00:00:00
Let's assume his roommate was transitioning. I mean, who the [ __ ] cares? What does that have to do with
00:00:08
anything?
00:00:15
Hi everyone, this is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Cara Swisser
00:00:20
and I'm Scott Galloway. Why don't we just get started on this first? We have some competition as we tape. JD Vance is hosting the Charlie
00:00:26
Kirk show over uh on Rumble. announced on X. It would be an honor to quote, "Pay tribute to my friend." Charlie
00:00:32
Kirk's suspected killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, is expected to be formally charged this week. He's currently not cooperating with
00:00:38
authorities. I think he's in that [ __ ] that mode since he did what he did. That's we seems, as we Scott and I have
00:00:44
talked about, to be terminally online. Um Robinson's motive is still unknown. There's a lot of speculation and
00:00:50
misinformation floating around. Uh uh Utah Governor Spencer Cox shared some details over saying Robin was
00:00:55
indoctrinated with leftist ideology and spent much of his time on the deep dark internet. I I don't he just uh they SC
00:01:04
Cox is saying that Robinson had a roommate and romantic partner who was transitioning. Again, they're not providing any details, so I'm not going
00:01:10
to believe anything including what Cox said. I think he is trying his best and he's getting enormous pressure from
00:01:16
Trump. But when asked it was irrelevant to motive, Cox said, "That's what we're trying to figure out, though." FBR director Cash Patel shared a link to a
00:01:22
Fox News story about it on X. I mean, literally make your own announcement, Cash Patel, if you don't mind, rather
00:01:28
than doing stuff like that. What a what an idiot he is. Um, so we don't know his motives at all. Again, as Scott and I
00:01:35
have been saying, let's find out. Um, obviously when you move to murder, uh, there's something very deep and, uh, and
00:01:41
and tragic going on and also possibly mental illness, too. Um, talk about you
00:01:47
just talked a little bit about your overall thoughts in terms of what we know and don't know. And since you've been down a rabbit hole, I just don't
00:01:54
I'm not going to believe anything until a trial. That's my feeling. I just don't I don't trust Cash Patel in any way. I
00:02:00
think people are grabbing bits and pieces for their own. You know, the bullet was trans. No, it wasn't. The
00:02:05
shooter was trans. No, he wasn't. Oh, his roommate is trans. Well, I don't know. And so, I'm going to go with the
00:02:11
and I don't even know it has anything to do with it. Like that's the other thing is that's the really key part. Um so
00:02:17
your thoughts? Well, it's clear what's happened here. Um Governor Cox made the mistake of
00:02:25
acting like a leader. Mhm. and trying to take down the volume and not engage in the violence
00:02:31
entrepreneurship that the president and some people on the left but mostly people on the right
00:02:37
have engaged in to find an opportunity uh around violence to create advantage
00:02:43
at the expense of potentially fermenting more violence. So let me go to the notion let's assume his roommate was
00:02:50
transitioning. Okay. So the [ __ ] what? If he had been in a
00:02:57
relationship with a white girl in a sorority at ASU, does that mean this is
00:03:02
the Republican's fault? I mean, who the [ __ ] cares? What does that have to do with anything with
00:03:11
anything? I agree. His grandmother was like, "Where Magga?" I'm like, "I don't care. That has nothing to do with you." So,
00:03:17
thank you, grandma. And this all this all goes what's so frustrating for me about this
00:03:23
is look at the data and to try and figure out who the real culprit is
00:03:28
such that we can stop this or reduce it the likelihood of it happening again.
00:03:34
98% of mass shooters are men mostly young men. Almost every act of political
00:03:41
violence of course here's my rabbit hole. Let's just talk about the the right, mostly the right, but also the
00:03:48
left is doing everything they can from interpreting the font on these bullets to who their roommates are to find
00:03:54
evidence to cherrypick evidence to try and show that it's the other polit side of the political spectrum's fault. And
00:04:01
this is the bottom line. This kid, he was 22, was raised in a Republican household, registered unaffiliated,
00:04:09
and I I'm not sure, but I don't think he's voted yet. No, he didn't. Okay. Thomas Matthew Krooks, the person
00:04:17
who shot Trump and Butler, registered Republican and when he was 17, he gave 15 bucks to a voter registration drive
00:04:24
that used act blue. Luigi Manion, he was more mission and policy oriented in so
00:04:30
much as he taken on corporate greed and healthcare as his cause, but he didn't come across as partisan or
00:04:37
of any left or right aligned political movement. Vance Luther Bolter, age 57, the alleged killer of the Minnesota
00:04:45
political figures. He was more politically oriented, but ultimately no more politically engaged than the
00:04:51
stereotypical angry uncle at a Thanksgiving who rants. Cody Allan Balmer, aged 38, arrested after the
00:04:58
attempted arson and to kill um attempted murder of Governor Josh Shapiro. No
00:05:04
political associations beyond some angry social media post. David DuPage, age 42,
00:05:09
attacked Pelosy's husband with a hammer, broke into Pelosy's house, very online and immersed in conspiracy content, but
00:05:16
again, not a member of any group. And so each side is trying to blame the other,
00:05:22
and then media tries to play referee to get their ratings up. But this is the bottom line. What do we have in common
00:05:29
across all these acts of violence? They are almost always young men and they are
00:05:35
almost always not political extremists but extremely online.
00:05:40
So if you just want to reduce how about we just reduce violence including political violence including mass
00:05:46
shootings. Let's figure out how we get more young men to engage with guardrails
00:05:51
in the form of relationships. More male mentorship. More males in high school. More economic opportunity.
00:05:57
Yes sir. More safeguards. And how about we hold the rage machine that has been attached
00:06:02
to 40 that is driving 40% of the S&P's value. How about if we hold them to the
00:06:07
same standards we hold every other media and say if you elevate content that has
00:06:13
been directly correlated to rage which results in violence mostly violence
00:06:19
against themselves. Social media creates a lot of violence against themselves
00:06:25
among young girls. a lot of violence of young uh of young men against themselves, but also with young men
00:06:31
sometimes, and I don't mean to pathize, young men who are extremely online. Most of them will not pick up a gun, but some
00:06:38
of them do. So, if anyone is interested in actually reducing the violence, they're going to talk about removing
00:06:44
section 230 protection for algorithmically elevated content and providing more opportunity and more
00:06:50
empathy and quite frankly, more love and relationships for young men. Yeah, I'm gonna interject. Um, I would
00:06:57
say they don't want to do that. C groups do not when they want to engage in this sort of sharks versus jets kind of
00:07:03
situation that's going on. And it's like I have to say one thing I picked up my
00:07:08
mother's phone. She had so she's somehow gotten on some Trump group things. Her texts were full of the most heinous
00:07:15
efforts to get money. Charlie's a martyr. Charlie's a this. You must fight the left who's trying to kill us. It was
00:07:22
so upsetting to read her text. I deleted every single one of them. I tried to block them all. Um it was such and her
00:07:30
email was worse. It was all these like efforts and you know it's fine JD Vance
00:07:35
can go on his show but they're all doing it in order to raise money for themselves and to push their cause. He
00:07:42
is not This is just grotesque what they're like same thing with Donald
00:07:47
Trump Jr. like they're all trying to push. They literally are walking over this guy and using him as like a a way
00:07:55
to raise money, a way to get people mad, a way to get political advantage. I mean, it it's grotesque at this point.
