Elon's OpenAI Lawsuit, EU's Big Tech Regulation, and Guest Tom Scocca

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Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Carol Swisher.

And I'm reading your book.

You are, finally.

How nice for you to do that.

I downloaded it on Kindle, and I'm already

50 pages in, and it's surprisingly tolerable.

Oh, my God.

Scott, you don't have to be careful.

We got a lot of emails from women that are like, what an asshole.

But go ahead.

Sorry.

Tell me what you're talking about.

What does that have to do with why?

Your tone last week was somewhat rude, I would say.

But go ahead.

But what does that have to do with women?

Anyways.

Not just saying I got a dozen and a half emails from women who thought you were dismissive.

But go ahead.

Keep dismissing me.

Which part?

Tolerable.

The part where I said that I bought your book and I'm reading it.

When you say someone's book is tolerable, it's rude.

It's rude.

It's just rude.

It's just rude.

I don't feel like you're being rude to me today because I'm having a great week with my book.

How about that?

Okay.

Anyways, I'm enjoying it.

Thank you.

It's sort of a, I would describe it almost as sort of a history of the internet a little bit.

It is indeed

overlaid with your

kind of your, a little bit of your, with drips of sort of your personal life through that period.

That's right.

Yes.

They asked me to put that in.

I was.

I wouldn't, I was resistant to that, but they were correct to do that.

Yeah, I'm sort of 50 pages in and i started reading it last night and there's a lot of stuff i forgot about but anyways i'm enjoying it yeah yeah i um i tried to make it uh they wanted a more of a personal one and i thought that was an interesting and i tried to make it for regular people it's not really written for techies you'll see as it goes in but it gives you a good history of the internet if you're just interested in that no it's not it's not a tech book i don't i don't see it as tech i see it as more like

at least so far,

it's more like a period piece.

I mean, technology was such a big part of the era.

It kind of, I wonder if people look back on this era and I wonder if it'll be defined by technology.

I think it'll be defined by tech

and hopefully not fascism.

I move to fascism.

Yeah, we're moving that way.

Yeah.

Quickly.

Anyways, it feels

or it makes me somewhat nostalgic for crazy and how they shifted from one dominance to the other.

I mean, like things were in and out.

Like Yahoo was in and then it was out.

And AOL was in and then it was out.

And, you know how people lived and died and of course who who survived and who we thought was going to survive is really interesting.

And then the Renaissance.

I mean you realize from 1999 to 2001 the most valuable company in 1999 was Cisco because well all of a sudden everyone got very intoxicated and excited about the internet.

These campuses became massively overvalued.

crashed and everyone thought, oh, let's go to the safe bet.

Let's go to infrastructure, bid up Cisco.

It lost 90% of its value.

You know who also lost 90% of its value?

Amazon.

Amazon, that's right.

Amazon.bomb.

I think I mentioned that.

You'll get to that.

Everyone thought there were, you can find a lot of articles from the beginning of the millennium where a lot of really intelligent analysts were saying this is an obvious bankruptcy.

Yeah,

that was the one he got so annoyed at was the cover.

Remember the cover of, was it Baron's?

It was Baron's, where he was a picture of Jeff Bezos as a bomb with a thing going off called Amazon.bomb.

And it drove him nuts, that particular cover.

But there were lots of people that were doing it.

And then, you know,

it shot up so fast and then it shot down, really.

But yeah, people were worried about that business and it was touch and go for a lot of them.

You know, it's a little like Tesla, a little like right now, NVIDIA is the hot, hot company.

Now, I think it's still

a substantive company.

Yeah.

Yeah, but it's like a little like Cisco, right?

And there's going to be competitors to it, although it's hard to compete in this particular space as quickly.

But it's definitely, it's got echoes.

That's what I was trying to do was echoes to them to now and stuff like that.

So, I was right.

I mean, the cautionary tales, I think there's a couple of things.

One, I think power corrupts.

And I think, and it kind of we're talking about this today with Apple and the EU, but you know, these companies have just become too powerful as a function of our idolatry, of them, our belief that there are new gods, heroes, our worship of money, the extraordinary, you know, that technology is the closest thing to Jesus and magic that we have.

But it also, I mean, on a very much more mundane level, it strikes me, and I'm thinking about this a lot, the power diversification, because it would have been so easy to sell Amazon after it was down 80% and think, that's it, I'm done.

And so easy to just keep piling into Cisco.

But the key is you do a little bit of everything because you know what?

It just showed me looking back, no one has any fucking idea.

No, we're all guessing.

That's 100% true.

We're all guessing.

Some of the things you can have some sense of.

Like right now, the companies that have data are going to do better you know as we move into this age but they're going to be totally overinvested as usual right as they did with crypto with everything else now this is obviously a more substantive business ai but it's still going to be overinvested like where do you put your money precisely but okay so but you talked about crypto what's up 50 year to date bitcoin bitcoin i mean i know who would have thunk that

and and nvidia looked overvalued before it went up another hundred percent Yeah, I know.

Even now, even now, I had someone sit next to me at one of these events and they were like, wow, I didn't get into

NVIDIA three weeks ago or whatever it was, and now I regret it.

Should I do it now?

And I was like, I am not going to tell you one word.

I don't know.

Well, here's the thing.

I've been thinking a lot about this because

the majority of the questions, I get questions from mothers about their sons, and I get questions from young men about careers and investing.

And I used to give individual stock advice.

I no longer do that because the biggest question I'm I'm getting now is, is it too late to get into NVIDIA?

And I can make a really good argument for why it's not and why it's absolutely too late.

And here I think is the closest thing to a correct answer without trying to dodge the question.

If you buy a low-cost index fund by virtue of the success of the seven Samurai or the Magnumism 7 and the fact that an index fund is weighted,

About 31, 32% of your money is going to be invested in these seven great companies, but 68% will be invested in other things.

So you can't get too badly hurt.

People are throwing in the talent just buying.

They are.

Everywhere I go, people are talking about NVIDIA, just NVIDIA.

They're not talking about other stuff, although they're talking about tech stocks being up, but they're used to those going up.

It's a really, it feels a little frothy.

It feels a lot frothy.

Oh, there's definitely an AI.

I mean, Anthropics raising at $19 billion.

And then companies that technically aren't even really producing chips for AI.

Just sticking AI onto their thing.

You know, I'm an AI.

I'm terri-AI.

Terra AI.

As you know, I'm already in AI.

But anyway, it's a really interesting time.

I think you'll be interested with the history stuff.

It is so many, you know,

they have the expression, history doesn't repeat itself.

It rhymes.

That's what it feels like right now.

So I think that's why it's a good thing to look at.

You know, you just don't, mostly you don't know.

We have a lot to get to today, including Elon Musk's lawsuit against Open AI and Sam Altman, and big tech is facing new rules in the EU that could be a major turning point for regulation.

Plus, our friend, Pivot, is writer and editor Tom Skoka.

Tom's powerful essay in New York Magazine about his personal medical mystery generated a huge reaction online.

Really interesting.

We should talk more about healthcare.

And so we are.

But first, today is Super Tuesday, which should solidify a Biden-Trump rematch, despite Nikki Haley's Washington, D.C.

primary victory.

Congratulations, Nikki.

And Thursday is the State of the Union, which will offer Biden a chance to make a case for the second term.

It's a big, important speech.

Apparently, it's going to be short, which was probably a good idea.

