Washington Post Drama, OpenAI IPO Rumblings, and Guest Scott Wiener

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Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher in the south of France.

And I'm Scott Galloway and Cann.

In Cannes, we're not together though.

Once again, we're in the same place.

I can probably see your hotel from mine, though.

Really?

I don't know.

Don't look at my hotel.

Anyway, I was just walking along.

I was just walking along, what's it called?

The croissette.

The croissette.

The croissette.

We have many fans here, a lot of selfies.

We do.

Yeah.

It's nice.

It's very.

People ask you, where is Scott?

Everyone asks me, where's Kara?

Yes, all the time.

And then they have a word or two for you, either good or bad.

Some of them love you, some of them don't.

And it's great, actually.

So I have some thoughts I'll share with you later.

Catalyzing a dialogue.

Catalyzing a dialogue.

No, you know what?

That's what they say.

They say we're catalyzing dialogues.

I interviewed John Legend and Chrissy Teigen this morning.

Oh, how's that?

They're the handsomest couple going.

Very good looking.

Sharp as tacks.

You know, they're real into activism, but it seems lovely coming from them.

And she's a pistol, I'll tell you that.

She's just like she is on the Twitter.

Although she's not on the Twitter anymore, but they're doing a lot of stuff around mass incarceration and women's

report.

And he's like, he's on concert tour.

He's a lovely guy.

He's playing tonight at the

Spotify thing.

Yeah.

Yeah,

they're supposed to be lovely.

And I agree with you.

Occasionally, I'll see them in New York and they're

both impossibly good looking and talented.

Yeah.

Very entrepreneurial.

They have a wine thing.

They got dog food.

They got food.

They got

a healthy, he's got a baseline.

He almost got some for you.

A little facial features.

Baseline?

Yeah, like it's called Loving One Zero Watts.

You want to know my skincare routine?

What?

No, yes.

At least once a week, I splash water on my face.

Oh, my God.

Do you not have a skincare routine?

I would think you would do that.

No, I don't.

I really don't.

I mean, occasionally I shoot poison into my face, so I look like I'm dead inside.

Oh, okay.

But still, Botox.

But other than that,

I'm aging not gracefully.

I'm leaning into the ugly.

You would be surprised.

Guess who loves a skincare product?

Cara Swisher?

I do.

You have very nice skin.

I do have beautiful skin because I spent a lot of time with

you.

Try this too.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I do.

You're right.

I have spectacular radiant skin.

I'm sorry.

I'm just channeling white men.

Of course I do.

Oh, yeah.

I do, actually, because I spend a lot of time with all the barber stirrup, all that stuff.

I do get nice health care.

I mean, in the facial area.

So expensive.

Yeah.

Guys can get away with bad skin.

They can.

It doesn't matter.

All I need to do is stand on my wallet.

Is that wrong?

Yeah.

Is that wrong?

It's wrong.

I don't do that.

That's the part I don't do.

I have a beautiful skincare regimen instead.

Anyway, here we're on the South Bruns talking about our skin.

We have a lot to get to today because we have a live pivot tomorrow.

We've got parties to go to.

There's a lot of parties tonight.

One of them that was canceled, which I'll talk about later, was a Washington Post one at La Colombe d'Or.

Oh, yes.

He's got a lot of damage.

It got canceled?

Got canceled.

Oh, I love that.

You know who is speaking of the newspapers?

You know, I ran into last night.

It was Meredith Levin?

Levian.

Levian.

Levian.

Levian.

Meredith Levian.

She's delighted.

The New York Times.

She's having a great time at the New York Times, the Washington Post people.

Don't they seem incredibly well run right now?

Yes, they really are.

She's like hitting it all cylinders.

Yeah.

Man,

we'll get to it in a minute because it's been a real...

It reminds me of the writer's strike.

A bunch of people who think they're really fucking precious.

Wake up to the real world, folks.

Washington Post newsroom.

I'd love to deal with them.

Yeah, except not the new.

This is not the newsroom's fault.

This is a management and Jeff Bezos's.

What's happening there?

It's some British people.

Oh, he got in trouble.

Well, we'll just start with it.

We'll start with it because we're going to talk about troubles at Amazon, too.

But just before we get to it, we're going to do disinformation research groups under attack by the far right.

Open AI hinting some big changes to its governance.

They're a for-profit corporation, Scott, apparently.

Plus, our friend at Pivot.

Really?

Really?

They're not a nonprofit.

Shocking as it may seem.

Who would have thought it?

I mean, they might as well admit the obvious, right?

Our friend at Pivot is California State Senator Scott Wiener, who used to be my representative in the Castro.

He's leading the charge on AI regulation bill, very smart California legislator in California.

Anyway, there's so much going on.

Let's start with this Washington Post situation.

So the guy who's the CEO, Will Lewis, got into big trouble for paying, you know, lots.

He did a terrible meeting with the staff.

He really did.

It was a terrible meeting.

And then he did this weird third newsroom thing, but he never said what it was.

And I'm still unclear what the second newsroom is.

I believe he's talking about editorial, which isn't a newsroom.

So he confused and upset people.

And believe me, they have every right to be upset.

They asked some cogent questions because he ended up hiring one of his pals from Britain and then

firing the editor just all of a sudden, like, because she didn't like his third newsroom plan.

And so, which nobody likes, FYI, and it's stupid.

And so then, so then that was trouble.

And then this week, the New York Times sent a pack of reporters to London, and so did the Washington Post, by the way, and so did others,

to investigate and found even more crazy shit when he was working for Murdoch, when he was working for the other places he worked.

A lot of payoffs for

phone records that were stolen that they use.

Payoffs.

That's all news, all right?

No, this is new.

That was different.

That was, he was cleaning up the hacking.

And then they had a guy that was pretending, trying to get Tony Blair's memoir

and trying to get lists of rich people that bought a Maybach.

All this stuff, they wrote a big, he wrote a big investigative piece of who was buying the new Maybach

because they stole the records they they tricked the the Mercedes guy out of the records and so this guy festives

I just love it when self-hating liberals go after each other and eat their young no don't start with the self-hating liberals bullshit this is no I'm not gonna allow this

this I'm not gonna allow because I happen to be an actual reporter you don't do this you don't do this not you don't you don't so what's the there there what do they do Scott how would you like it if someone stole it

I'm acquiescing to your journalistic domain expertise here.

Would you like someone tacking your phone and listening to your phone calls and then you doing a report?

No, so I don't allow TikTok on my phone.

And by the way, I'm constantly every day trying to lobby against Meta because they do what you're talking about every fucking minute.

I get it, but reporters aren't supposed to, okay?

Agreed.

Okay.

So they, anyway, so he's gotten even more trouble with this investigation by the New York Times.

And then the Post followed up with an even worse one about all kinds of lies he told.

So he's under a lot of pressure, but I don't think Bezos is going to let him go.

It's the newsroom.

It's not the newsroom's fault in this case.

And I agree with you on slow-moving roots.

So the newsroom is in open revolt against.

It looks like it, yeah.

I mean, they just,

no one knows what to do because the only person that matters is Jeff Bezos in this thing.

Right.

And so as long as Jeff, but at some point, it reminds me a little bit of an academic institution where the faculty just has way too much power and the dean has to get along with the faculty because they can make his life miserable or her life miserable if they they don't get along with them.

