the cap on when the
00:13:07
for-profit is entitled to the profits of above hundred billion, which I think only three companies have ever
00:13:13
achieved." So this effectively from a mechanical situation or the complexion
00:13:18
of the company, the operations or the shareholder governance has absolutely no impact, but I think somewhat inoculates
00:13:25
them from the kind of the the white meat of Musk's accusations in his case. I
00:13:33
think the lawyers came back and said, "Okay, fine. Tell tell uh Musk and his
00:13:40
lawyers, oh, just kidding. You win. We're still a a nonprofit, but it's not
00:13:45
going to change anything we do practically. No, let me tell you something. They said the for-profit
00:13:50
corporation board and the nonprofit board will be the same people, right? And so, you know, it's usually this
00:13:56
nonprofit has a geminy over the for-profit corporation now, but it's the same
00:14:02
board. It's the same board. It's the same It's the same. Nothing changes here
00:14:08
except OpenAI's lawyers can say, "Oh, we are a not for profit. He has no case."
00:14:13
That's how I read. Except he didn't pull the case cuz he wants He's not He didn't do it to help anybody at all. Helped
00:14:20
himself to help himself or slow them down. That's what he did it for. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. So, we'll see. I think it'll give them it'll it'll get
00:14:27
everyone else will back off and he will just continue because he thinks he's owed more. I think that's really at the
00:14:33
heart of his case is he thinks he created it and funded it and deserves more money from it. Sell his remorse. He
00:14:39
walked away. One of the biggest mistakes ever in terms of just pure wealth is he said, "I'm out of here." And he said he
00:14:46
signed away the company ironclad documents. He's out which he did with Twitter. remember he was going to buy it
00:14:52
and then he I my house in San Francisco is next to where Mark Zuckerberg moved
00:14:57
and I bought it for $760,000 and 24 months later when I moved to New York so I could spend more
00:15:03
time in the Continent cafeteria. I sold it for $950,000 and I thought it was the [ __ ] greatest real estate investor in history. Uh Cara, it is worth
00:15:10
substantially more now. It is. I live in that neighborhood. Okay, it's worth substantially more. This is absolutely
00:15:16
no different in terms of legal veracity than if I went back and said, "I want my house back. I want my house back. I want
00:15:23
the money. My house is worth. I want my house back. You owe me." It's gone up. I I know I signed legal documents transferring ownership of this asset and
00:15:30
private property laws are pretty pretty detailed. But I've decided because I [ __ ] up selling it that I want it back
00:15:36
or at least I want threw a tizzy. She threw a [ __ ] tizzy and lost money. And they're pulling way ahead. I mean to
00:15:41
chat GBT is really the numbers are really quite startling in terms of the usage. Um they're also spending money
00:15:47
too. This is really but it feels like they're really pulling ahead in that regard and they're going to get they're going to get there. One of the things
00:15:53
someone was like why is it so chaotic? I'm like you were not around for Google and then they were fine. You know what I
00:15:58
mean? Like I think they're probably on a Google trajectory and not a Netscape trajectory. Um, but Google was a [ __ ]
00:16:05
chaos monkey of a [ __ ] house for a long long time and before they settled in and and uh went. Anyway, before we move on,
00:16:12
we're going to be listening to some predictions from listeners today, just so you know. Um, let's listen to the f
00:16:18
we asked we asked listeners to give them our predictions because I'm trying to replace you quietly. So, let's listen to
00:16:23
the first one now because we're already on the topic. Hey Karen, Scott, Matt Mar here from M7 and my prediction is on the
00:16:30
AI arms race and which model will win in the long run. It's not going to be GPT even if it's the superior product. Now
00:16:35
Gemini not caught it will be Meta's llama. It's the only model that is truly open source which means it will be the
00:16:42
technical layer of infrastructure developers and vibe coders can build upon and oh yeah they can flip a switch
00:16:47
and connect your entire social graph through the decades of data they've collected on you. So open- source plus
00:16:52
social is, as Scott would say, the peanut butter and chocolate of AI models. That's a good argument. That's a
00:16:57
good argument. He's right. I mean that I mean I when I interviewed AMD's CE uh CEO, Lisa Sue, she was sort of
00:17:03
everyone's sort of leaning into the open source model. They definitely are the second competitor. I think that's what
00:17:09
OpenAI thinks. I think they think it's Gemini themselves and and Llama and Llama would be number two. Scott, my um
00:17:17
view is that Meta is the AI company actually of 2025. Uh they're they're the second largest purchaser of Nvidia GPUs
00:17:25
just behind Microsoft. So they have the most processing power other than Microsoft. In addition, what is
00:17:32
underappreciated is Reddit, which is an amazing company and the fifth or sixth most traffic site in America, generates
00:17:38
1.3 trillion tokens of data. And that's really the, you know, that's the, you
00:17:43
could argue that's the rare resource here. It doesn't, it doesn't matter how much refining capability you have if you don't have the fossil fuel to put into
00:17:49
it or the coal to put into the furnace. And so, Reddit has 1.3 trillion tokens of data. And just to give you a sense
00:17:55
for just how much data Meta produces. They have 183 trillion tokens of data.
00:18:02
And I think they made the move. And unfortunately, um, Mark Zuckerberg is as brilliant as
00:18:09
he is. sociopathic and I think he decided okay the the train has left the
00:18:14
station around a for consumer uh subscription model. So what we're going
00:18:20
to do is we're going to make this open source and we're going to use this the same way we use WhatsApp as a body bag for data to feed our other paid
00:18:27
platforms. I think that Meta and Llama and if you look at Llama, Llama is really frightening because it has
00:18:33
because it's open source and has absolutely as far as I can tell no guardrails. If you go to Llama and say,
00:18:39
"How to kill your husband slowly?" It literally goes, "Well, what kitchen supplies do you have? How often is he in
00:18:44
the house?" I mean, it's Mark Zuckerberg, people. I give you It's got It's got no guardrails. It'll it'll and
00:18:49
it'll start helping you do whatever it is you would like to do. Sounds about right. And he'll get massive traffic. He
00:18:56
I think he'll make it free and then he'll use all of that data such that I
00:19:02
get served ads for you know for you know hemorrhoid cream at at the exact right moment. Uh I think I think meta I mean
00:19:10
four out of five people who aren't in China are on a meta platform once a week. He has more data. He's making huge
00:19:16
visionary investments with the capital he has. He made the pivot from the metaverse quite smartly. Yeah. So I
00:19:23
pulling the money on Yeah. I I think this guy's right and I think Matt is the AI company of 25. We like the thing,
00:19:28
Matt. I see your point. I'm just saying right now open a eye is in the lead, but you're right. They've got a lot of
00:19:33
throughput. I suspect that open will get sold as one of them at some point or maybe not now that they're a nonprofit. But well just on a meta level though um
00:19:40
a meta a meta meta level uh I now believe that similar to uh jet
00:19:47
transportation technology or um the personal computer I'm not convinced that
00:19:52
anyone company is going to be able to sequester trillions of dollars in shareholder value. I think the big winners are going to be open source and
00:19:59
the general public. I do think that AI is going to make everyone more productive or mostly everyone 100%.