00:08:02
Like I I I have they forgotten their friend died or something like that. I just find it really strange. Like the
00:08:09
stuff on my mom's phone was so disturbing, Scott, I couldn't I was sort of like And then you have someone like
00:08:15
Elon Musk who is making it worse. like Democrats are the party of murder
00:08:20
party party murder. He just was like we should he's putting out lists of people who said who said negative things about
00:08:26
uh uh Kirk uh he's done like a number of things that we we have to stop these
00:08:32
people. We have to and now the words deindoctrinate. We have to it sounds like [ __ ] Russia. Like it's really
00:08:39
disturbing. Let's let's move to that because um people across the country are getting fired, suspended or investigated
00:08:45
over a post criticizing Charlie Kirk after his assassination. Washington Post columnist Karen Aia just shared a little
00:08:52
while a while ago that she's been fired over her blue sky post which are at best nothing like seriously nothing that
00:08:59
she's done here has that they're waiting to fire her. That's another story. But uh far-right activists have been doxing
00:09:05
people they say are celebrating Kirk's death. Um the def then they're just deciding what a celebration is and
00:09:10
what's not. Just regular criticism. Defense Secretary Pete Hex ordered his staff to identify military personnel who
00:09:16
mocked uh Kirk's killing so they can be punished. These are the free speech
00:09:22
warriors. These are the people that went on and on about. So cancel culture they
00:09:27
used to their advantage and now they are doing cancel culture in full. They are the most cynical non-free speech people
00:09:34
I have ever encountered. And it's really astonishing how quickly they move to to
00:09:41
this thoughts. Well, again, it's it's term I like it's violence entrepreneurship. Um trying to
00:09:47
reap capital and advantage from an opportunity where you see violence. And two, the and another thing we're just
00:09:54
not talking about is the CCP and the GRU are having a field day. And do your own do your own research here. go on Tik Tok
00:10:01
or go on threads or Instagram or on Facebook or on Twitter and when you see
00:10:07
something really inflammatory from either side, look at the comments. The algorithms elevate content that gets a
00:10:14
lot of comments because every comment results in the person uh the people who respond to the comment coming back and
00:10:20
that's another impression, another ad um more shareholder value. Look at the really heinous comments that would
00:10:27
likely inscent and do motivate more comments, more Nissan ads, more shareholder volume. Click on the
00:10:33
profile. It's someone with 38 followers. Yes, exactly. Guess what? If I were in the GRU in the
00:10:39
CCP and I couldn't beat us economically or kinetically, might I decide to do what is happening now and divide us
00:10:46
internally, make the call come from inside of the house? Y talked about this very specifically to
00:10:52
us. And by the way, the Nazis talked about it. I mean, we they have done a great job of convincing us, no, the threat isn't
00:10:59
massive energy, a willingness to kill millions of their own people, technology, the largest consumer economy
00:11:06
economy in the world, India, China, and Russia binding together to push back on our interests. We've decided, no, it's
00:11:13
some young white liberals saying really heinous things, and they are heinous things. So, let's elevate that content.
00:11:19
Or let's listen to senior adviser Steven Miller claiming that it's civil war against the Democrats. Let's elevate
00:11:26
that content by filling up anything with those feeds with bots with comments that
00:11:31
take that content beyond its organic reach on its own. And what Governor Cox
00:11:37
initially said, go out and touch grass. Go out and touch people because generally what you find is well with their consent. But go ahead.
00:11:44
Go ahead. Don't just go touch people. Go out. Go out. I don't think that's right. I think we need to be more affectionate.
00:11:50
But anyways, and I also think we need a lot more sex and a lot more alcohol. Trust me, kids, the risk to your
00:11:55
25-year-old liver of alcohol is dwarfed by the risk of social isolation. I go to conservative places. I I meet a lot of
00:12:02
people in person. It is shocking how lovely people are. I get it. I agree with you. But I'm just
00:12:08
saying it's being for you've got speaking of you going down a rabbit hole. You have to get offline. Elon Musk literally just tweeted, someone said, "I
00:12:15
am now 100% confident that Charlie's assassination was carried out by Charlie's cuz he's a friend of his,
00:12:20
right? Uh was carried out by radical left-wing transgender terror cell. Let's get into the evidence." And then Elon
00:12:27
Musk tweeted, "Seems likely." Now, Elon, I'm sorry your kid's trans and you have this reaction. I'm not sorry your kid's
00:12:33
trans. I'm sorry that you're such a jackass about it and such a strange twisted person. But to do things like
00:12:40
this, just to create this, they I think they believe there's a transgender terror cell, which there isn't. But
00:12:45
fine, there's no evidence. The only evidence we have on mass shooters is the
00:12:50
following. The overwhelming evidence is that there are young men who are
00:12:56
disenfranchised. This isn't about division. It's about the disenfranchised. This isn't even about I
00:13:01
would argue it's not even about political extremism. It's about being extremely online.
00:13:07
Yep. And you and I agree on this. You could get around the most hostile table of political, you know, you could
00:13:13
take Rachel Matto and Tucker Carlson, these shooters, these these folks
00:13:19
committing this political violence. They are less politically affiliated than those two. These are people who have not
00:13:25
connected to others and have easy access to weapons, to
00:13:30
guns, and go extremely online and don't have a good friend. Don't have a romantic
00:13:37
partner. Don't have in-person work. Don't have a male role model to say something's going on with you. What's
00:13:44
going on? What are you thinking? Where are you spending your time? What? What? No, that's not right. Come come to my
00:13:49
church group. You're going to see how good people are from both political spectrums. Hey, have we have we been
00:13:54
thinking about getting in better shape? Well, I noticed you're acting strange lately. What's going on? You know how much we care about you, right? Are you a
00:14:00
right? It it it's literally a case of um it's a
00:14:06
it's a case of lack of mamalia. If you put an orca in a tank alone, it goes
00:14:11
[ __ ] crazy. Yeah. The worst thing you can do to a dog is leave it alone. And then when you put it in a tank where
00:14:19
they start pumping in sound waves to make the orca go crazy because whoever pumps in the sound waves can make
00:14:25
billions or trillions of dollars in shareholder value, which is effectively what's going on. 40% of the S&P right
00:14:30
now is represented by companies that have an economic incentive to divide us,
00:14:36
right? And instead, we want to find dissect the font on a [ __ ] bullet so we can blame
00:14:41
the other side. This is it works so well. That's the thing. Let me go back to Spencer Cox because I people are like, you shouldn't
00:14:48
like him. I'm like, I'm going to a little bit. Okay. So, he has kept up his criticism of social media since you're doing it right now, calling it a cancer.
