Trump's Interview Disaster, The Kids Online Safety Act, and Governor Jared Polis

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway.

So there's so much going on, Scott.

It seems like 100 years ago when you were with the dudes, the white dudes.

White dudes, Paris, yeah.

Where are you right now?

I'm still in Aspen.

I'll be here for...

There's a lot of white dudes.

Yeah, speaking of white dudes, my friends Eddie Blau and David Frey, my roommates, my sophomore year at UCLA, are coming to town.

That's nice.

That's really nice.

Just waiting for my invitation.

But in any case,

there's no reason to issue an invitation to you.

I will sometimes walk into my home and you'll be there.

That's true.

I can just show up.

I am staying at your apartment this weekend when I take my son to school.

He's getting, Louis's going back to NYU for his final year.

So thank you, Inadman.

So lots going on.

Tell me really quickly.

There's a lot of news happening as we speak.

First of all, tell me about the dude call and you made Mark Hamill do something for money.

I loved it.

I love that whole thing.

Explain to me how that went.

You know, it was really nice.

I think.

The first thing is I was initially like, oh, we're going to be accused of identity politics.

And what I realized was the vibe was

we were sort of poking fun at ourselves and some of the identity politics on the left.

And there was no like, no one ever even dreamt of saying, well, as white dudes, we need the following.

It wasn't, it was, it was tongue-in-cheek.

It was really nice.

It was a super nice vibe.

Right.

The politicians on the call, governors of Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina, Secretary Budigig, a bunch of really impressive representatives.

You know, they were very, I thought they stole the show.

I thought they were outstanding.

And you can see why that they run, you know, they run for office.

And it was just everyone kept their comments brief.

I think we raised four and a half million dollars.

It was a really nice vibe.

I was just so you like having a group of guys just guying it up, but in a nice way, not like the bad group of guys the other gang.

And the guy who stole the show was the dude, Jeff Bridges.

Yeah.

I mean, he is the dude.

He is the white dude.

He's like the patron saint of white dudes.

But they had, they had, I mean, they had all these actors.

They had Joseph Gordon Levitt, one of my favorite movies, a weird movie called Looper that he was in.

I got to know him because he was doing the Travis Kalanik role in Super whatever.

Oh, and Super Pumped.

He's very talented.

He's actually a great dancer.

Okay.

And the kid who plays The Hobbit, Sean Aston.

Oh, he was there, Sean Aston.

Oh, wow.

He seemed very thoughtful.

And explain to people what you did.

Make me Mark Hamill did.

I can't believe he did it.

Explain what you did.

Dance for my money, sir.

Go ahead.

I went through my whole rant, and then I said,

I'll donate some money, but I'm a selfish person.

I need something in return.

And I said, I have a hero on the line.

I need this hero to unmute and say the following.

I'm Luke Skywalker, and I'm here to rescue you.

And so he did it.

And I thought it was a nice moment.

Anyways,

I love that.

I was like, oh, he didn't.

And then I'm like, oh, he did.

Well, it was enjoyable to watch.

It's interesting.

I was saying in the last pivot, trying to be insightful that every medium has its day in an election, and this is is a medium of video.

What's interesting is so far, you know what the technology of this or the medium of this election is?

Is Zoom.

Zoom, Zoom.

Sort of a pandemic bad feeling, but now, you know, because you have to be on Zooms.

But I have to say, I think it's very, you know, someone was asking me, oh, these identity, I think it was you, identity, but it actually is fun identity politics.

Like, it's.

Yeah, this is us making fun of ourselves.

We weren't saying that, you know, we're white dudes and we need the following and we're representing ourselves.

It was a really nice vibe.

They thread the needle.

The kid, the kid who inspired the whole thing, he should be so proud of himself because he pulled us together in like 72 hours and raised $4.5 million and created a lot of good vibes.

Yeah, all these groups are fascinating.

Now there's going to be a seniors one.

There's going to be a cat ladies.

It's just fun.

It's a fun way to raise money and talk about politics and feel community.

I know it sounds crazy, but online you can have a feeling of community.

It's not fake community.

It's actually real one.

Anyway, I was very

amused by your performance.

It was very funny.

And I heard a lot about it.

Thanks.

Yeah.

You did your whole man has to protect woman thing.

Yeah, I got a lot of pushback for that.

We're men, we protect and we provide.

Someone's like, do you believe he said that?

I'm like, he says it every week.

Yeah, I got pushback there and I got pushed back.

I mean, online get you a pushback or anything.

I got pushed back on my dress, which I understand.

Yeah.

And I got pushed back for bringing up Israel.

But, you know.

Player going to play.

Daddy's going to daddy.

The dog's going to howl.

Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including the latest earnings from Meta and Microsoft.

And the Senate is finally passing regulation to protect kids online, as well as other things, fakes and things like that.

Plus, our friend at Pivot, I'm bringing you a good person, Colorado's Democratic governor, Jared Polis.

We're going to talk politics and tech.

He's a tech guy.

That's how I met him.

And he also started

ProFlowers.

He did.

That ProFlowers, there was a candy company attached, all those things.

He's a really interesting fella.

So I have a little bit of a story there.

When I was in

the 90s, I was the co-founder of Red Envelope, and ProFlowers was kind of our competition.

And I'd heard because my company was about to go public, I thought, well, white guy about to be rich.

I should run for office.

And my company went chapter 11.

He sold his company early and made a shit ton of money.

And now he's the governor of Colorado.

It's his mom.

His parents started that company, by the way.

Oh, that's right.

That's right.

You know that story.

His mom was.

San Diego, wasn't he?

Living in San Diego.

Yeah, he was in San Diego.

But they were all in Colorado.

They were all kinds of businesses.

She,

La Jolla, essentially, she called me when they offered her that money.

And And I was the reporter.

And I was like, you know, you're telling me news.

Like, it was funny, but she's one of these sort of innocent kind of not, she wasn't, I wouldn't say not sophisticated, but she, you know, she was like, Carol, what do you think?

And I was like, thank you for the tip, Susan.

And I told her to sell it and get all cash because I thought excited home was it was the first crazy acquisition that made no sense.

Yeah.

Well, you're welcome, Jared Pauls.

Anyway, but first, as we take Wall Street Journal, Evan Gersovich and former U.S.

Marine Paul Whalen are being released from Russian prison in a prisoner swap.

This is great news.

Just, I'm so glad.

What a terrible situation for both of them.

But it seems good news, and I'm glad they didn't wait until Trump got to do it or got to say it was his or something like that.

These people needed to come home.

This was a ridiculous,

whatever, mock trial.

I don't even know what to say.

It's kangaroo court.

But, you know, I'm sure there'll be criticism of who they swapped with, but I think this is a good thing.

So

I think it's great.

I don't know the details of it.

I immediately thought, what are they swapping?

And unfortunately,

the really sad thing about this is that you create an incentive to take more people, incarcerate more people illegitimately.

But

look,

it is wonderful that they're going home, coming home.

I was worried.

Evan, and one of the things I love about Jake Tapper is every day Jake Tapper has been reminding the U.S.

that Evan has been been

falsely incarcerated in a Russian prison.

Paul Whelan didn't get nearly as much attention.

And anyway, just as it was wonderful that Brittany Greiner came home, I think this is wonderful too.

So that's great for them and their families.

This whole thing is like there's such a kangaroo state over there in Russia.

This is how they operate.

Anyway,

but the big story, speaking of strange things, is Trump is making news because he needs to be in the news for his appearance at a conference of black journalists.

In his 30-minute interview, Trump insulted moderators, vowed to pardon January 6th defendants, and questioned Kamala Harris's race.

Let's listen to a clip.

I've known her a long time indirectly, not directly very much.

And she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage.

I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black, and now she wants to be known as black.

So I don't know, is she Indian or is she black?

She has always identified as a black college.

