Hurricane Helene Aftermath, Trump’s Federal Election Case, and OpenAI’s Valuation

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher, and Scott, I'm sorry for being late to our taping today. I apologize.

So, you want me to ask why, and then you get to name drop. No, you don't.
You don't have to. I'm just going to, you don't have to name drop.
I apologize.

I was taping another thing, and I am late to you, but I, you're always late, and so I, but not this late. Oh, that's a that's a very sincere apology.
I want to apologize, and you're always late.

Yeah, thank you for that. That was very meaningful and very hard to.
Well, you flex and you do exercises.

People don't know before you start the show, Scott always does like a manly exercise thing for all of us. It's very exciting for the team.
I didn't know you could see that. Oh, yeah.
That's funny.

The next thing I'm going to find out, I have an OnlyFans account that I didn't know about. I bet you could make some dough doing that.

So where are you today? I just got back from San Francisco and Toronto. I was traveling.
Oh, God. Yeah, I'm back.

You must travel at night. I never, you're always not working.
I do.

I do. I go to, I'm up at O Dark Hundred Hours tomorrow.
I take the Paddington train, which I love, or the Paddington Express, Heathrow Express, which is fantastic. I love infrastructure.

That's one thing I love about

a government that spends too much money on infrastructure or taxes at a fair amount. I love the infrastructure that comes from that.

And then I go to L.A. for my friends Eddie Blau and David Frey's 50th birthdays, which I'm super excited about.
I'm going to see my

good friends.

Kings, Browdy, Flesh,

all our fraternity friends and all their kids. And then I'm in LA.
I don't know if you heard, but I sold an original scripted drama to the market. Yeah, that's why I was waiting for you to go to set.

Yes, and you're going to do a development meeting.

Now I'm in a writer's room. I don't even know what that means.

It's like, do we have a bunch of

people from Harvard in a room and like Triumph to Spirit comic? There's snacks. There's snacks.
I don't know what that means. I'm super excited.
I'm just going to go, well,

I can't wait. I just hope.
I just hope based that someone who's in the union is there, and I'm just going to keep going. Well, AI says,

I can't wait to just. Oh, you have to do that.

Let me consult Claude.

Let me consult Claude. We're having trouble with this dialogue.
Let me see what Claude says.

Will you do that? I'll pay you $5 to do that. There you go.
And then I go back to New York. I'm hanging there for a while, which I'm really excited about.
You and I are going to hang out.

We're doing a fancy party with Joanna Coles or something. No, we're doing an interview.
An interview. Who are we interviewing? She's interviewing us about our deep and abiding relationship.

There you go. Yeah.
It's going to be good. Actually, I went to, I did a lot of events, including one where everybody asked me about you, Scott.
It was crazy

in Toronto. Canadians love us, let me just say.
Love

you.

Yeah, I was. It's such a nice city, isn't it?

It is. It really is.
I was there for a New York minute.

But I was actually mostly in San Francisco.

I interviewed the four people running for mayor of San Francisco, which was interesting.

It was interesting for me.

Okay. And I interviewed Yuval Harari, who has a new book out about AI.
And he's wrote Sapiens. He's scared of it, which is I don't like listening to him about AI.
He's scared of it. Really?

Yeah, he's scared of it, a little bit scared of it. Yeah.
But he was great. It was a lot about historical stuff, though.
That was this history of information system. He's a historian by training.

So it was really fascinating. Did you know what the best-selling book of the Gutenberg age was? It was not science.
It took 200 years for science books to really get out there.

It was a thing called The Hammer of Witches. And it was was a book about how to kill witches.
And it was the best written by a crazy person named Heinrich.

And I can't remember his last name, but everything in it resonates today. It was the very first QAnon document, and it was because of the Gutenberg printing press.

It was not, it was, it's, that's what he was making, the links between today's modern internet. Everything was conspiracy theories when printing press started.
So, and we don't remember that.

And people died. 10,000 people were killed in these witch hunts because of this book.

Anyway, just kind of interesting. Kind of interesting.
It was very.

Did you read Sapiens?

I did. I had to because all the tech bros loved it.

I liked it.

I think it's outstanding. It is.

I had taken a lot of those courses in college. And so it was amazing when I would go around because all the tech boros loved it.
They're like, did you know this about development of humanity?

I go, I did. I took a college course.
They hadn't taken history or anthropology or sociology, which was interesting, but I thought he pulled it together beautifully.

I was glad they read it. That's awesome.
That's an awesome guy. He is.
He's great. He's terrific.
Anyway, do you want to hear my thoughts? I'm back now. Sure, go ahead.

So every year, my father, until recently, got something off his bucket list, and every year he picked the same thing.

He wanted to go to Toronto to see opening night at the Air Canada Center of the Leafs versus the Habs, being the Montreal Canadians.

And when, for some reason, they have bagpipers at opening night of the Leafs, and they come out on the ice, and my dad just melts down and cries for some reason like didn't you know didn't cry when he left me and my mom but he cries when bagpipers come out on ice no bagpipers are very sad that is very sad and he does the same thing and because he doesn't remember he's done it every goddamn year he goes i gotta take you somewhere special and we get in a cab and we go to this place and we walk down the street and he's like grabs my hand he's like oh yeah

just wait and he points to this ragtag apartment building he goes look up three floors see the air conditioner right there and he's like that's where you were conceived and then wait for my darkest story for me i know we've done this every year for five years and it's still awkward have you done it this year have you done it this year no he can't he hasn't been able to travel for a few years so but he loves

i can take you uh that yeah that goes from awkward to worse um i do love toronto though i go to toronto with you it's a great city yeah all right well they want us to come back there and do stuff and i also went to berkeley high school they wanted us to go there how was that yes they thanked you for your money they thanked you for your money it was great the students were fantastic i had a full house talk and stuff but they were like when are we gonna have scott and carrot together here i said well money bags and i will come next year oh haz it's um changed my life it's a business school generally speaking this is very reductive one of the nice things about haas is that i think it as someone who knows a lot of people in and around the business community it attracts nice kids like the kids they really nice kids great they really try and find kids who are humble who maybe come from less economically advantageous backgrounds who just kind of, you know, are crazy, crazy smart.

And every time I go there, I'm just struck at how the University of California manages and Berkeley manages to attract a really neat.