But at the end of the day, if the newsroom is in open revolt, Bezos needs to fire them and say, it sucks to be a grown-up.

You've lost the confidence in the newsroom.

It's time for you to move along.

Right.

But in this case, in fact, the newsroom might be right.

I know you love to attack the media, but it's not, in this case, that's not the case.

I like the Washington Post.

I'm rooting for them.

This is, let me just support the Washington Post team.

I wrote a whole part about the Post being really slow to all the Internet stuff.

In this case, these reporters, and I've talked to a lot of them, and this staff knows they have to change.

This is not a whiny, oh no, the internet is here, gang.

This is, we are fucked and we got to move.

And so in this case, I don't, I think this guy's lost the trust.

That said, if Bezos doesn't want to get rid of him, because they did this big search after finding

this guy, he's the only shareholder.

And so the question is, will he?

But having said that, as the only shareholder and a fiduciary has a fiduciary to the other stakeholders, which include the newsroom, the employees, the nation, because the Washington Post plays a critical role in the zeitgeist and the dialogue.

And as a fiduciary, if he has an obligation to recognize that the newsroom, which is the key, the heartbeat, the white meat, the epicenter, whatever you want to call it, ground zero for this organization, correctly or incorrectly, that doesn't fucking matter.

If he has lost their confidence, Bezos needs to call him and say, sorry, boss, you got to move on.

Otherwise, this turns into a bigger drama than it needs to be.

That's correct.

That is correct.

One person who I was talking to, a media person who was in the running for the CEO and actually dropped out, said to me, like, this is not, they need to be looking like they're forward-moving right now.

They have not Patty Stonecipher.

I thought she was running the search.

She didn't want to run it.

And so they found someone else, and she was part of the search, and there were several different people.

And she's a big supporter of Sally Busby.

She gave a party for her last night.

And what's Sally's role in this?

I can't believe I'm getting drawn into this.

She was the editor-in-chief.

She was the editor-in-chief.

This is like the world's worst off-off Broadway soap opera.

It It plays to an audience of seven people.

No, no, no, no.

This is an important audience.

Who is Sally Busby?

Who is Sally Busby?

She was the editor.

She was the editor.

This is an important newspaper ahead of this big election, it is.

It's the, I would say, the second or third most important newspaper in the country.

But I say the Wall Street, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post.

That's how I would stand crack them.

Anyway, so anyway, so we'll see.

So in any case, my whole particular moment in this is there was a dinner tonight that Will was throwing at La Colombe d'Or, which I've never been to.

I bet you have.

I don't know.

The fancy, it's a beautiful, apparently a beautiful place.

And I was thinking about it.

I think that's a private school outside of L.A.

Yeah, right.

If you want your kids to speak French and you're like a total

d'Or.

So they canceled it.

So he's not here.

He's not here.

Leona Lisa goes to Colomb d'Or.

Anyway, it was.

We hired this guy who's pretending she's a rower to get into USC.

Oh, never mind.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I have a particular instant post since I started there and I started in the mailroom.

So it matters.

Well, you're also sleeping with someone who works there.

You need to disclose that.

I did.

I say that all the time.

She works there.

This isn't good for her, for me to talk about it, by the way, in such a negative way.

She's safe.

She's good at what she does.

She is.

She is.

She is.

But I was at the Washington Post first.

Let's just say I was there first.

So that's kind of very great there.

So, well, okay, now that we've gone down this rabbit hole, what do you think they should do and what happens?

There's a lot they could do.

You know, I've always, they just have, right now, they need to get a CEO.

Look, they hired a, he did bring in a temporary editor after Sally decided not to go with him, A guy named Matt Murray from the Wall Street Journal, who he did work with, who I think have great regard for in the newsroom likes.

So keep him there and make him editor-editor.

And then hire a digital person, a really smart, capable digital person to figure out

how to create new revenue streams just for now until the election and then have a rethink in December.

Who wants to go to the Washington Post and make no money?

I get that.

But I'm just saying, there are people who would do it.

It's a big challenge.

Yeah, I agree.

It's an iconic property.

Just something to calm it the fuck down after their kind of feckless editor and now this guy who's a hot mess.

They went from a feckless guy to a hot mess.

And now they.

All roads lead to the same place.

I don't even need to know the situation.

I know what they should do.

All roads lead to the same place.

I need to fire this guy.

Yeah.

And then let us

turn the page.

We should turn the page.

Yeah, that would work.

I know.

Given my journalistic credibility, yes.

I'm in.

Hello.

I'm here with the beanie.

I'm head of HR.

Oh, maybe I'm not.

That would set an interesting tone.

Yeah, that would.

That would.

But you know what?

We'd be calm in comparison.

Anyway, we'll move on.

The other thing that's going on, Amazon.

So, Jeff doesn't run Amazon, but One Medical is under fire for how it deals with calls from elderly patients.

According to a report from the Washington Post, speaking of which, which is good for them for doing it, the primary care service routes elderly callers to inexperienced contractors with only two weeks of classroom training.

Within one month, the post found more than a dozen incidents where staff failed to seek immediate attention for callers with urgent

symptoms.

The main qualification listed for the job is the ability to use a computer and a phone.

Amazon acquired OneMedical in February of last year.

One Medical's main competitors also use call centers to field patient inquiries.

One Medical used to be a little more solicitous in lots of ways.

They used to have pickup service, all the same, and Amazon cut some costs and trying to make it more efficient.

You know, it was this wonderful startup that everybody loved.

I am a OneMedical member.

You are too, correct?

Yeah.

But it's problematic of

making it too efficient, especially among people that need more care.

Or they should at least push people to good care, right?

That in some, like, I don't know what I'm talking about.

Let's get you to a doctor immediately.

That kind of thing.

So, look, I'm going to.

These stories, the larger story here is that in my opinion, the media, and it's easy to be the editor of the media globally and appoint yourself global editor.

I think they're focused on the wrong things.

I think that the drama at the Washington Post is sort of interesting, but what's what's more interesting is that journalism is slowly but surely being euthanized by a company that is controlled or influenced by the CCP.

We're every day, and we're at this conference, and they don't want to admit that the thing that is putting all these people slowly out of business is that there are 1.7 billion people on a media platform called TikTok.

The media ecosystem has gotten very unhealthy.

It's turned into sort of a giant spying network that molests your data, and then it's figured out that rage is the most popular way to engage you.

And then around one medical, okay, one medical is trying to outsource expensive seniors so i think this stuff is sort of interesting and gossipy but it really is

not important getting sick no i don't think it's one or the other see i think you're saying we have to cover this because we're not covering this now people have covered tick tock forbes i'm thinking of that reporter forbes is doing a crape cat on here emily baker white lots of people are covering the tick tock situation i have covered all the issues around social media for years and years and years at the same time here's Amazon deciding to get in the medical business and cutting corners in ways that aren't right.

It's a different story, right?

But that's, that's, I don't, I don't, I agree with you.

They should fix this and they've brought lie to it, but the healthcare industry in general is dramatically in need of organizations like this to come in and take a more cost-driven kind of approach to it.

And I, granted, I'm not an old person with palpitations.

I'm a sort of old person that has palpitations.

True story.

I actually had an arrhythmia when I was younger.

I did.

Only time I've ever been hospitalized.

