Nvidia Earnings, Tech Regulation, and the Capital One-Discover Merger
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Hi, everyone.
This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher.
Yo, estoy el paro, el pero in Madrid.
Y tin y uh yo tango dysfunciono erectile.
Hola, hola, Cara.
What are you doing in Spain?
You were just in the market.
What am I doing here?
I want to give you
a visual here.
I'm literally in the same desk, but go ahead.
Keep going.
Tell me.
See, there's a beautiful thing of ham they left in the hotel room for me.
Yum.
Oh, that's that
ham Iberico.
Is that Iberico?
And Spanish ham and these beautiful glasses that I'm scared and wine that I'm scared to drink out of.
Anyways,
beautiful area.
They're deep.
I'm in Madrid.
You get to quaff deeply.
I'm in Madrid.
Why are you in Madrid?
Let me.
Well, no, the better question is, why wouldn't I be?
It's a beautiful city.
I understand that.
I told you, I'm a yes to everything.
My friend Orlando,
who I've known for 22 years, who's from El Salvador,
who I actually met in Montauk of all places, called me.
All right, so now we're gone from El Salvador to Montauk and now we're in Madrid.
Go ahead.
He called me.
He lives in Lisbon now and with all the other hedge fund managers avoiding taxes.
But anyways, and he said, let's go to Madrid.
this weekend, like called me two months ago.
And you know my thing.
I'm a yes, right?
I'm a yes.
You're a yes.
And so here we are.
You're saying yes to me a lot.
Hey, Scott, do you want to come to my house, stay in the guest room and watch the kids?
When have I ever said no to kids for sure?
Come to DC and sleep in the guest room and have the kids wake you up in the morning and you can babysit.
Can you say yes to that?
Yeah, no, but see, that's not a sincere offer.
You don't really want me to do that.
I really do.
Although, would I leave you with my kids alone?
Interesting question.
Yeah.
No, I don't leave me alone with my kids.
I go to Madrid.
Yeah, yeah.
I go to Madrid.
Speaking of which, can I just tell you, Amanda really really liked our little Esther Perel shrink session.
Yeah, we've gotten a lot of positive feedback.
Yeah, people, she was particularly struck by your vulnerability.
It was
all an ass, Kara.
It's part of my attempt to get a bigger contract from Sirius XM.
I've been told that being emotionally manipulative.
I think she's a little jealous of our relationship, too.
I think she'd like to have a shrink session like that with Esther.
I got to imagine a lot of people would pay a lot of money to have what is arguably one of the
finest.
Yeah, one of the finest psychotherapists in the world kind of talk about uh a relationship i also really like the framing and you said this at the beginning the framing that was really interesting was we're going to talk about we're going to start from a place of positive positivity what works here and i thought that was really interesting that to use her skills as a means of sussing out what works in relationships such that other people can learn i thought that was i thought that was interesting yeah everybody knows the problems right that's why you're in therapy let me tell you what i don't like about this person We don't do that very much.
Except for the part where I said, that bitch is, she wants to live in Agura Hills and I won't work all the time.
Anyway, it was very beautiful.
It was beautiful.
I hadn't, you know, I don't, I listened to it and I thought there's a lot in here.
I didn't even see when it was happening.
I don't listen to that.
That makes sense.
I was a little self-conscious.
You should.
Okay.
Yeah, because I was like, oh, wow.
I didn't hear that that way.
And then, anyway, I have to tell you, Amanda was super impressed with your self-actualization.
She was super, super impressed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I got, I'll tell you what, I got a lot of notes.
It's like,
I really now love after this.
I got, I'm going to read it because it was really, I sent it to you, I think.
This is a friend of mine, and she was struck by it.
She's a big Pivot fan.
She goes, love, love, love, pivot today.
It makes me emotional.
I can't tell how much Pivot, in addition to, has been life-changing as a parent, as a parent of boy in particular.
And Scott used to drive me insane.
And now, dare I say, I love him.
Anyway, it was,
you have shifted people with your vulnerability.
Can I just say I'm really enjoying this podcast so far?
Okay, good.
Okay.
So far, this is my favorite podcast.
Yeah.
Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today, including the Senate getting ready to pass a major piece of tech regulation and what NVIDIA's blockbuster earnings, they were impressive, mean for the future of AI.
But first, this story.
Alabama's largest hospital has paused IVF treatments following the state Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos can be considered children.