They want to do good. They weren't, there was very little douchebaggery, none whatsoever.
Really lovely kids. Great questions.

They're more, I think they're less like on the make from other business schools, if that makes sense. There's a sort of

school that rhymes with Stanford?

Yeah, yeah, that one.

But I think it's a I had a lovely time with these students, but they love you, Scott Galloway. I'll tell you that.
I appreciate that. Thanks for saying that.

Yeah, we'll have to go there and do some time. State-sponsored education, changed my life.
California taxes. You certainly are appreciative.
The money that you've given is being split, right? Between

I gave, I gave,

it's a joint program. Thank you for asking.
It's a joint program between UCLA and Berkeley to focus on continuing education, which is a fancy way of saying vocational programming.

I wanted my money to go to something where there was no admissions. Anyone could just show up and say, I want to improve my life.

And it would be free and it would be focused on jobs in the real economy, nursing, cybersecurity, construction.

And it's the first of its kind in that the Chancellor's, Chancellor's Block, and now Chancellor Lyons, it was Chancellor Chris, came together to do a joint program.

It took us two years to figure it out. But I'm just super, it's like an overdue nod to California taxpayers who put

it started? Has it started? We're admitting our quote-unquote first class of like 120 or 200 kids

to the continuing education programs this year. But it's, I love it because it's super unsexy and it has the things I want.

I want free and I want it to be accessible and I want it to be focused on, I don't want to say young men, but young adults who aren't cut out for a traditional four-year liberal arts degree.

No, we should do, let's do an event at both places where I'll interview about this. How about that? We'll do that.
We'll like talk about it. They're both, have you spent much time at UCLA?

I have. I love it.
It's beautiful. I mean, they're both just, they're just, they're both just, you walk around campus.

Of course, course, I took my sons there and they're both like, I want to go to UCLA. And I'm like, well, just so you know, you're not getting in because I don't know if you've heard this.
It's hard.

It's hard to get in. UCLA gets 155,000 applications a year now, admissions rate of 9%.

And I do begrudgingly respect this,

both chancellors told me on the eve of my actual donation, they said, we just need to be straight with you. Your kids aren't getting in.

It's actually more difficult now for the children of donors to get in.

Yep, it is. And California just said there there used to be

private ones no legacy for the private schools talk about that yeah yeah we'll talk about that in a minute yeah anyway uh it was they love you there at the same time when you did it was a great thing anyway um today there's a lot we're going to talk about political and economic impacts of hurricane helene um our new evidence in the federal election case from donald trump really disturbing evidence actually and not that it'll matter uh and our listener question this week comes from someone who wants uh dating advice from me and scott that's not a good idea uh but first just get her drunk.

Ask her. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's easy.

Let's wait. Let's ask her if she has

what the relationship is like with her father. If she says anything positive, move along.
Move along. Okay.
All right.

First, the biggest VC deal ever, former nonprofit entity OpenAI, and I say former, just pulled in $6.6 billion in its latest fundraising round, bringing in a valuation of $157 billion.

Before this funding deal came through, OpenAI reportedly expected about $5 billion in losses a year on $3.7 billion in revenue.

OpenAI is currently a capped profit company under the terms of this new investment round.

It has two years to fully transform into a for-profit business, or its funding will convert to debt and obviously transform.

We talked about this a lot last week. In fact, they wrote me and said, just make sure Scott sees this.
They seem to like what you had to say.

What does it mean for the rest of the AI market? I mean, it's sort of winners and losers at this point, right? This is a lot of money. The new Intel is Open OpenVIDIA.
OpenAI and NVIDIA control.

Oh, I like that.

How about they control 70, 70, and 92% of their markets, respectively, just as technologies have a zero to 60 times much faster now, the zero to duopoly or monopoly is happening.

And I'm not sure, but I think NVIDIA may have even invested in this round.

The thing that struck me about this round as someone who does these types of investments is obviously there were so many people looking to crowd into this round. I mean, a couple of things.

So many people are trying to get into this round that the leads on it and the bigger investors, including Thrive,

were able to create essentially different terms or a different class of stock.

They have investment rights or pro-rata rights that the other investors in the same round have.

And that's really non-kosher and not cool because what you're doing is the whole idea of an investment in a round is that you're all taking a similar risk.

And so when some investors get most favored nation status, in other words, they get better terms, that's really unusual because what an investor will ask you when you're raising money is they'll say, and I got asked this a lot because I was raising a lot of money in the 90s and 2000s.

Am I getting the same terms as every investor?

Because what they don't want to find out is other investors are getting all sorts of additional sweeteners and thereby lowering the valuation.

And they were the dumb money following the people who got a better deal. And these guys were able to pull that off.
The other.

The other. Just to be clear, that's Joshua Kushner, who is the brother of the smart one.

I would call call him. Who's an outstanding VC in his own right? He is, indeed.
He absolutely is. Impressive, lovely guy.

Nice guy.

He's the Kushner we like. The other one loves him.
You know what? The other one was my student, and I think he's actually a really nice kid.

And also, just to be fair, I don't think he gets enough credit for the Abraham Accords. I think that was actually a pretty one bright spot in the Trump administration.
Anyways,

the other observation is that companies now, you just want to have a company worth $150 billion still private.

But what's happened is because there's so much capital now in the private markets, and these guys look at Google and they look at Meta and think, as VCs, why did we let the Main Street get all of this upside?

We'll just keep it private longer. And the employees and the CEO like it because they can have additional compensation.
They can sell their shares. They don't have to.

do these pesky things called earnings analyst calls. So unfortunately, a lot of the upside has been transferred from retail investors to private institutional investors.

You never would have had a company at $150 billion raising $6 billion in the private markets.

And the bad news is that, again, it's another transfer of wealth from the people who are already wealthy, from the people, you know, Google and Meta have made a lot of middle-class people a lot of money.

But where do you, I'll give you an example, Airbnb.

Airbnb is an amazing company. Amazing.

Anyone, any retail investor who bought it on the first trading day of the IPO has lost money because what IPOs are becoming to a certain extent is the last stop when all the juice has been squeezed.

When everyone around the table goes, you know what? I agree with you. No one's going to pay a higher price.
I know. Let's go to stupid retail investors as opposed to a financing event.