On Monday, the Supreme Court said that Trump will be allowed to appear on Colorado's 2024 primary ballot, reversing lower court's decision that he would be disqualified over the insurrection.

I think that's the right decision.

Polling of national registered voters currently shows Biden with 43% support lagging behind Trump's 48%.

I honestly think Trump is peaking, but we'll see.

What do you think about

where Biden is, the state of the union?

You spoke to David Leonhardt of the New York Times on the Prof G about whether we're talking too much about Biden's age.

As a journalist, I'm a little bit haunted by a Gallup poll that came out after the 2016 campaign that asked Americans what they'd heard about each candidate.

And the number one thing that most Americans reported hearing about Hillary Clinton was about her emails.

I think Hillary Clinton's emails were a legitimate story.

Surely they were not the most important thing about Hillary Clinton in 2016.

And I worry a little bit that those of us in the media are at some risk of repeating that

and

talking so much about Joe Biden's age in particular that we come to make it seem like the only issue in this election.

I was interested that you did that because you've been whacking on the age thing far too much, as far as I'm concerned.

But tell us about that.

I like to think I've been transparent about it.

If they have Biden's corpse and they can somehow animate it and occasionally he can say something, I'll vote for him over fascism.

Tom Brady was the greatest quarterback in history and now he's too old.

Biology doesn't care about

this is my fear.

So you were not persuaded by David, but go ahead.

I'm an ageist.

And you know who else is ageist?

Biology.

And here's, yeah, okay.

Here's the really upsetting, conflicting thing for anything, anyone who cares about our democracy.

Biden runs the risk of going from being one of the best presidents in history to one of the worst because this narcissism that infected Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Senator Feinstein has unfortunately infected President Biden.

If he were to crown, support a younger, capable person to be the president, he would go down in history as one of the greatest presidents, and that person would beat the shit out of the fascist who is running.

You might add rapist, fascist, rapist, but go ahead.

Okay.

That felt dismissive.

Anyways, just calling him fascist wasn't enough.

Okay.

Fascist.

No.

Fascist.

And he's actually, yes, I think that the technical term the judge used was he's guilty of sexual abuse, which is as far as I can tell you.

He said rapist, but go ahead.

Anyways, and I just, I'm really worried about this, that this same level of narcissism and a bunch of people around.

And if he gets the nomination, which I think he will,

I'm planning on taking my 16-year-old son to one of the swing states and canvassing for him because I think it'll be a great experience for my son.

And I want to be able to say that I did my part standing up to fascism.

But let's be clear, the same narcissism that infected Justice Ginsburg and Senator Feinstein and a lot of people across both aisles is a huge risk right now.

He is taking an enormous risk because

I personally think if he stepped back and said, I'm throwing my weight around Governor Newson, Governor Whitmer, pick your candidate.

They put someone young and competent on the stage with Trump.

I think he wins by 10 points.

He or she wins by 10 points.

I think they are really playing a dangerous game here, and they're dealing with an issue that gets worse every day.

Having said that, if he's the nominee, I am going to do everything I can.

And I think you will, too.

It's just, it's such an uncomfortable place for Democrats right now.

See, I honestly think Trump is cognitively disabled.

Also, he just is more lively about it.

He mixed up about he thought obama was president the other day he's missing words all the time it's all the time he does this so i'm not sure why he's not getting equal and complete attention for this because it's disturbing the way he does it he's like you know he's off on another thing and as to rapist just so you know the judge clarified the basic legal death distinction without a real world difference he said the jury found that he was uh of sexual abuse but in the real world it's commonly understood the jury found trump did was in fact rape so he's a fascist rapist so I'm correct in that.

But, and that's not focused in on enough.

Like, you're going to elect a fascist rapist with a cognitive disorder.

Or the 27 other women who accused him of the same thing.

That's correct.

Correct.

He's a rapist.

I have no, I would say that to his face.

That the fact that he has cognitive disability that is significant, it looks significant to me, makes me even more worried that we're not folk.

I think David was right, that this is not equally.

You have one guy who has cognitive issues, no question, who have, who gets a lot of shit done.

And you have one guy who's literally threatening revenge and all kinds of manner of repulsive things who is cognitive disabled, also has fascist tendencies and is a rapist and also did an insurrection.

I just don't know.

This is what I think David was making an excellent point on your show.

The fan overlap is huge on our points here.

One, we agree.

that a threat to the West, much less America, much less women's rights, much less democracy as we know it, much less the economy, is the prospect of the fascist rapist being reelected.

We agree on that.

We agree that President Biden gets an unfair scrutiny of which the same problems apply to President Trump.

Where I think we part company a little bit is I am more disappointed that Democrats and President Biden haven't done the math and gone, I know.

Let's ensure the fascist rapist doesn't get back into office and let's find somebody young and capable, including the president of the fifth largest economy in the world, California, or an outstanding leader in Democrat, Governor Whitmer.

And let's make sure, let's make our top priority that this fascist rapist is not re-elected.

And I don't think,

you know, to me,

that's the priority here.

Because this, you know, you feel like every election is the most important election in your life, or at least that's what they tell you.

This does feel that way.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know how you engineer that at this point.

That's, I mean, I think you might be right.

It might be too late.

I don't know how you engineer that.

So we got to, you know, go right.

We're riding with Biden.

That's the situation.

I think this state of the union is very important.

Most people think it should be short and sweet, should be attacking Trump and should be fast, like not a long, you know,

swinging crisp.

Yeah.

Swinging crisp.

He did a very good job last year, as you recall, when they were the Medicare thing.

So everyone thinks it should be crisp, fast, short, and strong.

And we'll see, you see as it starts to, things start, as soon as you see more of Donald Trump, I think more people, I get that people are like, they've forgotten him a little bit, but I think they will start to remember him.

We'll see.

We'll see.

But you're right.

It's a very dicey.

As usual, we're down to a dramatic stakes in American American politics

used to be pretty boring, and now it is not.

It is really disturbing.

Well,

I'm making a crude analogy here that will offend a lot of people, but I think of similar to the way I think about Hamas, i think about donald trump and that is over time they reveal themselves and i think as we get closer to the election and swing voters who swing voter is latin for they just don't care about politics they're like me in my 20s and 30s like whatever yeah i'll vote but i i have a bigger fish to fry than to be obsessed with msnbc and cnn every day and or fox

And I just think as the election goes on and there's more of a bright light on both of these candidates,

I just don't think he's going to get new voters.

People are saying he's getting people, interesting enough, from non-white communities.

But the thing I, that, that

time is not, biology is not on our side, unfortunately.

We are taking risks, I think, that are just too big to take.

But time is on our side in the sense that time has a way of revealing.

For example, now 80 plus percent of Americans support Israel in the war because over time, they have learned more and more about the murderous, corrupt, strange

culture that is Hamas.

I think the same is true of Trump.

I think as people spend more time watching him over the next year, I have to say young people, every young person I talk to is not pro-Israel.

They're not inbuilt pro-Israel.

Yeah, the numbers are 80% right now.

I'm just saying the numbers are.

Yeah,

there's been

a renewed support for Israel as

I think the truth

around Hamas has started to drip out.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

That last attack seemed rather egregious and the kids dying.

I think I'm just saying, I'm hearing from a lot of young people, that's not the case,

including Louie, which is interesting.

And he's, you know, he's a very smart breeder and everything else.

I think the death of children.

Anyway, we have to go on.

This is a, we'll see what's going to happen.