00:20:06
Electricity. Yeah, we have to move on though. Um, as that was a great one, Matt. Thank you. That's really smart. And the fact that you're using Scott's
00:20:12
phrases now is she's not that nice. She interrupts me all the time. Just saying. I said that. I said that. Okay. I know
00:20:18
you did. And Matt, we appreciate it. As we tape on Thursday, President Trump is set to announce a framework of a trade
00:20:23
deal with the U with the UK. Teasing the announcement on True Social. Trump called many other deals will follow. And
00:20:28
speaking of our allies, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sat down for a meeting with President Trump at the White House this week. Trump was of
00:20:34
course asked about Canada becoming the 51st state again. Let's listen. Mr. Prime Minister, I'd like to get your
00:20:40
response to this too, but Mr. President, you have said that Canada should become the 51st state.
00:20:46
No. No. Well, I still believe that. But but you know, takes two to tango, right? Uh but no, I do. I mean, I believe it
00:20:53
would be a massive tax cut for the Canadian citizens. Uh you get free
00:20:58
military, you get tremendous uh medical cares and other things. medical care.
00:21:03
You get tremendous medical care in Canada. Canadians are dying for our medical care system so they can be more obese, depressed, and anxious and pay
00:21:10
more. Pay twice twice as much for their healthcare. Anyway, when Trump eight times what anyone else plays for for
00:21:16
don't have any cares about medical. Anyway, when Trump was asked about whether Carney could say anything to lift the tariffs on Canada, he said no.
00:21:23
Uh the president also told the room that Canada is very special place to him and that he loves the country. Speaking of
00:21:28
tariffs, uh we will this will this is an interesting thing. Internal documents obtained by the Washington Post show
00:21:34
that the State Department pushed uh nations to clear hurdles for Starlink. Huh. Leading to some uh leading to some
00:21:42
to believe there would be a tariff relief for following through. Totally by the books as always. Total grift. Um so
00:21:48
what I want to just note some things. Um Matt Stler, who's um sort of person who
00:21:54
deals with a lot of stuff like this, noted that this UK is hoping to get reduction on 25% tariffs the US is
00:22:00
loving. Um but the baseline 10% tariff will remain in place. Officials say in return, Britain is offering concessions
00:22:07
on a digital tax it levies on U big US companies uh big US tech companies. Um
00:22:13
and so Stler noted so these trade deals are just cuts and tariffs in return for Google and Meta. Explain how this is an
00:22:19
attempt at manufacturing renaissance by demanding consumer sacrifice. Uh so let's go from there. First the the
00:22:26
British thing, then Canadian, and I love Mark Carney. He's such a hunk. Um, and and the Starling thing is exactly as I
00:22:33
expected, total pay-per-play. Go ahead. I thought the more insightful and and in
00:22:39
educational clip was what how Mark Carney handled the question. And I think anyone who's in communications or anyone
00:22:46
who handles does speech writing or or generally just wants a lesson and how you push back forcefully but in the most
00:22:53
dignified way and you don't antagonize uh a very sensitive person who's
00:22:58
entirely about ego and not about stakeholder value i.e. the president. He Mark Carney's comments were just such a
00:23:05
a masterclass in terms of tone of what he said and he said well you know because he he gave him an opening. Trump
00:23:11
said, "Well, I think of it as a real estate deal, and you look at the big, beautiful nation of Canada." Having met
00:23:16
with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign uh last several months, uh it it it's not for sale,
00:23:22
won't be for sale, uh ever. Uh but the opportunity is in the partnership and uh
00:23:28
and what we can build together and we have done that in the past. And I thought that was such an insightful way to frame it. And he said, "And the
00:23:34
owners the owners have told me that this piece of real estate is not for sale." And that is such an elegant and
00:23:41
non-combative way of saying go [ __ ] yourself. Go [ __ ] yourself. And then of course Trump goes never say never. Yeah.
00:23:47
Like so that's he did a great job. I thought Carney was quite a spectacularly just he seemed arerudite
00:23:54
and approachable at the same time. So go to the tariffs because I do think this is like they're all like really not
00:24:01
tariff deals. This seems like a bunch of shakedowns all over the world, including the Starling thing, which is exactly
00:24:07
what I expected and remains horrifying. This is a kleptocracy is you you figure
00:24:13
out a way to ascertain or usurp or attain power and then you use that power
00:24:19
to make a small group of people very rich who have proximity to you who then give you a vig and everybody else gets
00:24:24
less wealthy. And that is what is happening across the entire country as
00:24:30
we have an individual that is acting like a mob boss who monetizes the United States and the White House. And this is
00:24:36
exactly that. This is he has proximity to big tech firms. He wants a he thinks
00:24:41
of them as iconic. They give them a lot of money. He calls them and they take their their their tariff pricing down.
00:24:48
He calls them and they say, "Oh, we're now in the business of of quote unquote free moderation and we call Trump a
00:24:55
badass and we give a million dollars to his inauguration and okay, so we're going to give them a lead over every
00:25:01
other tech or media firm in exchange such that we can call it victory and small and medium-sized media media firms
00:25:08
are [ __ ] out of luck. It's like okay, they don't get this special advantage. they don't get this relief and he can
00:25:13
claim victory by and this this Starling thing is literally like okay this guy
00:25:18
put a quarter of a billion dollars into my campaign and so I am going to force countries I'm going to I mean Buffett
00:25:26
said it he said trade these types of trade wars are a form where tariffs are a form of warfare so the US is
00:25:33
threatening war in exchange you have to give sweetheart deals non-competitive advantage to the companies owned by the
00:25:40
guy that gave me a quarter of a billion dollars to my campaign. He's literally And who does that hurt? It hurts
00:25:47
everyone. We're paying unfair taxes, unfair prices in the small and
00:25:52
mediumsized businesses in this country who create twothirds of our jobs and don't have lobbyists and don't can't get
00:25:57
on the lunch calendar of the president and can't donate to his campaign or aren't going to, they lose. Essentially,
00:26:05
look look at the biggest kleptocracies in the world. whether Poland was emerging into a kleptocracy. Russia has
00:26:11
been a kleptocracy for a long time. There are some of the wealthiest people over the last 30 years have been generated in ch uh generated in Russia.