Anyway, thank you for my TED talk. Yeah, I would agree.
Well, the rich get richer. I think that's what you're essentially saying.

So,

what does it mean for the rest of the market? I think it means that they're going to pull ahead, right? Or they now have the advantages they need to move forward.

I just, I'm fascinated by AI.

I had an MRI. I uploaded my MRI.
I'm uploading to see

what they suggest, what kind of exercises I should do. I uploaded, I just had blood and urine tests done and I uploaded the results to say what, how should I change my diet and my lifestyle.

I mean, I am just... Quite frankly, I'm just fucking fascinated by AI right now.
And I think it's remarkable. You get all the questions.
Well, God's asking all the questions.

You know what I did is I uploaded a bunch of our notes and our scripts, and i said please put together a script um for this week based on current events in tech and business and then i went over to another and i said try and attach a voice on it i'm trying to basically replicate pivot and see how close we can get

yeah we've seen some bad versions of oh it's not it's still awkward they can't they the the inflection the humor it's still very anodyne but it really just starts to it starts to blow blow your mind but look it what it does what is someone someone i when i was with uploaded something like that uh your stuff and asked asked what she would ask Kara Swisher.

And it was a dick joke.

What do lesbians? No, it was what do lesbians do when they have sex? I think that was what came out of.

That's the answer there. Does it involve Riverdale or strap-ons? Okay.

Or movies about German shepherds.

That's what it knows of you. That's a good idea.
Someone scream out. It's a Subaru.
And

it's surprisingly accurate.

Anyway, we're moving on. We're moving.
I got to get out of this. All right.
Another story. Tesla stock, though, was down 4% after posting its third quarter production deliveries report on Wednesday.

The company global sales of cars and trucks rose a little bit, but fell short of Wall Street expectations. It was 6.4%.
Deliveries increased by 28,000 compared to the same quarter last year.

They've been cutting prices, too. Plans to unveil its Robo-Taxi at a much anticipated marketing event, pretending they're in the Robo-Taxi business.

Meanwhile, Waymo is all over the streets of San Francisco and other states.

I don't know. know if demand's coming back.

I just think they're just declining market share, right? Because there's competitors, essentially. So I'm sick of talking about Elon.
Let's go back to lesbians. So

I saw this data out of the UK, which I think you'll find interesting. Okay.
Divorce rates among gay men, 24%.

Divorce rates in heteronormative marriages, 44 to 48%. The data was unclear.

Divorce rates among gay couples, lesbian couples, guess what it is? 5%.

72%. Whoa, really?

So I thought it was fascinating. I'm writing, as you know, I'm writing a book on masculinity and I wanted to understand more about what happens when a man after

a divorce, men are four times as likely to kill themselves. In the few years after a divorce, a man becomes eight times more likely to kill himself.

Anyways, but so I started trying to figure out what factors bring divorce energy to a divorce. And it's mostly money, but also I looked at this data and I said, do women bring divorce energy?

And you can't make that assumption from the 24 to the 48, from the gay men to the heteronormative, because I think what's happened, and there's a lot of evidence of this, I find this shit fascinating.

I think you will too.

As women make more money, the ascent or the slope of the increase in their earnings has not been matched by the increase in domestic responsibilities that the male partner has taken on. In some

marriage, on a lot of levels, day to day, for a lot of women, it's like, okay, I'm making as much or more money than you now. I'm as good a provider.

And quite frankly, you're not picking up the slack.

This is just too fucking much for me. And someone told me that.
And I was like, that resonates. But where it falls down is that once you go to two women, the divorce energy is really, really high.

What are your thoughts as a lesbian? Oh, wow.

Well, today is my fourth anniversary with Amanda. So happy anniversary, honey.

It happens to be today. Uh,

anecdotally, does that feel right or wrong?

Uh, I don't, I don't know. Some of them have been together long, some of them have been.
I think women are just,

I think if they're unhappy, they move along and they don't like it's easier for a man to stay in an unhappy marriage than a woman, I would imagine, right?

Or in the case of gay men, they are much looser around their standards with each other, right? They have a little more you mean they get it, they invite in third parties, whatever.

That's my experience with with gay men, is that they're more loose in their standards.

And

I'm not judging their standards. It's just that they just don't, they don't get all twisted as much as straight couples do.
In the case of lesbians, I don't know this.

When you say twisted, you mean about the notion of them having sex outside of the partnership? Yeah, like it's a little less. The expectations are lower, I guess.

And again, I don't judge the expectations. I think that straight people are really in a vice of expectation almost constantly because of movies, because of,

you know, movies do a number on you people. Device of expectation.
Kara Swisher, you are good. You have a good turn of phrase.
I like that. Thank you.
Device of expectation. You may use it.

But it's, I think they just,

I used to watch all these movies about straight people and the marriages. Actually, I just watched

Nobody Wants This on Netflix, which is

Adam Brody and

Kristen. What's her name? Oh, she's fantastic.
She was in Frozen.

And it's about dating in Los Angeles. And I actually like it because it's honest about straight people dating a little bit more than what were the takeaways.
I'm fascinated by dating.

I just,

that people have these romantic ideas born by Hollywood. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Come true. It's

Kristen Bell. Bell, yes.
Oh, yeah. It's a big hit.
It's a huge hit right now. Although I don't understand how someone could live in Los Angeles and not know what the word shiksa is as a

Christian.

She's great. She's great.
It's a really interesting and hard look at dating, but it's good, actually, but it's also delightful and they're beautiful people. So it's very attractive.

You want to hear my Christian Bell story?

Okay, go ahead. You don't way away from Tesla.
Go ahead. Yes.
Go ahead.

Okay, he sucks. Tesla, blah, blah, blah.
The company's overvalued. Boom.
We're done with Tesla.

All right. So I went on Dax Shepard Armchair Expert, which is like one of the 10 biggest podcasts in the world.
Yeah.

And he and his co-hosts, I'm blanking on her name. super lovely, super nice.
He and I were talking about working out and relationships and we really hit it off. And he sent me a text message.

I'm like, oh my God, I'm friends with Dax Shepard.

And my producer said, we got to get Dax on our podcast. And he agreed.
And then that morning, I fucked up as I do often. And I forgot that my kid had a spring concert.

And I had to cancel on Dax like two or three hours before he was due.