It was right after the best college basketball player in the nation, a guy named Hank Gathers, went down the floor, did a monster dunk, and on the way back, collapsed and died.

And so anyone with an arrhythmia was stuck in the hospital.

Anyways, but and I think they

primarily stuck me in the hospital because I was overinsured.

And they're like, okay, stick him in the hospital because he can pay his bills.

But anyways,

the healthcare system is so desperate for

this type of disruption and good for journalists for saying, okay,

there is a clash between private sector and public sector goods when you have a for-profit company trying to outsource costs around seniors.

Anyways, I don't.

I'm glad they brought it up and I hope they fix it.

Your point is that one medical is a good direction.

The thing is, if they're going to go in this direction, they still have to do a good job.

That's my feeling.

And I think pointing this out,

they just can't, they can't treat it like you're getting a package that didn't get delivered.

You know, it's a different business.

And that's how they deal with, they're so efficient on the stuff that's easy to make efficient.

The problem is people are fucking complex, right?

It's not like.

Well, the reality is that old people are expensive and unproductive.

And I can't wait to get feedback on that comment.

But young people don't even, young people for the most part, unless they're pregnant, don't really need health care.

They don't get sick.

And

what most medical companies want to figure out is unless we can get you obese and then get the government to pay for your cholesterol, your knee replacement, your hip replacement, and turn you over to the diabetes industrial complex, if you're just a senior that needs more care and needs more hand holding.

I get it.

You're more expensive, so we want to outsource it.

This is where the public and the for-profit and non-for-profit run into each other.

And then insurance companies, if you want to, the company, the best business in the world has been insurance.

I agree.

This is an area of reform.

Well, we'll see where it should be innovated for sure.

Both of us agree with that.

Anyway, they'll probably get sued.

Anyway, one good thing for Jeff Bezos this week, he's got two negatives, but Blue Origin has won a spot in the Pentagon's rocket launch contract sweepstakes for the first time.

The winning bid comes as part of contracts awarded under the National Security Space Launch Program.

SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, which are the old guys, were also awarded contracts and have already been competing under a previous phase of the program.

And now Blue Origin gets to come in.

They'll be eligible to compete for contracts through mid-2029.

I like that they have more competitors, right?

This is a good question.

Yeah, this is good.

Innovation in space is important.

Yeah, and it can't just be SpaceX.

It cannot just be SpaceX.

Yeah, I agree.

It's the other billionaire

that kills seniors.

No, I'm kidding.

And it's somewhat related to seniors is that 40% of all government spending now goes to services for seniors.

It's about to be 50%, which crowds out things, including NASA and space exploration and technology and education and all the things that have a bigger ROI.

You don't don't like old people, do you?

Because you're going to be one, that's fine.

No,

I just find that my generation, I'm going to say my generation, is unlike previous generations, is not paying it forward and continues to vote old people such that we vote ourselves more money and not invest in the future.

And $1.4 trillion goes to Social Security every year.

Previous generations have always made a concerted effort to elect people who think long-term, invest in technology, invest in young people, invest in education.

And now my generation is, no, no, no, increase my social security and lower my fucking taxes.

There is a virus that has infected my generation where we are no longer making forward-looking investments.

I don't know if it's because we haven't been invaded.

I don't know if because social media makes it so much like get yours or, you know, get on.

Yeah, that's a very get your own, but

my generation is not living up to the same American standard of investment.

We need to give.

Back.

We need to give it, you know what?

We could put the elderly on these rockets.

that's i'm gonna get in letters i don't think they should be i don't think they should be getting letters getting letters just i want to be you for a moment i that's the letters carol finally get yeah i don't know if you

yeah i'm not sure that i'm not sure you'd enjoy that i'm just saying i'm trying to bring two stories together and then they could work for the washington post anyway um okay let's get to our first big story

The Stanford Internet Observatory, a prominent disinformation research group, is facing an uncertain future following ongoing political and legal attacks in the far right.

We've talked about this and where it was going to lead, and it did.

Several key staffers have already departed, including founder Alex Salmos.

Some contracts have not been renewed, and other employees are told to look for jobs elsewhere, according to Platformer.

Stanford has disputed the observatory is going away entirely, saying in a statement the group will continue under new leadership with its critical work on child safety and other online harms.

You know, we've heard from Alex and also Renee DeResta, who has a new book out, about

all the attacks by the right, and they've been sort of tasered into not doing anything.

There's all kinds of things going on.

The observatory's work included research on election integrity, which seemed to have attracted the most attention, AI and child sexual abuse material.

Representative Jim Jordan, who led the charge on investigating these research groups, posted this on social media saying free speech wins again.

Harvard shut down a Disinformation Research Center last year.

The main researcher later cited pressure per meter, although that's in dispute.

In any case, there's been a real campaign to discredit these researchers.

You know, Elon sued one of them and then lost the lawsuit.

He didn't lose it.

He never moved forward.

But

there were two ongoing lawsuits and two congressional inquiries into the observatory that have cost Stanford millions in legal fees, according to the Washington Post.

And former researcher Esther, as I said, Renee DeResta has a piece in the Atlantic about her experience getting attacked by online conspiracy theorists.

She worked in a summer fellow program for the CIA when she was a kid.

And so now they've decided she's CIA Renee.

They have all these crazy conspiracy theories that she's the one that's behind all this.

It's nutty.

This piece is really something.

Anyway, what do you think about this?

Do you think information research, which is critical, disinformation research, is getting shut down?

I think it's incredibly disappointing.

And I will say, you know,

we try to call balls and strikes.

There's a lot about Jeff Bezos in terms of tax avoidance and some of the employee practices that I've not been a fan of.

But having said that, I genuinely believe that he wants the Washington Post to pursue the truth.

And I think there's something very noble and very American about that.

And I think a lot of elements of the far right see the media as nothing but something that helps craft their narrative around their issues.

And they will use intimidation and have, you know, weaponized their own media companies.

And this is an example of that.

It's not that they're it, my understanding is it's not that they're mad at them for censoring.

It's it's that they're not censoring, that they're

that they're not crafting the narrative that they want to blanket over the nation.

And what's also disappointing, I understand Stanford's decision that like this is just more headache than it's worth, but at the same time, Stanford has so much money.

It's such a Stanford, and I'm critical of higher ed, but Stanford is just such a gift to California and to technology and to research that I just it's weird what the faculty and students get riled up about.

And they don't get riled up about being intimidated by a bunch of right-wing lawsuits and basically putting this thing out of business.

So I think it's disappointing and more example of the way

the steps to fascism are you get control of the media, you get control of the economy, then you get control of the military, and boom, it's all over.

And this feels to me like an attempt.

And there's some people on the left to try and do this as well, but not as much.

This is a plan.

You know, the left does it in a very non-systematic way.

This is a systematic way around trans rights, everything.

They have a plan around with abortion, you know, and there's this whole effort to try to get rid of New York Times versus Sullivan, the idea around libel.

And Trump has talked about this idea about prosecuting and going after media.

Bannon has basically said, we're going to kill them.

That's what it feels like.

You know, we're going to get them, get them, get them, get them, is their constant refrain.

It's part of their plan.

And so the question is, is there anything to fight back when they're doing constant lawsuits, right?

This is the problem.

And so I don't know if there's anything that you can do with if you've decided this is a, you know, this is a thing you want to kick out.