I respect

black college.

I respect either one, but she obviously doesn't oh good heavens i don't even know what to say i

she's always been black i don't know how i've always thought of her as black and indian

what is happening here scott i i'm very eager to hear your comments because it seems like he just wants attention to himself or maybe he's got a cognitive problem or maybe he's just a racist the way he says black was so strange yeah but what's more disappointing is that there's a certain and it's unfortunately a significant portion of the population that responds to that bullshit they do And so, you know, at some point you got to blame voters.

And I agree.

It's like, unless he's you know, you send a swift reaction.

I mean, keep in mind, the Republican Party used to be the party of equal right.

I mean, they've played a very big role in civil rights.

You know, he's better than Lincoln for black people.

That's another thing,

again, as he likes to say.

And just laughing.

And I think so many people feel so

abused or lied to

with sort of the starched, politically correct, or what they perceive as a bunch of elites telling them that they're for them and then things getting worse for them, that, and they're so angry about certain things or perceived loss of what America is, whatever it is, that they just want someone who's so

they conflate change and leadership with how offensive you are because they're sick of people telling them one thing and being so kind of politically correct and not really.

Let's move away from, let's put what what he said i love your what from what you're

it's not that that their fault for this guy saying these things this this is really strange yeah but they keep responding to it kara it works unfortunately

well okay so a couple a couple a progressive podcast is outraged and you know what his audience collapsed at this shit They like, he's a leader.

Oh, yeah.

It's just Trump on a Trump.

And they don't,

until voters, people respond, products respond to the marketplace.

Until voters start saying on Fox or interviewing, his comments on race are unacceptable.

I used to follow him.

I'm not going to follow him anymore.

I'm going to vote for Harris.

He's not going to stop.

All right.

So what would you do here?

How would you push back besides being, I'm not outraged.

He's just, he's a racist and this is what he says.

But this is

kind of nutty.

It seems nutty, but it's obviously a messaging attempt.

Although they did pull him off the stage.

His staff pulled him off the stage.

That's quite frankly, that's what I would focus on.

I would focus on, I'd go after him and say, I would go after

Donald Trump is too old.

And we've all had this person in senile and is making ridiculous statements.

And even his own campaign, full of his own acolytes and their own set of weirdos, are now pulling him off stage because he is so old and crazy.

I wouldn't go after the indignant speech.

I would go after another.

This is another piece of evidence that he is way too old and doesn't understand what he's saying.

And even his own campaign now, similar to what Biden's staff has been correctly accused of, of hiding what is going on here.

And they had to pull him off the stage.

I would focus on that aspect of it.

Let's assume this isn't a tactic by him, though, not just that he's a crazy old man, racist man, which he is.

What is the tactic here?

I don't even understand.

I know it appeals to some people.

Those people are already in his camp.

Who else does this appeal to?

Well, I guess it activates them, but also the attacks against Senator Warren were similar, that they're pretending to be something they aren't for their own advantage and to try and seize the moral high ground.

I I don't know if she's ever hidden it.

Well, yeah,

it's a ridiculous accusation.

But

they've already started kind of the sexist and racist attacks.

Yeah.

So, you know, this thing unhinged.

And I think you're right.

You focus on the unhinged and weirdness of it.

I think this word weird is an excellent one, I have to say.

I think so too.

That was smart of them.

It's much better than deplorable.

What would you do, Kara?

You know, I was like, oh, for fuck's sake.

Like, you know, I have to say, he's just, he's crazy.

He's a crazy old man.

He's a crazy old man, racist man.

Like, oh, what, what a crazy old racist man.

That's so strange.

And then I'd make fun of him.

I think making fun and mocking him is better than being righteous about it.

I thought the reporter did a good job.

Like, what?

Like, huh?

That kind of thing.

And interestingly, Harris seemed to have taken your word for it and has not reacted with righteousness.

She's just like, this is just more of the same crap.

Like, let's move forward.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, it's interesting that she controlled herself.

I thought that was a smart move on her part, not to be like she didn't, she didn't dine out on it, but for sure.

And she could have she had a speech right after to a huge group of black sorority women, which she's a member of, by the way, because she's black.

Yeah, I don't, I don't think she should,

I mean, this kind of comes to the VP.

This is a perfect job for the VP.

The VP typically is the attack, kind of the attack dog.

And I think she wants to come across as a little bit more statesmanlike.

And I don't know.

She did a good job.

I was expecting like a remark, but she didn't make any.

She's like, oh, like that guy.

Oh, the racist over there.

Let's just ignore him kind of thing.

Interestingly, on the Kamala side, more than 100 VCs at Pledge of Support for Kamala Harris.

The group includes many notable names like Mark Cuban, Reed Hoffman, Aileen Lee, the Node Koesla, bunches, bunches, very good entrepreneurs.

Reed Hastings already gave a lot ton of money.

The group's pledge says that it believes in a strong institutions are a feature, not a bug.

It's sort of, you know, it's sort of the blue team, essentially.

And they're very high-level people who are really,

you know,

more of the remarkable people.

The group on the red team is Elon, who's absolutely talented, Peter Thiel, who's absolutely talented, and then a bunch of like idiots, you know, and sort of failed entrepreneurs or crypto bros and stuff like that.

So, you know, this is this is sort of, it's become an interesting split.

I never thought the tech people were liberal myself.

So I'm not surprised by this split.

Well, the region they're in is Silicon Valley is actually quite

53% of residents, Silicon Valley residents are registered Democrats versus only 16% of Republican.

But I get, you know, to your point, they're not running for office there.

They're just wealthy tech guys.

Secretary Buduzes had a good answer for it.

He said, look, these are essentially a group of very rich people in the Republican Party.

Tends to be very good for very rich people.

And these aren't people focused on maybe some of the bigger issues.

I got some pushback, actually really civil pushback about my comments about

Commissioner Gensler not being agnostic around crypto.

And this really articulate gentleman, I forget from a university, maybe overseas, said, actually, Gensler's been terrible on Bitcoin and crypto.

He's been very hostile towards it.

And what he said, what he brought up that was really fascinating, he said, you know, approximately, actually, my co-host Ed Elson, I'm Prophet G said this, but 17% of Americans own some sort of crypto.

And this notion,

and also a lot of them are single-issue voters because they're so passionate about it.

There's definitely kind of a weird feel, kind of a culty feel around the crypto space.

But I started thinking about the difference between a vote and the intensity of the vote.

And that is there is a certain percentage of the population that is kind of single-issue voters.

And to a certain extent, the intensity of your vote makes it more powerful because the issues that have, quote-unquote, an intensity following, you use the right word, modulate.

And actually, crypto, since the last election, has more intensity around it.

More people own it and more people really look hard at the viewpoint around crypto or the complexion or the perception of that person being amenable or not amenable to crypto.

Yeah, they're a little culty.

I don't know what else to say.

They're single-issue voters.

That's certainly true.

You know, but things like...

crypto, things like there's, you know, a lot of Jews are single voter issues now.

We're hoping to date, campaigns have always made the mistake of believing that a lot of people are single-issue voters around choice.

And to date, they haven't been.

And people are hoping this election might change that.

But it'd be interesting to know how many people are single-issue voters around

the border.

But it struck me that crypto is going to play a much bigger role in terms of intensity.

They're definitely intense, and they all want jobs.

And they're mad about the whole Sam Man Fried thing.

And

they're really in it for themselves, Scott.

I don't think it's much more complex than that.

And they decide crypto is a religion to them.

And so so if you question them, and look, I think Colin Harris is going to come down in a much more central place with some regulation, safety, things like that.

What was it called?

A triangulation in the Clinton administration.

Yeah, she's going to come in the center.

And then they're going to be like, oh, we love her.

You know, these people have no political values except for more money for themselves, honestly.

I think a lot of people vote that way.

I think a lot of people see it as government is ineffective.