And he wrote back, understood, but I need you to know I'm not going to do this again. I'm out.
This is totally inappropriate, which I very much respect.

And I'm so bummed and I was too ashamed to like reach out and apologize. Anyways, Dax, I'm sorry.
I still want to be friends. Why don't you text him back? Oh, my God.

I was just embarrassed.

Oh, come on.

Say Kara made me tech you back. I'm in the vice of expectations of heteronormative male friendship.
Write him back.

What is wrong with you? I don't know. Oh, my God.
What is the problem with me? Do you know what you mean? Bad me.

Yes. Bad dad and bad friend and one swoop.
You know what the problem is? I'm going to bring it back to Elon for one second. Puffery.
Corporate puffery. Yeah, he just got off.
Embarrassment. Yeah.

Yeah.

Puffery. Dax, let me back in.
I'll be at the Beverly Hills Hotel. That's because you're on different shelves.
And he's on a higher shelf than you. And you canceled on him.

And someone on a lower shelf cannot cancel on a higher shelf person.

And he's like, what the fuck? I'm an absolute person. I'm a higher shelf person.
A higher shelf?

From a podcast point of view.

Dax is higher shelf. From a podcast point of view.

but other than having a bigger podcast, being much more handsome and much more talented and wealthy than me, how is he higher shelf? Yeah, higher shelf. He just was like, you're wasting my time.

Dax on a shelf, elf on a shelf, Dax on a shelf. Yeah.
I didn't handle that well, Kara. Yeah, I think you need to do this.
We'll make a video for Dax Shepard.

Look into the camera right now and say, Dax, I am so sorry.

All right, hold on. Ready?

Dax,

I am so sorry.

Boom! That's what you call relationship repair. Evolved man in touch with his feelings.
Yeah, no, none of that lesbian divorce rate over here. New York.
All right, okay, all right.

Should we talk about Tesla? Should we talk about Tesla? No, no. I was just going to say, actually, he did.
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit accusing Tesla and Musk of defrauding shareholders.

The suit was centered around Musk's claim that Tesla's autopilot and full self-driving technology could drive safer than humans. The judge said the claims amounted to corporate puffery.

I don't care about Elon.

What is corporate puffery? That's exaggeration, bullshit, spin, whenever these companies.

He did get off for this.

He was pretty insistent. You know what? At some point, constant puffery becomes like small case fraud.
I don't know. When does it cross the line?

But trying to predict when a technology is going to arrive, I can see him saying, look, I generally was hoping and thought it would arrive.

The most interesting thing I think about Tesla right now is that we talk too much about Tesla.

The auto company that it's gotten it right for the last two or three years, it's not Tesla, it's Toyota, because the biggest thing in auto over the last two years is a recognition by the public that it's not about EVs, it's about hybrids.

And EV sales were up single digits and hybrid sales were up hugely double digits. And

who did not get seduced by EVs, unlike Ford and General Motors, hoping to be more Tesla-like? Toyota. And Kia.

Is that right? Kia has, I have a Kia hybrid. But basically, consumers are waking up to the fact, let me get this.

I get the benefits of electric without the need for charge stations, and I get at a lower cost. It's called hybrids.

I think hybrids are, quite frankly, the future of auto, not EVs. And the consumer is a lot more.
No, I think people will eventually get to EVs. I think it's one of these things that's going to

go through that. But you're right.
People are slowly moving that direction and they will then feel more comfortable with EVs. I have a lot of people asking about EVs because I have wonderful.

Sales are booming. And Toyota, Toyota, I mean, just to give you a sense, you make fun of my Kia hybrid.

I just want to note, whatever. Just talk about your magic and play, you know, and pay for a discover card and boom, no third marriage for you.
Kia hybrid.

Sorento. But get this: Toyota, which I believe is now growing faster than Tesla, has a price to earnings ratio of nine.
Tesla is 72.

I mean,

price to sales, Toyota trades at 0.9 times sales. Tesla trades, depending on the numbers you're looking at, somewhere between seven and nine times sales.
And

they are making a better car that's more in tune with consumer demands right now, that foots better to how consumers want to interface with electric without the charging infrastructure nightmare.

And it trades at a one of these companies is under or overvalued. Yeah.
So one of the things they're working on is vertical lift and takeoff stuff too. Interesting.
They are doing that. Yeah,

details. They're involved in that too.
Anyway, they're a very smart company. But let's get to our first story.

Voters are split 50-50 after Governor Tim Walls and Senator J.D. Vance faced off in a VP debate on Tuesday, according to a politico poll.

The two VP candidates discussed immigration, abortion, and other election talks. People kind of liked it.
They said it was civil and interesting.

During the conversation, although there were some moments during the conversation on immigration, moderators cut the mics of both candidates when Vance interrupted to say the hosts were not supposed to be fact-checking him per debate rules.

He shouldn't have done that. He looked like an idiot.
Another standout.

He looked strong there, Kara. No, he did not.
He looked dumb. Like, just answer the question.
He's wrong. They said they weren't going to fact-check, and that was fact-checking.

No, they didn't quite say that. They didn't.
It was non-necessary. I didn't hear them.
The beginning of the debate. We're not going to fact-check.
And they fact-checked.

Not that they called them out for it. No, not some people didn't like that.

Another standout moment. Vance refused to answer the question of whether he believes Trump lost the 2020 election.
This was a weak point, which Waltz called in damning non-answer.

But also, again, it was noticeably more civil than presidential debates. A lot of people were noting on that.
Let's listen to a moment during the closing remarks.

Well, I've enjoyed tonight's debate, and I think there was a lot of commonality here, and I'm sympathetic to miss speaking on things. And I think I might have with the senator.

Yeah, it was actually interesting. It sort of normalized J.D.
Vance, who I think is a very dangerous character. But what are your overall takeaways? You go first.
first.

The biggest winner here was America. It demonstrated how our elected representatives are supposed to acquit themselves.

They were respectful. They didn't interrupt each other a lot.
I thought Margaret and Nora Donald, Margaret Brennan, did a fantastic job. And it just made me feel better about being an American.

And it contrasted the chaos and bullshit and childlike behavior that happens when Trump is in any room or in something like a debate. The next biggest winner was was J.D.
Vance.