00:14:54
Uh, in an appearance on Meet the Press, he appeared to be taking notes from you, Scott Gallery. Let's listen. I can't emphasize enough um the damage
00:15:02
that social media and the internet is doing to all of us. Those dopamine hits,
00:15:08
these companies, trillion dollar market caps, the most powerful companies in the history of the world, have figured out
00:15:14
how to hack our brains, uh get us addicted to outrage, which is the same
00:15:20
type of dopamine, the same chemical that you get from taking fentanyl. Uh get us addicted to outrage and get us to hate
00:15:26
each other. I'm seeing it in real time since the tragic death of Charlie Kirk. I'm seeing it in in every corner of our
00:15:33
society. The conflict entrepreneurs are taking advantage of us and we are losing
00:15:38
our agency and we have to take that back. Conflict entrepreneurs. I love that. You should still have conflict ent. That's
00:15:45
exactly what they are 100. And the same conflict entrepreneurs, may I point out,
00:15:50
people like Elon and Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, are shutting down actual free speech, which people
00:15:57
should be able to do. Thoughts? At what point do we get serious about
00:16:02
this problem? It's the media has a vested interest in pretending the
00:16:08
referee and in getting more clicks and more views. And notice how quiet big
00:16:13
tech has been on this. They know what's going on. They know I I mean it's really
00:16:19
they'll try to shut down Cox. You know that you know anytime they anytime you arbitrage one
00:16:25
substance into another you have externalities. The greatest arbitrage in history has been fossil fuels to energy. You can't
00:16:32
build a hospital without massive fossil fuels. The externalities there carbon are obvious. the externalities of
00:16:39
turning attention into shareholder value. The externality there is rage.
00:16:44
These guys know it. They they know what's going on. They know that they profit off of this divisiveness and this
00:16:52
rage. They're they're not bad people by commission. They didn't set out to do this. They are bad, irresponsible
00:16:59
Americans by efforts of omission. They are ignoring and obuscating what is
00:17:05
going on here. They know what's going on and there are and also the illusion of
00:17:10
complexity has been weaponized here. There are common sense people are bereft and throw up their arms and say it's
00:17:17
only going to get worse. [ __ ] There are absolutely common sense solutions here. No social media under the age of
00:17:24
16. No smartphones in schools. They have banned uh phones in I think about 19
00:17:29
states. And that's with a lot of teachers telling me that kids can't wait to get to their phones even when they ban them.
00:17:34
Right. That's even a problem. That's okay. But at least they're not they're not
00:17:40
I I don't think my kids are capable of of any longer sitting through a two-hour movie because of the way their brains
00:17:46
have been have been rewired. And again, it's political. I don't care. In the next 6
00:17:52
hours, there's going to be more gun deaths in America than there will be in the UK over the next 12 months. This is
00:17:58
is if we want to get serious, there are variety of programs, more after school programs, national service, more men in
00:18:05
primary uh education, more money for young people such that they're more economically secure and they start they
00:18:11
start mating 8 million houses in 10 years such that people have something to look forward to and a way to save money
00:18:17
and don't feel as is hopeless. Also, let me just take a page out of the right. We
00:18:22
have orientation at universities for a week. We have increasingly spent more time at orientation talking about mental
00:18:30
health and saying, "Look, if you're feeling bad because you get your first D. If you're feeling bad because you
00:18:36
haven't had a lot of experience with relationships and someone breaks up with you, that is a normal part of life. And
00:18:41
what has happened over the last 20 or 30 years is because kids are so sheltered with concierge parenting and with social
00:18:48
media, you might feel hopeless. It's not hopeless. Trust me, we've all been there. You need to reach out to
00:18:53
someone." There is something to the notion that these kids have turned into
00:18:59
uh this oppress turned to this oppressed or oppressor ideology and are going on the hunt for
00:19:06
people that say certain things and you think that's changing Scott and now it's the right that's doing it. Just
00:19:12
let's be clear. I actually don't agree Carol. One out of three people on campus now believe that
00:19:18
political speech and certain words are violence and can warrant actual violence. And it is mostly from kids who
00:19:25
are strongly on the left. And hold on, let me finish. College
00:19:30
should be a safe place physically. It should be a dangerous place intellectually. And we have to tell
00:19:35
these kids, and I've seen this firsthand. I've seen them turn it on each other. There's like two or three kids who are brave enough to support
00:19:41
Trump in my class and everyone turns on them. We are supposed to say provocative
00:19:47
offensive things. Can I make a point there? If they want to do that then they should be strong enough to defend it. Like that's
00:19:53
actually a good thing to critical thinking. Let's debate it. Let's debate it. Let them let them have it. Like but I have to say one of the
00:20:00
things you accuse the left of not you one accusing thing down is the people that are actually banning getting people
00:20:07
fired and are the free speech warriors are are all the free speech warriors and
00:20:13
it wouldn't be so irritating that they were such free speech warriors lecturing us you know someone like Chris Rufo the
00:20:19
rest of them are now using cancel culture oppositely and it's just it's typical we have to move on but conflict
00:20:25
entrepreneurs Governor Cox has that right that's what they're trying to do and un unfortunately because this is a
00:20:31
dopamine hit we have we are we are drug addicts we are addicts but but you've already seen his narrative change and quite frankly
00:20:36
Governor Cox stick to being a leader. You can see, you know what happened over the weekend? He tried to go back again.
00:20:42
Other over the weekend, Trump called him and said, "Sign up, motherfucker." And all of a sudden, he's saying that there
00:20:47
was certain leftist ideology. No, there isn't. Certain leftist tendencies. He may have
00:20:52
had a roommate that was going through transition. Why would you even bring that up?
00:20:58
Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter unless they're there. No, it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all.
00:21:03
He he was dating someone that went to a gun range. This clearly is the rights fault. Said no Democratic governor ever
00:21:10
in the midst of this type of violence. Ever. Nothing about his grandmother. Great. His grandmother's MAGA. We're not blaming her. Who
00:21:16
cares? Right. Exactly. He likes Sydney Sweeney and her family is MAGA. It must be a conspiracy from
00:21:21
the right. Yes. Exactly. It's It's exhausting. People just pull yourselves out of it. Um, okay. Let's go on a quick break.
00:21:28
When we come back, Trump teases a Tik Tok deal. We'll see. Support for the show comes from Mint
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00:22:40
Scott, we're back. President Trump says the big US China trade deal in Europe is going quotequite very well. Who knows?