We'll watch the State of the Union.

We'll see how the State of the Union is.

The IRS is cracking down on wealthy tax cheats.

25,000 letters is sent to people who make over a million dollars a year with additional 100,000 letters to people who make over $400,000 a year.

The letters will target top earners who declined to fill out tax returns called non-filers and will extend back to 2017.

Who does that?

The IRS says it believes letter targets amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes.

Over the last decade, IRS audit rates have gone down 86% for earners making more than $5 million a year.

Have you checked your mail, Scott?

I was just wondering.

I haven't gotten one of these letters.

Have you?

Yeah, no.

No,

I'm very intense on filing.

I'm very, I have a great experience.

Oh, no, I've never not filed my taxes.

I had someone who didn't do it for years, but

the government owed them.

They just never filed a very rich person.

It was weird.

And then they got money back.

It was weird.

But I don't know.

What do you think about this?

Any thoughts?

The IRS has, of course, been politicized again.

There are few investments that show a greater return, guaranteed return on investment, than investments in the IRS.

And they're not going out and harassing people.

They're just enforcing the law.

law.

For every dollar you give to the IRS, they go find $12 that Americans, corporations, foreigners, foreign corporations owe the government.

They're not harassing anybody.

And complexity favors incumbents and wealthy in the corporations.

And if you have the money to have Starlink or GPS, you want to run your boat race at night.

because others don't have that technology.

So every time they add a page of complexity to the tax code, it favors the rich.

And this is why you make the tax code more and more complex, which means your tax filing as a rich person is dozens, if not hundreds of pages.

And then you get your Republican senator, who basically represents the 1% of corporations, to defund the IRS.

And then boom, they don't have the resources to audit.

wealthy people because everyone's like, well, AI.

Well, you know who AI is increasing the audits on?

Simple tax returns, lower and middle income people.

You need highly trained, expensive people to audit wealthy people.

So the incentives are the following.

If you're wealthy, which means you have a complicated tax return, your incentive is to be as aggressive as possible around your taxes, not to declare income, to pretend certain personal expenses are business expenses, to see if you can slip shit under the radar.

Because guess what?

The radar is turned off for rich people right now.

So this is another example of a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

When they want to cut IRS funding, I'm always like, this is the best investment.

IRS

as much as 12 to 1.

12 to 1.

All right, we got to get on.

President Biden is moving to block internet-connected Chinese cars from the American auto market, calling the risk to national security.

Ah, they're bringing in cars now.

Biden is calling for the Commerce Department investigation into security threats, including including fears of operating systems could send sensitive information to China.

If TikTok isn't enough, the cars are next.

China has expanded production of EVs in recent years with smaller options selling for less than $11,000, way below most American-made EVs, which average over $50,000.

Chinese EVs already face high tariffs on top of the usual 2.5% tax on foreign-made cars.

A special 25% tax on Chinese-made vehicles has been in place since 2018.

This is BYD, which has, oddly enough, an investment from Warren Buffett.

They're thinking of creating a plant in Mexico.

Obviously, this is a big Elon Musk thing, too, but also GM and Ford and the others.

You know, these are doing very well, these cars, across the globe.

And so they want to enter the U.S.

market, even though we do not enter their market quite as easily.

We talked about this last week.

BYD is probably the most important company that you've never heard of.

And

just such...

that I don't sound too inconsistent here.

I think that a media company that has figured out a way to addict young people to to the extent that they spend more time on that media company than all of the media combined, and that is the frame through which they perceive the world.

It is clear that the CCP, in my view,

has decided to try and shape young or future civic, business, military, nonprofit leaders around their frame and get us fighting against each other.

I think that is an existential threat.

I do not see that threat with cars.

Cars, yeah.

I don't see that.

Except for taking American businesses.

That would be it.

Taking America.

Well, okay, but here's the thing.

They don't don't allow our media companies into China.

So you could kick TikTok out based on just asymmetric trade relations.

However, they do let Tesla into China.

So I don't understand.

My attitude is, yeah, charge the terrorists, make it part of our, have Gio Raymondo, who's an incredibly impressive person, make sure that we're getting access to their market.

But I do not see a security threat from Toyota or BYD.

I just don't see it.

Yeah, I agree on the security threat.

I thought that was over.

I think he probably got pressure.

Not, you know, Musk has been saying this, but I think from the car makers, I think it's a competitive pressure because they make them.

I think one of the things someone was writing me from China who knows a lot about this, he said, one of the issues is whether they can pass U.S.

crash test rules.

There's a lot of people.

He said, he lives in China.

He's an American, but lived there forever.

He said that a lot of people don't want to get in BYD cars because the crash tests aren't as, so that'll be a big challenge for them.

But if they meet all our criteria, they certainly should be able to compete here.

But I think these companies are worried and they don't want to compete against Chinese car makers.

I don't think they're a security threat.

I mean, when are you going to run that car?

I don't either.

Having spent a decent amount of time in China and having learned a little bit about their supply chain, all they need is give us the blueprints for your safety standards, and we will figure it out faster than anyone in the world at a lower cost.

Yeah, but he was saying there is worry within China of these things.

They have to meet our crash tests, so it doesn't really matter.

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

Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, saying they abandoned the company's original mission to develop AI for the benefit of humanity and not-for-profit.

In the lawsuit, Musk accuses OpenAI and Altman of being in breach of contract and violating fiduciary duty, and asked that OpenAI be required to open up its technology to others.

OpenAIA is pushing back against Musk in a lawsuit and an internal memo to employees.

Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwan writing, we believe the claims in this suit may stem from Elon's regrets about not being involved in the company today.

Translation, he's a loser.

I believe that's their attitude there at OpenAI.

In fact, I know it is.

First of all, as I said on X, for those not a lawyer, my summary, tough toenails, AI Karen.

The node Khosla, who's an investor in OpenAI, posted about the suit saying it feels like a bit of sour grapes.

Most lawyers that have written about it says there's no merit.

It's not a contract.

This was not a contract.

And it's just a lot of grievance by Elon Musk.

Most contract lawyers think it's not.

But Elon always does a pitch over the plate and an attempt.

Lawsuits

are his love language.

What do you think about

the lawsuit, Scott?

I had coffee with Ted Sarandos a few weeks ago.

By the way, a lovely guy.

And about 12 years ago, I bought what was for me a lot of stock of Netflix at I think $12 a share.

And it fell to $10 10 in December.

So I sold it to take the tax loss and I never bought back in.

And now, what is it, at 500?

And I remember sitting there as I was talking to Ted thinking, as lovely as he is, if I owned a shit ton of shares right now, I would like him so much more.

And, but here's the thing.

I'm not going to sue the company because I fucked up and made a bad decision and lost a lot of money and power.

And that's all this is.

There is no agreement stating between them and Elon Musk stating how they would operate the company.

He left the company.

These were his decisions.

He tried to take over and then was rebuffed and left.

But go ahead.

This is literally a child stamping his or her feet because they quit the team and then the team goes on to the national finals.

And so they get daddy.

They sue the team.

I mean, there's, this is legally laughable, except for the part when you have a billionaire,

when you have a billionaire with armies of lawyers, he will harass them and he will make their lives more difficult.

This makes, this makes, this slows down commerce.

It slows down innovation.

And it is literally harassment by litigation.

There is no legal merit here.

There is no business principle here.

It is a guy going, wait, I control space.

I sort of control EVs.