He came across as very intelligent, reasoned, thoughtful. His agility around,

I mean, you got to keep in mind, he's playing with a much worse hand than Walls.

Walls can say to him, hey, does your boss believe that Biden won the election?

And Vance was able to say, well, okay, first off, Hillary Clinton

didn't

leave to his election front.

Give me some running room.

He counters with Hillary Clinton did the same thing, and censorship is worse. Okay, you're right.
That is the mother of all false equivalences.

Secretary Clinton showed up at the inauguration and she conceded, right? Censorship is fucking ridiculous in this red herring.

Anyone who claims censorship won't shut the fuck up and has a top podcast and is everywhere. But I got to give it to the guy.

He took chicken shit and made it mostly chicken salad. And given the hand he's been dealt, he did really well.
I thought Wall started off shaky, got better.

They both cemented their brand as Wall's brand is likable, and he was very likable. And Vance's brand is intelligent, and he came off as very intelligent.
And the big win,

the big winner here, other than America, was Vance, because quite frankly, coming out of this debate, Vance, in my view, is probably the top contender for the GOP nomination in 2028.

Yeah, I think I think you saw the future of the Republican Party. Yeah, I I do.

You know, he's a, he, he's a, he lies a lot, just more deftly. I'm sorry.
He just, there's several lies he told me. And that's not a good thing.
Like, oh, so he managed to normalize his lies.

And I don't know if that's a positive thing.

He's certainly a serious contender. That is no question about that.
And I think he acquits himself well. He's still a creepy person who does, has an issue with women.

It's a real, which he didn't let out. He didn't show that.
He didn't take the mask off on that thing. But some of his other comments are disturbing.

If you go back in any interview, they're disturbing in the extreme. And so we're talking about the debate.
I agree. Yeah, the debate.
Yes.

But the reason I'm saying it's disturbing is that he also is very good at masking himself as a normal person. And he's not normal.
And so doesn't every politician have to do that?

Who the fuck would want to do that?

When I look at some of these, you got to go back and look at these interviews, Scott. They're disturbing.
Nobody talks like this.

And so I think he's able to normalize his very dark view of humanity in a way that,

you know, I like it would, if he wasn't such a dark character, I would say this was a really nice civil thing.

And every politician lies, but he manages to take anything where there's a false equivalency and try to really, he cannot miss a moment of lying like about something.

Like he just can't admit anything.

Very much, he can't say, yes, this is a problem. No, this is, and I would like our public officials to say, I made a mistake, or that, yes, this was wrong.

He cannot do that as a person.

What is he going to say? I hate my mother, and as a result, I'm a deep, dark misogynist, and I'm supporting a guy who I generally think is the American Hitler.

I agree with everything you said.

He was very good. Yeah, he was.
No, he is really good. I still don't think it matters in any way whatsoever.

But I do think it sets him up for the future.

It's already out of the news cycle.

You know what it was? It was mostly it was a split decision.

A split decision amongst the VP debate is pretty much a nothing burger. Right, exactly.
So

and it doesn't really matter, but I do, you do have to see who's going to, you know, as you say, the actuarial tables show that this guy might be president.

So that's why we're paying attention to him, right? Because Donald Trump is old and obviously, speaking of which, addled beyond belief this last speech you gave.

And finally, the Washington Post wrote about it. Very, you know, they wrote about it with Joe Biden all the time.
Donald Trump

wasn't just a crazy word salad that he usually is. There's something happening to him cognitively that is very,

I don't know what it is, but it was really pronounced this past week. And he's either drugged or

something is gone wrong. And it's not his usual cup of crazy.
Anyway, nothing's gone wrong. It's called being 78.

And with a history of Alzheimer's in your family, I kept thinking, what is happening to this guy's words?

Anyway, and I think we should call it out because I called it out for Biden. I I think Donald Trump is cognitively disabled.

So we have some, so this guy might be president. That's all I'm saying.

That's why it matters. So we also have some new evidence.
This is interesting.

This just dropped last night in the 2020 election case against Donald Trump, unsealed by a judge on Wednesday, revealed special counsel Jack Smith's outline of the former president's desperate attempts to overturn the 2020 election, which has been reported, but some of it was not, which was interesting.

He kind of put it together in a timeline. Smith emphasized that Trump's scheme was a private criminal effort and that he's acting as as a candidate, not a president.

He needs to do that because of the Supreme Court decision that presidents have immunity for official acts, but not private acts.

One of the things was when he was told about the danger to Mike Pence, he said, so what? And then another point he went by

AIDS kind of had it with his non-reaction. They left the dining room he was throwing ketchup in, and he started writing very dangerous tweets about Mike Pence that put him in direct danger.

And this is when he was cogent. Do you think this matters that this came out? Do voters care? I think it's add to the list of things.
Nobody cares that this guy's a criminal, I guess.

If there's anything that is disqualifying here, it's January 6th and his behavior.

I'm pretty sure you felt this way.

When I saw this mob hunting down our elected representatives and I saw them cowering in the rafters in the rotunda, I thought it was arguably the most shameful day we've had

in maybe since the Japanese internment. I thought this is, we have lost so much moral authority.

And I mean, it just was so, it was so deeply, I don't think of myself as someone who's, I don't know, like a student of the Constitution.

I found it so deeply rattling and that he's watching it like it's a sport and egging these people on.

I thought, and it also gave me the impression I am totally out of touch with the American people and how much they either their sycophantry can override their sense of justice and right or wrong, or that things are so bad for so many Americans that they will accept this in exchange for someone they think is going to burn it all down.

But that to me was absolutely the low point in America for the last, I don't know, 40 or 50 years. And

it just showed me I have no political instincts because I thought that's it. I thought he was going to be in prison and I thought for sure he'd be out of all public sight whatsoever.

And it's a toss-up right now for president. I just don't get it.
I have terrible political instincts. That's what it taught me.

Yeah, you know, I do think over, you need to have this historical record, right? You need to have it said what he did so that even if they don't care, it doesn't matter. He did it.

Like he said, so what? He sat in that dining room, you know, addled on whatever the fuck he takes, all the different things and ketchup. and

it puts someone in danger. This is a, this is someone who's a sociopath, as far as I can tell.
That's what I read it. I was sort of like, what is sociopathic behavior?