00:22:46
He posted on True Social that the two countries have reached a deal on TikTok that will make the young people very
00:22:52
happy. Uh, I don't think he named Tik Tok, but whatever. That's what he was talking about. Treasury Secretary Scott Besset, meanwhile, is calling the quote
00:22:58
framework of a deal, which always makes me like wonder what the hell's going on. Parent company Bite Dance is supposed to
00:23:04
sell US assets or face an nationwide ban by Wednesday the 17th, which is just a few days. Trump is saying he'll talk to
00:23:11
Xi Jinping on Friday. All this comes as China accuses Nvidia of violating antirust law. Uh, I don't know. It's
00:23:19
Everyone who's near this deal tells me it's such a fake deal. It's such a like that are really not separating them.
00:23:24
It's really not going to be anything but a lot of um fakery on top of what it is
00:23:31
and then they'll give some pretty stuff to Larry Ellison who seems to be winning
00:23:36
all all day long. Your thoughts? I just think it's [ __ ] I I I think
00:23:41
this is a fake story. Let me use the Let me use the term fake news. I I just don't I don't
00:23:48
You don't do it with conviction. I don't buy it. I don't know. It's not It's fake news. It's from Yeah. Sure.
00:23:55
Okay. Sure. They're just trying to stave off that that deadline. Yeah. It's an excuse to to not ban Tik
00:24:02
Tok because Trump has decided that Tik Tok the CCP when they were about to be
00:24:08
banned said dial up the algorithm to be positive Trump. And then somebody on his team came back and said, "Oh no, Tik
00:24:14
Tok's good for us." And all of a sudden he now likes it. and one of his biggest donors who gave him nine figures is one
00:24:21
of the biggest shareholders in Tik Tok. This is payforplay and he thinks it's good for him. So, he didn't like it
00:24:27
until he liked it. And also, this represents a breakdown in government because this was a law passed by both
00:24:34
houses, signed into law, and we've decided just not to do it.
00:24:39
Yeah, it's ridiculous. By the way, Scott Dent is starting to really irritate me on so many levels. He's like such a
00:24:46
suckup and such a like he's punching people. I don't like that much either. I don't care if it's Elon he's punching. I
00:24:52
don't like him punching anybody. Well, I thought violence was never the answer. Carol, that's correct. I know. I just find it
00:24:57
so like gh. Anyway, yes. Scott and I will believe it when we see it and we think it's probably a lot of nonsense
00:25:03
and that you aren't going to be protected from the CCP with this gang. That's for sure. Um, OpenA is also
00:25:09
making some big moves on the way to becoming a for-profit company. This is something they've been trying to do. who Musk has been trying to stop fin that
00:25:14
they're finalizing terms for a new agreement with Microsoft. Microsoft is expected to take roughly a 30% take in
00:25:19
the reorganized company. OpenAI's nonprofit parent will also hold an equity stake valued over hundred billion
00:25:25
dollars, but attorneys general in California and Delaware say they still have serious concerns about user safety. Good for them and want to see
00:25:31
improvements before signing off on restructuring. Um, what do you think about this? I assume there'll be an IPO,
00:25:38
correct? that's that's the way it looks like it's heading once they get this through this idea of essentially a
00:25:43
for-profit company with a vague nonprofit hanging over it. Um, and again, Musk still has legal uh
00:25:50
challenges to a lot of this and he has a lot of allies still. I think it would be so interesting to see what OpenAI's
00:25:57
legal bills are and what's happened to the cadence of those legal bills because there is so much money on the line and
00:26:03
this thing is so just as there's technical debt you know you come into an organization and they've invested so
00:26:08
much in old mainframe technology that I was on the board of yellow pages company and they said when we actually fired the
00:26:14
CIO was when he came in and basically said you know it's going to take us 18
00:26:19
months to reconfigure the techn it's like it's a [ __ ] yellow pages company this isn't a cloud company and he kept
00:26:25
going on about technical debt. So the term technical debt means pre-existing investments make it just really
00:26:31
difficult to sort of untangle everything and expensive. I would love to know what the legal debt is at open AI and that is
00:26:38
this company has such an unusual corporate structure that they are trying to unwind. Yes.
00:26:45
And how much they've invested in legal work. I would love to know how much they're using AI. They must be spending
00:26:51
10 or$20 million a month on lawyers right now. I would love to know as a case study how
00:26:57
if and how they're deploying their own AI to reduce their own legal costs. That's so funny. But what about an IPO?
00:27:03
I assume if this gets through and the restructuring gets through, which probably it will given the money at
00:27:08
stake here because they're spending money all over the damn place. They got to they got to get cooking on the making
00:27:14
of the money. It's a really interesting question because there are 3,700 publicly traded companies right now.
00:27:19
That is down by 50% since 1997. It's down 17%
00:27:25
just since co because every time there's an acquisition or a bankruptcy or a take private, it's like it's like in China
00:27:33
now there are more people dying than there are being people born. So the same thing there are more companies coming
00:27:38
off of the NASDAQ and the S&P than are going on. And we'll talk more about this. Some of it say it's regulation,
00:27:44
but more than anything, a company like OpenAI, I think OpenAI just did a secondary where they gave every employee
00:27:50
like a $1.6 million bonus. They can raise capital, they can acquire companies, and they don't have the
00:27:56
regulatory burden of being public. So unfortunately, unlike in 2003 when Google goes public
00:28:03
at effectively what was $2 a share and gives retail investors the chance to 100x their money, there's so much money
00:28:09
in the private markets that effectively as long as the company is still jamming
00:28:14
its current investors and private market investors and institutions which tend to be wealthier Americans say no, no, no,
00:28:21
no. We want to hold on to all that juice ourselves. So increasingly you would have never had a company like Open AI
00:28:28
worth a half a trillion dollars having not gone public. So what does that mean? It means the retail investor no longer
00:28:35
has access to these great growth companies and these guys have less incentive to go public. And typically
00:28:42
when they do go public it's the following. All right the smart guys who
00:28:47
really know our company have decided there's not much upside left here. We gotta we gotta find a group of people
00:28:54
who will turn this into a meme stock. Oh, I know public market investors, right? Just like what's happening with
00:29:00
Tesla. So, all of the juice, you know, the juice has been squeezed by the time
00:29:05
these guys go public. Now, does that mean there's still not opportunity in the public markets? No, there probably
00:29:11
still is. But you would have never, it used to be it took a company seven years to go public. Now, it's 14. The really good
00:29:18
companies are staying private because they can get everything they need in the private markets now. Yeah. So, we'll see.
00:29:23
This is the seventh most valuable company in the world, I think, right now. It's not public. It's crazy. What's the
00:29:29
only one that I was thinking that was that really valid but never went public was Mars. Remember the Mars people never went public.