I'm just going to vote for whoever keeps the most money in my pocket.

I think a lot of people vote that way.

That's correct.

I agree.

These guys are just, but these guys have to tell you what they think about everything, though.

I'm like, just say I want more money.

Just like go away, you, you know, you political value-free people and stop lecturing me.

Is this before or after they moved to Texas to spend more time with their family?

And because they're outraged at California politics.

You know what?

It was so funny.

I was in San Francisco and one of the VCs who's most against California was sitting right there in Tartine Manufactory having lunch.

Like that he goes on and on.

I'm like, what the fuck are you doing here?

I thought you hated California.

He spends a lot of time in California.

It's such bullshit.

It's such endless fucking bullshit with these people.

I'm sorry.

They're so, they're so, they're just liars.

I don't know what else to say.

Anyway,

still in California.

I'm not.

I'm back in D.C., but it was.

You're back in D.C.

Okay, good.

As Harris Near is making a VP pick, by the way, speaking of, that'll make a difference.

It'll be an interesting person.

One of her top options is cementing a strategy for Democrats.

Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz has decided the line of attack against Republicans, calling them weird.

He's a very folksy fella.

Let's listen to a clip.

The fascists depend on fear.

The fascists depend on us going back, but we're not afraid of weird people.

We're a little bit creeped out, but we're not afraid.

He's pretty funny.

I have to say, he's a very, I like him.

I'm like, national host of America.

It should be Tim Wilts.

There's also Josh Shapiro,

who is a very fine

legislator, a governor of Pennsylvania.

There's Andy Bashir from Kentucky.

There's Mark Kelly, senator from

Arizona.

Any thoughts?

Do you have any thoughts?

It's going to be announced like within days.

I have a lot of thoughts.

I've been thinking about this a lot.

I think it's really fascinating.

And I'd love to get your view.

But

I look at the criteria.

The bottom line is, as much as it's important to get along and this is a qualified person that could be president, I think the reality is the vast majority of the wood behind the arrow in terms of decision-making is simply who can help us get elected.

I think that is the number one criteria because your ability to govern and how you govern, it takes a distant second seat to, well, we've got to get elected first.

So I think that's just the first consideration.

And that comes down to, in my view,

are they in a swing state?

And that immediately puts Kelly and Shapiro in the lead.

To a certain extent, Waltz, while he isn't in a swing state, he's in a swing region.

And that is that kind of,

if I just looked at him and heard him for a few seconds, I think he'd be a Republican, which gives him a little bit more credibility among that crowd.

He's got kind of a Gretchen Whitmer vibe, like friendly, but funny.

That's right.

Just a folksy Midwestern.

No bullshit.

Yeah.

You can trust me vibe.

Just my tone, my no-nonsense, kind of puffy, blotchy-skinned white guy rap gives me more credibility, unfortunately.

Coach.

Yeah, a coach, teacher.

He's just out of central casting.

And he's in a region.

He's, you know, he borders, I believe, Wisconsin and Michigan.

so he's potential the the second is are they a do they immunize the top of the ticket on an issue they're weak on do they bring diversity around that

and the two issues that I think and the reason why I think the final two if you will are Shapiro and Kelly is that it technically they would immunize

presidential candidate Harris from are one, Israel, which is already being used as a cudgel, and two, the border.

Senator Kelly has a fantastic line on this.

He basically says, the Democrats don't understand the border, and Republicans aren't sincere about fixing it.

And he just comes across as very good on the border, and that's become obviously a very big issue and technically a weakness of hers.

I'm talking about perception now: what is or isn't legitimately a weakness.

Shapiro obviously strengthens her bona fides around concerns around the Jewish community,

around the views on Israel.

The reason, I mean, and then you look at their profiles.

Kelly's out of central casting, you know, an astronaut, victim of gun violence.

I mean, he's just really, he just, he's.

Yeah, he's a nice fella, too.

Yeah, and he comes across as nice.

Shapiro

is outstanding in terms of his presence, and he's more forceful.

The reason why I think, and then I want you to guess, that my bet is Shapiro is the following.

He is an outstanding attack dog because he has been taking on the Trump administration with lawsuits as an AG

on the Islamophobia, around election denial.

He's like ready to go to go after the Trump administration, and he's very forceful and very articulate.

Kelly,

that suit just doesn't really fit him.

He's not an attack person.

He's very credible.

He's very...

I think it's going to be Shapiro, too.

I do.

I think they're going to open themselves up because he's very pro-Israel in a way that young people might find distasteful.

So she's trying to sort of, as you see, she's trying to modulate between, she's the ultimate modulator.

Like, it's terrible.

What we're seeing at the same time, let's defend Israel.

That's really where she's going.

He's, he's got, you know, and the issues, I think, around school vouchers.

He's a very unusual politician.

I have to tell you, my conservative relatives in Pennsylvania love him, which is interesting.

You know, he's very good.

And then the reason why I think I have a more boring reason, and Michael Smirkanish highlighted this to me, the reason why I think it's Shapiro is she has a campaign stop planned in Philly.

In Philadelphia.

I don't think that's an accident.

Yeah, we'll see.

Anyway, we'll see.

It'll be someone, a white guy, and they're all quite qualified.

Honestly, I wouldn't feel bad about any of them.

And, you know, interestingly, Trump went out of his way to say the vice president doesn't matter at this ridiculous

BJ thing, which was funny.

He sort of was like, who cares about the vice president?

To a certain extent, I was thinking about this.

The vice president is kind of so far nothing but downside.

And that is no one remembers them unless they were kind kind of a fucking disaster.

Unless you're Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin.

Unless you run for office and then become president, Joe Biden, George Bush, stuff like that.

Yeah, but I'm not sure George Bush.

Has anyone been elected president in any of the top five reasons ever the VP?

The VP is basically invisible.

It just gets you well known.

It puts you at the top of the ticket.

It puts you at the top of the list.

I'm not talking about the VEEP.

I'm talking about

It's a great role for the VEEP because they're naturally, they're the number one contender for the next election.

But I'm just saying in terms of their ability to help the ticket, it feels to me like VBs are just all downside.

You just hope they're okay.

I think in Shapiro's case, I think he's, how old is he?

I'm going to look it up.

Oh, I mean, it's 40s.

It looks young.

We're about the same age, I think.

51.

Yeah, he's a little bit older than me.

Wait a second.

How old are you?

I'm going to look at him.

You're coming to my 50th birthday, Party.

I'm not coming to your 50th birthday.

I'm going to come up to you.

Call me Nancy Reagan and stop it.

It's my birthday.

69, November 3rd.

It's my birthday.

Wikipedia is wrong.

All right, Jajagabor.

Okay.

Anyway.

Jaja.

Okay, let's get to our first big story.

We've got more tech earnings to discuss.

So much going on.

Let's start with Meta, whose shares jumped in extended trading Wednesday after the company beat estimates for revenue and profit in the second quarter.

Advertising revenue rose 22% from a year earlier.

And the strength of that business seems to be offsetting concerns about heavy spending on AI, which I think is necessary for them.

The AI spending will be increasing with Meta upping its expected 2024 capital expenditures to at least 37 billion.

We're done with the metaverse.

Now we're spending the money on AI.

Meta shares did sink on AI spending news last quarter.

The market seems more optimistic because they've got a really good business to get them there, I guess.

There's not still not a lot to show for these AI investments, and a lot of investors are worried about where the payoffs are.

How long will investors wait to get a return from Meta?

And I'll just go through Microsoft earnings really quickly.

Microsoft was less, they're less enthusiastic about those, which were a bit of a mixed bag.

Overall, sales and profit growth beat expectations in the latest quarter, but revenue for the company's cloud business rode slightly below the prior quarter.

And analysts' expectations shares were down about 3% on Tuesday after the earnings report, but rebounded for the most part the next day.