And I think putting the timeline together, no matter what, will follow this man into his grave, right? This is this kind of stuff, he may not pay for himself.

I think it's critically important that this is laid out. There's so much stuff he's done and others have done that have not like the stuff in Ukraine, the antics, you know, that Rudy Giuliani did.

Why isn't Rudy Giuliani in jail for criminal acts, right? And so I think that we'll follow these people to the ends of the earth to put it down. But I agree with you.
I don't know if it matters.

I think people, everyone's like, everything's baked in. And I'm like, that is a sick indictment of this country if everything is baked in and it doesn't matter what he does.

But I thought it's worth reading this. I don't know if it'll matter or voters care

or have already figured this out that he did this and have decided they don't care but and the ones that care care right and so we'll see where it goes but i think it's important to lay it all out and to act like we're a nation of laws and not men so we'll see we'll see and i think the internet uh speaking of we're not remembering the vice president debate we're not remembering the assassination attempts we're not remembering the like everything goes through in this fast-moving way that that we've that it's just like it is like a television show um and you're like next on this thing so maybe it'll be next but it matters I think.

Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
We haven't talked about it.

And take a listener mail question about dating goals where you could make your jokes, Scott.

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Scott, we're back with our second big story: the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which is now the second deadliest hurricane of the century behind Katrina. Here's a look at the situation by numbers.

Right now, there are at least 180 dead and 100 still missing, $160 billion of economic damage so far, according to AccuWeather. Entire communities have been destroyed.

More than a million are still without power. Tens of thousands are without running water.
The Biden administration has deployed over 5,000 National Guardsmen and 1,000 active duty troops.

Biden visited the Carolinas Wednesday. Kalmala Harris was in Georgia.
Donald Trump visited Georgia earlier this week in his campaign, set up a GoFundMe account. All right, sure.

Aside from the obvious political tragedy, I mean, obvious weather tragedy, this is a political situation.

And not just because there are two swing states involved, North Carolina and Georgia.

You know, Donald Trump quickly spread misinformation. What a surprise.
He claimed that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp couldn't get in touch with Biden in the aftermath of the storm.

Both Biden and Kemp disputed that. He also took credit for asking Elon Musk to get Starlink access to damaged areas.
FEMA tweeted in response, this is already happening.

Elon bagged President Trump's version of events, but of course he would.

But

and of course, Trump disaster response has usually been terrible.

Talk a little bit about this from a political point of view, but also

the devastation here and the photos are just disturbing in the extreme, what's happening there. And people thought they were safe in certain parts of the the country, like Asheville.

They thought they were climate safe and they certainly were not from these rising rivers. Any thoughts?

Yeah, well, you touched on it.

So if you believe in science and think that science is kind of the best ideas we have and maybe the closest to an actual truth, you know, the waters have heated up one degree centigrade or I think it's about, what is that about?

I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit. Anyways, they're getting warmer.
And that spins up hurricanes faster and makes them more severe.

And one of the outcomes of that severity is they're moving inland and affecting areas, including Asheville, that just aren't weather ready.

When you're in Florida, whether it's hurricane windows, I mean, I don't want to say you're prepared, but you know eventually, if you're living in Florida, you're going to have to deal with this.

And you make preparations, whether it's insurance, whether it's the quality of your roof, or whatever it is, or a generator.

I spent a bunch of time and money thinking on alternative energy supplies if our power goes out.

So this is just the fact that we politicize this and don't want to just look at the data is just going to create more and more severe weather events.

And what you said really struck me, and it's true and tragic, is that Americans are very, or excuse me, humans are very adaptable.

And we're just getting used to this shit and we shouldn't be getting used to it.

Now, on a political state, We're talking about all this stuff that we like to control, the VP debate, the convention, the bump.

The three things or one of three things that'll probably decide this election, given that it's in the margin of error right now, are one of three things or two of those three.

And that is who is perceived as having the better response to Hurricane Helena, Helene, excuse me, to Hurricane Helene.

Like if Biden and Harris can be seen down there with a FEMA jacket and looking strong and bringing people together, or if it's kind of George Bush's, you know, Katrina event where he just looks like an idiot having appointed his political buddies who just fucked up left and right.

Yeah.

Great job, Brownie. Remember that? Yeah, great.
Brownie's doing an amazing job.

And then, two, the longshoreman strike. This is probably,

I would argue, the one that might jump up and bite one or both of them in the ass because

it feels to me awfully opportune that these longshoremen have gone on strike. I do believe they deserve a raise.
I think they're in a position of leverage, which I respect and appreciate.

But if if this thing starts costing the economy $5 billion

a day, does Biden step in? Does he show strength? Does he show empathy? Is Trump able to make political hay? There's some real- No, the head of the long sharement is a Trumper.

Trumper, yeah. But is that going to be good? Could that backfire? If Biden steps in and says, you know, fuck yourself, you're not going to fuck with the economy and forces everyone back to work.

That is a big issue. And then the third wild card is what's happening in the Middle East, and that is Israel's response to Iran and who gets credit or non-credit for that.

But I think one of those three issues, or more than one of those three issues, is going to determine the election at that point. Interesting.

So these are news events that matter, I guess, because everything else sails by in like a

you have your plan and then God laughs.

God is laughing at the presidential election with these three events. It's a toss-up.

Someone is going to get a lot of credit or a lot of blame for one or more in terms of their approach and how they address one or more of these three issues.

Who actually was down there first? Jose Andres with food. Incredible.
He should be president, honestly. I think that he brings World Central Kitchen was the first group down there over everybody

feeding people. Yeah.
What an organization. What are your thoughts?

Do you think that one of the things that you know, I think I thought it was, it was, I don't know why Trump tried to politicize it right at the beginning.

It was grotesque, but that's, you know, it's any other Tuesday with a scaffolda.

I, you know, I agree with you. I think

this idea that any, you know, it was interesting was people moved to Asheville, Asheville. And I know a lot of, I love Asheville.
It's a beautiful town.

But they used to say, I'm moving here because it's a climate haven. They did.

I've been there. And, you know, here's where it's safe, where it's going to be safe against climate change.
You're not safe anywhere. around climate change.
You just are not.

And the second part is like, to me, climate change is really going to be the interesting thing over the next couple of years because like I was just reading an interesting story about insurance rates now in California and Florida.