This is a part of democracy you want to kick out so you can get control.

The kickers are always in a better situation than those trying to stop the kicking.

Yeah, it's disappointing because I don't know Alex as well as you, but he's always struck me as a very thoughtful person.

He's fantastic who calls balls and strikes.

He also strikes me as fearless.

He just says, I've seen him speak at conferences and I like him because

he doesn't sign up to a political narrative.

He just says, this is what the data reflects.

And he also, at the last conference I saw, said, you know,

there's a lot of misinformation coming from the left.

And I like guys like that who call balls and strikes, but he's exactly the kind of person you want heading

a laboratory like this.

This is exactly the kind of laboratory that should be sponsored and hosted at an academic institution.

And Stanford is exactly the place, the region that should be hosting it.

It's just, this feels so right on so many levels, and yet they're being kind of bullied by what feels, at least on the surface, to be

right-wing organizations that aren't interested in pursuing the truth or interested in crafting a narrative to their own objectives.

Look, this just feels wrong.

It just feels bad.

And twisting the numbers, right?

Yeah.

So I don't know what's going to happen.

I don't know.

It's very dangerous for the 2024 election and future elections not there to be academic research.

Whether or not you agree with it

is no difference.

It's that if they can do their studies and they can back it up, you have to accept what it's doing.

What they do is they take information, like saying that Renee herself got 22 million pieces, you know,

censored when in fact she just recommended 2,000 misinformation things and only like 15% of them got taken down.

And so they spin it into this idea of this person behind the scenes manipulating when in fact speaking of Chrissy Teigen, it was Trump who asked to take down her pussy ass bitch.

tweet, not someone else, right?

They do it too.

They do it.

They do it too in terms of trying to take stuff stuff down.

And so what they do is they weaponize the First Amendment in a way that's just really heinous because they don't want, because of their own political narratives.

Anyway, it's a really, it's a shame.

And Stanford should fucking pay for this thing, I think.

They're not very brave as people.

Anyway.

All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, OpenAI announces its latest board member, enhanced some big changes.

And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, California State Senator Scott Weiner, about his AI regulation bill that's causing a ruckus in Silicon Valley.

As a founder, you're moving fast towards product market fit, your next round, or your first big enterprise deal.

But with AI accelerating how quickly startups build and ship, security expectations are also coming in faster, and those expectations are higher than ever.

Getting security and compliance right can unlock growth or stall it if you wait too long.

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Hello, Daisy speaking.

Hello, Daisy.

This is Phoebe Judge from the IRS.

Oh, bless, that does sound serious.

I wouldn't want to end up in any any sort of trouble.

This September on Criminal, we've been thinking a lot about scams.

Over the next couple of weeks, we're releasing episodes about a surprising way to stop scammers.

The people you didn't know were on the other end of the line, and we have a special bonus episode on Criminal Plus with tips to protect yourself.

Listen to Criminal wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for Criminal Plus at thisiscriminal.com/slash plus.

Scott, we're back.

OpenAI appears to be addressing recent security concerns with a new addition to its board of directors.

The company announced last week that retired General Paul Nakassoni will be joining the board.

He's also sit on a newly formed safety and security committee.

Nacassoni was director of the NSA, which is causing a lot of like the

crazy right to go crazy about this and saying it's a deep state, and led, including Elon, I think, and led the U.S.

Military Cyber Command before stepping down early this year.

He's very well regarded.

But again, this is a big appointment.

OpenAI said in a statement that this appointment underscores a growing significance of cybersecurity.

Edward Snowden wasn't happy.

He posted this on social media saying, do not ever trust OpenAI or its products.

There is only one reason for appointing an NSA director to your board.

So, as usual, without proof, Edward.

But, you know, okay, sure, spy's spy.

So, but it's one of those open-ended questions that never really has an answer or any proof attached to it but that's okay they can do that so it's a thing what do you think about that i absolutely love it um anyone who's an army general and works their way up as as someone you know general nakassoni isn't you know this isn't a very impressive person and also this person has proven themselves a patriot and for all these weirdos on the far right that think there's a deep state and for all these weirdos on the far left that are under the assumption that the peace is a natural right, that it's not something that requires constant vigilance and sacrifice, we need, the NSA does an amazing job keeping Americans safe.

And it's important that we have laws that keep them in check.

But at the same time,

I worry that America has become so naive to this notion that peace is a right.

It is not.

It is earned, and it is not the natural order.

As soon as people can come for our Netflix and espresso folks, they will.

And they won't do it by interesting, nice means.

They'll be violent about it, just as we need to be violent and smart about protecting our borders.

So to have someone like this on the board of OpenAI to occasionally raise his or her hand and say, you know what, that is a threat to America.

And I'm not down with this.

I love having this guy on the board of OpenAI.

I think it's a wonderful thing.

Aaron Powell, it's interesting because it sort of sets up these deep state, leave us alone, don't tread on me, gang.

And I mean that in the negative don't tread on me way, the sort of demented don't tread on me.

In Edward Snowden's case, I recognize that he did uncover some really heinous behavior by our security officials.

That said,

there's plenty of argument to be made that how he handled it was wrong, but he couldn't have handled it.

Look, we can debate Edward Snowden all you want.

I interviewed him once.

It's a very complex topic.

But the fact that assuming every NSA chief is...

has malintent is the way to bring down all institutions.

Now, they've been abusive enough that

there needs to be strong laws and oversight in place.

Absolutely.

If a spy is going to spy, that is just the way it goes, right?

It's not, there's no other way to put it, including the Chinese government.

They're going to spy whether you have proof or not.

That's what they do.

In this case, as many people on the board, now, I would also put on someone who's more of a like

sort of an opposite to him could be interesting.

So you have all the different outlooks brought there.

And I'm not talking, the problem they had was they had people that were so at cross purposes, there was no no agreement.

And I think if they bring in someone who's more not distrustful of government, but then challenges government overreach, I think that's fantastic too, right?

That's what you kind of want on a board.

But this guy has really a very, very strong reputation.

The immediate attacks on him were fascinating to watch in a lot of ways.

Speaking of open AI, they're further angering all the peer crowd.

CEO Sam Altman has told some shareholders that the company is considering changing its governance to a for-profit business that a non-profit board doesn't control, according to the information.

I'm shocked.

I'm shocked.

What?

I'm shocked.

They are a profit company.

One option for forming a for-profit benefit corporation, similar to what Anthropic and XAI have in place.

You can explain what a for-profit.

I don't understand it.

Altman said the restructuring conversations are fluid and that he and his fellow directors can end up taking a different approach.

Oh, come on, Sam.

Come on.

You can't stand that nonprofit situation.

So OpenAI reportedly is on pace, by the way, for $3.4 billion of annual revenue.

Well done.

If OpenAI did become a for-profit company, what's your prediction for an IPO?

They just hired a very well-regarded person, Sarah Fryer, who's a former CEO of Nextdoor and as his chief financial officer.

She used to work for Square.

She's terrific.

She dealt with IPOs at Nextdoor as well as Square, as I've said.

What is that called now?

I forget the new name for Square.

I call it Square still.

But what do you think about this?

Talk about this a little bit.

So all of the stuff about the drama at the board and it going back and forth and whether, you know, and Sam being fired and then rehired, it's a bit of noise because now OpenAI, in the last six months, they've doubled their revenue base.