So talk a little bit about the two companies' thoughts.

There's just no denying.

Meta,

I mean,

Meta, their earnings were up.

Their earnings per share were up 73% year on year.

Their ad impressions and average price per ad both increased 10% year on year.

I mean, that's incredible.

The average price and the number of impressions up 10%.

3.25 billion daily active users.

So 40% of the planet is on a meta platform every day.

The only thing that's giving anyone any pause, and it depends how well they're positioned, is they said they warned that capex growth for ai will grow significantly and they've said that the amount of compute needed to train llama 4 will likely be almost 10 times more than we used to uh what was used to train uh llama 3 and people are sort of when they get a little insecure about this they immediately go to similar to what they did in 99 when they went to cisco they go to the infrastructure place because if you look at the capex

for the software layer, Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon, their CapEx is up 31%, but their revenue is only up 19%, whereas the hardware layer, you know, where you go first, NVIDIA, AMD, ARM, their CapEx is actually flat to even maybe down 8%, depending on how you calculate it, but their revenue is up 146%.

So it feels like

a safer play right now because since reporting their earnings, Microsoft and Google, the software stack or part of the stack, have declined 2% and 6% respectively.

And NVIDIA up when AMD reported, it was up 8%.

But the software layer, although is that true?

Meta was up, but Microsoft was down.

But the thing that freaked everybody out on the Microsoft call was just their, I think it was like they announced something like a

78% year-on-year increase in CapEx to $19 billion, which is a staggering increase.

And get this.

The entire tech industry is in such a spending strew.

The capital expenditures of Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Google this year will be about $200 billion.

That's double what the U.S.

government spends on homeland security.

I mean, these numbers are just staggering.

They are.

They're staggering.

Whether they're going to get the money back is a real question.

I think pretty much OpenAI is making money, but who else is?

You know, this irritating VC, I'm not even going to name him, was asking.

I was having lunch with Sam Altman and was asking, is anyone going to make money here, essentially?

And I think everyone's worried about that.

Is this spending going to result in

a growth that meets the amount of money they're spending.

I don't see they have another choice but to spend, correct?

This is not the metaverse.

This is a really critical shift in computing.

I don't know if they can't invest in that.

This is, I mean, all systems are go here.

This is, I mean, as much excitement as there was about the web, even though the revenue is scanned relative to the investment, it's dramatically greater than the revenue anyone was getting from the web in the 90s.

So everybody is going all in.

And also, it plays to their strength in the sense that they already have a captive audience to roll out AI applications to.

And also, they've learned from the father that if you have the advantage of cheap capital, you leverage that advantage and you go hard at CapEx to try and pull away from everybody else.

So they're doing that.

They're like, look, our advantage is we have access to cheaper capital because of our market cap and our PE.

So we are going to turn on the spending jets.

Here's a fun stat.

40% of S ⁇ P 500 companies discussed AI and their earnings goals.

I mean,

you know, what is it?

Only like 20% are tech companies.

So even non-tech companies are talking about AI and their earnings calls.

That's up from 1% of them five years ago.

So

this is a tidal wave that is just sort of, this is the tail wagging all dogs.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So money well spent, or we don't know yet or impossible not to spend?

I think it's money very well spent for some players.

Unfortunately, existing players who are running away with it, I do think there's a jump on the bandwagon.

I think a lot of analysts are going to say, and I don't know if Nestle's doing this, but I think a lot of analysts are going to say to some of these second tier or consumer companies, okay, rent AI and spend money on it, but you shouldn't be spending capex on it.

Because I've heard about some companies that are trying to develop their own LLMs and going very hard at this.

But the stat I've seen that just absolutely blew me away, we tried to pull together some data on this, is that if you look at

If you look at the actual amount of revenue that AI applications are generating right now, you know, OpenAI or ChatGPT, the subscription, things like that, it's about $20 billion.

And it's inspired a market capitalization increase.

And this includes the amount of money that companies are spending on GPUs, but it's inspired a $3 trillion increase in market capitalization.

So right now, the industry notionally is trading at 150 times revenues.

And that just does not feel sustainable.

That means the revenues these applications are garnering has to double every year for the foreseeable future, which is

a big ask.

Yeah, which we've talked about.

Yeah, it's an arms race.

They have to do it.

It's an arms race.

Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

We come back.

We'll discuss the Senate finally passing social media safety regulation, and we'll talk to a friend of Pivot, Colorado Governor Jared Polis.

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Scott, we're back with our second big story.

The Senate is finally taking action with online regulation for kids, passing a pair of bills to expand privacy and safety protections by an overwhelming margin this week.

The Kids Online Safety Act, or COSA, requires platforms to take reasonable measures to prevent harm, including online bullying and sexual exploitation.

The Children's Teen Online Privacy Protection Act or COPA II would ban targeted advertising to minors and strengthen privacy protections.

The bills now head to the House where they face an uncertain future.

Probably will not be passing this year.

There's also some others,

I think it's called the Defiance Act around fakes.

And then they introduced one about

fakes too, the idea that no fakes allowed or whatever, something like that.

That was Marsha Blackburn and Chris Coons, I think.

So they're making some activity.

It's just they're not passing them.

And people are a little worried about COSAs being able to stand up to

congressional scrutiny.

The ACLU and tech industry groups have criticized the bill, saying important conversations around gender equality and abortion rights could be censored.

You know, the companies will be more careful than not careful.

That said,

it's thinking about child safety, but there's a lot of controversy around this legislation, and most people think it won't hold up to scrutiny.

That's too bad.

I'm wondering how much of this is like written by the companies themselves and they insert shit that it won't such that they insert kind of booby traps such that it'll never get past muster.

But we've been saying for a long time that elegant legislation or one thing that should happen is that 230 protections are removed for AI-elevated content.

And to me, this seems like a really clean, smart thing to do.

So I'm, you know, I'm a fan of this.

The problem with...

You know, I've said that I thought that the first real externality of AI would be deep fake and shallow fake videos as we lead up to the election.

And the number of deep fake videos available online has surged by 900%.

It's up 10x annually, according to KPMG.

And then you would think that the kid stuff

would,

you know, that's kind of bipartisan.

The other part that's interesting about it is the Keep Entertainment Safe, the No Fakes Act, granting individuals a federal property right to approve the use of their voice, appearance, or likeness, exposing unauthorized creators to legal liability.

And also just it feels like we've got to move in pretty swiftly to punish platforms or anyone who doesn't have the technology to somewhat police

deep fake, not deep fake video, but deep fake audio.

I mean, some of the things that people can do with deep fake audio is really frightening.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in both houses of Congress are introducing bills this week to address some of the AI times, which you just talked about, a bipartisan group of senators until legislation that would permit the creation of AI replicas without the consent of a person being replicated.

This is the no-fakes bill.

In the House, there's a proposed bill to carve out Section 230 immunity for tech companies that fail to remove intimate deep fakes from their platforms.

This is largely around

porn fakes.

You know,

Chris Kuhn said the legislation for AI replicas would protect celebrities like Scarlett Johansson, as well as non-celebrities.

You know, the 230 one is a little more complicated.

It's Chamber for Progress, a center-left group, just put out an open letter to Trump asking him to clarify his stance on Section 230.

He's repeatedly tried to roll that back, which is a problem.

I mean, they're moving on a lot of this stuff, but it doesn't mean they passed anything or that the only thing they've managed to pass is a TikTok bill, essentially.

Yeah, but sometimes activity and motion don't translate to progress.

That's correct.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of arm waving here.

I just want to see something's actually passed.

And the digital,

everyone should have the rights to their digital twin, their likeness, video likeness, deep takes of them, their voice.

But also, I generally believe that if they don't pass something that really gives downside

incentive to the platforms to ensure that AI deepfake videos, we've seen this before.

They're going to feel really bad after the election about all the videos showing violence at polling stations that were clearly deep fake videos.