00:29:34
It was the Mars family. Also, it used to be a company called Becttel. And then before that, my biggest client in the
00:29:41
90s was Levi Straussson Company. Yeah. Yeah. And these were not like big companies because the only the only way
00:29:46
you could attract employees, make acquisitions, all of that good stuff
00:29:52
was to be a public company. All of those things are now available in the private markets. So, I mean, we'll see what happens, but
00:29:58
they definitely probably will go public presumably. Correct. That's my I'm assuming they will at some point um when
00:30:04
when when when that moment passes. I I want to mention a bizarre moment from Tucker Carlson's interview with OpenAI
00:30:11
CEO Sam Alman last week. Carlson brought up a conspiracy theory about the death of an open AI whistleblower, which is
00:30:17
being pushed by Elon Musk, by the way, suggesting it was murder, not suicide, as authorities had ruled. Let's listen.
00:30:23
And if he was your friend, I would think he would want to speak to his mom or I did offer. She didn't want to.
00:30:30
So, do you feel that, you know, when people
00:30:36
look at that and they're like, you know, it's possible that happened. Do you feel that that reflects the worries they have
00:30:43
about what's happening here? Like people are afraid that this is like I haven't
00:30:50
done too many interviews where I've been accused of like Oh, I'm not accusing you at all. I'm just saying his his mother says that. I
00:30:56
don't think a fair read of the evidence suggests suicide at all. I just don't see that at all.
00:31:02
Well, now thank you, Inspector [ __ ] Cluso. What are you talking about? This is like This was the craziest thing.
00:31:08
Like, don't you think we should entertain conspiracy theories that there's a cult in, you know, there's a
00:31:13
whatever, a murderous cult inside of Open AI? I mean, I don't know why he sat
00:31:18
down. I I was I couldn't understand why he would talk to this guy given I get
00:31:24
why he would, but ew. Ew. The whole thing was really strange. Tucker Carlson's gotten really strange.
00:31:30
This is like everything else. First off, Tucker Carlson now appears to be a fully
00:31:36
credentialed psychiatrist around self harm. Yeah. Uh because he's decided that this guy
00:31:41
does not qualify as one of the 25,000 people who every year decide I'm really down. I'm really depressed. And oh, by
00:31:47
the way, there's a gun upstairs. I I know what to do. Okay, first off, this is just all about
00:31:52
money. And that is Tucker Carlson, who I think is a bright guy, decided, "Oh, I
00:31:58
know how to get this to be a Ted Cruz like viral moment and be number one instead of number four in podcasting and
00:32:05
make more money. I'll create a rumor in front of one of the most powerful people in the world that he's a murderer."
00:32:10
That's what he's saying right here. Yes, he is. That's what Sam was like. Murdered
00:32:16
this guy in some sort of thriller. And let's go back.
00:32:21
Aside from the fact that while I think Sam Alman might be a sociopath and that
00:32:27
is ignoring the harm of AI because there is so much pressure on him to live up to
00:32:32
the incredible expectations and that's that is not a nice thing to say but I have a lot of fact patterns around all
00:32:38
these guys who in their hush tones pretend to give a flying [ __ ] and then go on to build character AIs with no
00:32:44
guard rails that result in real harm. I think I believe that there is no that
00:32:50
economically it would be really stupid for Sam Alman to put out a hit on one of
00:32:56
his employees. I would agree. for a lot less money. He can give money to Charles Schumer and to
00:33:01
and and to to to Senator Cotton and make sure that there's no legislation that
00:33:08
gets in the way or slows down AI or show up to a dinner and say, "Gee, President Trump, your big orange [ __ ] is like
00:33:14
nothing I've ever seen and it's so huge little and mushroom and you're such a great kisser." It is
00:33:21
so much easier and low risk for Sam Alman to pursue legal means of economic
00:33:29
success than to order a hit on one of his employees. Sam Alman is already a billionaire. He is he would never risk
00:33:35
spending the rest of his life in prison. He would never risk the economic implosion of putting a hit out on his
00:33:42
own employees. and Tucker Carlson. In my opinion, no one should go on that
00:33:48
show if they're going to be falsely accused of being a murderer for clicks.
00:33:54
Agreed. I agree. I think it's crazy that he sat there. I actually texted him. I'm like, "Oh, so you're a murderer. Good to
00:34:01
know." It's just ridiculous like that that this guy did this. Anyway, uh we don't believe he's murderer just
00:34:06
officially. All right, Scott. Let's go on a quick break. When we come back, Paramount Sky Dance tries to shake up
00:34:12
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00:35:15
Scott, we're back in the small ball area. As I predicted last week, Paramount Sky Dance is praying for a mostly cash bid for Warner Brothers
00:35:21
Discovery, backed by the Ellison family, who's richer than ever. For those trying to keep score at home, Paramount itself was just acquired uh by Sky Dance last
00:35:28
month. And Warner Brothers Discovery has plans to split into two separate companies. One with the big studio and streaming properties, the other gets the
00:35:34
live cable networks. Uh currently Warner Discovery has double the market cap of Skyn. It's like it's a lot of money.
00:35:40
It's 30 some billion dollars. Um they this would be for all of it. So not to
00:35:45
split it up. Um obviously uh they want the Warner Brothers studio and streaming properties. I'm not sure why they're not
00:35:50
waiting for the split. Um the bid hasn't been submitted. We'll see what the FCC thinks. Although that guy is a toad to
00:35:57
the Trump administration and if Ellison wants it will get it. Um and uh and uh
00:36:04
you know we'll see. There'll be other biders presumably Comcast and some others if there are biders in fact
00:36:09
thoughts. Uh this is huge. Um in the last I mean because there's so much news this would
00:36:16
have been huge news. It's been drowned out. Warner Brothers Discovery who has the highest paid investment banker in
00:36:23
history. Their CEO convinced a bunch of investors to buy Warner Brothers from
00:36:29
AT&T and in exchange for destroying a massive amount of shareholder value has taken out about a third of a billion
00:36:35
dollars. He's the most maybe with the exception of Chimath Palihapatia, he's the most well compensated investment
00:36:41
banker in history. Now what you have here is in the last five days the stock is up 55%. It's had
00:36:49
its best week in history. Why? because
00:36:54
Larry Ellison figured out there should be a number two to Nvidia, stopped doing stock buybacks, made a massive bet on
00:37:01
being the number two infrastructure provider in AI, and announced an agreement where OpenAI was going to
00:37:08
commit to $60 billion a year in compute from Oracle, despite the fact it's only running at 10 billion a year. And in one
00:37:14
day, Larry Ellison increased his net worth $130 billion. So, he can afford this. Larry Ellison
00:37:20
could buy three Warner Brothers with the gain in wealth he registered
00:37:25
in one day. And this is where it all heads. And I think it's [ __ ] fascinating. And I wish I had the time to do more about this, but instead I'm
00:37:32
spending a ton of time trying to talk about young men and its relationship to
00:37:38
online speech and everything. Anyways, I went to go see the Fantastic 4.