00:26:18
Meanwhile, there's potholes in Moscow. Senator Warren summarized it perfectly
00:26:23
and that is she said, "Okay, they're getting rich, you're losing your healthcare." That purpose that that
00:26:30
perfectly describes what happens in a kleptocracy. And this is a kleptocracy. If they were to say, "Fine, no tariffs
00:26:36
across. you have to drop your tariffs on all of our media or all of our tech companies and have a systemic law.
00:26:42
That's fine. But when the president starts picking winners and losers, effectively everyone loses. Yeah. Cuz he
00:26:48
loves to be like, I make a deal. I make a deal. But it's always in the interest. The Starling was amazing. Maybe it's the best one, but these countries shouldn't
00:26:54
have be forced into if you only take our, you know, if you take our salami, you know, you'll you'll get what you
00:26:59
want. You won't be like beat up kind of thing. And that's what it feels like everything. And of course, it's
00:27:04
Starlink. And when there's other choices that they could make with European satellite, whatever it matters, that might be their choice in the end, but
00:27:11
they don't get the choice of the choice. And it's it's what the worst thing is it's a lot of small countries, right? A lot of small African countries. It's not
00:27:18
just one. There could the post noted it was noted that was like Vietnam was in there. I forget the Congo may have been
00:27:24
in there. But um and these are not all the ones on the list. So this is a policy of the government to sell
00:27:30
Starlink. Our government does go around and sell our companies, you know, for for decades, you know, use Lockheed,
00:27:36
used Boeing, whatever, but nothing this explicit with someone so close to the
00:27:41
president, right, in terms of like, let me get you a deal and giving them unfair advantage. our our trade representatives
00:27:48
or our our head of our commerce secretary will take a group of iconic American companies, but they will also take a representative for small
00:27:55
businesses and they will say, "Okay, we're here with Boeing, Proctor and Gamble, Estee Lauder, North Face, and
00:28:01
trade representatives for small and medium-sized businesses and manufacturers and we're here and we go to China and we try and cut a deal and
00:28:07
we speak with one voice and talk about, you know, great American companies, but they don't go over and say, "Oh, by the
00:28:14
way, you know, Exxon gave me a [ __ ] ton of I need you to build a an Exxon field
00:28:20
here. Then everyone in oil and gas but Exxon loses. And what happens is
00:28:26
companies start allocating more and more money to the kleptocrat which their consumers pay for and the companies it
00:28:33
creates just an incentive system that's just a downward spiral. Absolutely. And it's a similar incentive system right
00:28:39
now unfortunately because of Citizens United around companies allocating more and more capital to lobbing and
00:28:44
weaponizing. Interesting. It's a waste of money. Lobbying is a waste of money. And and and then the Trump boys go around the world doing either you you
00:28:51
were on Anderson Cooper uh I think it was last night. Um the crypto stuff, the real estate stuff. They're building a
00:28:57
big building in um uh in Saudi Arabia, one in all over the Middle East and just
00:29:04
getting like they're just going with the with like a bag of money. Like it's they feel like mob people like here put the
00:29:10
money in the bag and then we'll do whatever you want. Anyway, it's it's grotesque. It really it is. Anyway,
00:29:16
Scott, and these trade deals, let's watch, let's take them apart very carefully, but most of them are going to be in this genre, giving a favor to
00:29:22
someone and not bringing manufacturing back to the US. That was never the goal. That was a giant lie they were telling.
00:29:28
Um, and people did these sort of virtue signalings of things they were already investing in um to pretend that they
00:29:35
were bringing manufacturing back to the US. So, regular workers are not probably not going to benefit very much as they
00:29:40
didn't in the first Trump administration. when we made all those promises, none of which came to fruition about manufacturing facilities. Okay,
00:29:47
Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Heg says password fails. What a surprise.
00:29:52
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence. That's that's that's working hard, that word right there,
00:29:58
those two words. Um, reportedly has a history of not following best practices when it comes to cyber security. Gabbard
00:30:03
used the same easily corrected password across multiple accounts. I'm surprised it wasn't 1 2 3 4 for years. According
00:30:09
to Wired, the password showed up in multiple data breaches and was linked to her Gmail, Dropbox, and LinkedIn
00:30:15
accounts, and it was apparently some nickname she had in some strange group she belonged to. During the time the
00:30:20
breaches occurred, Gabbard was serving in Congress and sitting on the intelligence related committees with access to sensitive national security
00:30:27
information. Then again, not hold my beer, a lot of beers. Defense Secretary
00:30:32
Pete Hegats also had passwords exposed in multiple data breaches, including the one that was reused across personal
00:30:39
email accounts according to New York Times. I mean, this is like worse than my mother, these two. And um we also
00:30:45
learned that he used Signal, Pete Heg says, even more for Pentagon business, engaging at least a dozen separate
00:30:50
chats, the Wall Street Journal reported. I mean, I've never seen more promiscuous
00:30:56
people when it comes to bad data practices. And talk about your concerns about this. It doesn't like these people
00:31:01
do not know how to keep classified information safe. Um, and even their own personal information at the same time.
00:31:08
Well, you know what happens when Pete Hexath takes Viagra? What?
00:31:14
He grows taller. Cara, he grows taller. Uh
00:31:20
look, when we send our young our daughters and our sons to serpent
00:31:25
uniform, Mhm. they leave their families for months at a time. They forego
00:31:30
economic opportunity and they put themselves in harm's way and oftenimes
00:31:37
come back severely traumatized because, you know, they face such intense and
00:31:42
incredibly stressful situations. And in exchange for that, we have unprecedented
00:31:49
ability to deliver violence all over the world that has created prosperity and security for Americans for 250 years.