And they'll figure out a way to take it down after they've cashed everyone's check.

So, this needs, I mean, this really,

and also, I won't even go there because I want to give people ideas.

Deep fake audio and video has so much extortion

capability online.

It does.

There's been story after story about people calling saying that your husband, they say, I have your kid.

Here's your kid's voice.

There was, I think, the head of,

but it was someone, the Porsche guy, the Porsche or the Ferrari guy, they were pretending it was the CEO.

And he figured it out, but they were using a voice about a deal.

It was really complicated.

And he, of course, caught them because he was smart.

But they were using really

deep fake voices of the CEO as if the CEO was calling him.

And so he asked him something he knew only the CEO would know, which was a book he was reading.

And they weren't able to answer.

And then they ran off.

There's been a ton of stories recently about people deep faking people out of money, out of all kinds of stuff.

And it's going to just get worse and worse.

Super, super important, but we'll see where Congress gets.

I don't think they're going to pass any of this.

And I doubt COSI's going to hold up to congressional, I mean, to constitutional scrutiny.

That's what most people feel because it does, these companies will be more, will be more censorious than ever if they have, if they feel like they're even slightly, so if kids are talking about being gay or things like that, they'll take that down because it'll vary state by state what is bad and what is not bad, right?

So I don't know.

It's going to be really hard.

And this is all to the benefit of tech companies.

Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot so we can talk about it, a tech guy and a legislator.

Jared Polis is a Democratic governor of Colorado.

He's also the chair of the National Governors Association.

Governor Polis, welcome.

It's great to see you again.

Good to see you.

So how's it going?

How's this there?

You just mentioned there are wildfires in Colorado.

They're across the West.

You know, yeah, one of the impacts of climate change is the West is hotter and drier, and we're experiencing a lot more.

So Oregon's been in the news the last few weeks.

We now have nine fires in Colorado.

We have four that have elevated the state responsibility.

We called out the National Guard.

You know, unfortunately, for better or worse, we're getting pretty good at this drill.

So we've evacuated everybody and tragically, there's only one confirmed death, but we're doing everything we can and bringing it.

We should do another show sometime.

And all the technology around fighting fires, by the way, it is really interesting to see.

some of the work around satellite imagery and it's it's really evolved quite a bit over the last decade.

That's amazing.

So, you know, Scott's Scott's in Colorado right now, just so you know.

He's an Aspen.

How are you, Scott?

Where are you?

I'm an Aspen, Governor.

Yeah, so you're probably, you know, both the Front Range and the Western Slope are getting bad air quality as a result of this, too.

So, I mean, you can quite literally smell it in the air.

Yeah,

that's why I have you here.

It's really tough here on Aspen, and I need government to really step in and protect me.

Well, from fires, that might be the appropriate role of government, honestly.

That's, I think, something we can agree on.

Can I segue to an actual question?

First off, I just want to say, Governor, I'm an enormous fan.

I think you're one of the few of a dying breed of raging moderates, practical, reasonable.

I'm just an enormous fan.

I think Colorado with you and our senior senator, Michael Bennett, are just

great examples of what good government can do.

Anyways, enough of that.

Let's bring this back to me.

I'm in Aspen, and I bought a home here.

And one of the things that struck me is it's nearly impossible to build.

It's nearly impossible to renovate.

The local local review boards and the government have clearly decided to employ a strategy which I think infects the entire nation.

And that is wealthy incumbents who already own homes weaponize their local governments to ensure no new housing can be built.

And the result is houses across America have gone from 290,000 to 410,000 from pre- to post-pandemic, and young people just can't afford homes.

It used to be two-thirds of America could afford a home, now it's one-third.

I realize this is a broader national issue, but as governor of a state that's growing and is prosperous, what are your views on how we increase housing stock?

And what are you doing specifically to ensure that more housing gets built so a younger generation has the same access to buying a home as we had?

Preach, preach.

I couldn't agree more.

That's exactly the nexus of a lot of the issues we're working on in housing.

So housing prices are a function of supply and demand, basic economics.

Demand is high.

Isn't Aspen wonderful?

Isn't Boulder and Denver wonderful?

There's lots of wonderful places in our country people want to live.

Supply has been artificially constrained, artificially low supply because of local government regulations to prevent the construction of new housing.

And so we are taking that head on.

And we've made some progress in Colorado.

You'll be happy to know.

We added accessory dwelling units by right, as an example.

So if you have a single-family lot, you can build an accessory dwelling unit.

We did multifamily zoning near transit within half a mile of bus or rail.

We're for all of it, Scott.

I agree we need to do more.

You know, when people look at what is preventing housing from being built, it is effectively these zoning and

local regulations that make it difficult or impossible, right?

Sometimes you can fight City Hall if you have the tenacity and you need $50,000 and lawyers and eventually you can build it two years later.

But all too often, they don't even let you.

Or you come in saying, hey, we're doing this

80-unit multifamily complex.

By the time you're done, they get it down to 20 units, the exact opposite of what we need.

So absolutely, the state is, I'm for intervention at any level, you know, local, federal, federal, state.

We absolutely need to remove some of these artificial constraints to prevent housing that we need from being built where we need it.

So I'm going to move you to politics, if you don't mind, because that's one of the things that Scott was just talking about was the idea of moderation.

Democrats like you or Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania having that imagery of more moderation, more helping consumers, not being the same old Democratic Party.

I'd love you to talk a little bit about

where you think the Democratic Party is right now, especially with the candidacy of the vice president about to be, he's about to get the, become the candidate, and the DNC is meeting very soon in Chicago.

Talk a little bit about how you look at it across the landscape right now.

Yeah, you know, I'm not always sure that moderate is the right word.

There's a problem with the word word moderate.

The connotation of the word moderate is you somehow don't want to do anything or support the status quo or support the midpoint between what both parties want to do.

I don't think that's the case.

I think solutions-oriented, meaning good solutions that work, whether they come from the left or the right, wherever they come from ideologically, you want to see deployed.

You know, and take this housing issue that we just talked about, right?

I mean, you can find people on the left and the right that might oppose this.

It doesn't mean it's a moderate solution.

It's just a solution that works.

There might also be allies on the left and right.

It doesn't really align necessarily on an ideological map.

In our state, we've got more support on the Democratic side for some of these land use reforms.

But in Montana, the Republicans supported some of these same land use reforms.

So sometimes that's for political reasons.

Look, I think...

Both parties,

and especially the Democratic Party, which I'm a member of, are very broad tense, very broad tense.

It's different than a multi-party European system where each ideology has its own.

The Democrats might be composed of, you know, three or four different parties.

Republicans are composed of at least two or three, kind of the Nationalist Party, the traditional conservative party, the religious party.

Democrats have constitutions, but we're all here in one party.

And, you know, that makes things a little bit different, a little bit tougher.

We have to work out our differences beforehand.

But I'm excited.

Kamala Harris is a much more forward-looking, future-looking face for our party.

And I think the coalition coalition is moving in a direction that's more pro-business, pro-tack.

And that's something that excites me.

So, Governor, Colorado punches above its weight class.

It's 21st among states in terms of population, 15th when it comes to the size of its economy, and an even more impressive eighth in terms of how much personal income that it generates.

Now, I don't know if that's education.

I don't know if it's a business-friendly environment.

I don't know if it's the kind of person you attract, but as sort of the CEO here,

what is it you think are kind of the levers or the pillars of punching above your weight class economically?

So, look, one of them is the great quality of life in the outdoors here.

That's a competitive advantage we have, right?

But it doesn't mean it's a given.

We say, how do we enjoy the outdoors in a sustainable way?

How do we do it?

We added some state parks.

We reduced the cost of access.

We're doing a lot around wildlife conservation.

So that's one key attribute that we have.