The case was brought by three couples who went through IVF and had embryos stored at an Alabama hospital before they were mistakenly dropped.
The ruling makes way for individuals to be held liable in a wrongful death lawsuit for the destruction of a frozen embryo.
The result has sparked fears.
IVF could be restricted or ended statewide.
I think that's pretty much what's happening.
And 2% of births in the year of the U.S.
involve IVF.
The fertility services market is worth $54 billion.
Only 6% of Americans have a problem with it.
I don't know what to say about this.
This is,
I'm not going to Alabama, that's for sure.
So.
Yeah, but in a weird way, I was sort of happy when I saw this because I generally believe that this is just such a winner for us.
I think this gets Biden another five or 10 basis points in the polls.
I just, when you see that, I think the Republic, for Republicans, the pro-life viewpoint or stance was the perfect issue for them because no one actually thought they would do it.
And they got to.
They would win.
The dog would catch the car.
And they got to appeal to their hard right base.
But moderates didn't really vote on the issue, even if they were most moderates are pro-choice because they thought, well, wink wink, when the Republican's niece gets pregnant in college, they figure out a way and they just don't talk about it.
We all figure out a way and Republicans kind of turn away and they're fine with it as well.
And then when Trump put these three people on the Supreme Court who basically lied in front of Congress, said this is established precedents, and then immediately got on the court and overturned it.
People are like, literally, a lot of people,
and you claim that you saw this coming.
I did not.
I did not believe this was going to happen.
But if you look at what's happened, I don't want to say it's a good thing for Democrats because anytime you turn back rights for women, it's a bad thing.
But short term, what you have is, first off, it hasn't had much impact yet on family planning.
There's actually been more abortion since Roe v.
Wade was overturned than before but when moderates see this kind of shit going on they think that's it's they think wow handmaid's tale it feels very handmaid's tale it also you know
the fact that you don't see this as coming they can't have they they what they say they mean i always say that to people i'm the same way around gay issues they want gays to be restricted.
That's what they want.
They say it, and I keep saying to people, they're like, no, no, gay marriage.
I'm like, they want that overturned.
I can feel it from them.
They've been angry and seething for years.
This small group of people, by the way, it's a very small group.
Same thing with
these extreme anti-abortion advocates.
They are religious.
Zealots.
Zealots.
That's
radicals.
They're zealots, is what they are.
And nobody wants this.
And this is what they want.
And they will impose it on us, as you say often.
The minority is trying, the very small minority is trying to impose something.
Now, what's interesting here is that it's about families, right?
They're against families.
This is in creating families.
Now, look,
if this mistaken problem and these embryos got destroyed, that is a shame.
That is a terrible thing.
Things like this happen, right?
And this is going to happen if you are preserving these very delicate things.
I don't know if you know this.
I happen to still own quite a lot of
swishers.
Little Kara Swishers, not eggs.
I don't have eggs.
I didn't harvest eggs, but I have the
semen.
And I still keep it because I can't do that.
Jesus, that's impressive.
You can produce semen.
I know.
And of all the things I know about you, I didn't know that.
Yeah, I have a lot of it, actually, because I got pregnant pretty quickly, and so did my ex-wife.
And so you always overbuy it, essentially.
And I still have it, and I can't stop keeping it frozen.
Your long swimmer.
I know.
Isn't that what I mean?
Who bought all this?
I bought all.
Is it cinnamon or is it whatever?
I think it's the words.
I think that's the correction.
It's all sponge.
Hold your tongue.
It's all cleaned up.
Hold your tongue.
Anyway, I'm just saying, let me ask you this question, though.
I really want to know.
Every year I pay to keep it frozen, even though it's 20 years hence.
Yeah, it's like
story.
And people have offered to buy it from me, of people who have had children with the same donor.
I don't know what I can't destroy it.
It's weird.
And it's not because I think it's life necessary at all.
I'm not with these lunatics.
But But if they had defroze it or they'd say that, I'd be like, well, that sucked.
Give me my money back.
But I wouldn't be like, this is insane.
Do you think I should keep it, by the way?
Speaking of which, I keep it every year.
It's not inexpensive to keep it, by the way.
How much does it cost to store your sperm?
$300 a year.
Oh, then do it.
That's not.
Why would you?
No, but then why?
Who do I give it to?
I just want to return back
beyond my profane
frapper humor.