00:31:55
And the reason why the US military is the most impressive organization in the history of the West is because from top
00:32:02
to bottom, people take it very seriously. And that is they appreciate even even if you're anti-war,
00:32:09
anti-military, if you're in a position to help and protect our men in uniform, you do it. and you don't do
00:32:15
anything, you know, you don't do anything to to threaten their safety. And this is especially true, it is very
00:32:22
hard to ma hard to maintain morality or excuse me, uh maintain morale if anyone
00:32:27
within the organization, whether it's the CIA case officers on the ground feeding them bad information, whether
00:32:33
it's the person repairing your plane, trusting they're literally sweating all
00:32:39
night that there's not going to be a mechanical failure. And the idea that the defense secretary is being reckless
00:32:44
with classified information and putting them in harm's potentially in harm's way. And you may even know know how this
00:32:50
manifests. Let's you know who should comment on this. Let's uh use let's get
00:32:56
Pete Hexath's words on this. In 2016, he said the following when referencing
00:33:01
Hillary Clinton storing confidential information on an email server. How damaging is it to your ability to
00:33:07
recruit or build allies with others when they are worried that our leaders may be exposing them because of their gross
00:33:12
negligence, of their recklessness in handling information. Oh, he's such a hypocrite. And uh he then went on to
00:33:19
say, "The people we rely on to do dangerous and difficult things to us rely on one thing from us. That we will
00:33:25
not reveal their identity. That we will not be reckless with the dangerous things that they're doing for us. That's
00:33:30
the national security implications of a private server that's unsecured. I mean this guy he literally defines hypocrisy
00:33:38
and uh then he went on to say if at the very top there's no accountability then
00:33:43
there's two tiers of justice said Hacksath yeah Pete the secretary Hagath
00:33:50
there appears to be two tiers of justice here and this is you know these the
00:33:56
people in the military have one thing in common they all the most patriotic people in America are our veterans And
00:34:04
anyone who has kids knows why when you make this type of investment and sacrifice in something, you become invested in it. Success. And that's one
00:34:10
of the reasons I think we need mandatory national service. This guy does not appear to be invested in our success by
00:34:16
virtue of the fact he's just so [ __ ] reckless. And then all the planes falling off of aircraft. I've never
00:34:22
heard of this. Like what in the world is happening? All this sloppiness. They'll blame it on Bernie Sanders. They'll
00:34:27
blame it on someone. I just I've never heard of blame. Like when's the last time that was a story? And now it's like
00:34:34
a double story. Like these people are sloppy in every single aspect of their lives. Anyway, whatever. There'll be
00:34:40
more of it and we'll find out. I mean, I'm sure our our our rivals are just loving it. And they're really kind this
00:34:46
this kid named this ROC kid who couldn't go to college unless it had been for ROTC. Martin Ortiz, uh, my fraternity
00:34:53
brother. This guy was so irresponsible, so reckless, so crazy,
00:35:00
right? I mean, we were literally, you know, we didn't shy away from crazy behavior in the fraternity. Everyone was scared of this guy. He would come to my
00:35:07
apartment because he lived far away from his base. And he would sleep in our room on the floor and he would wake up at
00:35:13
3:45 in the [ __ ] morning after drinking all night. So, he could be a half an hour early at his base because
00:35:20
he knew when it came to when he came to when it came to his military service, there was no margin of error. Period. No
00:35:27
margin of error. And this is a guy who couldn't who couldn't get a D in in in
00:35:32
basic English and couldn't figure out a way to rally himself to write a paper or
00:35:37
whatever. But when it came to the commitment to the armed services, the culture they have created is you have to
00:35:44
be near perfect. Yep. And Pete Hagath is not anyway. Whatever. It's going to be a
00:35:49
constant disappointment until they dump this guy. And he'll probably get dumped cuz he dumps planes off of aircraft carriers that cost $60 million each.
00:35:57
that the money that we're supposed to be saving. Anyway, uh the Gates Foundation is marking its 25th anniversary with a
00:36:02
major announcement that will officially wind down operations and close its doors permanently in 2045, decades earlier
00:36:08
than originally planned. In the meantime, Bill Gates has committed over $200 billion in aid over the next 20
00:36:13
years, astonishing number, with a focus on ending preventable deaths, eradicating infectious diseases, and
00:36:18
lifting millions out of poverty. The announcement comes as the US foreign uh and foreign aid faces growing political
00:36:25
pressures. They're cutting it everywhere. Trump administration is Gates has been really has got a hair up his ass about this for sure because in
00:36:31
an interview the New York Times, Gates pulled no punches about recent cuts in US aid, putting the onus on Elon Musk,
00:36:38
saying he put uh he put it in the wood chipper because he didn't want he didn't go to a party that weekend. Gates went
00:36:43
on to say, "The world's richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world's poorest children." I was like
00:36:49
he's been a little bit more um like Trump positive just cuz he he wanted to
00:36:55
sort of get the aid back in some way, but now he's like [ __ ] it. Like I don't care. This is what's going on here. So
00:37:02
the fact that the the one of the other world's richest men is spending $200 billion of his money in stuff that the
00:37:08
US government should be doing. Um and the fact that he's calling on Elon, I thought it was good for Gates. Good for
00:37:14
Gates because I I was worried he was sort of modulating himself in a way that I know he doesn't think. So, what do you
00:37:21
think about this? There's a popular saying that um a society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade
00:37:26
they know they shall never sit. And Elon Musk is is cutting down these trees.
00:37:32
America has been planting shade uh planting trees the shade of which we will never ever sit under. George Bush
00:37:39
with I think it was PEPAR. He saved tens of millions of people by making a huge investment in rallying really competent
00:37:45
people to try and distribute AIDS cocktail drugs to people in Africa. I that had no impact on me
00:37:53
other than it was nice that we had the ability to do it and we used our scale and our strength and our expertise and
00:37:59
our science and our universities to do that. Elon Musk is doing the opposite. He's cutting down the trees, the shade
00:38:05
of which he will never sit under because his attitude is if it's not providing me with shade, I don't give a [ __ ] And
00:38:11
I'll call it I'll say that I'm in I'm saving money for the government in order to go to Mars. Mars is what we really
00:38:17
need to do so we can save humanity. There are certain investments where if
00:38:22
you make a small amount of investment and $75 million is not a lot when you look at the world's issues, you can
00:38:28
allocate that capital to places of such need that a little bit of money has enormous ROI. Well, this is 200 billion
00:38:36
Scott Gates. No, I'm talking about USA 75 billion. My point is I think Gates
00:38:43
who's one of the most brilliant people and also I think later in life as you would hope from a man really developed a
00:38:50
great deal of empathy. He thought okay what could I do with my quarter of a trillion dollars in wealth. I could
00:38:56
create other great companies. I could build the biggest VC firm in the world. I could decide who gets to be president or who doesn't. And he said at the
00:39:02
margin of the efficient frontier efficient frontier I can save tens of
00:39:07
millions of lives because one small pill that staves off or prevents a case of
00:39:14
malaria is not that expensive in certain regions of the world or netting or whatever he was doing all kinds of
00:39:20
different toilets. He spent a bunch of money on toilets. He's like, "It's not romantic, but if I can bring safe
00:39:25
potable water and sanitation to certain regions, I will literally save millions of children who otherwise would have died of dysentery." He's a complex guy
00:39:33
and and not always listen, he was a very difficult person. I was there when he was younger and kind of a jerk. He was a jerk. Um, and all kinds of stuff he's
00:39:41
done that is not great in lots of ways. At the same time, the transformation of this person into this kind of
00:39:47
philanthropy is really something to see. and the fact that listen it's not it's no small risk for him to call out Musk
00:39:54
who has been by the way attacking him relentlessly with fake stuff around
00:40:00
vaccines Musk was one of and Twitter has been the purveyor of this nonsense that
00:40:06
Gates is putting chips inside of people's heads all kinds of like through the vaccine and I the fact that this
00:40:13
Musk all he does is make trouble for this guy and insult him and and create
00:40:19
all kinds mis dangerous misinformation about him and then I'm glad he did this.