I can't believe I fucked up and I don't control AI.

I know I'll sue you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is there anything bad about it?

It's interesting.

I've talked to people there and they're, this is the, I mean, they wanted that memo out there, obviously.

Vinod's been very aggressive and they're like, fuck this guy, essentially.

And, you know, I think they're basically, he's just, he just feels like a loser and he's not the cool kid.

He's not the cool kid in AI.

And he was there early, that's for sure.

For hundred, I was, he talked about it extensively 10 years ago, but he definitely got, made a power play as he is wont to do.

This is one of his moves at every company he's been at.

He always makes a power play and either gets rebuffed or he wins.

Often gets rebuffed.

His early companies, he certainly did.

And this is what he did here.

And he didn't win.

And he's trying to, you know, put light onto, he's backing the people who were against Sam Altman, the, the deceleration, decelerationists.

Yeah.

Um, he's been backing them.

A lot of people feel he was involved in the, in the attacks on Sam for sure.

Um, I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it past him.

Um, and, and that, uh, and that he's just mad about it.

You know, he's just wants to be in it and his Grok is not not doing as well.

Although

he has tons of chance with Twitter, I guess.

But

regrets is a nice way of saying you're a loser, I think, in the thing.

Is it bad for him if it doesn't go to trial?

I mean, he's being pushed back in his other trials.

There could be some inner workings revealed in the discovery whereas Microsoft Partnership.

There's proprietary technology here.

Is there any risk at all?

Sure.

I mean, you have a company that's trying to move a million miles an hour that has a ton of different considerations while they think about effects on humanity, managing a high-growth company.

I mean,

this is Sam Allman has a difficult job.

And all this does is it says, okay, I have no justification.

I'm just going to distract you and make things harder for you.

So it absolutely damages open AI.

And judges, if they do their job, will dismiss this type of lawsuit quickly to say, you are getting in the way of commerce and there's no legal basis here.

I don't, you know,

generally what I find, generally what I find is that very wealthy people recognize their power.

And if they have character, and I've never bought the trope, the Senator Warren or the populist trope that rich people are inherently evil.

I've actually found in general, very wealthy people get there because they have high character and they establish allies along the way.

And they're measured.

around litigation or someone measured.

They don't go out of their way to sue sue people because they realize they have more money this guy sees litigation as a means of trying to true up the world to his standard and his standard is i should control the world and let me let's just ask a global question here are we better off

we're better off for elon musk i still believe that he's been a pioneer around evs what he's doing in space.

I don't think you'd want to press a button and have him disappear or have him move to another country.

But might it be a better idea to have him doing his thing and a guy like Sam Haltman, who thus far strikes me is very thoughtful, controlling the most important company in AR?

Or would we want Elon Musk to control it?

Yeah, there's an empathy.

I just try to fuck with him.

And it'll work.

They already are.

We're already talking about it.

Some embarrassing things might come out.

And not only that,

Sam Altman and key principles to this company and key funders are probably A, going to have to spend time in court or give depositions.

And also, they're going to have to be very careful about anything they do or say.

It'll pull back their risk aggressiveness,

which is part of being an entrepreneur and growing a business.

This is just, it's bad for the economy.

It's bad for business.

It sets the wrong precedent for other people.

This is what Trump does, too.

The lawsuits, the aggrieved lawsuits.

It's a thing.

He's moving.

So there was a good article in the Times about how close by David French, about how close Elon and Trump are to MAGA, like this idea of aggrievement and lawsuits and anger and this and that.

It was interesting.

It's just, he's such a loser.

Interestingly enough, you mentioned both Ted and Sam.

Ted is going to do my interview tonight at LA Live, which is sold out here in Los Angeles, where I am.

And Sam is doing one on Thursday in San Francisco.

So is Reid Hoffman and Gavin Newsome.

So it'll be interesting to see if it comes up with any of them.

It'll be interesting to see if, I mean, if they're interesting me.

Unfortunately, I think

this type of aggressive litigation is effective in the sense that it just places a chill over society and business.

Yeah.

You know, I'd rather, I mean, it's just everybody, right?

And when billionaire, it started with Peter Thiel deciding to put a media company out of business because he had a ton of money.

This kind of stuff puts a chill on journalists.

It puts a chill on investors.

It puts a chill on CEOs.

I mean,

it's just not.

It's not the way we're going to be.

Although I have noticed more people pushing back.

Open AI pushed back really hard.

hard i i alex stamos is doing one of my interviews in sanford in seattle and he wasn't talk he wasn't talking publicly before you know what i mean because he they have the lawsuit by elon elon goes around suing everybody like to try to shut them up and i think people are like fuck you like essentially but still it causes money it's expensive it it uh it creates all kinds of

issues

two-thirds of jobs are created by small and medium-sized businesses.

If you're say he just starts, and I think he's already done this,

say he just, any competitor, first off, he called for an AI pause publicly because supposedly he's concerned about the fate of the world, and it comes out he was trying to catch up, that he was going full force with his own AI efforts and had no interest in pausing.

But if big companies just start suing, and to be clear, big tech is guilty of this.

They just start suing small companies left and right, they can put them out of business.

The small company can't, it's difficult for the small company to wait around for the judgment.

It's difficult for them to recruit employees.

Do you know what it's like to raise money under the auspice of

a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk?

Or, quite frankly, a lot of these companies, including some of our favorites, Apple, Amazon, are very quick to send cease and desist letters.

When I left my last company, I wanted to start another company.

They immediately started sending me letters.

And I'm like okay i want to work i'm not going to compete with you but i'd like to work and in their view it was unless you sit around and do nothing for the rest of your life in our view you're competing with us that's how it came across to me and we're going to hire this really angry mean law firm and the only reason they back down is because i'm rich and they know i can defend myself but what if it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago when i didn't have the money and I was trying to start companies?

I wouldn't have been able to raise money.

I would have just backed down from this big, bad corporation who had absolutely no legal merit, none whatsoever.

Every lawyer I talked to said, yeah, you're going to win this, but it's going to cost you a bunch of money.

What if I didn't have a bunch of money?

It's a nuisance.

It's a nuisance lawsuit.

Anyway, Elon, get some therapy.

Anyway,

let's go in a quick break when we come back.

Big tech faces new regulation in the EU, a big deal.

We'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Tom Skoka, about his powerful medical mystery essay.

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Scott, we're back.

Apple started the week off on a rough note.

The the company was fined $1.95 billion by EU antitrust regulators for limiting competition among music streaming rivals with its app store.

This is focused on Spotify.

Apple plans to appeal the fine and called out Spotify as the biggest beneficiary of the decision.

Meanwhile, Apple and other companies are also facing a deadline to comply with the EU law known as the Digital Markets Act this week.

There's two laws that are going in place, but this is a big one.

The law requires the big tech companies to overhaul how some of their products work so smaller rivals can gain access to users.

The era of self-regulation appears to be over for these companies, at least in the EU.

Some examples, Google will change how it displays certain search results.

Apple will give iPhone and iPad users access to rival app stores and payment systems.

What effect do you see coming?

Because there's nothing happening here in the U.S.

or even close to this level.

What do you think about this?

I've always loved Margaret Vestier.

I think she's just a gangster and smart.

Once again.