00:37:44
I hope there is never a sequel or a sup superhero movie ever again. I I just I
00:37:49
hate these superhero films. Yeah, this one didn't get good reviews. Superman did, but go ahead. Anyways, I love Vanessa Kirby. I think
00:37:56
Pedro Pascal is a movie star and my son loves superhero movies. So, we went and like all 15-year-olds, or not all, my
00:38:02
son makes me stay through to the very end because these goddamn movie makers always have an Easter egg at the very
00:38:08
end. Do you realize how long the credits went on for? How long? I've done it. I've done it, my
00:38:14
friend. So, I typed into AI approximately how many people worked on Fantastic 4. Somewhere between 12 and
00:38:22
1,500 people worked on that film. And I got screenshots on online.
00:38:28
It had things like costume design Sweden and it had 20 people. This is what's
00:38:35
going to happen. They're going to roll up these companies and then at some point Larry's going to
00:38:40
go say to his son, "All right, I gave you a bunch of money to play in traffic. Now it's time to get serious. Are they
00:38:45
going to do that through innovation or new types of movies? No. This is what they're going to do. That movie probably cost $200 million to make before even
00:38:52
marketing. He's going to go, "We're very good at AI. We have the best AI
00:38:57
infrastructure cloud relationships with LLMs. I need you, David Ellison, to come
00:39:02
here and we're going to figure out how to take a $200 million film and produce it for 20 million by going through each
00:39:11
each line item. Let's say costume design, 50 or 60 people. We're going to use AI,
00:39:18
the agentic layer that speaks to AI enabled fabricators in China. And we're going to need three highly skilled
00:39:24
costume designers to basically put in long prompts that use 3D imagering and
00:39:30
all sorts of [ __ ] to basically get the costumes made with three people, not 20.
00:39:35
And they're going to go through each of these things that have 30 40 people and then we're going to reduce it to three
00:39:41
or four and it's going to happen at Ellison's company with the help and the
00:39:46
urging of dad at Oracle Tik Tok involved with it too. The whole thing and you interesting you thought
00:39:52
this was like a nothing burger small ball. You always like parent who cares but you think this is a big deal or you
00:39:58
just in the world of media it is. But when I say small ball, if you can if you if Larry Ellison
00:40:04
had 15 kids, he could give each of them a paramount with the with the economic gain he had in one day.
00:40:10
Yeah. So there's the economy and then there's the economy which is AI.
00:40:16
I mean everything is being driven. Who would have thought? You're about to see costume designers, 70% of them get their
00:40:23
real estates licenses in Hollywood because Oracle announced its best earnings in history.
00:40:30
This is impacting everything. Well, see, others will try to get this. Comcast will try to go for this. Maybe I
00:40:35
don't think they can afford it. Apple, that's the thing. He's so [ __ ] rich. This is the thing, Cara.
00:40:40
These are shitty businesses and they're declining. And I put together I was approached by a
00:40:46
group. Here's two examples of companies that are going to get the [ __ ] kicked out of them with AI. Gartner has this
00:40:53
amazing business where if you're a small regional bank trying to figure out, should we use Azure or or AWS, you call
00:41:01
a stay-at-home ma mom who's learned everything about cloud companies who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. She makes
00:41:07
200 grand a year. She works from 7 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon answering questions from clients. And Gartner charges First National of
00:41:14
Oklahoma $120,000. Now that person, the CTO, and they do a
00:41:19
good job. It's an amazing business. Stock has tripled since 2017. They do an amazing job. Now the CTO at First
00:41:26
National of Oklahoma has figured out if they type in a thoughtful prompt, they can get the pretty much the exact same answer back for their $20 a month, you
00:41:34
know, GPT5 Pro subscription. And since the beginning of the year, Gartner stock has been cut in
00:41:42
half. And I think it's it I AI is going to come after that business. Only fans. I was approached by a group of people
00:41:48
that said, "We're putting together an investor group to buy only fans." Why are they selling? Because to do 60
00:41:53
minutes of video count with a live creator costs anywhere from $300 to $1,200 depending on the popularity of
00:42:00
that creator. AI is going to start to create AI girlfriends that get closer
00:42:06
and closer to the thrill of watching a live person talk dirty to you or whatever. And the guys, the folks that
00:42:13
own Only Fans are like, "We're out. We have seen the future." I mean, you're going to see
00:42:19
so many so much of this stuff, so many interesting places. And here's the issue. Moving to solutions.
00:42:27
This is going to create so much economic value. Here's an idea. any company that does over a billion in profits, we have
00:42:33
a progressive tax structure of say 40%. And we figure out really thoughtful
00:42:39
retraining and apprentice programs that people can sign up for and say, I see the writing on the wall. You know, I've
00:42:44
always wanted to be u you know, I've always wanted to be who knows. I've I've
00:42:50
always wanted to be a Christ a therapist. I've always wanted to be a nursing. I've always wanted to be do
00:42:55
something in in with my hand. Whatever it is, retraining, right? But instead,
00:43:00
we're like, let the thoroughbreds run and let the [ __ ] shake out where it where it is. That is correct. Guess where we are. We
00:43:07
he is now trained daddy from Gilded Age. That is what's happened here. Uh we'll
00:43:12
see how that goes. It's not going so well for train daddy. That was almost as good as your your What was that? You were making a
00:43:18
reference to that 50s musical, The Sharks and the What was it? The Sharks and the Jets. Westside Story. I'm very trained.
00:43:24
Could you be any older? Oh, stop. Jesus. Train daddy. Gilded Age is very popular. I'm sorry to tell you that, but it's
00:43:29
owned by uh Warner Brothers, by the way. Speaking of which, she will now own Was that the one with uh Cynthia Dixon?