You spend the first kind of 30 years of your life, or the people I know, trying not to get pregnant, and then you take for granted that you can get pregnant.
And it becomes this enormous issue in the relationship.
It makes both the husband and the wife traditionally, or I would imagine, same-sex part.
It makes them feel very vulnerable.
It makes them feel like they're not, there's something wrong with them.
And all of a sudden, this thing they never thought about becomes just so incredibly important.
It literally begins to dominate their happiness or the lack of They are of people with children.
The IVF.
I remember my stepmom thought she couldn't get pregnant.
And when she got pregnant, it was just transformative for her.
It was literally, it sounds cliche, it was the gift of life.
And so.
Let me just say, best thing I ever did.
Best thing I ever did.
100%.
So here is arguably the most important,
wonderful technology in the world.
Like if you were to ask people who have grown children, who weren't able to have children and were able to because of IVF, if you were to say, what's more important,
the iPhone or the microprocessor or IVF, I can tell you what they would say.
And I got to think a small but very
important group of people sees this and is just horrified and thinks, Alabama, Republican, Trump, I'm not on board with any of these folks.
None of these things.
Look, I'm going to get, we're going to have to move along, but I have to say, this is one of the great things.
IVF is a gift to people.
They made a mistake.
And to take a mistake that a hospital makes and use it for your weird religious purposes in this regard is hurting everybody and it will come back to haunt you.
This is really grotesque.
And this is where they want to go.
Do mistake me.
These people are religious zealots.
And that is where we're going if you let them.
So that's just keep that in mind.
Anyway,
speaking of really strange situations and mistakes were made, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has had her ex-account restored after a brief suspension.
Ex said the filter against manipulation and spam had mistakenly flagged Yulia Navalnaya, her account.
Before being suspended, Navalnaya posted a video accusing Putin of being responsible for her husband's death, calling for Russian citizens to rally around her.
Alexei Navalny, a critic of Putin, died last week at a penal colony.
I would say he was murdered, probably.
I agree with her,
by Putin.
Not directly, but he kills everyone.
He operates with impunity, and that's what he's doing here.
But nonetheless, Twitter acts had like 900 different reasons and couldn't tell you which one it was.
It looks like it was a mistake,
but it certainly was a stupid mistake.
And they couldn't get their arms around what even happened.
And what a time to do that.
They should have been in old Twitter.
Someone like this, who had just started this account, they would have flagged her and paid extraordinary amounts of attention to high-profile accounts.
I remember when they did that.
They did that all the time.
And in this case, they're such a sloppy group of losers.
They can't possibly handle this and it's egg on their face.
So I don't know.
Yeah, I think the Twitter story is a bit of a distraction just because
I think that was more incompetence than intentional.
When you get rid of your, when you fire 80% of the people and your
trust and safety team and there's no one there, you know, there's literally kind of, it's like, can someone turn out the lights here?
You're going to just have shit fall through the cracks everywhere, including this.
You can't even, you can't even launch someone's presidential bid and have a Twitter spaces, right?
I mean, you really have yesterday.
Remember that?
But
the thing about, the thing that really struck me about Navalny's death, you know, in addition to it being a tragedy, he truly is a definition of a martyr.
What, how essentially Putin doesn't, he's almost not even hiding at this point that he's a murderer, is that this guy demonstrated, I mean, just such incredible courage, almost to the point where I would argue, I don't know,
I wonder, like, this was a strange decision for a guy who has a family in my view.
But anyways, be that as it may, this decision to go back to Russia, this guy demonstrated so much courage standing up to an autocrat, to a corrupt, murderous regime.
And you have at least a couple hundred people in Congress right now who courage for them is almost free.
The cost of courage to them would be that maybe Trump doesn't appoint them to their cabinet.
They know this guy is a murderer.
Deep down, they are not pro-Russian, but this guy demonstrates courage.
In the U.S., one of the many blessings we have is that courage is fairly low cost, but it is in short supply where we need it.
And these individuals don't want to condemn Russia or Putin for fear that somehow it angers their guy or they're not seen as hard right enough.
And I got to give,
there have been some Republicans who have come out and said this full, ranging from Vice President Pence to many senators.
But the fact that there are so many Republicans who are not calling this for what it was, and that is another example of a murderous, corrupt man who is essentially a murderer sitting on top of the gas station, who continues to sow chaos across the world.