00:40:25
I'm glad he said it because it's what he thinks. One of the most wonderful things about America as a society is we have created
00:40:30
uh a complexion or a gestalt in our society where typically as you become more powerful there's an onus in an
00:40:37
environment that encourages you to evolve to become kinder. Bill Gates has become kinder. I think guys like Mark
00:40:44
Benoff and Brian Chesy and even, you know, I I interviewed Melinda French Gates, you can tell as they've gotten
00:40:50
more powerful, they really take it very seriously that I need to evolve as a
00:40:55
person. I need to become kinder. The worst thing that can happen in a society is where you create a gestalt that okay,
00:41:02
once I become president or once I become the wealthiest man in the world, I digress. I become an even bigger
00:41:08
[ __ ] I become even more damaging to the world. And it's not an I I got to
00:41:14
think quite frankly and this is more of a philosophical question. What is it about our society where we are evolving
00:41:20
this new species of man in the United States where as they become more powerful even the robber barons who were
00:41:25
not nice people once they achieved a certain level of power they did flip the switch and think how can I build big
00:41:31
projects and big universities that would help society and these guys are not thinking that way. If only someone had a
00:41:37
book coming out in November that discussed what kind of men we should be. Go on. It's more a discussion of what
00:41:44
kind of man you shouldn't be. It's a sort of You're telling it. Anyway, we've got to go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Disney and Uber's
00:41:51
latest earnings, but good for you, Bill Gates. Good for you, Scott. We're back. Disney is out with its latest earnings.
00:41:56
I'd love to hear what you think about this. The company reported $23 billion in revenue, up 7% from a year ago, and
00:42:02
$3.2 billion in net income. A big turnaround from the net loss of $20 million last year. These numbers were
00:42:08
fueled by higher streaming profit that seems to be doing well. Good bet by Bob Iger. Domestic theme parks and home
00:42:13
video sales of Moana 2. I can tell you I've watched it 109,000 times. And
00:42:19
speaking of theme parks, Disney has also announced plans for it a new park in Abu Dhabi. That makes sense. It's seventh
00:42:25
theme park resort. I thought they had one there. I don't know why. Disney is often seen as a bellweather for consumer
00:42:30
confidence. These numbers tell you consumers aren't too worried. Or is it just another convoy from earnings report? Um I'm going to add in Uber's
00:42:37
earnings, too. The company reported 11.5 billion in revenue, up 14% year-over-year. Good. Not a huge
00:42:43
company, but a good solid revenue thing, but slightly below Wall Street's expectations. Total bookings grew 14% to
00:42:50
42 billion. Um, that's the amount. And then they have to take out blah blah blah. They have to pay drivers, etc. Uh,
00:42:56
Uber has also just announced a joint venture with Chinese self-driving car company Pony AI to roll out robo taxis
00:43:02
in Middle Eastern markets. look like Uber is becoming the partner for all these things like Whimo and and and uh
00:43:08
what Pony AI is doing around the world. So, um I'd love to hear what you um what
00:43:14
you think about then we have another listener uh prediction around earnings. But first Disney and then Uber. Well,
00:43:19
Uber was Uber just sort of barely missed expectations. I would argue they met expectations. And what's interesting about Uber is their relationship with
00:43:26
all the they're striking up with all these different autonomous driving company. It feels like there's an old Hemingway line uh how did you go
00:43:32
bankrupt gradually then suddenly is the answer. It feels like the autonomous wars have been slow and now it feels
00:43:40
like it's about we're on the eve of war among uh autonomous whether it's Uber doing deals, Whimo at some point Musk
00:43:47
will enter. It feels like autonomous. Whimo and Uber have a deal. Like because they're the reservation system. Like
00:43:52
that's what I've always thought Uber was the reservation system for someone. The consumer and you're used to you're used
00:43:59
to just booking a car on them. But I that's what I took away from the Uber earnings, but I didn't I didn't think
00:44:04
they're that interesting. The more really the more interesting one was the surprise to the upside from Disney. And
00:44:10
that is their stock popped 10%. It's at after really touching kind of 10-year lows. revenue up 7%. Uh the Disney Plus
00:44:19
uh not only raised prices but grew their subscriber base which a lot of us weren't expecting. Hulu added over 1
00:44:26
million subscribers. But the real story here is that I think strategically they're being very smart because what
00:44:31
are they doing? They're leaning into their core advantage and point of differentiation and that's its parks
00:44:36
business. Uh, Parks was mentioned five times more in this earnings call than the prior quarters call because they
00:44:43
realized that Netflix isn't opening a park. Alpha Metac, it takes 10 years, 20
00:44:49
years maybe to build a park like this. Their cruise line is killing it. Um, and
00:44:55
they also realize quite frankly they're probably always going to be a distant two or three maybe if they're lucky in
00:45:01
streaming, but they can be number one and command unfair margins in their parks unit. And their parks unit is just
00:45:08
killing it. And to Bob Iger's credit, this was this was the strongest earnings
00:45:14
call Disney has had in a long time. And that is, okay, the streaming is no longer a sinkhole of capital. And we are
00:45:22
we our parks business which is truly differentiated and singular is killing
00:45:28
it. So good good for them. I I you know yeah I think he's and then we'll see who he takes over. But he he's you know he's
00:45:34
a pro. This man is a pro. Um okay Scott, while we're on the topic of earnings, let's hear for another prediction from a
00:45:40
listener. This one about the economy. Let's play it. By the way, our listeners are so smart. Hi Karen and Scott. This
00:45:46
is Rich, an American living in Germany since 2016. My prediction is that the US
00:45:51
falls into a recession, possibly even worse than 2008. On the consumer side,
00:45:58
tariffs push prices even higher after years of inflation, crushing demands.