00:43:35
Yeah, Cynthia Nixon. Yeah, Cynthia Nixon, excuse me. Nixon. Yeah. Well, anyway, we'll see if they get it. I can tell you one thing,
00:43:40
Caris Wisher will not be working for the Ellison's. Let me just make that statement right now. Oh, who knows? No, I will not be I don't work for
00:43:46
Rupert Murdoch. I'm not Let me just say Let me just say I'm I'm here for there's enough money. Yeah,
00:43:52
I'm wrong. You can do it. I'm not. Cara doesn't need to. Daddy's a [ __ ] He's an expensive [ __ ] but daddy's a [ __ ] why they
00:43:57
don't pay enough. Honestly, I don't make as much money from that stuff as I do in other things. Anyway, uh one more
00:44:03
corporate shakeup very quickly. Trump is now suggesting that US public companies should no longer report earnings quarterly, but every six months. Um I
00:44:10
would think you might like this idea. I didn't hate it. I don't but maybe not. No, shareholders should know what's
00:44:15
happening at companies, although then people focus on the short term. Your thoughts very quickly. The reality is is that I mean there's a
00:44:23
fine line here. One, there's too much administrative and very costly burden on public companies. It costs $2 or3
00:44:29
million at least a year just to be public. More than that, CEOs, CFOs, IR
00:44:34
professionals spend 2 weeks of their life every 12 weeks managing the
00:44:40
earnings call and trying to figure out the right words and legal liability and the fallout from the markets. So, it
00:44:46
makes sense that the administrative burden should lessen. Having said that, one of the reasons our market trades at
00:44:52
26 or 27 times PE and every other market trades from 22 to 12 is because of the
00:44:59
regulatory burden. Orphans and widows are less likely to find out they own stock in Enron when they buy a company
00:45:05
in the S&P versus a company I was pitched by a hedge fund 10 years ago that said, "All we do is find fraudulent
00:45:11
companies in China and they're everywhere." Because the regulatory standards, and they have gone up the
00:45:16
last 10 years, weren't as high. So the whole idea of these regulatory standards is when you buy a company in the S&P
00:45:22
500, it may go down. It may not have a good future, but there's not there's much less likelihood of outright fraud
00:45:28
because of these regulatory constraints. Now, good private companies, every company I've run or been an investor in
00:45:35
that's a good company. We do effectively what is an earnings call every 3 months. However, it's not the same level of
00:45:41
regulatory burden. What I think what I think is going to fill the void of the delta quite frankly
00:45:47
and this is an opportunity is some sort of AI good seal of approval and that is okay company X if you send us your
00:45:54
financials and let us tap into your um APIs we're every 3 months going to put
00:45:59
out a rating on the financial health basically these companies every 3 months are to signal growth and also to make
00:46:05
sure there's not fraud I can see an AI good housekeeping seal of approval better business viewer Rotten Tomatoes
00:46:12
which has become an arbiter of whether you want to waste your time that says it doesn't look as if this company similar
00:46:19
to a Fitch or a Moody's or an S&P. It doesn't look as if there is fraud here. It's got a 2% rating of fraud, not 99
00:46:27
because you probably Well, that calls for more scrutiny then, not less. You you you like six months or
00:46:32
do you not like six months? Oh, I like it because the the reality is the administrative burden. It goes back
00:46:39
to what we said previously. There's too few companies that are public and there's too few companies for retail investors to pick from. Part of the
00:46:46
reason companies are not going public is because of what has probably become burdensome regulatory oversight. Now,
00:46:52
it's a it's a fine needle to thread. You do want some disclosure requirements. I believe that AI will create a level of
00:46:59
disclosure and fraud protection should you decide to engage in with it that could give you a good good housekeeping
00:47:05
seal of approval that it's unlikely fraud is taking place here and there will be hopefully more public companies
00:47:12
because the reality is I if you can bet on whether there's civil war which you
00:47:17
can right now in poly market should we really be infantilizing investors and not letting certain
00:47:24
companies go public for risk or belief that we need to protect them. Jesus Christ, people can bet on the Super Bowl
00:47:29
on their phone right now. So, if you know it's gone overboard, we
00:47:34
need more public companies. We need retail investors to have access to more companies. I thought you would like it. I thought I
00:47:40
actually do too because the short-term thinking of all our companies is really problematic. I think in a lot of ways that's a bigger problem in the United
00:47:46
States in America, but still. All right, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Okay, Scott, let's hear
00:47:53
some wins and fails. Would you like me to go first or Okay, guess what's coming
00:47:58
back? Hunting Wives and they did the funniest say the L word or something.
00:48:04
No, that is maybe coming back. Um, uh, the Hunting Wives is coming back for season two. And they did I have to say
00:48:10
Hunting Wives. You need to watch it. Just watch it and then call me. Oh, wait. Is that the one where Charlie and
00:48:17
someone else make out? No, that's another one. There's plenty of lesbian things material going on these days, but no, it's this it's
00:48:24
magristian guntoing lesbians. So there you go. Christian gun toading le whatever just
00:48:30
what you said there. I'll see it twice. Exactly. So it's coming back to and they did the best. Malin and Britney Stow did
00:48:36
the funniest um announcement using a self like a cell phone conversation that
00:48:41
was very hysterical and congratulations ladies and hoping to interview the creator of it because it's just such so
00:48:47
funny. It's exactly what we need at this moment. I have to tell you, it brings together MAGA and lesbians in a way
00:48:53
that's really satisfying. I don't know how they did it, but they did it. That is my win. My fail is Donald Trump and
00:48:58
his incessant lies. And especially Py, Bill Py, who is just a Nepo baby
00:49:04
imbecile. They accuse this woman, Lisa Cook, of Morgan. Turns out it's [ __ ]
00:49:10
Registered as a vacation py. Oh my god. Stop it, you liars. They just they they raise a This is what they do. They raise
00:49:16
a lie and then they and then they and then it's not true but they've caused damage along the way. They do not care
00:49:22
about the truth and that is mil in any other place. So would cash Patel so
00:49:29
would Pete he says so would Christino be fired for their incompetent their like rank incompetence but as long as they
00:49:35
salute at the at the at the leader dear leader they're going to stay in their jobs. But that guy is really a heinous
00:49:43
piece of [ __ ] And let me tell you, Billy, call me up. I come in to visit Caroser cuz what you did to this woman
00:49:48
is reprehensible in ter and I know why you're doing it. Um but it's grotesque
00:49:54
and at some point uh this has to stop. I maybe it doesn't, but it should stop.
00:49:59
Anyway, that's my that's my fail. So funny. I don't know. One of my favorite movies
00:50:05
is a movie called Hannah and her sisters. Hannah. Yes. Yes. And there's a scene uh Max Vonido is having an affair with a
00:50:11
much younger woman who I thought was one of the most beautiful women and I'm dating myself but Barbara Hershey.
00:50:16
Yeah. And I always remember that movie oh god what was it with B Midler
00:50:23
Beaches. Beaches. Thank you. And I just thought it was hilarious. I always joke that of course one of them gets cancer and dies
00:50:28
and everyone's crying at the end and I thought if B Midler was dying there would be there wouldn't be a tear in the not so I love that B. Midler.
00:50:34
Oh no. No. When it's the hot, sublime, beautiful one that dies of cancer, everyone's crying. National [ __ ] treasure. But go ahead.
00:50:40
I'm not I'm not making a statement on B. Midler. I'm making a statement on how looks we are. Anyways, but in the movie
00:50:47
Hannah and her sisters, uh, Barbara Hershey wises up and decides to to that
00:50:52
she's going to leave Max Vonido and he's like he's panicked and he's upset and he's like, "You're my link to the
00:50:58
outside world. I feel like you have become my cultural link to the outside
00:51:03
world. I watch Premier League football. Other than that, I don't turn the TV on anymore. Trust me on the hunting wives. Go ahead.
00:51:09
No, I I take your recommendations. I just wrote down the hunting wives. Anyways, okay. So, my fail is along the
00:51:14
lines of government incompetence. One of the most storied best brands in government institutions. One of the best
00:51:21
institutional brands in the world is the FBI. I've known some people worked at the FBI and universally they're these
00:51:26
low-key people who literally of competence and
00:51:32
humility. They are the last people to go on social media and start saying, "I
00:51:37
have a suspect in in custody." And then have to go back and say, "Oops, idiot."