I like that, Scott.
Which part?
A murderer sitting on top of a gas station.
I can't take credit for that.
I think that was Senator McCain.
Anyways, the fact that it would require just so little courage for them to come out and state the obvious, but they don't.
And then contrast that with what this guy did.
I mean, courage, it struck me, I love this term.
In America, courage is almost free, but that doesn't mean it's an abundant supply.
Well, I think the Republicans have become useful idiots in general, a lot of them.
And by the way, you know, this guy who was testifying against Hunter Biden turns out to be a Russian operative for the Republicans.
And Fox News, he's a spy.
And the GOP is defending him.
And then Fox News, there was a fantastic Desi Lydick, who is my favorite person on the Daily Show,
did this thing on Jesse Waters, who's such an oaf.
And
he kept saying the most important,
you know, witness.
And he's so reliable and he's so amazing.
And this and that.
And this and that.
He went on and on about it.
And then when it turns out he's a spy, he goes, have you ever noticed how the Biden crime family has everyone who's been testifying against them goes down?
I was like, he's a spy.
Did you not learn the first time with SmartMatic that you just got played by
Russians or whoever was whatever nefarious person?
And it's just,
I just can't believe
that, you know, let me just name out J.D.
Vance, useful idiot.
The shift of Graham, of Lindsey Graham.
What compromise do they have on this guy?
Like, it's just, it goes on and on and on.
And this shift is, it's an embarrassment.
It's, you know, Pence and Nikki Haley and others are speaking out rather firmly, firmly, Mitt Romney.
But these
Republicans are,
if this was the McCarthy era, they'd be out of jobs.
You know what I mean?
Like this is really, and by the way, that was a terrible situation for our country to have done to people.
But they're not just.
They're not just Russian sympathizers.
I don't even know what's happening here.
It's really disturbing.
It's very strange, though, because do you remember this?
In the 60s and 70s, there was actually a very pro-Russia, anti-America or Russia apologist movement, and it started on the far left.
Left, I know.
It's inexplicable.
People on the far left saw communism as a collective, and it was more righteous and more concerned about the common person.
And they would move to Russia, and they were apologists for Russia.
Lee Harvey Oswald.
Guess who went to Russia?
There you go.
Remember?
And then it has totally swung.
to the far right.
And it comes down to, again, I think it's somewhat linked to this really dangerous form of masculinity or faux masculinity that has emerged where people see if you got a, if you got a white guy who looks strong and is willing to murder people and doesn't care and flouts the law and democracy and maybe, you know, maybe throw in some homophobia misogyny just for free gifts with purchase, you know, deep down, that's a real man.
And it is so, it is so,
it is so repulsive and so anti-American, and it sets all of us back.
And it is the app's a fucking lootly last thing you want to be, you want to be polluting a 17-year-old boy's brain with.
That there is some redeeming quality of masculinity and strength to being a murderous thug.
Interesting.
That except in Congress,
most Americans think Russia, Putin is a thug.
They do.
They do.
Everybody knows it.
It's really, but this is how propaganda is done.
They just drip, drip, drip.
That's the danger here.
In any case,
it was stupid on X's part.
And speaking of X, the FTC investigation found no evidence that X violated the terms of the government order that placed restrictions on data security practices.
But that's not because of Elon.
He tried to...
to break it, according to the FTC, when Musk requested employees to give the writers of the Twitter files, the groundbreaking Twitter files, which is,
I mean the opposite, access to everything, no limits at all, which would have violated government orders.
The only reason that he didn't go down for this one, or at least get a fine for this, IT employees ignored the request.
They ignored him.
They ignored his orders and did not give anybody access to everything because they knew the rules around data security.
These employees are probably not there anymore.
So thank you to all those employees who did not violate security, data security practices and had respect for people's data and ignored their ridiculous megalomaniac leader in trying to get at people and use his platform
for revenge.
Anyway.
Okay, Scott, let's get to our first big story.
The U.S.
Senate has cleared the way to passing one of the most significant pieces of tech regulation in decades, the Kids Online Safety Acts, or COSA.
It's been controversial, especially some anti-gay issues related to it.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal and GOP Senator Marcia Blackburn unveiled unveiled a new version of the bill, which is better, with over 60 senators co-sponsoring it enough to ensure passage.