They're not insuring. They're just stopped insuring.
And so some people have stopped doing insurance in these places or having insurance.

I can't get insurance where I have right. You can't get it.
That's the other thing, right?

And so to me, that was an opportunity for, I hate to say this, Gavin Newson and Rhonda Santis to get together, right? And come up with something to self-insure or whatever.

But it certainly, there's all kinds of opportunities to come together, right? In these things like Jose Andres and World Central Kitchen. He feeds everybody.
He doesn't care who you vote for.

Or it's an opportunity to split people up. I think people do respond to people who are going to bring people together and solve problems.

And so I think people are desperate for problem solvers, not divisiveness.

And so whoever does that best here finds a way to settle with this Long Sherman, who I think is just, I'll tell you why he offended me. He's like, my guys will do this.

I'm like, they're not your fucking guys, right? You know what I mean? He does. I know union people talk like that.
He's not in charge. He's not the king.

He should try to find the best deal for the constituents he works for. Right.

But of course, it's all cynical with this guy. And so if I were his constituents, I'd be pretty pissed that he's.

I think they've been offered a 52% raise, but the WGA was able to extract 5% for their riders. Right.
And he's already gotten 52%. He says, he said, he's rejected that deal and said, no, I want 77%.

Well,

they're probably, you know what? They're within striking distance.

I think they're probably going to solve this thing. Yeah, I hope so.
I just find this guy offensive because of the way he talks. I was listening to him give us a test.
But again,

the ridiculous request that makes no sense is

we want to put the technology back in the bottle. We want no automation.
It's like, sorry, boss.

Sorry, boss. You're going to take what everybody else is going to take.
Anyway, well, you know, see what AI says. Let's see what AI.

Yeah, I can't wait for you to do that. Can you tape it, please? Can you do that? That's going to be great.
Please tape it with one of those jiggly cameras for us.

Anyway,

what's happening there? One of the things that is good and bad about the internet is so many pictures coming through, and it's devastating. And

people and stories and things like that.

But there are some organizations you can check out that are providing help in states affected by Helene.

World Central Kitchen, as I said, Jose Andres, what an amazing man he's become with this effort. AmeriCares, Operation Airdrop, the Humane Society, and many more.

So please give if you can.

They're really suffering there.

Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question.

This question comes in via email. I'll read it.
Hi, Kara and Scott. I work remotely and recently went through a breakup.
Currently, I live in North Carolina, but I'm considering moving.

As a 30-year-old ambitious man, I'm looking to maximize my dating prospects and increase my earning potential.

Should I think about relocating closer to my company's headquarters in Florida to build stronger work relationships?

Or should I challenge myself by moving to New York City and maybe a medium-cost city like Austin, or stay here where I can save more and leverage my six-figure salary to invest in the stock market and real estate.

For context, I work in finance sales. I am a non-white, straight male.
Looking forward to your thought. Best Andres.
Oh, Andres. You're in North.
I hope you're in a safe part of North Carolina.

What do you think, Scott? What do you think without making a dirty joke?

Yeah, it's the last part. It's the hard part.

Okay, Andres. So

mating is like any other market, and you want to go where there's more demand than supply for what you're offering.

So let's just start with the basic. You're a male.
There are certain cities. Basically, cities attract more women than men.

And the reason why after my divorce, I immediately bought places in New York and South Beach is there are a lot more quality women than quality men.

And so a five gets to data seven. So by virtue of just moving to a city, most cities, especially the coastal cities, you have somewhat of an advantage.

And in places like New York or Miami, it is champagne and cocaine for men. Talk to women about dating.
Their misery in Miami and New York, quite frankly, is your disco.

Now, having said that, what trumps all of this, what trumps all of this in your 30s is nothing increases your attractiveness and increases your potential selection set of mates than economic security.

Women are attracted to men for three reasons. Number Number three, reverse order, how kind they are.

Women long term want someone who's going to be good to them and to their family, too. Intelligence.

If you're smart, you're more likely to make good decisions for the tribe and make good decisions for the family, and her kids will survive.

And then, number one, whether you like it or not, there's a ton of evidence, is your ability to signal resources.

Women go through a period in their lives where they are bearing children and they need a guy with resources to ensure their kids survive.

So, what you want to be focused on in your 30s is killing it professionally.

So get to headquarters because at headquarters, you will accelerate 30 to 40% faster than someone who is not at headquarters. So take all the bullshit I said about cities out of the equation.

In your 30s, you want to be sexy.

No matter where you are, make a shit ton of money. You're going to make more money at headquarters.

Yep. Okay, good.
I would agree with you. I think living in North Carolina and being remote, it sounds like a very very bad prescription for meeting anybody.

I had a relative, I'm not going to go into it in detail, who a younger relative who was living in Missouri.

I advised him to get the hell to Atlanta and he did and he's married and he's very happily married now.

I don't think, you know, if you're in a remote area by yourself as a young single person, especially a man

in an area that doesn't have a lot of prospects, you're going to have any prospects. More women than anyone you're going to have a lot of money.

You're going to have a lot of cash, but what are you going to do with it?

You're probably drink drink your drink that money you know essentially and or do whatever um so i think you you should move it's like don't everything shouldn't be a monetary decision to your advantage that's right and you'll if you make an if you make a six-figure salary you'll be fine no matter where you are um and so you know i and you're also happier with someone there's you know honestly there's just no question move move move move i don't know if you should move to headquarters or a cool city but either way you'll do well um uh i don't you know I'm, I, I, Scott and I are not all plus on remote work, even though both of us do it, interestingly, but we have established families already.

I think later in your life, you could do remote work. When you're younger, don't do remote work.
Get into the office or get into the whatever.

Once you have money and relationships, remote work's an unlock.

If you don't have a partner and you haven't made a lot of money, the office is a feature, not a benefit. Get into the office.
Yeah, later you can leave and ignore That's right. Like we do.

Anyway, Andres, thank you so much.

And good luck. Good luck.
We ho, tell us when you get married. Okay, if you've got a question of your own and you'd like answered, send it our way.

Go to nymag.com/slash pivot, submit a question for the show, or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break.
We'll be back for predictions from you.

I know you're in the prediction mode as the year ends.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Do you have any predictions? Oh, hmm.