00:51:43
The FBI typically doesn't speak. They speak with arrests, indictments, and prosecutions.
00:51:50
That is how they communicate. And with a workforce of incredibly talented people
00:51:55
who could make a lot more money elsewhere, but decide they want to serve their country. And what is the elite of
00:52:01
the elite of our law enforcement until [ __ ] Cash Patel who is there are so
00:52:08
many reports inside of the FBI about what a bumbling idiot this guy is
00:52:13
announcing they have a suspect before it's confirmed and having to walk that back
00:52:19
firing competent people because they're a woman or person of color. Go ahead. And then the ultimate contradiction of
00:52:25
the speak softly but carry a big [ __ ] stick. That is the FBI is he goes on
00:52:32
national TV and says on a press release and says and says and my friend Charlie
00:52:38
oh god you know rest now my he said rest now we have the watch I will see you in Valhalla
00:52:45
dude if this first off if this is your friend you should recuse yourself from the
00:52:51
investigation that every FBI director would have done. Yep. And this is not I I don't People
00:52:58
have the right to own their grief and miss their friend. I get that, brother. Good for you. And I think it's important
00:53:04
that men that men say how much they're going to miss their friends.
00:53:09
That's not what the head of the FBI does. That that is the last thing that
00:53:14
a podcaster that is so opposite children's book author. That is so opposite of the FBI brand.
00:53:21
It's this have you no sense of the history of the FBI? No, they they they makes Jay Edgar Hoover
00:53:29
look they are just quietly very good at what they do tracking down
00:53:34
bad guys. They don't go on social media anyway. The continued incompetence and
00:53:40
erosion of some of the best institutional brands in history run by people who are more for like there for
00:53:47
personal satisfaction than operational excellence. as evidenced by RFK Jr. and
00:53:52
now Cash Patel who has no business running one of the finest institutions,
00:53:58
one of the best brands in the world. My win is New Mexico announced that they're going to basically have universal uh
00:54:04
child care and distinct of the morality of it. I'm not going to go to like, you
00:54:10
know, mothering is the hardest job in the world. I've never bought that. I I fine. Okay. It's a it's a difficult job.
00:54:17
Most people are are pretty decent at it. I've never bought this notion. It's the toughest job in the world. Let's just
00:54:23
look at the economics of it. When you give people universal child care, it stimulates labor force
00:54:29
participation particularly among mothers who by the way are increasingly more educated and in higher demand for
00:54:36
information economy uh like jobs. It reduces poverty and
00:54:42
income inequality. Right? Because child care costs can push working families into poverty or force them to no longer
00:54:48
work. It boosts disposable income and consumer spending. Because typically the person going to work when you have the
00:54:56
scale of universal child care such that it costs less for good care. Then they
00:55:01
have this positive arbitrage where they have more money. Because when you send a
00:55:07
highly qualified woman into the workplace, she makes more money than the cost of good child care at scale. When
00:55:14
you get universal child care, it it strengthens the child care sector. As
00:55:19
employers pay better, facilities improve, it creates jobs. It improves
00:55:24
future economic outcomes via better early childhood development, which means less remedial education, higher
00:55:30
earnings, etc. The return on investment studies show distinct of the morality and all the stuff about the toughest job
00:55:36
in the world. And it is the toughest job in the world. I'm going to keep my mouth shut. It's one of them. Go ahead. Well, okay. But the majority
00:55:43
literally both my kids were sick separate weeps and Amanda and I are about to like fall over dead. But go ahead. Go ahead.
00:55:48
I I I get it. But 90% of parents manage in my opinion to do a pretty good job.
00:55:54
This is a different conversation for a different day. Yes. But if you look just there was a study at at at war the Wharton school at
00:56:01
Penn and it found that um child care expansion and child uh universal child
00:56:07
care increases GDP by 0.1% um relative to even if you were to
00:56:14
deficit finance it even if you were to borrow money to pay for universal child care you get a positive return on that
00:56:21
investment. We are the only G7 nation that doesn't offer. So, I'm not going to make I don't want to make a far-left
00:56:26
argument around how difficult it is and mothering and mothers need help. All I'm saying is, okay, let's go for the money.
00:56:33
Let's create economic growth, more shareholder value, more household income, more Netflix, more trips to
00:56:40
Disneyland, more money to take care of our parents. How what is a way to get there? How do we get a positive return
00:56:46
on investment from the government? Universal childare. more money. I like
00:56:52
your argument. I like more money. High standards. High standards. Ensure
00:56:57
that you're getting your money's worth. Every other Democrat nation does it, too, by the way. And it pays off. So, my Anyways, my fail
00:57:04
is Cash Patel undermining one of the great brands in institutional history, the FBI. And my win is this new uh
00:57:12
universal child care program being implemented in New Mexico, which creates economic benefits and economic growth.
00:57:18
Let me say woman a woman governor there. Men can do this too by the way. It doesn't matter. Do you hear the stress in my voice? I
00:57:24
sound like I'm ranting. No, you are ranting. That's okay. You know what? It's been a hard week. It's been a hard week. Um, we want to hear
00:57:31
from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show or
00:57:36
call 8551 uh pivot. Uh, elsewhere in the Cara and
00:57:41
Scott universe, I recently spoke with Christoal Valenuela, the co-founder and CEO of Runway AI. We talked about how
00:57:48
Hollywood is using AI and why it's not necessarily a job killer. I didn't agree with this, but let's listen to him.
00:57:54
Technology will change jobs all the time. Look at the the history of film is a history of technology. It has changed
00:58:00
many times before through many of the decades we've seen. Um, and it wasn't
00:58:05
really about the jobs as much as like the people doing the jobs. And so if you're um if you're hiring people, if
00:58:11
you're a guild member, if you're in a union, like well help your people understand how to use these tools, like train them. um uh get them on board with
00:58:18
the latest, understand how they can upskill what they already know. I think it changes a little bit the perspective
00:58:24
and I think that's that's been my my position so far. I think it's it's allows us to work alongside them in much
00:58:29
more productive ways. He's making a good case, but we'll see. Did he bring his crackpipe with him?
00:58:35
Okay. Okay. That's the show. Well, he's selling anyway. Uh okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot and
00:58:41
be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back on Friday. Scott, read us out.
00:58:48
Today's show was produced by Larara Neon, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Karen Ruff. Ernie Entertained
00:58:56
the video. Thanks also to Jubos, Miss Savial, Dan Shalon, and Kate Gallagher. Nishak Kuras, Vox Media's executive
00:59:01
producer podcast. Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can
00:59:08
subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and
00:59:14
business. How do we grow our economy? Simple. Universal childcare.