The act would require companies to, quote, exercise reasonable care to prevent endangering kids and also put specific safeguards in place for young users.
Let's go through a couple of things.
One of the recent changes is to strip away enforcement powers that give states attorney generals and instead give authority to the FTC.
That was one of the worries that they would people at different states would
mitigate concerns in a number of groups who worried Republican AGs would use the law to deny LGBTQ plus teens access to various resources.
There's still pushback from other groups who believe the bill is a form of censorship and would limit free speech.
This always happens whenever these bills come out.
I don't know what's going to happen in the House.
Probably nothing.
Yeah, that's the thing.
So at a child safety hearing a few weeks ago, ex-CEO Linda Yacarino agreed to support COSA, as did SNAP CEO Evan Spiegel.
Other tech CEOs did not back it.
And it's unclear if the House can, they can't do anything.
So what do you think about this, this bill?
This is an an area you talk about a lot.
Look,
there's been 40 hearings, congressional hearings, as it relates to child safety and technology or technology's impact on child safety, and we have zero bills so far.
So, I don't even need to understand the nuance to know that I think it's probably a good idea, and two, that it's unlikely to pass.
And what Evan Spiegel and Linda Yaccarino think, it's totally unimportant because they have no power.
Their companies are pimples on an elephant.
Linda Yaccarino deciding
that child safety is important, again, is
it doesn't matter.
No one under the age of 40 is on Twitter.
So what a shocker she thinks it's a great idea.
It would have no impact on her revenues or earnings.
The people that matter here are the folks that have an absolute army of lawyers and lobbyists because they have the money and they're very smart and they have people with British accents to show up and feign concern.
These companies have an army.
I had lunch with a guy whose biggest client is Google in Europe and it practically supports his entire firm and he's just out there every day peeing away against any narrative
that might motivate officials or legislators to do something like this.
People don't realize every day there's an army of really well paid people out there getting in the way.
And And then the officials go up there or the CEO gets up there and says, you know, turns around and tells the parents he's sorry.
And then,
but at the same time,
there's an army of people fighting all this shit.
And
until the Senate and the Congress or the Senate and the House actually decide, or I won't even say that, until people start voting people out.
because they're ineffectual on these issues, nothing's going to happen.
So
I'll stop there.
What do you think here, Kara?
I don't think this has much teeth.
There are people worrying, and they're reasonable worried about it.
I think they have fixed some of the stuff, not moving it to the FTC and not the state.
You know what these state AGs would do and certain states, right?
They would abuse it.
I think probably
there are some very good points to be made about
threatening speech online.
There are.
There just are.
And
that'll be a problem.
That'll be a problem.
Now, a lot of someone that you should read, who I don't always agree with, Mike Masnick of Tech Dirt, has written quite a lot on this.
He wrote, of course, as we noted, the latest bill doesn't make it marginally more difficult to directly express LGBTQ content.
It also removed the ability of state attorney generals to enforce one provision, the duty of care provision, though it still allows them to force other provisions and sue social media cases if those state agencies feel the companies aren't complying with the law.
You know, there's got to be a
there's got to be a middle ground here.
Obviously, this, that idiot Charlie Kirk doesn't like it now because it's not mean enough to gay people,
essentially.
You know, I don't think there's a whole lot of teeth here.
I would read Mike about it and some others.
And if you want, you have to realize a lot of these bills are never going to satisfy everybody.
So we'll see.
But there needs to be passing.
Now, listen,
again,
the idea is passing anything.
I think you're right.
And it's not going to get through the House, probably.
The House suddenly seems focused on AI, which I think the Senate was before.
Speaker Mike Johnson and minority leader Hakeem Jeffries announced the formation of a bipartisan AI task force this week to explore legislation that addresses AI concerns.
We already know what legislation we want.
The fact that they're doing these dumb bipartisan things is exhausting.
They will never create legislation or pass it as a joint group of people under the current environment.
My question would be, there's always a fear that legislation is a blunt instrument that ends up doing more harm than than good, right?
And you can understand that.
In this instance, there's a fear that it chills certain speech or ends up being bad for certain vulnerable communities.
And the question I would have is that
right now, in terms of a chill on free speech,
that cold front has come mostly from shaming people or they say something stupid or they're held accountable for what they say and the world shames them and they're canceled.
But what law
has,
I mean,
what legislation has put a chill on free speech?
What, I don't,
where have we gone?