And I think EU, I think there are different forms of innovation i mean essentially there aren't a lot of universities or hospitals with the names of founders of google or facebook on them in europe and they get all of the downside the weaponization of their elections the coarseness of their discourse the income inequality the monopoly abuse but they don't get as much upside as the us

and as a result they're much more inclined to take action And I also think generally speaking, and I've been thinking and hoping and predicting this for five years, and I've been wrong, if not not late, I think the worm is turning.

And big tech has done such a great job of putting really attractive people out there to say, we're proud of our progress, or it's still early, or this is a tragedy and we need to do more here, or really gorgeous commercials showing their new baby and the searches they're doing for a crib.

They have become so likable, they have wallpapered over what incredibly mendacious fucks they've been.

And I think people are fed up.

And now, specific to this case, if you look at Apple, Apple's market capitalization or their ascent over the last 10 years to become the most valuable company in the world hasn't been a function of earnings growth.

It's been a function of multiple expansion.

It's gone from about a PE multiple of 15 to where it sits now at 28.

So even without.

Excuse me, 27.

So even without, even without.

I have 27.8.

But anyways, I only say that because I know what a fanatic you are about accuracy.

But anyways, they have effectively, that multiple expansion has happened because they have transitioned pretty well, or they have dramatically increased the part of their business that is recurring, specifically the services part.

And the services part of their revenue is music, you know, iTunes.

It's Apple TV Plus.

But more importantly, what's considered recurring revenue is the revenue they get from the App Store.

And this is what the App Store is.

You use the analogy of a credit card.

They provide infrastructure, technology, acceptance, security that the merchant and the consumer will both both get security and payment.

But imagine Visa took a 30%

fee and then said, overnight, Visa said, you know what?

We're going to go into the apparel business and we're going to acquire Lululemon.

And if you shop at Lululemon, you don't have to pay that 30% credit card charge.

Then overnight, no other apparel company can compete.

with the apparel companies that Visa owns.

And that is exactly what has happened here when Apple went into Apple Music relative to Spotify.

Spotify can't compete.

So, in sum, I love this, and it's overdue.

Yeah, I think we'll see if they appeal to find.

I think they're going to have to end up paying it.

Just for a P, the only reason I said 27 is 27.1.

And actually, Apple's not the most valuable.

It's Microsoft right now.

Apple market cap is 2.69 trillion.

Microsoft is 3.09 trillion.

And its PE ratio is 37, 38 almost.

Entire margin.

It's not hardware.

Yeah.

And NVIDIA,

72 PE ratio, market cap close to Apple of $2.5 trillion.

I mean, it's really amazing.

But I agree with you.

These, these companies have been playing fast and loose with the rules.

And these companies, and Europe doesn't care.

Marguerite Vestiger, you know, big hair don't care kind of thing of what they're doing.

And I think that they have, at least someone is regulating.

Now, people can complain about whether it's over-regulation by the EU, but in the era of no regulation or self-regulation, which has happened forever, especially in this country, it says something to our own regulators here that they have to do something about it.

And these companies have played far too long as our national heroes, and they are in many ways.

They're great companies.

But honestly, they shouldn't be able to be advantaged this significantly.

And going into the next era, they are very advantaged.

If you think you ain't seen nothing yet going on.

And speaking of which, Apple's slow progress in artificial intelligence space is making investors impatient.

According to a new Wall Street Journal Journal report, CEO Tim Cook did tease an upcoming AI announcement at last week's annual shareholder meeting saying, Later this year, I look forward to sharing you with the ways we'll break new ground in generative AI.

He had to say the words.

You know, they killed the CARP plans and putting renewed focus on AI.

We talked about that last week.

And what do you imagine they will say?

I guess within the Apple universe, the uses of AI and making your products all work together, a lot of assistance, things like that would be my guess.

But what do you think?

I don't know.

I would imagine they'll do stuff around saying that we're going to leverage other people's investment in AI to make it more consumer-friendly.

We have a history of taking existing technologies and making them more utile

and more user-friendly.

I would imagine they'd do stuff around healthcare would be a place I would guess they might start.

But I don't know.

You know more.

My guess is you know more about this than I do.

They don't collect as much information, right?

They don't have these big caches of things they can use.

They don't have a social network.

They don't have, I mean, they, they don't use, you know, they don't use your information in the quite the same way.

These other companies, their business plans were based on advertising, right?

And they're based on attention.

And Apple's products are based on utility of the product.

Now, they're not perfect in the privacy space, that's for sure, but they certainly, that's their, that's their value to people, presumably, one of their values, not all of it.

It's also beautiful products and things like that.

So it'll be, i think it'll be used to make their products more intuitive to recommend things to based and i think they'll probably ask you if you want it i i would guess you know if you they'll be very

ask you again and again if this is like would you like your music to be generated in a way not just beyond recommendations just to make the products more intuitive i i think that's where they'll move um and healthcare probably but i don't know it just depends on what because you've got the watch on your hand you know know, you've got a lot of stuff that they have, but they are definitely hindered by their privacy personality.

You know what I mean?

But they have to really stick pretty, because people will be right ready to find them sneaking on you, right?

That's where they'll be.

People assume Google's sneaking around behind the scenes, and people assume Facebook and Meta are doing this.

And Amazon, that they are using all the data you give them willingly.

And I think with Apple, they're going to be, it'll be interesting to see what they get, but I suspect it's to make the products more more seamless than ever.

I would, I would imagine.

It's just amazing that amongst the impact, many impacts that AI has had, AI literally overnight made Sunder Pachai look like a bad manager.

It did.

I'm not exactly sure.

This is over.

Explain, explain what happened briefly.

Well, 12 months ago, if you'd listed five of the greatest CEOs in history, much less right now, Sundar Pichai would probably be on every list.

But then overnight, what feels like overnight, and it's been 12 to 24 months,

the greatest increase in market capitalization registered in history over 12 months has been AI-inspired.

And a lot of that inspiration and original IP started at Alphabet, and yet they've missed out on it.

And so overnight, he's gone from hero to goat.

All of a sudden, all of a sudden, Alphabet looks flat-footed and is trading at a price earnings multiple less than the average on the SP.

It's the only big tech.

It's the only one of the Magnificent 7 that trades below the average P of

the S ⁇ P.

And the same thing.

And now that now that why aren't we hanging out with the cool kids?

Or why did, you know, mom, why don't we have

the new

Wii game, whatever it is, that like anger that like everybody else has this cool thing, how come we missed out is now

starting to affect Apple.

If Apple wasn't,

this feels to me like it's the perfect opportunity, other than they don't do this, for Apple to find the number three or four

LLM generative AI that doesn't quite get the same update and do an acquisition.

Because

Apple could take a different

stuff, Apple has so much trust.

They're in dicey privacy areas.

This has been their brand.

I think it's much harder.

I think it's much harder.

That's an interesting point.

But, you know, Google should be dominating this right now.

It's really quite amazing.

He's, he seems, you know, Amazon's in Anthropic.

Microsoft's in open AI.

It has not, it definitely has to tread, speaking of hindrances, with Apple, it's privacy.

With Google, it's scrutiny, it's federal scrutiny, right?

That there's still the overhang from search.

And so they have to be very careful about what they do in that regard, because they're already subject to Justice Department investigation and

case.

So it'll be, I think, and he's by nature cautious person, Sundar is.

He just is.

And, you know,

the Gemini thing,

they'll fix it fine.

It's just that they should have every advantage here, and they certainly haven't advantaged as much.

But anyway, we'll see.

It'll be interesting what'll happen in the space.

Obviously, it's nice to see giants fighting with each other and feeling insecure.