00:46:04
Businesses cut jobs even more than they are already due to tariffs and AI. Then
00:46:11
on the credit side, investors demand higher yields after we've voluntarily
00:46:17
drive our economy off a cliff. Unlike 2008 though, the Fed can't just cut
00:46:24
rates in a stagflationary environment. We're stuck in a vicious cycle or toyful
00:46:29
k as car knows. To c this is this is, you know, most people
00:46:36
are can't tell if we're going to run into this recessionary environment. Um it it certainly feels like that's what
00:46:42
we're being set up for unless he does something. I mean this is self selfinflicted of course.
00:46:48
Well there's there's sort of the known unknowns and then the unknown unknowns and it's usually the unknown unknowns
00:46:54
that that get you. But in terms of the known unknowns, the fulcrum here about whether we probably go into a recession
00:47:00
or worse stagflation is this nonsense around around tariffs and what happens. If anything resembling the proposed
00:47:07
tariffs actually sticks, you're going to see an increase in inflation, an increase in interest rates, and a
00:47:13
decline in the economy. The word for that that most young people don't know is stagflation. And when you have
00:47:18
stagflation, when the economy is shrinking, even as interest rates go up, which is the worst of that's, you know, that's nitro and glycerin for an
00:47:25
economy, you have to sacrifice jobs and massively increase interest rates because basically typically what the Fed
00:47:31
says is we will opt for lower or higher unemployment versus higher inflation.
00:47:37
That's the real danger in my opinion. If we go into recession, that's that's something that's supposed to happen
00:47:42
every seven years. It brings down prices, quite frankly. It gives young people over the medium-term a little bit of an opportunity to buy into assets at
00:47:48
a lower price. I don't think recession is the worst thing that could happen to us. If you look at the Fed's uh notes or
00:47:54
or Chairman Pal's notes yesterday, he essentially said we're in a bit of a vibe session. and Kyla Scanland, who I
00:48:01
love, this young uh woman who does a ton of great um work on uh economics. Uh essentially, consumer
00:48:09
confidence is at a low since co the uncertainty index is at a high since the
00:48:14
80s. But if you look at the underlying data, if you look at employment, if you look at retail sales, if you look at
00:48:21
spending, quite frankly, the economy still looks pretty strong right now. And so he he kept interest rates he kept
00:48:28
interest rates flat. So this is all about in the short term unless you know if look if there's a nuclear detonation
00:48:35
on the on the Indian Pakistani border all bets are off right. But in terms of
00:48:41
where we are economically right now the fulcrum or the arbiter will be just how [ __ ] insane how down crazy road we
00:48:48
travel with these um with these tariffs. So we'll see. But the thing I'm most
00:48:54
scared of um is not a recession. I actually think that recessions I think we're due for not an extended recession.
00:49:02
Housing prices and stock prices need to come down such that people like you and me, Cara, maybe transfer a little bit of
00:49:08
our wealth and create some opportunity for younger people who want to buy their own homes and buy their own stocks. I
00:49:13
don't think that'd be the worst thing in the world. What would be nearly the worst thing for the economy would be a
00:49:19
spike in interest rates as the economy goes goes down. And the thing what's so interesting is any economist under the
00:49:25
age of 50 doesn't even know the word stagflation. They don't even think it can happen. It can happen. It happened in the horror movie stagflation. I feel
00:49:32
like Bessence's got the upper hand here. Besset and Rubio over the crazies. I think I suspect a little bit more. So
00:49:39
it's the tenure. It's the bond. If the bond market starts spiking, they all freak out. They all freak out. You're
00:49:44
right. I'm saying with the ter with having to do with Trump's crazy, he seems a little more willing to deal
00:49:50
besides himself self deal. Um, in any case, um, we'll see. We'll see. Great.
00:49:55
Great. Thank you so much, Rich. That was really great. Um, very quickly, the new Meta uh AI app is creepy. According to a
00:50:02
detailed account in the Washington Post, speaking of of these AI stuff that were met, it probably will dominate in many
00:50:08
ways. The app assures personalized AI and delivers via personal information from Facebook and Instagram and memory
00:50:13
files where details about users are kept. Jeffrey Fowler, who wrote the post, the article found his memory file
00:50:19
contain interest like natural fertility techniques, divorce, and payday loans. Uh Meta Meta also feeds conversations
00:50:27
back about Meta's AI training system without an option to opt out. I like I know you're saying they're going to
00:50:32
dominate. There is thing I worry about. You always say, "Oh, I loaded this up. I loaded that up." And I'm always like,
00:50:37
"I'm not loading my stuff up, you know, and you can pay a little more to chat TPT so they don't train on your data and
00:50:44
they allegedly protect it." Um, I would not load up like what I ate for lunch
00:50:50
yesterday to Meta. I have to say, I mean, except for Instagram and threads, which I use largely for marketing. Um, I
00:50:57
got to say, I'm not loading a damn thing up to this person because of the way it was used and the lack of any guard
00:51:03
rails. I I would never use their AI app. I don't know how you feel about it, but
00:51:08
you're very you're much more promiscuous in loading up your information. So, yeah, my attitude is violate my privacy
00:51:14
as long as I can see that my QX60 is one minute away. I I could just get high. I could just eat edibles and order Ubers
00:51:20
and watch how close my car is. I find it [ __ ] fascinating. Why is he making a right turn on broom? Doesn't he know where he's going? Maps. I find that [ __ ]
00:51:28
fascinating. And occasionally I have a moment I'm like, how do they know? Like I, you know, how do they know I have
00:51:34
prostate itis? How are they know? I mean, I find this [ __ ] fascinating. Mine is food po food food porn like people
00:51:40
making food. uh tool tips tip like little hacks
00:51:45
hardware hacks and Mission Impossible Mission Impossible Dockers which is
00:51:51
coming out May 23rd and I'm going by myself just so everybody knows do not speak to me on May 23rd I'm going to see
00:51:57
the final reckoning and I'm going to probably see it twice but go ahead Scott. So so what do you think about
00:52:02
this this this app? Are you going to use it? You probably will. Look, I I
00:52:08
am I'm I'm do a talk. I was just in Hamburg, Germany, and I do a talk on
00:52:14
that everyone want everyone wanted to know had two, you know, questions really around two topics in the Q&A. What the
00:52:21
[ __ ] is going on in America and they want to know about AI and I've said I'm
00:52:26
an AI optimist for the most part. I don't think it's going to turn on us. I don't see any reason why AI can't be used to create defensive measures
00:52:32
against offensive measures. I don't think it's ever going to become sentient. I think in the short run it'll
00:52:37
destroy jobs, but like every other technology, it'll create, in my opinion, more jobs than it destroys over the medium and the long term. The biggest
00:52:44
threat of AI is that it's going to speedball loneliness, and that is I'm
00:52:49
I'm frustrated. I can't I don't have friends. I I can't figure out the social pecking order. I I am really upset. I
00:52:58
don't have a girlfriend. So, I have this incredible uh AI girlfriend that's a mix
00:53:03
of porn and maybe I even have an AI robot sex doll and I never develop the skills or take the risk to establish a
00:53:09
romantic relationship. And this is the fear. This is what young men have fighting against them is they have the
00:53:15
deepest pocketed most talented people in the world trying to convince them they can have a reasonable faximile of life
00:53:21
with no human contact. You need you need So you're not concerned with loading your stuff up, which is my question.