I do. I had an interesting discussion with, I've had, you know, when you travel, you talk to people and you sort of start to hear their views and stuff like that.

And I know all our focus is on the election right now. I think a lot of people are really leaning in and paying attention to the election.

But I do think, I think there is a quiet group of women in this country, the way there was a quiet group of Trump supporters.

And I am, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm convinced the election will be not as close as people think it is. You know who agrees with it? Who's going to win? Who? Bill Maher.

Oh, does he? Interesting. He made a prediction.
He said he thinks that

Vice President Harris is not only going to win, but she's going to win decisively.

I think it's going to be women. Women vote.
I think there's a lot of focus on young men and what do they do. They never go to vote.
They're lazy. They're lazy.
And I think women are motivated. And

every woman I talk to is doing something, whether it's raising money or whatever.

And

so I really, I don't know. I just, I could be really wrong, but I think that Trump's grip is a lot less strong than people think.

I think everything's just as everyone lets him get away with shit, all his supporters, I think everyone

has had enough.

He's got as many, he's got a, he's got a ceiling and he's reached it. And that's my feeling.
Anyway,

it is, of course, about turnout and the turnout for the, as much as Elon Musk is giving him money, I don't think they have as good a turnout as the Democrats. But we'll see.

All right, Scott, do you have a prediction? I do. You inspired one.
So I think we're about to undertake or we're beginning what I'd call the great rotation. And that is

if since 2008, the capital flows, the market dynamics always trump individual performance.

So you'd rather be a mediocre stock in America right now than a really good company and good stock in Argentina, because every year since 2008, capital flows have flown basically leaked out of everywhere and into the U.S.

So such that the S ⁇ P trades at a higher PE than, I think, than any market in the world.

And with the Chinese market actually ripping up last week, I think since the beginning of September, they're up more than 30%. I think the starting gun has been fired, and that is the U.S.

market as a ratio of how it trades relative to other markets

has not seen these highs since 1999 or 2007.

And with Chinese stocks making a comeback, with the stimulus announced, with a bunch of people getting their greed glands going,

ETFs have surged or capital flows into China have surged, but it's going to lift stocks in places like China, places like Brazil, and you're going to have a rotation back into kind of emerging or what you would call developing markets.

And some, I think, that markets outside of the U.S. are going to outperform the U.S.
over the next three to five years. That's interesting.
Oh, that's a good one.

How'd you just come up with that one in the top of your head? That was good. That was helpful.
Good. I'm glad.
Very helpful. It's a good prediction.
Oh, I'm here.

How is your predictions deck going, by the way? Speaking of predictions, when's that? Well, it's just so discouraging. Last year, I would loosely describe my predictions as wrong.

I just shit the bet on everything. I got it.

I love when you talk about that, though. We'll go over that with your

bet. Everything.
Just like literally everything. Was I right then? Would that be not? I forget what you predicted.

You have much better political instincts than me.

That's correct. Most people realize that.

Amanda's like, yeah, Scott was great on beta. Oh, then he was on.

That's the only mean thing she said. Whatever.
I like, it was really sad to me because there's only a one in four chance I'm going to get to to see Amanda again according to these divorce statistics.

Oh, stop it.

We're having Instagram.

We're not getting into it. I am never getting into it.
I just assume lesbians on a regular basis

cry and hug for three hours and decide never to see each other again. Is that wrong? Is that wrong? No.
You know what?

In general, not everybody for sure, but mostly lesbians get along with their spouse exes. And a lot of straits don't.
Not you. You get along with.
Yeah, you get along with any.

She's coming for Christmas. Yeah.
No, it's great. My kids, my little kids love her.

She's a lovely person. And, you know, there were issues, but I think we've done a nice job trying to really, especially.
I told you I met your ex-wife, right? No. How? What? No.

I was at a conference in Germany or something. I was speaking.
I don't know. And I talked about Amazon.

She came up to me and she's like, you are not giving Mackenzie Bezos enough credit for starting Amazon.

And I look at her and I'm like, and I'm like, oh, do you have a background in technology? And she's like, yeah, I da-da-da. And I was the the CTO of America.
I'm like, oh, my God.

Were you married to Kara Swisher?

Anyways, your ex-wife. She didn't lead with that.
She didn't leave. Your ex-wife came up and reprimanded me after my talk.
She's good at that shit.

She's a very,

she's a real, someone who really supports women in technology and that sort of thing. If you said anything crossways, you'd have been like, she'd have come at you.

She's a big, she's a tall lady, right? She's tall. She's a big lady and everything.
Nice, impressive woman. Yeah, she is.
She is. She's great.
She's great. Yeah.
Yeah.

Come for Christmas at the Lesbians Who Get Along Club. Yeah, I'm not getting a divorce.
Okay. I'm going to South Africa.
You are? Yeah. Oh.
Taking my sister for her 50th Africa.

No, we're going to San Francisco and we're going to have a great time. Yeah.

I win. I win on that one.
Cape Town.

Cape Town over San Francisco. I win.

No. No.
We're not going to be able to do that. Have you been to Cape Town? Have you been to Cape Town? No, but we don't need to explain.
It's a beautiful city in the world.

We like ourselves. We're going to explore the world while we still can.
A beautiful. anyway.
In any case, I'm going to come up for Christmas

with you at some time. Anyway, I hate the holidays, just so you know.
I hate the holidays. See, that's why you're escaping what I just said, but exactly what I just said.

In any case, Scott, we'll all have a Merry Christmas. I'm excited to hear your predictions for the year and your assessment of what you got wrong.
Okay, that's the show.

Before we go, we're up for the best co-host team in the Signal Awards. I don't know what that is.
Really? I didn't know about that.

I didn't know about that.

I don't know. Let's

Find out, but we deserve it. Vote for us at the link in the description.

And again, Dak Shepard, I extend my apologies to you on Scott's behalf. You call me on that.
Didn't mean it, Dax.

Didn't mean it. You kind of meant it.
I want to work out with that guy. That guy's ripped.
He's not working out with you. He's definitely not working out.
That guy's so ripped.

Anyway, we'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot, and I'm certain more news. Scott.
Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Christine Christine Driscoll.

Ernie Editor Todd Enterney to this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miss Severio.
Mishak Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.
You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/slash pod.

We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

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