All of them are insecure.

It's crazy how insecure they are.

Anyway, let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

Tom Skoka is the editor of the substack Indignity, my favorite name for a substack, who recently wrote an essay for new york magazine titled my unraveling in the essay he opens about a mysterious and confusing medical condition that sidelined him for months as doctors struggled to diagnose him i brought you here to scare professor galloway health-wise um but it was a wonderful essay you're a wonderful writer so talk about the piece explain what happened because it really resonated sorry resonated with a lot of people um you wrote in the essay it was my bad luck the attending doctor said at my bedside to be an interesting case you also say the able and the disabled aren't two different kinds of people, but the same people at different times.

I, you know, I had my health scare

with a stroke and they diagnosed that pretty easily.

That was an easy one.

But I've had other ones around blood and stuff like that.

They've never figured out.

Talk a little bit about what happened to you and why you write that to be an interesting.

What is an interesting case?

I guess an interesting case is one where they can't really exactly decide what's going on or figure out what all the symptoms add up to.

And

even from inside,

or especially from inside, like, I couldn't tell what was going on.

So, you know, it started with just sort of like weird things happening, you know, like

pain in my shoulder, like flare-ups like carpal tunnel.

My ankles swelled up really big and it was hard to put my shoes on, you know, and

you know, so that was enough to sort of start going around seeing doctors, especially like your lower extremities swell up.

They're like, well, they want to make sure you're not having congestive heart failure.

You know, so I went to the cardiologist and she was like, your heart's great.

You're, you know, there's nothing wrong with your heart.

I went to,

you know, a rheumatologist and

he was sort of checking for various things.

And,

you know, I mean, he was pretty sure there was some kind of like autoimmune inflammation going on, but as to what kind it was, it was not clear.

You know, a dose of steroids back then.

Didn't really change anything.

And then that just sort of kept going.

New things would change, things would change and new symptoms would come up.

And like my ankles stopped swelling, but I started getting shortness of breath and like having some real like problems with fatigue.

And so I started

going along, getting like kind of worse and worse at

catching my breath.

I started checking my oxygen and like I was having trouble maintaining oxygenation.

You know, but it was this sort of like chronic annoying thing that was limiting my activities.

And they couldn't figure out.

And they couldn't figure it out.

They couldn't like pin down what it was or come up up with a treatment that would do it.

You know, like when the breathing issues became the most salient part of it, I went to the pulmonologist, passed the test to the pulmonologist.

Like, you know, my breathing was officially fine, even though I wasn't managing to get myself enough oxygen all the time.

Yeah.

So it's this like weird diffuse thing.

At some point when you're dealing with specialists, you know, getting

when you're passing all the tests, eventually passing the tests becomes a problem.

Because they don't know what it is.

They don't know what's going on.

Yeah, you got it.

I have noticed that.

It's not a particularly ringing endorsement of the healthcare business in the United States.

You wrote the medical mystery column doesn't usually dwell on how slowly the inquiry goes in our fractured healthcare system.

Talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, so I mean, right, the way that our system works is you get referrals,

and the doctors giving you a referral may or may not know if the doctor that they're referring you to is covered by your insurance.

You know, you're always, you have to call them up and see if they're in a network.

You have to call them up and and see if they have an appointment within the next, you know, four months.

I think I just got a notification today for some medical appointment that I'm pretty sure I tried to make like last summer.

Yeah.

So you're constantly chasing these things.

You're getting billed across like multiple different portals.

You know, just figuring out how to pay your bill, like where to go to pay it is its own like.

own hassle.

And all the while, of course, you're trying to get to the bottom of this thing

and, you know, trying to make sure that your records are being shared from one provider to another.

And so, yeah.

So, and so at some point in all this, as I was talking to the specialist and the cardiologist was sort of like

taking it upon me, upon herself to help shepherd me through this, maybe because she knew that it wasn't a heart problem.

You know, she was like, really, like, the best thing for you to do would be to check into the hospital and just get everybody to look at you.

But of course, this is America.

You can't just like present yourself at the hospital and say, I'd like to, like, to lie down for a few days and get looked at.

How are you feeling today, health-wise?

Pretty decent.

I mean, the medication works.

So, you know, like large doses of steroids got me back on my feet, and we're like trying to bring the steroids down and substitute other immunosuppressive drugs.

But so I could basically go around like normal as long as I don't try to do too many things in a single day.

Nice to meet you, Tom.

And let me just say, you look healthy.

And obviously, not a doctor, but you look healthy.

That's good to know.

I mean, this is sort of like, yeah.

So give us the biggest kind of surprises about dealing with our healthcare system to the downside.

And I think people know those or hear a lot about those, but also any surprises to the upside about what happens when you get sick like this about our healthcare system?

And maybe there were none, but surprises to the downside and upside.

I mean, the downside is,

again, that sort of feeling that you're really just sort of

trying to solve this on your own.

You're like wandering through a maze and there's nobody to sort of like step up and take control

and look out for your interests.

When you have a mystery like this to unravel, it's really sort of your job to solve it.

And

how much persistence you have and how much organizational skill you have,

how much time you can bring to this problem is sort of what helps determine how well you navigate the system.

And of course, like the, you know, the sicker and less able to do stuff you are, like the harder it is to stay on top of your own needs and care in the system.

As far as the surprises, as far as the positive surprises go,

I mean,

once I got myself into the hospital, it was

sort of a very responsive setting and people were

really engaged with trying to figure out how to help.

But you had to get yourself yourself at the hospital.

I think one of the interesting things that's happening now is, especially around COVID, I have a lot of friends with long COVID, and they have not been able to be figured out.

Like that, doctors get very frustrated by having to figure out things that aren't easy, like, ah, you have a cardiac blockage, you know, things that are obvious that they've done over and over again, that they can diagnose relatively easily.

And many years ago, I had,

when I was pregnant, had a low white blood cells.

And I had dozens of tests of leukemia, AIDS, everything else.

And they were never able to figure it out.

Never, never, never, never.

And ultimately, I was diagnosed with neutropenia, which means low white blood cells.

And

I said, that's not a diagnosis, that's a description.

And they were arguing with me.

They're like, that's the diagnosis.

I go,

you don't know why it is.

And it's to this day, I don't even know what my, I gave up on it.

I gave up on it after a while.

It was crazy.

But a lot of people with long COVID and a lot of these persistent health, whether it's Lyme disease or chronic fatigue syndrome, get sucked up in a system if it can't be solved in seconds.

That is very, you know, and a different inner, the reason I want to bring you here because different tech companies have been trying to solve this problem, whether it's OneMedical with Amazon or things like that, which still don't solve the problem at all.

There's no like, well, we've had people on talking about how to do that and none of them have been able to come up with it.

Yeah, it's a great, that's always a great moment when they just like read your symptoms back to you in medical language.

Like benign positional vertigo.

Like, yes,

those are the words for what I just took.

That's right.

I told you I was dizzy.

You're bringing back benign positional vertigo to me.

Thank you.

How would you solve it, I guess?

How would you do it?

Because so many people suffer from chronic conditions that are confusing to doctors and they refuse to say.

At one point, I had a doctor.

He wouldn't tell me what he, that he couldn't diagnose.

And I said, can you just say, I don't know?

I would prefer that.

Like, I would prefer that.

But how do you see it?

Is there any way to solve it?

We talk about AGI a lot.