00:53:28
Well, okay, it's too late for me. And not only that, quite frankly, I have economic security and people who love me unconditionally. So I I'm there. I'm at
00:53:35
the promised land. What I'm worried about is young men who are struggling to find a connection to school, to work, or
00:53:40
to other people and get a reasonable fact similarly of that dopa hit that you get from a relationship from Reddit,
00:53:46
Discord, porn, Robin Hood. Oh, I'm I'm not gambling. I'm investing. And they
00:53:52
spend all of their time in their basement never going through the hardship of trying to make agree
00:53:57
relationships work. Let me say we have to move on. But Scott, every Scott will be everybody's friend. Next friend, just
00:54:04
so you know, Scott is everybody's friend. I'm very unfriendly, but Scott will be everybody's friend. Um, okay.
00:54:09
Uh, I'm not using that app. That's all I'm saying. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions, including one more listener
00:54:17
prediction. We're going to do a prediction now. Scott, I'm going to do a very brief one. They're giving out
00:54:22
Golden Globes for best podcast next year. I think we need to win even though we're not in the top. You have to be in the top 25 to be in it. Um, we have to
00:54:29
get to the top. Top 25 most listened. Yes. Apparently some crazy right-wingers
00:54:35
that are in the top 25. I know that. Exactly. So, we need to we need to What about the top 25 revenue? Because the
00:54:40
thing is the people who listen to those people don't have any money unless they're like looking for dental implants or like trucker hats. So we need to kiss
00:54:47
up to the Golden Globe people. All those foreigners to tariff them. Let's threaten to tariff awards ceremonies. We
00:54:53
want to come. We are so much fun at a party. We would have such a we would be so good at a Golden Globe. We will drink. We will cause problems etc. et so
00:55:01
much is doing a lot of work there. But okay, you fall asleep on the couch. Everyone's wondering who the nine-year-old boy who is asleep on the
00:55:07
couch. And everyone's like, who's the guy just at the bar who won't leave? That's correct. Um and as I said, I will
00:55:13
be at Mission Impossible. One thing I will I'm going to do a quick prediction. I was talking to the people at Aurora,
00:55:19
which is the self-driving um trucks, right? Um everyone's focused on self-driving cars, but these driverless
00:55:25
runs of trucks, they're now going to on every day between Dallas in Houston. Um
00:55:30
I just think that's something that isn't focused in on. Um they hauled pastries. The first driver is hauled transported
00:55:36
pastries. This is an area nobody's paying attention to. I think that is the real money is is that kind of stuff cuz
00:55:43
that's where it's going to be. That's where we really do need these these driverless things going on. Um and I'm
00:55:50
I'm excited by driverless cars in cities. I am personally, but I think that's where the big money is going to
00:55:55
be. That's where you should be focusing in on if you're interested in the sector. All right, Scott, make a prediction.
00:56:02
uh this first 100 days of the Trump administration mostly using the vehicle of the Trump coin will go down in
00:56:08
history is the greatest grift in the history of our economy in terms of the amount of money stolen and the size of
00:56:13
it over the shortest period billions. Just some just some data here. Uh so
00:56:19
Trump affiliated entities have made at least $300 million. This is distinct to the value of his stake in Trumpcoin in
00:56:25
trading fees. The Trump family's net worth has increased by $3 billion or a billion dollars a month since he took um
00:56:34
he took office. Just some timeline, the Trump coin launched on a Friday night
00:56:39
under cover of dark with all the news about the inauguration. By 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, it was valued at more than 70
00:56:45
billion. And there were a small number of coins uh small number of investors who made large investments on a Friday.
00:56:52
Maybe they got a tip or something. They made they made tens if not hundreds of millions and then over the course of the
00:56:59
next couple weeks about 800,000 smaller investors lost billions. So that's the
00:57:06
Melaniacoin one. The Melania coin two dozen traders made us almost hundred million the weekend it came out. Right.
00:57:13
So, one person uh uh 64 seconds invested almost a million dollars 64 seconds
00:57:19
before the project was publicly announced and with within 24 hours had made 40 million. But since then, Melania
00:57:26
has lost 96% of its value. Sure has. And this market manipulation, this what
00:57:32
would technically be called insider trading by the SEC. We'll never know because on April 8th, Trump's deputy
00:57:39
attorney general ordered the DOJ's crypto fraud investigation arm to disband. Mhm. The next day, the the next
00:57:46
day on April 9th, the same day that Treasury Secretary Scott Bassant affirmed that it was Main Street's turn
00:57:52
to get wealthy, Trump posted on Truth Social, "This is a great time to buy Donald Trump Media at 9:37 a.m. Between
00:58:00
1 and 1:10 p.m., there was a huge increase in bullish zeroday uh S&P 500
00:58:07
call options. And then just 8 minutes later, uh, Trump announced a 90-day pause on all of his tariffs and the
00:58:14
market soared almost 10%. One of the biggest one day gains in history. So, someone knew what was going on. Of
00:58:19
course they do. He calls them. Like, it's called inside That's called insider trading. The market gained $4 trillion
00:58:26
while Trump Media closed up 23%. Trump's 53% ownership stake in the company uh
00:58:32
increased his net worth by 415 million. On April 23rd, Trump
00:58:37
announced that the top holders of the Trump coin would win an exclusive dinner with him in the coin surge over 60%. A
00:58:44
small group of investors have generated massive returns. Just 58 wallets made
00:58:49
more than 10 million a piece totaling approximately 1.1 billion in gains. Meanwhile, 800,000 wallets of mostly
00:58:56
smaller holders have lost money on the Trump coin. And this isn't just a vessel for corruption. It's an open invitation
00:59:03
for foreign manipulations. Threearters of the token value held among the top 220 wallets are believed to be held by
00:59:13
foreign owners. So, if he's hosting a dinner for for his
00:59:18
Trump pack and it costs a million and a half dollars and say you're hungry and
00:59:24
you want to get rid of these tariffs, don't you pay someone have someone a proxy go spend the million and a half
00:59:29
bucks and go, "Oh, just FYI, let the president know as a gift to him, we're going to buy $50 million in Trumpcoin
00:59:37
this week, which will increase the value somewhere between half a billion and a billion, which means he'll get somewhere between 4 and 800 million. And we're
00:59:44
really hoping he's kind to us around the terrorists. I I agree. I've been talking to a lot of investigative reporters right now. And by the way, a lot of
00:59:50
techies are keeping tabs of this stuff. I have to say a in a couple of years there's going
00:59:56
to be a massive investigation. He'll probably be not too old to put him in jail for it. But boy is this a grift.