They're kind of running away with it.

And if you look at their run rate right now relative to their valuation, they're actually the most reasonable, reasonably valued company in AI, despite the fact that they're the leader.

They are clearly, clearly putting on their best dress for an IPO because the individual that you referenced is an incredibly street.

It's like when Google brought in Ruth Perrat and she wasn't there to take them public, but this is a very street-friendly hire.

So they're clearly getting ready for an IPO.

And all of the kind of noise around OpenAI, I saw these numbers on how they're doing.

They are running away with it.

Open AI right now has their revenue rate, they're like 20% of all AI revenues.

You know what they have, Scott?

They've decided to be Google and not Netscape.

That's what it is.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Netscape had it and then lost it.

Google almost lost it and then had it, right?

They really pushed aggressively.

It's also expanding into healthcare with a cancer co-pilot.

It's working with Color Health to develop an AI assistant using OpenAI's GP.

They're doing deals all over the friggin' map.

Like they're, they're like running circles around the competitors, but go ahead.

No,

you're exactly right.

We have a tendency to focus on the soap opera end of this, but despite all of this distraction, they are growing the revenues faster.

Mistral this company in France, which I think will do well because I think a lot of European companies and regulators would like an AI company in Europe to emerge.

But if you look at just sheer revenue growth and size of revenues,

it's really right now.

It's NVIDIA and open AI or something like that.

It's open AI and the seven doors in AI.

And then in infrastructure, it's NVIDIA and just, okay,

you know, who are the rest?

I mean, you could argue that Dell and Oracle have done a good job of positioning themselves in the sunlight here.

But when I saw these numbers from OpenAI, I'm like, oh my gosh, kudos to them for being able to...

you know, being able to walk and chew gum at the same time, because there's been a lot of distraction there.

But the revenue, the next thing that we're going to be talking a lot about that people aren't spending a lot of time talking about is just the sheer amount of energy consumption that's going to come from AI.

Guess who has a hydrogen fusion company, whatever?

Sam Altman.

Is that right?

He's into little small nuclear devices, just so you know.

He's got an answer for everything.

And it takes 10 to 17 times the amount of energy to do an

AI query on ChatGPT versus a general search.

No, that's going to be the next.

But that's what he's working on.

That's another Sam Altman investment is energy.

Like a lot of, and to sell it to these companies to do that, he's way ahead.

He's making the pickaxes in the gold rush is what's happening.

Anyway,

there you go.

It's not stupid.

Not stupid.

Anyway, we've got a lot more to discuss on the AI front.

So let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

Scott Weiner is a California state senator.

He introduced an AI regulation bill earlier this year that aims to establish common sense safety standards for AI companies in California.

The bill passed through the state senate last month and is making its way through the state assembly, but it's facing a lot of pushback from AI companies, venture capitalists, and tech trade associations.

Welcome, Scott.

Thanks for having me.

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

So it just came out a little while ago.

Several amendments are getting proposed or added to this AI bill.

Not a surprising thing.

That's what happens.

Talk a little bit about the bill and explain the...

potential impact of these changes.

Let me just say the original bill includes requiring companies to prevent models from causing critical harm, a little unspecific, ensuring systems can be shut down, which that's the one that really seems to drive them crazy, and reporting on safety tests, which seems reasonable enough.

So, talk a little bit about that bill and the changes.

Great.

Yeah, so the bill, which actually got some bipartisan support in the Senate, got a really strong vote.

The basic gist of it is that if you're going to train and release a huge model, we define it as larger than 10 to the 26 swap, costing more than $100 million to train.

Just do some basic safety evaluation and identify if there are potential catastrophic harms.

And then, if you identify catastrophic risks, then

take basic steps to try to reduce those risks.

Not eliminate them.

It's life.

You can't reduce risk to zero, but at least reasonable steps to mitigate the risks.

The large labs all say that they're doing this or wanting to do this.

They keep committing to doing it in Seoul, in the White House, before Congress.

And so we are putting it into

a law.

It does not require government permission or licensing before you train and release a model.

It's not government micromanagement in any way.

It's simply saying, let's do a safety evaluation.

The amendments that are being proposed by the Assembly Privacy Committee, which will

hear the bill this week,

are pretty

reasonable.

They create more flexibility in terms of the size threshold.

We've gotten a lot of feedback from industry and from experts that having a permanent 10 to the 26 flop threshold is not flexible enough.

So we provide some more flexibility over time.

We require third-party safety audits starting in 2028.

And

the whistleblower protections will be strengthened.

We've always had whistleblower protections in the bill from the very beginning, but they're going to be refined and strengthened.

And then the ensuring systems can be shut down.

Pretty much every techie is like, that's not, that's ridiculous.

That's a ridiculous, it's not even possible.

Yeah, so

in the bill, it's always been this way, but we've made it more clear recently that the requirement for a shutdown provision or a shutdown aspect to the model is only if the model is in your possession.

Once it leaves your possession, you're no longer responsible for ensuring it can be shut down, because that's the feedback that we were getting, that once I release that someone else has it, I can't ensure that.

So that was always our intent, and

we made that clear.

We also put an amendment in recently that if someone does significant fine-tuning

to the bill, then that becomes their model and not the original developer's model.

But the pushback is massive for tech people.

They're calling you an idiot, essentially, Scott.

You know that.

I have been called far worse than that.

And we have a, first of all, we have a big coalition behind this bill, including a lot of AI technologists.

We have, you know, folks who have started companies.

And so it's not, it's not, this isn't just me.

Like,

I woke up one morning and

dreamt this.

So we think it's quite feasible.

And in fact, they're all saying that they're doing it or wanting to do it.

And that's one of the odd things about this.

All we're saying is do what you say you want to do or what you say you are doing and just certify that you've done it.

And it's

it's quite, it's doable and it's not it's not government overreach.

I think one of the pushbacks is similar to GDPR, is that only the big companies will be able to serve you in what you're doing.

And then the smaller, I know you have that size limit.

The size has to get to a certain size, but that's one of the worries, obviously.

Yeah, and this is much, much narrower than what the EU has done.

Dramatically narrower.

It's a safety evaluation

and it only applies to these huge models.

It effectively exempts out startups.

So there's been a narrative that this is is going to be some sort of regulatory capture.

I think that's just completely untrue.

Okay, Scott, the other Scott?

Nice to meet you, Scott.

Hi, Other Scott.

I realize that I'm going to be preaching to the choir here, but

you want to put a car, you want to sell a car to the retali public.

You have to put it through crash test safety standards.

What on earth are the arguments here other than saying, well, Sam Altman knows better than a regulator because he speaks in hushed tones?

What are the arguments for not slowing down or at least having some kind of crash test safety dummies here to make sure we're not putting a Ford Pinto times a billion or a, you know, what was it, the Corvair unsafe at any speed?

What is the pushback that these people can regulate themselves?

What are the best arguments?

Play the other side.

Be Robert McNamara and empathize with the enemy.

What are the best arguments that the other side is putting out?

Sure.

And I do empathize.

These are a lot of people who I I know really, really well.

Being the, I represent San Francisco.

I'm part of the area right to the south of the city.

And so I am surrounded by the AI world every day.