We talk about all kinds of things that could bring a lot of information to bear.

Do you see any way to do that?

I'm not sure.

I mean, it is

to the extent that all my records eventually got folded into kind of a unified chart system after I've been to the hospital.

That I think helped make a difference.

Like, it helps that everybody can stay on the same page

looking at the information.

But it's really hard.

I mean, it's,

I think it's sort of

the magic answer to everything.

But obviously, like, if everybody's healthcare was being paid for under a single system and

sort of you weren't trying to coordinate across, you know, different coverage realms, I think that that would help, you know,

bring the, just to help bring the focus back to the patient and not, you know, on how the building is getting managed.

Yeah, it's hard.

I I don't know that there is a clear answer just because we, you know, we invest

medical science with this, you know, idea that it's going to have certainty and give you clear answers.

And some of the things that happen to your body are like really diffuse and weird.

And,

you know, it's not like

some sprocket inside you broke and they just need to replace the sprocket.

Especially when your body is attacking itself,

it's really,

you know, not necessarily amenable to being figured out and dealt with quickly.

Tom, distinctive,

your interaction with the healthcare system, just having a healthcare like this,

if and how has it changed your approach to life or the way you approach relationships?

I mean, it very much, you know,

like I said in the piece, it was sort of the first time, I mean, I would, you know, I'm aware of mortality as like a fact, and that we only have so many years

in this world.

But sort of

when I got COVID in the middle of this, which was sort of, I think, then tipped me over into being sick enough that I had to go to the hospital.

You know, that was when I started really feeling like

my body really could stop working.

You know, I've been

before that, I've been very lucky in my health overall in life.

And like, I've had sort of robust health without putting much effort into it.

And,

you know, this like really,

yeah, it made me think about the, you know, limited amount of time that I get and, you know, how to sort of, how to

apportion my energy

and effort on things, you know, I mean, how much time I have with my kids as they're growing up, you know, like it's just,

you sort of think about how to get

more out of the life you got to the extent you can.

But of course, you're also,

remembering to

take your cup of six pills in the morning and you're

trying to make sure that the steroids don't make you too crabby.

And

you could try to readjust your

sort of existential outlook, but

you're still trying to get through each day as you were before.

Remembering to broaden your perspective can take some extra effort.

Absolutely.

Let me ask you about your work thing.

Just I have one last question.

You were a very active and outspoken writer, wonderful writer against a lot of things.

I'm looking at some of the stuff you've been writing lately.

You're writing about the New York Times' trans issues.

You're written about Joe Rogan being an idiot.

And you're a very sharp media critic, I would say.

How does that affect your work?

Does it change

the way you think about work or doing things?

Because you were always sort of a really always, you always weighed in with just the right rejoinder to a lot of lunacy that was going on.

I don't know.

I think that like

the actual work that I do has been sort of less affected by it than anything.

You know, and you've, again, you just sort of,

to whatever extent

that sort of work can make a difference, you want to keep making a difference.

So I don't feel like I've, you know, I don't think it's like mellowed me any.

In terms of how you're working, but how do you look at work now?

Because, you know, everyone's, there's just an article in the Atlantic saying it's the extinction event for media.

Now, you've been involved in all kinds of different media over the years.

I mean, a laundry list of places.

And all kinds of different extinctions.

So I'd love to get your thoughts on that.

That's my last question.

Like, what you do you think it's an extinction?

Because you've worked for just about everybody.

I'm trying to think.

You've been around the block.

Yeah.

I mean, I've, yeah.

It's, it certainly seems like we're in a

spectacularly bad time for media.

There's something alarming about the way that it's, that the sort of media employment market has come uncoupled from the, like, from the rest of the employment market.

Like, you know, your, your feed is like a mixture of like

great unemployment numbers federally and like news of like 300 more people getting laid off in your own industry.

So yeah, it's a little scary to just contemplate that there

may not be jobs out there.

And

it's fun to have your own publication and be you know pushing along on that.

But like it's very hard to get the money together.

I just was, I'm part of this Flaming Hydra thing that just launched, which is, I think,

an interesting and so far promising experiment in doing a little bit of something with scale, where instead of trying to take a small number of people and

bootstrap the operations until you get enough readers, starting with a very large number of writers, like 60 writers,

each of whom sort of have their own following

and audience, and bring them together.

And just you're asking each one for like one piece a month.

Right.

But if you do that, then you have two pieces a day from writers people like, and you have a sort of pretty large audience

built in to

start growing from, as each person sort of tells the people who follow their work about this.

Right.

It's 60 writers.

Flaming Hydrant's 60 writers.

I found it fascinating.

And it's

and you've been raising money

various ways.

Both through Kickstarter to get it going and through the subscriptions.

Yeah, and there was enough, you know,

so far it's been paying out, you know, a little bit better than a dollar a word if you, if you don't go over the assigned word count, which is, you know,

if you can stack up enough dollar word pieces, you can get along.

So is that the future?

I mean, this is, it's a, it's a writer's co-op, essentially, is what it is, right?

Yeah.

I don't know.

I hope it's the future.

You know, I hope that it can grow and keep reaching people.

And, you know, the guys at Defector are

doing their thing.

The people are sort of having some success

with

these kind of co-op models.

Again, I think that what it depends on in part is that you've got to have an audience.

One of the things that made Defector a success was that because geomedia just sort of like grew a deadspin and drove them all away, they could pick up.

a giant audience that had been built up over the years when they launched.

And again, with like Fleming Hadre, you're collecting all these people, they all have built up their own readerships that can be sort of combined and drawn on.

But, yeah, I mean, the problem is: what do you do if you're not starting from a position of already having something in the bank?

If you're just sort of a writer starting out and you want to get some traction and get your stuff out there, I don't know.

It's really, really an unfavorable time for you.

It's very difficult.

I would recommend people trying Flight 1 Hydra.

It's really cool.

I think it's a really cool thing.

Scott, last question?

I don't have one.

I just want to say I'm really, I'm really glad that

you're doing better.

And like I said, you look good.

And

really appreciate the piece and that you're, I think when people read something like this, it gives them comfort in a very difficult way.

And scared.

And they become scared too.

They also become scared.

I bet you got a lot of, oh, there, but for the grace of God, go I kind of thing.

Right.

You get both.

You get the people who are incredibly relieved because they've been going through something like this, where, again, it's like something where you feel very alone and very like trapped inside your own experience.

You know, and then sort of the chance to read about somebody else who's been there like means a lot to people but yeah i think it also scared people because uh you know because like again like i i came into this uh from the position of somebody who was like pretty stably healthy and like doing you know doing well in middle age and then all of a sudden i'm like falling down because i can't walk um

so somebody else who's like middle-aged and walking along five have you thought about running for president i'm sorry oh stop stop

can't stop talking about Donald Trump.

Anyway, anyhow,

Tom, thank you so much.

You can read the really good essay by Tom Skoka.

He's a wonderful writer.

He's one of my favorite writers.

And people can go to nymag.com to read your essay and also go to Flaming Hydra.

It's really cool.

It's really nice.

I'm not sure if I like the design of it, but

I like the site itself.

It's got some really great writers.

Thank you so much.

Sure.

Thanks for bringing me on to talk.

Nice to meet you, Tom.

Good to meet you.

One more quick break.

We'll be back for Wins and Fails.

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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.

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Okay, Scott, wins and fails.

Okay, just before we get to wins and fails, Carol, I want to apologize.