Beyond that,

we've reduced the income tax three three times in Colorado since I've been governor.

When I came in, our income tax was 4.63%.

We reduced it at the ballot box to 4.5% and then 4.4%.

And now with the legislature, and it was near unanimous, by the way, we got almost every vote of every Democrat and Republican.

We reduced it to 4.25%.

So we reduced property tax percentages as well, and we're the 48th lowest property tax state.

Again, many Coloradans who might hear complain because their properties went way up in value and the rates floated down, but they might still be paying more in absolute terms.

But we, as a percentage of our property value, were 48th lowest.

And we're favorable towards innovation.

You know, and while we, you know, education is so important, I can't say, and no governor can, that we have a terrific education every school across the board because it's locally controlled and there's a lot of differences.

But we have a system that allows for innovation.

We are second in percentage of charter schools, as an example, to Washington, D.C.

Within districts and outside of districts, we have choice that allow parents to choose the option and the school that work best for their kid.

We just implemented universal preschool.

One of the things that I ran on, Colorado didn't have preschool before.

Parents had to pay for it.

Now we have universal preschool for every four-year-old.

And it's the preschool of that parent's choice, right?

Obviously, subject to a lottery and, you know, and

waitlist and so forth.

But you get everybody has equal access, and that's exciting.

So talk a little bit about the impact of tech.

Now, you're a tech guy going way back.

We met.

back in Blue Mountain Art days, but you also founded an internet access company from your college dorm room.

Your parents and you ran Blue Mountain Arts, which is the best trade of the internet age back then.

You managed to sell it at the peak and get out.

And you have a lot of theses about politics and the information age that I remember we used to discuss.

I'd love now the tech people are really involved in it.

And sometimes for the negative, there's sort of a blue team and a red team right now, it seems like.

Can you talk about the role of tech?

And especially at this point, a lot of them are over there because of all kinds of reasons, but crypto is one of the issues and you've been a big proponent of that um so can you talk a little bit sure and i want to say like by the way i'm not i'm not somebody and obviously for you know uh conflict of interest reasons i want to be clear i don't own any crypto but even if i wasn't in public office it doesn't mean i necessarily would invest in crypto i want to be clear i'm not bullish on crypto per se but i'm bullish on technology per se and removing barriers for disruptive technologies like crypto absolutely and so we were right but your colorado became the first state to let residents pay state income tax with crypto absolutely crypto forward.

You use it to buy your driver's license, different state fees you can pay in crypto.

And very few people do, but we're excited that some do.

And we also want to create some regulatory safe harbors to the extent we can for new developing technologies like crypto.

Much of that is federal, so there's only limited ability of states to do that.

And I can just say, as a member of the Democratic Party and having won primaries for Congress, for governor, I'd never had any issues with my fellow Democrats about being pro-technology, pro-crypto.

And, you know, is that what you run on?

No, because

that's not the top issue on people's minds.

I mean, you run on preschool and environmental protections and the things you're doing.

But whenever it comes up,

that's always been my position.

And why, and by the way, Colorado is well positioned now in the quantum technology sector, too.

And that's another exciting thing.

Right.

So people who don't know, Colorado is designated a tech hub for quantum computing by the Biden-Harris administration last year.

You won a $40 million grant from the government this month to jumpstart that growth.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

No, that's right.

And in many ways that was a recognition of where we are it wasn't like they were giving that to us to become the leader in quantum it was the recognition by the feds that we are the national play on quantum tech is here over 3 000 jobs in quantum tech already which in quantity which is far more than any other region of the country we have five nobel prize winners so so i mean we want to bet on the future in colorado we're a very forward-looking innovative state and america is a very forward-looking innovative nation i mean you look at most major innovations both in the online world and the offline world the disproportionate share come from america So, you talked about Colorado punching above our weight.

I'm proud that our country very much punches above our weight.

And with the right tech-forward innovative policies, we'll continue to do so.

So, what do you make of so many tech people?

I've never thought they were politically liberal myself for years and years.

I didn't think they had any politics, but many of them become Trump supporters.

How do you look at that?

And then, of course, there's the ones that are not, obviously, like Reid Hoffman, Reed Hastings, Binod Khosla, et cetera.

So, I mean, look, I grew up in this culture and I'm part of it, right?

So, I mean, I think, and you do too, Cara.

I mean, so you get Elon Musk, right?

I mean, look, I, I, you know, 4chan, Reddit.

I mean, these are, you know, I get this stuff.

You know, it's like

people are, you know, trolls and trash talk and all the fun stuff along with it.

The wonder.

It's just a great, you know, beauty of the internet and what it brings out.

But look, there's an ideological diversity there.

And you just saw there are a bunch of venture capitalists on, you know, VCs for Kamala Harris.

I think most people that are professionally involved with tech

value the stability that Kamala Harris would bring.

I mean, Donald Trump is about chaos, right?

And there's a beautiful side to chaos on the internet, but there's not as much of a beautiful side to chaos as the chief executive of the largest, most important country in the world, both on the international stage and the domestic stage.

It's hard to figure out what the core beliefs are with regard to tech and Donald Trump.

I mean, he tends to like it if it talks about how great he is, and he doesn't like tech if it denigrates him or he shifts, really.

It's about dramatically.

I don't think he has any opinions, honestly.

Well,

he's narcissistic.

I mean, that's a personality he has.

Right.

And that's his lens that he views tech through.

So let me ask you to follow up to that.

How would you make the case for people to support Vice President Harris in tech?

What is the, if you had to, you were in front of some of these guys that are like, she's against crypto or I'm not getting, you know, woke mind virus, whatever the nonsense they're spewing at any one moment.

Yeah, I mean, you know, first of all, she's not Joe Biden and she's a different person.

And Joe Biden is who he is.

I happen to like Joe Biden, but you like him for who he is.

He's a, you know, an old-time Irish Paul.

I mean, you know, he's, I think, what the country needed at the time.

I certainly supported him last time around.

I don't think we were making the case.

This is the guy for the tech and the future, right?

This is the guy to save democracy, hopefully to bring us together.

He's the elder statesman we needed, you know, a safe hand when we need it through difficult times.

I think Kamala Harris can be more and different in a lot of different ways.

She hails from California, strong ties to Silicon Valley.

She has a lot of friends and associates that are themselves entrepreneurs.

I think she understands the value of disruption, the entrepreneurial economy.

And you'll see that manifest itself in policies.

She's already done outreach to the crypto world.

She's already doing extensive outreach to the venture capital world.

I think she gets value and capital formation.

And is she going to be perfect on every issue?

Of course not.

Nobody is.

And by the way, many Republican states are taking a hard turn, anti-internet, anti-free expression, restricting

the access and so forth.

So look, it's not a partisan thing, but I think Kamala Harris will be a great leader for innovation and for the future.

Scott?

Governor, you were on a bunch of people's short lists for a potential VP pick, which connotes the notion that you're at some point a viable candidate to be president.

When you look out across either foreign policy or tax policy or social policy, are there any one or two issues that you're especially passionate about that if for whatever reason you were to end up in federal office, you would want to pursue that you think are especially important in America right now?

Well, you know, one that I highlight that I'm hopeful that Kamala Harris will be better on because we had kind of too mediocre.

We had a bad choice with Donald Trump, mediocre with Joe Biden, was trade and expanding markets overseas, bringing down tariffs at trade barriers.

Trump is absolutely the worst, right?

10% universal tariff on everything that's inflationary, increased costs, not to mention the retaliatory tariffs other countries would launch that would,

you know, destroy American manufacturing and hurt American agriculture.

I think we have huge potential to grow stronger trade ties with our allies, right?

I'm not even talking about the geopolitics of China now, and I have opinions about that, but I'm just saying with Europe, with the Americas.

Our Senator Bennett, who you mentioned earlier, has the Americas Act in Congress, which would expand the Mexico,

Canada, U.S.

trade agreement to other

countries in Central and South America.