01:00:02
You're absolutely right. Well, it gets worse. Now the the kids run on it. World Liberty Financial crypto firm run by
01:00:08
Trump's sons, Eric and Don Jr. uh 60% of it is owned by Trump affiliated entity
01:00:14
and they are entitled to 75% of its revenue. It's raised more than a half a billion dollars from investors who
01:00:20
purchased the um World Liberty Financial Governance token and now it's being
01:00:26
leveraged to facilitate pardons for criminals. Justin's son, a crypto
01:00:31
billionaire, was under SEC investigation for securities fraud under the Biden administration after investing 75
01:00:37
million in World Liberty Financial. Guess what, Cara? The SEC dismissed his
01:00:42
case. That's correct. This is a This is a crash. We We have to move on, but it it is really This is the story I keep
01:00:48
telling reporters and you've talked about it quite a lot. This is the story. The the the absolute kleptocracy, and
01:00:54
it's in plain sight. Absolutely. But this is what this is what [ __ ] infuriates. I'm a real politic guy. I
01:01:00
don't mind a little bit of corruption as long as it's good for all Americans. I don't mind a little bit of strongarmming. But here's the problem or
01:01:08
the tragedy. If Trump bought h if Trump brought half the competence, expertise,
01:01:14
and elegance to governance as he does to grifting, the country would be in a much
01:01:20
better place. We have a mob family running the country. That's the bad news. The worst thing The worst thing is
01:01:28
that Michael Corleó is managing the crime and Fredo is managing the
01:01:33
government. Yeah. It's like for God's sakes, that's a good analogy. You are you are so good at stealing. Yeah. Can
01:01:41
you bring some of that elegance, that timing, that expert, that expertise to the government, to actual government
01:01:47
usually is in charge of our [ __ ] military right now. And Michael Corleó is in charge of the Trump coin. So I
01:01:55
forgive everything if you take the people managing your grift and put them in charge of our military. And we do not
01:02:00
want Eric Trump. But you get my point. This is just Yeah, I get it. But they're not even smart. I don't even think
01:02:05
they're smart. I think they're stupid and they're just putting their bag out and say, "Put money in here." Mobsters are notoriously stupid. They just are
01:02:12
just muscle. And that's what's happening here. Anyways, the prediction is the biggest grift in history is happening as
01:02:18
we sit here right now. In 5 years, 10 years, when this all comes out, and it will, this will be the greatest grift in
01:02:25
an economy over a shorter period of time that has ever taken place. This will make Putin blush. Yep. Absolutely. Okay,
01:02:33
Scott, you've made your prediction. Now, it's time to hear one last one from a listener. This one is super serious, so
01:02:38
please try to focus. Okay, let's play it. Uh, this is Mike from Oakland,
01:02:44
California. And I think my prediction is if Scott isn't already shaving his
01:02:50
balls, he's going to start doing that because I think there's nothing more depressing than gray ball hair. Um, and
01:02:58
that's really my prediction. Okay. Uh, I am speechless. Uh, excellent. I
01:03:08
occasionally clip my whole body so I can feel like a jungle cat and then I put lotion all over my body and I just love
01:03:13
me. Yeah, I'm not a big I'm not a big manscaper. I like Big Ed and the twins
01:03:19
have a little bit of a beard. Yeah, I got to say it's a big business. It's a big business. No, they have good names.
01:03:25
They all have such good names. all those manscaping things. They have really funny um brand names. Anyway, I don't
01:03:32
see how I know this, but I do. My junk looks like like an aging anteater. It just looks sad. Okay. It just looks sad.
01:03:40
Well, I don't know what to say that, but Scott is speechless, which is excellent. Thank you, Mike. Yeah. All right. We
01:03:46
want to hear I think clipping is good. Keep it clean for the ladies, Scott. Keep it clean for the ladies. This is
01:03:52
what I tell my sons. Keep it Keep it clean for the ladies. My wife came in or actually like came in on me while I was
01:03:59
manscaping once and she asked me what I was doing. I apparently meal prep was not the right answer.
01:04:06
Okay. Keep it clean for the ladies. That's my advice to all men. All right. We want to hear from you. Send us your
01:04:12
questions about business. Ladies and men, let me be clear. We want to hear from you. Send us your question about
01:04:17
business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or call 85551 pivot. Elsewhere
01:04:25
in the Cara and Scott universe this week, uh this week on PropG conversations, Scott spoke with Anne Applebomb, one of my favorites, Pula
01:04:31
surprise winning historian. So good and she's so good and staff trader at the Atlantic. Let's listen to a clip. Donald
01:04:38
Trump is somebody who's constantly seeking to shape reality to his own benefit and he feels no need to to be
01:04:44
accurate. And so anybody who does, anyone who cares about telling the truth
01:04:49
or or who cares about making policy based on reality and not on this fiction
01:04:55
that that Trump promotes is uncomfortable. And that means that all the people around him are either
01:05:00
manipulable and they're willing to just do whatever he says or they're people who have made a big a kind of moral
01:05:08
sacrifice, you know, who who are doing something they know to be wrong. Hello, Marco Rubio. Ann is terrific and that's
01:05:14
I can see why you're in the grift mode right now because she talks about this a lot. She's an expert on this. I love her. I love her. I love when I love when
01:05:22
unfortunately I'm like it's it's terrible she's having a moment. It's like if someone writes about famine I hope they don't have a moment but she is
01:05:27
having a moment. She is she's great and well worth reading. Uh okay that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. Be
01:05:34
sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Scott, read us out. Today's show
01:05:40
is produced by Larara Nemans, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kevin Oliver. Bernie Rad engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrough,
01:05:46
Mia Sabaro, and Dan Shalon. Yach Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on
01:05:53
your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at
01:05:59
nymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech
01:06:04
and business. Cara, what economic theory opposes manscaping? [Music]
01:06:11
Lazy fur. Golden globe. Golden globe winner for
01:06:18
best podcast. [Music]