And so

that's why I will just be clear that we have been intensively meeting with opposition, with folks who are open to supporting skepticism.

We've made a series of amendments in response to constructive feedback.

But

the lines of argument are:

one is just trust us.

We'll do it on our own.

You don't need to tell us to do it.

And as I'd make clear,

we don't, even if you trust all the CEOs and the C-suite folks today, even if you completely trust everyone, you don't know who's going to be running these companies tomorrow or in a year and what

pressures they're going to be facing.

The other is an argument that I just don't think is accurate, respectfully.

They will say, well, this is like regulating

or putting a requiring a safety evaluation for the printing press.

It's not about the printing press, it's about what people use it for, because

they'll say, regulate the application, not the model.

Of course, both are very important.

And

Carrie, you, I'm not trying to brown those or anything, but in your book, you talked about this, that when you build a ship, there's going to be a risk of catastrophic harm, a crash, et cetera.

And yes, that can

be because of a malicious actor or negligent operation.

It could also be because of an inherent flaw or problem in the design, or it could be that the design makes it too easy.

for someone to maliciously or negligently crash it.

And so we would never say, as you notice, Scott,

just focus on the pilot, regulate the pilot of the plane.

Don't regulate the plane itself.

You regulate both and you make sure that both are safe and you minimize and you reduce risk.

You're not going to eliminate risk.

You reduce it.

Well, they just don't like regulation at all.

They don't like any regulation.

They're not used to it because we never have regulated them.

So in a real, in a substantive way, they would argue they have.

They are not allowed to murder people yet.

Although I would argue some of them do in some different ways.

But with the timeline looking for a passage, and are you concerned that this bill becomes law?

Some AI companies will leave California.

That's always their threat.

They're always on their way out the door.

Silicon Valley is an interruptor.

I don't think Silicon Valley is one thing, but their tendency is toward non-regulation in just a second.

And even someone who I find relatively reasonable, Meta's chief AI scientist, Jan Lacun, who is reasonable, has posted that regulating basic technology will put an end to innovation, which is rather dramatic from him.

So

what are you worried about?

Because look, AI is now reinvigorating San Francisco, who you represent.

It really is.

You can see the difference and the excitement and the companies are locating there.

Open AI is creating concentric circles of companies, et cetera.

All the AI people are staying in San Francisco.

So are you, are you, and

Silicon Valley,

how do you look at this, this concern that they're going to leave?

They're going to Texas or Florida or wherever?

Yeah.

And to be clear,

first of all, I'm a fan of AI.

I think it has so much potential for good.

And I love that San Francisco is the beating heart of AI innovation.

And I've been a supporter of fostering and having a strong tech presence in San Francisco.

There have been some really melodramatic statements, including from Jan, and I have a lot of respect for him, but I think some of his statements and others that

made by some other folks have been really extreme and over the top and sometimes have not even accurately described what the bill does.

I do not think that this is going to somehow,

there's always this statement that we're going to push people out.

Even when Elon Musk said he was moving Tesla out, he didn't really move it out.

He was expanding Tesla in California.

So I don't think he's a different character.

He is a drama queen, but good.

Yes, he is.

But

I don't see that happening.

In addition to the fact that

what triggers this bill

is not being headquartered in California, it's doing doing business here.

And so the idea that they're not going to even do business in California is sort of laughable.

So

I don't think that that is a real risk, to be honest.

Aaron Powell, Jr.: So I would imagine one of the arguments put forward is that China and Russia aren't going to have this hyper regulation.

And as a result, they're going to be able to go faster and their AI-weaponized warriors will come for our children.

Is that an argument?

And how would you respond to that?

I mean,

there is this argument that we have to have

bigger and more powerful and more dangerous and more whatever

AI models in order to compete with their deadly models.

I don't, to me, that's not,

that's probably not the direction we should be going.

And just to be clear, we are not, this bill does not ban anything.

It does not,

they can build these powerful models.

They can deploy these powerful models.

It does not limit them in any way.

It just says do a basic safety test, the kind of test that you say that you are already doing.

And if it identifies

a real risk that it might shut down the grid for six months,

maybe

take some step to at least reduce.

that risk.

I don't think that that is unfair.

And I don't think the competition with China is an excuse to say anything goes.

They do use, yeah, they do, as Scott's correct, they They use that.

The geor me argument is like perhaps for years and years.

I mean, the idea of, you know, I always say this.

I'm like, you have the ship, the shipwrecks.

What's wrong with the lighthouse?

They don't want a lighthouse.

They really don't.

I feel like I'd love to know what legislation they would want to make.

But actually, you know, there goes to a bigger problem, Scott, is why are you doing this, right?

Why is the state of California?

Not you, what the hell are you doing with your life, Scott, but other Scott?

That's a bigger problem.

That's a bigger problem.

Yeah, but, you know,

why is the federal government moving into this?

Like, that's really the issue.

I know Biden put out the executive order, which has some of these elements in it, by the way, a lot of them, including, you know, but any kind of restriction seems

should come from the federal government.

So we have consistently across all 50 states and decision-making that isn't done by California legislators as much as you might be the epicenter of it.

Oh, I agree with you a thousand percent.

It would be better for the federal government to do this.

And

let's wait and see see if the federal government actually ever does it, especially since Steve Scalise,

House Republican majority leader, said last week that nothing of significance was going to happen.

Let's remember that Congress

has never passed a data privacy law after all these years.

Congress has done nothing on social media.

Congress has never been able to do that.

Well, they're trying to do labeling today, but anyway, go ahead.

Well, Congress has never enacted a net neutrality law.

I authored California's net neutrality law in 2018, thinking maybe I would be preempted at some point in the next few years.

It never happened.

So

other than banning TikTok, the last major piece of the last major federal tech law that was passed was in the 90s.

And so I don't have a lot of confidence.

I hope I'm wrong.

And if they pass some comprehensive, fantastic federal regulation and want to and maybe preempt our law,

that could be a really good result.

but they're not doing that right now.

Supposedly you're going to run for the Pelosi seat when she leaves it, I understand.

Is that correct?

Well, we have a fantastic member of Congress.

And yeah,

whenever she decides,

makes her own decision, then I'll definitely,

you know, I love representing San Francisco.

I want to bring you, I'm not putting you on the spot, but I just did.

So you live there and you represent the city.

You were my representative in the Castro, for people that know in the city government.

You represent the city as state senators.

And this negative narrative about San Francisco for a while, and I don't think you've pretended it wasn't the troubles were not happening.

It's been called a failed city of dystopian hellscape.

I have to say, it's quite vibrant.

AI is part of it,

AI companies.

And it seems like it's on a comeback loop.

There's a very exciting mayor's race.

It's very competitive and very different visions of San Francisco.

Many of them would be considered conservative.

Well, it wouldn't be that conservative.

But what is your message for now for San Francisco's critics?

I think that sort of hellscape narrative is sort of moving to a new place because everything is getting better,

and things are getting fixed slowly.

Very difficult to be a city

post-COVID.

But what is your message for San Francisco's critics who are all back, by the way?

Yeah.

And, you know,

there's a national pastime of predicting San Francisco's demise and writing our obituary.

People have been doing it for, I don't know, probably 100 years.

And this is a city that burned down in an earthquake.

Our mayor was assassinated along with Harvey Milk.