So this is something we should embrace.

It's something that Donald Trump is the worst in, and Joe Biden was mediocre in.

I'm hopeful Kamala Harris will be more like President Obama and leading the way in trade.

We used to have, the way I used to say, we used to have one and a half good parties on trade.

The Republican Party could be counted on and half the Democratic Party.

Now you're down to half a party who's pro-trade.

The Democrats, the half of us that are pro-trade are still here.

Republicans took a hard turn towards nationalism, towards isolationism, and against trade.

And that is to the detriment of innovation and the detriment of our economy.

So you perfectly deflected Scott's question, but go ahead, Scott.

Yeah, I was going to say,

let's talk specifics.

Well,

that's an issue that I specifically would

want to help bring to the national stage, for sure.

But let's talk about specifically about China.

There's real tension.

There's been sort of a there's like a cold peace right now.

The Trump administration and the Biden administration are becoming kind of tariff crazy as it relates to China, the second largest economy.

And before you answer that question, just a fun fact.

Colorado has the same size economy as Thailand with a twelfth of the population.

So anyways, back to China-U.S.

trade.

Would you lower tariffs?

Would you try to re-embrace China?

What would be your trade policy as it relates to China?

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, I have spoken out against the recent tariffs that President Biden imposed on solar and electric vehicles to a lesser extent.

I'm not as concerned about that, but certainly on solar panels.

Now, is there a legitimate national security nexus around sensitive technology when you're talking about CHIPS Act and onshoring or friendshoring of key technologies that include applications in the defense sector?

I would put that in a different category,

and I would make sure that we consult with national security experts on our sufficiency in those areas to prepare for all contingencies.

But when it comes to things like the clothing on our back, 98% of it is imported, much of it from China.

A 10% tariff would be a tax on the middle class.

It's back to school time.

Everybody's shopping for their kids' clothes, paying 10% more.

On solar panels, we want to power the low-cost clean energy revolution.

If China is producing them at a level where they're losing money, I mean,

that's their problem.

It's our opportunity.

Let's buy as many solar panels as we can to create low-cost energy for the American people.

You know, electric vehicles, too, are not part of critical defense infrastructure.

I don't think we should be levying tariffs on them.

And then again, you get to the sensitive national security things, and I'm much more sympathetic towards onshoring and friendshoring of technology.

A lot of it is hand-waving.

A lot of it is hand-waving about everything.

You did just deflect his idea of running for office, and you and I have talked about this.

And you had a very funny rejoinder when anyone asked if you were a vice presidential candidate, which was if they're looking for a Jewish gay guy, fantastic.

Here I am, like in sitting in Colorado.

But why wouldn't they pick you?

Like, I was sort of like, he's wrong.

Why wouldn't you be acceptable to a vast majority of people?

Well, you know, I was making more of a commentary on like how they do the crosstabs and the polling is down to a T.

Obviously, you know, somebody from a swing state would be at a premium.

And

somebody who wants to elect Kamala Harris, I do like people like Mark Kelly and Josh Shapiro because they do bring people along in their state.

And, you know, it's been modeled mathematically.

It might be half a percent, it might be ever, but we don't want to be sitting there after election day saying we lost Pennsylvania by 0.2%.

If only we had Josh Shapiro on the ticket, we would have won if that was a tipping point.

But no, I mean, that being said, you know, I focus on kind of bringing an audience, you know, to younger people, to tech savvy people.

It's a forward-looking face of the party.

I have kind of fun social media.

I try to stay positive.

with it as opposed to negative, but we kind of do quirky stuff on there.

But no,

I really love the job I have, Car, to be to be brief.

You know, I don't think there's a better job than Governor of Colorado.

How often, how much more can you be governor of Colorado?

You're sort of like Whitmer.

I have two and a half.

Who are you?

Two and a half.

Same thing with Governor Whitmer, right?

Very popular governors.

We have a lot of great governors across the Democratic Party.

It's really quite amazing.

The states are at this point,

in any assessment, they're just more functional than the federal government.

I mean, they're just able to get stuff done,

you know, whether it's preschool, whether it's innovation policy.

You know, we made first two years of college free for everybody earning under 90,000.

So just boom, boom, boom.

And federal government is very frustrating at this point.

Frustrating.

Okay.

Last question for me.

Do you have a pick for vice president?

Do you have any

who would you pick if you were her?

Yeah, present company not included, of course.

Yes.

You can pick yourself.

Right.

You know, in terms of winning, right?

I ascribe to the data that shows that there's a small but noticeable effect for the hometown, home state person.

So, I mean, Arizona, Mark Kelly's great, right?

I mean, astronaut, science, tech, I mean, he's great.

Josh Shapiro,

I've gotten to know over the last two years, haven't known him as long as I know Mark Kelly, but great, very popular in Pennsylvania, very forward-looking.

I think those are your top two, right?

I mean, if you go away from the competitive states, you're losing that advantage.

There's plenty of wonderful people with different appeal, but you know, somebody who wants to win it, I just don't want to wake up after election day and say, my God, we, we could have, we just could have had it with one more state.

Yeah.

Scott, last question.

So, Governor, you're the father of two.

What advice would you have for

fathers with, or mothers for that matter, with very high pressure jobs, important jobs,

in terms of what you've learned about, you know, or what surprised you?

What are you better at in terms of being a dad than maybe you were a few years ago?

What advice do you have for young fathers?

You know, our kids are very different like most people with multiple kids.

So our daughter is very athletic, go to her baseball games, and

our son is more cerebral and computery and all that sort of stuff.

But no, you know, embrace each kid.

Look at him smiling as he describes his kids.

Look at him smile.

You got to love this guy.

Anyway, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Well, they're great.

You know, everybody's, you just sort of, you know, you love them where they're at and you enjoy the time with them.

Our kids are 10 and 12.

So,

you know, we just try to enjoy every moment where we can with them.

And they're a lot of fun.

I'm home for dinner pretty much every day.

You know, sometimes we have dinner a little late side, 7.30 if I'm late, early if I'm back by 6.30.

But we have dinner every day and have good discussions.

Just one quick follow-up.

What about being a good partner?

Well,

Marlon

is a great guy himself.

His first gentleman of Colorado.

His focus is animal welfare issues.

So adopting cats and dogs and protecting wildlife.

And he's very involved with that.

And I support him in that.

And we have a great home life.

We do gaming at home.

You know, we play league of legends most nights and sometimes uh sometimes watch tv but we love uh computer games and and hanging out

interesting so he's a cat lady interesting um no i'm teasing um

let me yeah that's my last question what do you make of the efforts by the republican party to like weaponize parenting it's you know i have four kids i don't talk about anyone lesser or more than i don't like judge people for having kids or not is is does this backfire from your perspective well absolutely it's just strange first of all it's very and again we talked about donald trump not having any core beliefs but republicans saying we want the government to parent your kids is very

uh opposite of where they've traditionally been also very off-putting i think to many of the tech community but that's basically what they're saying i mean what what what the mainstream message is that many democrats myself included embrace is yeah look There's different value sets among different parents.

You raise your kids different ways.

That's great.

You know, we're not saying I'm not for or against how you raise your kids.

Like even the relationship with tech is a very personal one.

Some parents don't want their kids using any tech till they're 16.

Others introduce it at age six.

I mean, this is not for the government to decide.

This is for parents to decide in their families and in their homes.

And do I think that's the winning message?

Absolutely.

But is it the right thing?

Of course.

And so that's a contrast that I'm willing to raise every day of the week.

And I think the Republicans keep burying themselves deeper with trying to take over parenting when most parents just want to raise their kids and be left alone.

Right, 100%.

Anyway, we really appreciate it, Governor Jared Polis from Colorado.

And

you're a real star.

Your journey has been so fascinating to me, where you've been and where you're going.