I didn't mean to be dismissive of your book.

I try to be funny, and sometimes it lands and sometimes it doesn't, but

I know how hard it is to write a book.

And

the last thing I want to do after you, you know, you put in the effort is to be dismissive of anything you're doing.

So I apologize.

I did not mean to be dismissive.

Thank you.

You're very sweet.

I know you didn't mean it.

I did get a a lot of people saying something, though, for the first time.

I'm apologizing to you, not to them.

Mech, thank you.

I know you are.

I know you are.

I know you are.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

And I'm excited for your book, too.

We're very excited to celebrate.

Oh, I appreciate that.

Yours comes out at the end of April, just for people if they want to pre-order.

Anyways, my win is, I don't know if you've seen this.

Have you seen One Day on Netflix?

No.

It's a British Romantic drama television series based on

the 2009 novel by the same name by david uh nichols um it follows the 20-year relationship of emma morley and dexter mayhew who met at graduation but after graduation from the university of edinburgh yes yeah yeah yeah but it's now they're doing a new one right

well i've just been i don't know if they're doing a new one but yeah it's one day it's on it's on netflix and it's just about it's just a very simple love story the guy is was actually in

uh the white lotus he played the british kid well anyways it is it is wonderful.

First off, it's so wonderful that something that doesn't have zombies or dragons, it's just purely about a love story.

And just back to what

Tom was saying about your life, I'm trying to be much more deliberate and purposeful with my kids because I'm running out of time.

And I'm watching this with my 16-year-old boy because I read something that just broke my heart.

Do you know that 50% of Gen Z men have given up on dating?

They're not dating.

They feel like

just for a variety of societal reasons, they don't want to risk the rejection.

And they find it difficult.

They find it humiliating.

And they're confused about it.

And I'm watching it with my 16-year-old, and he's really enjoying it because I want, if there's anything I could give to young men, and I think this is true of young women too, but I relate more obviously to young men and I'm raising boys.

It's that there's a reason that romantic comedies are two hours, not 15 minutes.

They're really hard.

There's a lot of rejection, but they're wonderful.

Yeah, it's a TV series.

Do you know it was a movie with Ann Hathaway a while ago?

Yeah, and now it's a series.

It's so popular.

Yeah, it's such a popular series.

I think they're making more of it for some reason.

I understood they were going to keep going with it because it was so popular.

No, it's got great reviews.

It's really,

it's really wonderful.

And then

my fail is this ridiculous.

So, Democrats in Missouri are attempting to overturn a decades-old law that bans women from getting divorced while they are pregnant.

So, you are not allowed as a woman to get divorced if you're pregnant.

And let's let's walk through this.

So, what is the number one source of death, of fatality for pregnant women?

It's homicide.

What are the incentives here?

If you're a violent psychopath who's in a relationship with a woman who wants to leave this abusive relationship?

What are your incentives?

I know I'll get her pregnant because then it's illegal for her to divorce me.

And in addition, as far as I know, and

pregnancy is primarily entirely sequestered to people born as women.

And there are just very few laws that diminish the rights.

I can't think of any that are sequestered to people born as men.

I mean, this is just

back in the Stone Age or something.

Baseline.

Baseline misogyny that

results in psychopathic partners knocking up

their wives so they can't divorce them, which puts a pregnant woman in harm's way.

I mean, it's just so it we have we have this weird obsession with birth, but this hostility towards

the person who's responsible for the birth.

Anyways, similar laws are actually in Texas, Arkansas, and California.

But this, this needs some sort of federal legislation that restores, that let's just pretend, pretend.

I mean,

one of the basic instincts that you should have

as a man is to protect women.

And it's basic, because if you don't protect women,

we go out of business.

You can have a village of 50 men and 50 women.

And

if 25 of the men die going to war or they're violent, The village can still survive.

If 25 of the women get killed, that village goes out of business.

So, to not err on the side of protecting women while they're pregnant, it's literally the definition of misanthropic.

That's their way.

That's their way.

You know, France just became the first country to explicitly enshrine abortion rights in the Constitution.

This is a breaking news from the Washington Post right now.

Other countries understand this, understand women's rights.

They really do.

It's like

this country is moving in a direction that is so dangerous.

Mexico has cemented a very Catholic nation they've just cemented if you look at the nations we're headed towards it's literally iran

turkey north korea it's it's not a good list it's not a room we want to hang out in no i agree i agree i'm thinking of moving to france now although i don't speak french anyway my uh my win uh besides your lovely apology scott thank you was um i the two shows that i'm love i love the regime with kate winslett which is speaking of strange eastern European countries.

She's the head of it, and she's hysterical.

She's eating up every piece of scenery.

She plays the head, a crazy head, of a sort of like a Ceausescu character.

And she's so funny.

The costumes are funny.

Everything's about it, and she's doing an amazing job.

And the other I'm excited for, and I haven't seen yet, is Shogun.

They redid it.

I loved the original one, which was kind of, you look back on it and it's problematic, but the book was James Clavel.

They've remade it.

It's getting astonishing reviews.

It's focused a lot more on the Japanese

experience in it rather than the white guy.

But the white guy is important in it.

It's also, but it's supposed to be fantastic.

And I am so looking forward to it.

I have not seen it.

I will report back once I have a minute to watch it.

And the fail, I think it's the same thing with you, the rampant misogyny that's just

stemming from Dobbs, which is really, and it's not just misogyny, it's homophobia, et cetera, that we are tracking.

I think you're absolutely right.

We are tracking on

other countries that are not countries we should be tracking on, while other countries go in an opposite direction, which is more kindness and attention to women and their issues.

And with Trump poised to dominate Super Tuesday,

it's kind of, you got to give it to Nikki Haley making this final effort and now saying she may not back him,

which I think, think, and again, two women in the Senate who backed her, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.

It's really up to women to figure out this, what's going to go happen in this race, in this presidential race.

It's either a very anti-woman president, and that's what he is.

I'm sorry.

I know we joke, he's a rapist.

He's a rapist.

The man's a rapist and he's an insurrectionist.

And women have got to make this stand if men aren't going to do it for them.

But I hope men will do the same.

So that is my fail, I I guess.

It's not just, it's the whole thing that goes with it.

It isn't just pro-choice.

It's everything else that goes with it.

Our nation has a lot of things to be proud of.

We have more women going, being elected to leadership positions than ever before.

There's something about,

for some reason, the far right is taken aim at pregnant women.

It just doesn't make any sense.

I don't get it.

Because you don't exist as a thing.

You're a vessel.

That's why.

They don't see you as a person.

They see you as a vessel.

Just read their stuff.

That's what they think.

Anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

On that note.

They're good luck.

Let me just say they're coming for my family, too.

And good luck trying.

Let me just say, I built some very strong men and they will fight for me.

Including you, Scott Galloway.

That's right.

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 85551-Pivot.

Scott, that's the show.

We'll be back on Friday with more.

I think I'll be in San Francisco then or maybe Seattle.

I don't know.

Nice, Scott.

I'm going to Austin.

I don't know.

Oh, we're going to Austin.

Yes.

Oh, we're going to

this weekend.

Oh, my God.

That's going to be, we're doing a live pivot and we're having a nice dinner.

Everything.

It'll be cool.

Why don't you read us out?

That's the show.

We'll be back on Friday for more.

Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Andrew Tott engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Meal Severio.

Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

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

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod.

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

Kara, have a great rest of the week.

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