We once were probably the hardest hit from HIV, and everyone over and over again said San Francisco was over, and then we came back.

And so, yeah, we've been going through some tough times, particularly with our downtown

because of the

lack of full return to work.

Our neighborhoods are thriving.

The neighborhoods are so vibrant.

We have amazing, massive outdoor events.

Everyone wants to be out outside with their friends, with their community.

We are seeing with not just with AI, but with biotech, with healthcare, with a number of different industries, a real surge.

And even in the shopping center that was the store closure heard around the world where Nordstrom closed,

there are people who are leasing spaces in that shopping center.

Obviously, we got hard hit with homelessness and fentanyl, which is affecting all big cities, especially on the West Coast.

And Mayor Breed has been doing some, taking some pretty aggressive strategies, and the street conditions are dramatically better than they were a year ago.

There's still more work to do, but

it's getting better.

And I'm optimistic about the city's future.

If you were to be elected to federal office, one, do you think that individuals who leverage the infrastructure, the culture, the amazing universities, the public infrastructure, the public investments that California taxpayers and specifically San Francisco citizens of San Francisco pay such that they can create these unbelievable companies, people aggregate a ton of wealth and then have a habit of deciding to spend more time with their

father or they just can't handle San Francisco any longer, just about the time they're going to recognize an enormous capital gain and they move to Texas or Florida.

Would you be open to sponsoring legislation that similar to options on equity recognizes where those individuals actually accreted that wealth and applying those taxes such that you could reinvest in the great infrastructure that was responsible for that wealth?

That was a word salad, but I think you know I'm bothered.

And he's not talking about anyone specifically, but go ahead.

Well, there's a lot of them.

I'm teasing you, Scott.

You're absolutely talking about people.

Yeah, there are.

Yeah, I think I would certainly be

open to that.

You know, I think there are a lot of people who have made fortunes in California because of our state and including with public investments in some situations.

And I'm glad that they made a fortune.

You know, that's that's great.

But I also think fair taxation is important and it does.

I'm not a fan of the whole make my money there and then and then and then leave.

yeah they like to do that though anyway scott you're a very great public servant i really enjoy talking to you um

you're quite a sensible fellow people always have this idea of san francisco legislators it's very different from reality how old are you scott 54.

so another 50 years you can run for uh pelosi seat

jesus christ churn folks we need churn bring in this bring in this incredibly young reckless 54 year old for god's sakes yeah sorry

that was an endorsement in case you didn't recognize it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I do have to say I spend quite a bit of time around Nancy Pelosi and I pray to God that I am half as sharp as she is.

She really is.

I gotta tell you.

I mean, she is ladies are not like the old guys.

An impressive woman.

An impressive woman.

She still is.

She's an extraordinary person.

She really is, Scott.

She's crowned her legacy.

Anyways, she's now going to kill you.

Just watch out.

She's going to take you down.

Like,

that's not someone who is old in any way.

Anyway, but nonetheless, you're right.

Chern, as Scott says.

Scott, thank you so much, Other Scott.

Thanks, Scott.

We appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me.

All right, Scott, do you like the other Scott?

He's impressive, isn't he?

Yeah, I hope.

Look, and this goes back to what we were saying about the NSA.

I know a lot of people in our security apparatus.

This is who these people are.

Incredibly well-credentialed, incredibly hardworking people.

People who decide to give up a lot more money to go work in service of their nation.

And the fact that people on the far left are suspicious of them and dismissive of them and people on the far right think there's some sort of like, I don't know, weird.

These are the people protecting your rights to say these batshit, crazy things and have a decent quality of life.

And they really do deserve our respect.

And I can't stand the extremists on the left and on the right that all unify to shit post people on our security apparatus.

Not just

Paul, but just, and Scott, too.

I I mean, I think one of the reasons I want to bring him on is like,

he's considered conservative in San Francisco, though he's not, right?

He's just reasonable.

And I think one of the things that's important is like, let's take a fucking second and actually meet these people and show what kind of work they're doing instead of making everyone a cartoon character of a city or a country, including on the right, by the way, saying, I just interviewed Brad Raffensperger, the one who pushed back on Trump.

Very conservative, but incredible public servant, incredible public servant.

And I wouldn't vote for him, but incredible public servant.

Also, I hope hope the general makes a shit ton of money i'd like to see him that's exactly the kind of person that makes general nakassani it's the kind of person i'd like to see make a lot of money absolutely scott one more quick break we'll be back for wins and fails

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Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails.

Would you like to go first or I can?

You go first, Cara.

So I was going to talk about that Mississippi nonprofit newsroom facing the free press challenge, which you must read about this.

This is the Mississippi press.

They're doing amazing work and they are getting pilloried by Republicans who just don't like...

They never question the work.

They just want to stop them in their tracks by messing, so gumming up the works with all kinds of legal fees.

I was going to talk about that.

But actually, I want to talk about a story that's in the Wall Street Journal.

I think, Scott, this is something that's important to you too.

But this is an influence.

The influencer is a young teenage girl.

The audience is 92% adult men.

This story is, it's not a surprise

and

it's not something that I was, oh no, but it was an incredible explanation of how difficult it is, one, for these tech companies to push back against all these men

and the people who are doing this stuff online, young people,

how it's very hard to protect them.

And at the same time, in order to be successful, you have to have a lot of engagement.

And and the people that have engagements around young girls are are more men um let me read the first part just and you must read the story the mom started the instagram account three years ago as a pandemic era diversion a way for her daughter her and her daughter a preteen dancer to share photos with family friends and other young dancers and moms the two bonded she said as they posted photos of the girl dancing modeling and living life in a small midwestern town the mom a former marketing manager oversaw the account and watched as the number of followers grew.

Soon, photographers offered to take professional shots for the girl.

Brands began sending free apparel for her to model.

We didn't even have a page for a month, and brands were like, Can we send her dancewear?

The mom said she became popular really fast.

The mom also began to notice a disturbing trend of the data that showed up on the account dashboard.

Most of the girl's followers were adult men, and then it goes, it gets worse from there in terms of their comments and everything else.

And she kept blocking them and kept blocking them.

And all kinds of stuff was happening.

And it was, it's,

it's a fucking tale as old as time, but boy, is it amplified online.

And it's, it's, I don't know what to say.

It's just not a surprise, and yet it's repulsive.

I just, I don't, you know, you can't use these tools without immediately becoming a sewer in so many ways.

So

there's a big story today about

putting warnings on social media sites, by the way.

I've got to read about it, but we'll talk about that maybe on stage this week, tomorrow.

So anyway,

that was a really disturbing story.

On the positive side, Bridgerton this season is so good.

You love it.

So good.

I binge-watched it on the TV.

Now, look, all the boobs and sex are adult.

So, you know what I mean?

It's for adults.

It's sexy.

It's like fun.

They have a whole thing about a girl that's a wallflower who then becomes

the star of this season.

She's amazing, by the way.

And she does talk about her terrific boobs, which are, she is correct about that.

Anyway, just a really fun, wonderful show.

I love that show.

And I love, I love it every season.

And they focus on a different person.

And the woman, I don't know her name, who plays the queen cracks the shit out of me.

She's so funny.

And so, Shonda Rhimes, you are the OG best person ever.

I'm sorry.

It's the Shonda Rhimes show on Netflix.

And man, is it good?