So I'll really be eager to see what's next.

Thank you.

Always a pleasure.

Thanks, Governor.

All right, Scott.

Isn't he a good guy?

He's a really good guy.

Could I have been more sycophantic?

I was literally like Cara interviewing a lesbian journalist from the Atlantic.

My questions were like, how can you be this awesome?

He is awesome.

He was very funny.

I love that.

Back in the day, he had like a little briefcase.

He was like, I used to call him Michael J.

Fox because his parents were hippies and he was like wearing a suit all the time.

He's a funny guy.

He's really, I'm glad he's, he's really come into his own.

I really enjoy him quite a bit.

Anyway, it shows you how good government officials can be, right?

He kind of has a lot of choices and he took this.

It's a really well-governed state.

They have great elected officials.

He does have the benefit of money to be able to do that like so he doesn't you know it's he this is he's doing it for himself and for the people of colorado anyway uh one more quick break we'll be back for predictions

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Okay, Scott, before we get to predictions, Don Lemon just texted me.

He's suing Elon Musk for refusing to pay him after the canceled X deal.

X executives used Don to prop up their advertising sales pips, then canceled their partnership and dragged Don's name through the month.

Lemon's lawyer said in a statement, just so you know, good for you, Don.

I wrote him back, yay, because I don't think he's getting his money back, but nonetheless, it's yet another lawsuit for Elon.

And Linda Yakarino looks like an idiot once again.

Okay, now tell me your predictions.

Well, so I thought the prediction was going to be around VP, and I'm picking Shapiro.

The other prediction I'm making, I'm just thinking about it because we didn't get to it, is I think we've hit sort of peak tweeting of

or peak the founder tweeting of funds.

So the dream of every fund manager is captive capital, because the way you go out of business as an alternative investment manager is mismatched durations and that is you invest you invest long and you raise money short and that is you aggregate a series of positions that are not that liquid and then your investors put in a redemption and you either have to sell so desperately that it takes the value of the fund down or you can't even sell

with your investments yeah so you have to put up gates saying your investors can't withdraw their money which is effectively the end of your fund because once you put your gates down everyone redeems anyway so captive capital is the dream of every hedge fund manager.

And Berkshire Hathaway and Apollo have both been very smart, and that is they have insurance companies, so they have captive capital.

Another way you get captive capital is you do an IPO and you raise capital from shareholders who own a stake and the returns on your investments.

And Bill Ackman's Pershing Square planned to do a $25 billion IPO.

And just this week, they announced that they're pulling the IPO.

And it's pretty obvious that the reasoning is that

he took a calculated risk that awareness is everything.

And there's some evidence of that when guys like Chamoth or Kathy Wood basically offer just terrible rewards.

Warren Buffett or Warren Buffett.

It's folksy, but go ahead.

Yeah, but

Warren has performance on his side.

Warren is both a good brand and has underlying performance.

So far, Chamoth and Kathy Wood have one of those things.

They have awareness, and their performance has been abysmal to worse.

And

Ackman, to his credit, has actually been,

a lot of of people would argue, a brilliant investor.

But when he's out there with these tweets circulating conspiracy theory, weighing in on higher ed and DEI, it appears that institutional investors have said, you know what?

We're just not, we see that as a bug, not a feature.

And he had to pull his IPO.

And I think it's going to give pause to a lot of these fund managers who's decided that they're celebrities or internet celebrities and that the world needs to know what they're thinking about stuff.

And the most ridiculous tweet of the year from a person that manages billions of dollars was from Kathy Wood of ARC.

And the tweet read as follows.

This is from Kathy.

As a result,

our trading-related capital tax losses should offset trading, related capital tax gains for years, and underappreciated asset associated with our strategies.

What she's saying is, Our returns have been so shitty, we have lost so much of your money that those losses we've aggregated are going to be so valuable to offset future gains that this is an underappreciated asset.

Oh, we suck, but let me turn it to something else.

Yeah.

So my, my incompetence as a fiduciary for your capital, I've lost so much of your capital that these losses are an underappreciated asset.

I mean, what is this?

These people are such grifters, honestly.

The PR person saying, wait, how do we turn a negative into a positive?

And your sycophants on Twitter might even buy this.

And by the way, she deleted the tweet because I'm sure about a million people waiting and said, what?

Let me get this.

Okay.

My, my, my incompetence is your advantage.

Anyways, I think that these, these, these

very iconic investors, the day of them being bored at night and tweeting out shit, I think

a lot of their institutional investors are going to go,

put the fucking phone down.

Yeah.

And do your job.

Do your fucking job.

Focus on returns.

Phil Affin has become such a horse's patoot.

And he was before, by the way, but he had results and he kept his mouth shut.

Right.

There's all the stories of him being a jerk to people, but whatever.

He did a good job.

He had some wins.

He had some losses, but a very good investor, right?

Good at his job.

This era of him has got to be,

has just been so depressing to watch in a lot of ways because he's an interesting fella, right?

Like he really is.

And what's happened here is that he thinks he mistakes

who his audience is.

And he thinks his investors are all these dumbasses who are going to just be a meme stock.

When actually they're institutional investors who just don't want this nonsense and sloppiness.

He apparently released a letter he shouldn't have released.

He told people who his investors were.

He's just like, you know what?

You live in the investing world and that's your audience.

And if you think you're going to sort of trick someone into buying into your IPO, it's not happening for you.

It's just not.

And that's, that's what I thought.

They sort of misjudged his audience completely or his the power of his audience and they're just a bunch of people that like to troll they're not real investors they're just you know either they could be dumb money but they're not even that for you so you know whatever good luck with that but it's it's you know it's i it's i find it just him going on and on about dei i feel like i should do a whole thing about hedge fund investing and about which i know nothing and i would like to tweet about it endlessly that's what i kind of compare it to anyway you're correct so it's over yeah he's he spoke before me at TED, and

I'm a mix on Bill because I think he's actually an interesting guy.

And I think, in some ways, I do think his heart's in the right place.

He's, he's philanthropic.

Anyway, but he said something on stage, which really struck me that this is what happens when you become powerful and you surround yourself with yes people.

The person interviewing him said,

you know, you throw your weight around DEI essentially because you're a billionaire.

And he said, no, my

fame around DEI is because of my ideas.

It has nothing to do.

And it's like, are you really that tone deaf?

You really think that your ideas around DEI not being a great idea are so.

Oh, Ukraine.

Let's hear what you think about Ukraine.

Like, whatever.

These people have so many hairs up their ass.

They just can't stop itching.

It was like, wow,

you really don't get it.

Anyways, but he is a big, handsome man.

I'll give him that.

I sat next to him.

I sat next to him or stand next to him at the urinal, and he looked over and he said, circumcise?

I'm like, no, that's just the wear and tear of you.

Talking about Bill Ackman's penis.

Just

boom.

Always closing the show with a dick.

You were sitting at the, I didn't want to go into this.

We did sit next to each other at the urinal, though.

Or stand.

I'm sorry, stand next to each other.

All right.

Okay.

And we end on the penis.

We love

lovely.

It was that kind of convention.

Anyway, Bill, just get back to your job and stop yammering away.

Honestly, you know, I'm sure your wife loves that you dragged her through the mud, by the way.

That was a nice job for doing that.

Anyway, we want to hear from you.

Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-Pivot.

Okay, Scott, that's the show.

We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot.

Please read us out.

Today's show is produced by Larry Naman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Intertod engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Jabro's and Miles Severio.

Yashad Kura is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thank you 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.

Kara, have a great weekend.

This month on Explain It To Me, we're talking about all things wellness.

We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well: collagen smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes, and fitness trackers.

But what does it actually mean to be well?

Why do we want that so badly?

And is all this money really making us healthier and happier?

That's this month on Explain It To Me, presented by Pureleaf.