All right, that's it.

Just with respect to your, that article on the influencer in the Wall Street Journal, like this conference we're at, it used to be an advertising conference, but it's the same thing.

It's tech.

And that is

the fact that men and a lot of women are very drawn towards sex and anything connoting sex, that's a tale as old as time.

It's a big part of our economy because propagation is something that's key to survival of the species.

But what we also, generally speaking, have decided as a society is that we're going to limit the exposure, engagement, and threat of these things that can lead dark places to people under the age of 18.

And then came Instagram.

Instagram begins from a place of perversion, in that, is all of the incentives for young people to get on Instagram, especially for young women, are to sexualize themselves such that a group of their peers and strange men, in this instance, 92% of the engagement, are

to be evaluated by strange men from around the world, evaluating the sexual attractiveness of a minor.

We used to decide that's not cool.

That is not right.

That leads to bad places.

And this entire article is nothing but, again, let's move to solutions.

We need to age gate social media.

Yes, I would agree with you.

I was sickened by this story.

But every incentive is like a path towards put on a bathing suit.

Show up without a bra in a loose shirt and jump around.

And all of a sudden, your video is going to get 10 times the number of videos.

You need to age gate this shit.

Don't put kids in a position where they are seduced into sexualizing themselves as minors.

And don't create incentives for the parents.

Don't create incentives for men to feel like they're not doing anything wrong when they start engaging in content with minors.

This is on social media.

I couldn't get into R-rated films when I was 16 and 17.

There was a reason for that.

And one of the things, can I just make you out?

There's another story today in the post that I thought was good.

TikTok lifted this family out of public housing, see their life before and after.

So, in a lot of ways, this is kind of great business, great entrepreneurship, great this, great that, great opportunities for people, especially in the fun stuff, the dancing, the, you know, the makeup.

Like, I kind of like it, like in that regard.

I don't think it's as stupid as other people do, but immediately degenerates.

And honestly, there's nothing these, I feel terrible for these tech companies too, because there's no way to, there's just not having it is the like someone's like how do you stop it i'm like not having it is the only choice because degener i don't i don't even know what the solution age gating is the only solution not not allowing them on these platforms like just around the revenue argument okay tracy lords made a shit ton of money for a 16 year old by being in porn and that was wrong And we had age limits and it almost brought down the porn industry as it should have because people recognized there was no real concerted effort to check her true age.

I'll pass lead to the same place, and I think we'll eventually get there.

I was talking to someone, and I said, How old are your kids?

and they said six and nine.

I'm like, By the time your kids are ready for social media, we will have, as a society, finally gotten our head out of our ass and realized that anyone under the age of 16 should not be on social media.

And any platform that is letting 16 and 17-year-old people be sexualized should be subject to two

should not be protected by 230.

This is just this leads nowhere good.

And yeah, some people won't make as much money.

Okay, fine.

Would you,

what would you have your 16-year-old girl do for money?

This shouldn't be it.

And it has to be universal.

It has to be collective action because if you try and take everyone and all the people who say, well, just take their phone away, do not have children, because if all your kids' friends are on social, they have to be social.

Otherwise, they're more depressed because they're ostracized.

All roads lead to the same place.

We need to get your friend Scott elected.

Age gating, for God's sake.

I'm come around, especially with my daughter.

I'm like, I felt sick to my stomach reading this.

Anyway, what are your wins and fails?

Well, I kind of have

what I'll call

two wins, but Team England beat Serbia one to nothing.

Not a huge win, but I think we're just not showing our cards to the competition.

I'm, of course, talking about the European Championship here.

But Team England, my favorite players, Bukayo Saka from Arsenal, Cole Palmer, who's just this kid wonder who plays for Chelsea.

Jude Bellingham won the goal last night, but it's going to be just an amazing tournament.

Super excited about it.

I would also say, and I'm not going to go into specifics here, but to

fans from England who've made the trip to Germany, Premier League football is probably one of England's strongest exports.

It's going to build tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of jobs.

When you're just not a good guest in their country,

you're really hurting England.

And

this is, of all of the industries that are emerging in the UK, something that the UK does really well is the Prem, Premier League.

And just as the NBA and the NFL have been huge economic drivers in the United States, it could be a huge economic driver.

Anyways, I'm excited about the European Championship in Team England.

My fail, I'm at that age, Kara.

And just a quick shout out.

All my friends' parents are passing away, and I have a nice story.

My best friend is a guy named Lee Lotus, who I met in college.

He was the best man at my wedding.

His husband is

godparent to my oldest Alec.

His father, Lee Sr.,

is doing very poorly and will likely pass soon.

And there was a couple moments I remember with his father.

His father came and visited Lee and me.

We were living together in San Francisco, and Lee had a kidney stone.

So me and Lee, he said, will you do something?

Lee had said, will you do some with my dad?

So, of course, me and Lee's father went to see the USS Pomponito, which is that submarine of the Fisherman's Wharf.

Great.

But this guy was a man's man.

He had a furniture store.

He was one of the people that gave me the confidence to start a business.

And I remember going visiting him at the furniture store, and he would be so focused on detail.

And I think that stuck with him.

It's the little things that matter.

But the one thing I remember.

Stuck with you, not him.

Stuck with you.

Stuck with me.

But the one thing I remember the most was this guy looked like Burt Reynolds.

Like when you were a young man, you looked at this guy.

He was just so handsome, married to the same woman, Carolyn Lotus, for 60 plus years.

But this guy was so good looking.

And I remember this exact moment.

He walked into Lee's apartment.

He shook my hand and he turned to Lee.

And you know what they did?

They kissed.

And I thought, oh my God, I've never,

they like, they kissed on the lips like Italian people do sometimes.

And it seemed so natural and so wholesome.

And I remember thinking, and I came from a background where men just did not kiss each other.

And I remember thinking that if a guy who looks like Burt Reynolds can kiss his son, I can kiss mine.

And

I kiss my sons because of Lee.

Oh, Scott, you kill me.

You're killing me.

This is what people love about you, Scott, when you go here.

I'll tell you.

Anyway,

this guy, literally a man's man,

kissed his son.

You know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to kiss you on the lips tomorrow.

That's what I'm doing.

With that porcelain skin.

Yes, with my perfect skin.

I'm going to to kiss you on the lips live on the French Riviera.

That's a beautiful story.

That's nice.

Yes, that's a beautiful story.

I'm so sorry.

That sounds like a life well lived.

It really is a wonderful story.

Wonderful guy.

Anyway,

that is, I don't know what to say.

That's a great story.

Let's just end on that.

So we want to hear from you.

Send us your questions about business tech.

You almost made me cry, Scott, but not quite.

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're launching a special series tomorrow on the future of travel, a three-part series

on where we look at the business and tech trends affecting travel from planes to trains and automobiles.

Tomorrow, we kick it off with a look at the future of high-speed rail.

That was a cool show.

And why other countries have better trains than we do?

They all do.

And we started the whole train thing.

No, we didn't.

But nonetheless, we should have better trains.

Then on Friday, we're bringing you our episode taped live at Conn.

We're very excited.

Scott, read us out.

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

Aaliyah Jackson engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miles Silverio.

Yeshua Kurua 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 later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

Dads, kiss your sons.

Scott, happy happy Father's Day.

Likewise to you, Tara and Amanda.