I mean, just, I find the risks there aren't very presentable.
What does ensure reasonable safety mean?
I think, I think it's just, it's, it's, you could drive a truck through some of this.
Um, and a lot of people, like the EFF is against it.
They wrote a piece, Don't Fall for the Latest Changes in the Dangerous Kids' Online Safety Bill.
It's amended.
Um, it's gonna, it's gonna go through a lot.
Once it's passed, if it's ever passed,
EFF says it's still an unconstitutional censorship bill that continues to empower state officials to target services and online content they do not like.
That's the issue, right?
That is the issue.
And having the government decide what types of information people can read, questionable.
There's got to be a way to protect children.
And I think some of your ideas, age gating, like that kind of stuff is going to be,
what does it mean to ensure reasonable care?
It's like, it's so,
again, problematic.
I think the age gating,
if you don't take down pornography, child pornography immediately, you get fined.
Like, there's some very clear things if you really were interested in doing other things.
And I do think the right, and especially the religious right, really wants to shut down LGBTQ youth discussions.
That is their goal.
And
that's what they want.
They're doing it in the trans area.
They're doing it everywhere.
They want everybody to be a straight white Christian.
And that is not happening anytime soon or ever.
So, you know, we'll see.
We'll see.
I just would, and as to AI, just stop having bipartisan commissions and pass some laws.
We know what we need to do.
You know, everyone knows what they need to do.
They cannot pass legislation, and that's really the dysfunction.
So I had a call yesterday with a woman named Sarah Gardner from the HEAT Initiative.
Have you heard of this?
It's essentially an effort to protect kids, especially around pedophiles and
the distribution of child pornography.
And you know who she felt or gave me the impression was the biggest,
I don't know what the term is, the biggest culprit of all the platforms and all the big tech companies?
LinkedIn.
No, I'm sick.
Apple.
She said that Apple, because they're so likable, has escaped a lot of scrutiny.
And if you look at iCloud and storage, they have really embraced this sort of heat shield of privacy as a fundamental human right and aren't cooperating with hashing initiatives?
Yeah, no, they're very strong on encryption.
They are.
They never have backed away from that.
Again, this is what happens.
It's good to be for encryption.
And then at the same time, every terrible person, especially pedophiles, will find a way.
You know, whether they store things at the local cube, you know, they put their porn there.
It's like, is cube on the line for that, for not letting you in?
I just,
look, there's some things they can do that mitigate this.
Shouldn't there be a different set of standards, though, for people under the age of 18?
I mean, shouldn't there?
Yes.
It feels like.
Yes, we do it everywhere else.
Yeah, that's right.
We just have a different set of laws.
You sell drugs, you go to prison for three years.
You sell drugs within 100 feet of a school, you go to prison for nine years.
You know, it's just
age gating, removal of 230 as it relates to children, child safety.
They could do a lot of this stuff.
They could do a lot.
I think one of the issues is this is a feint by the right to suppress LGBTQ.
And I think they're 100% right.
I hear them.
I pay a lot of attention to what they're talking about and what they like.
And they would love states, attorney generals, and conservative states to shut down every discussion of gay issues.
They've tried, they've tried to try and tried again.
It won't work, people.
In any case, you can do whatever you want.
It's not going to work.
Anyway, let's go on a quick break.
And when we come back, we'll talk about the NVIDIA numbers that sent stocks soaring and answer a listener-mayer question about the business impact of the latest Trump ruling.
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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 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 with our second big story.
NVIDIA, this is your favorite.
NVIDIA exceeded all expectations with his latest earnings report.
People were worried.
Quarterly sales tripled from a year ago, with the Chipmaker reporting $22.1 billion in revenue in the last fiscal quarter.
Net profit increased to $12.3 billion from $1.4 billion in the same period last year.
It's been an upward march under Jensen Huang.
NVIDIA shares jumped as much as 11% in extended trading following the earnings announcement.
Ahead of these earnings, Goldman Sachs was already calling NVIDIA the most important stock on planet Earth.
Huang said in a statement that the earnings are evidence of accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point.
They aren't growing in China, where revenue has declined following U.S.
export regulations imposed in October.
Not a surprise.
I mean, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft are trying to work on AI chips of their own.
Again, Altman of OpenAI is working on his own chip venture.
He's been doing it for a while, trying to raise the $7 trillion.
It's a big fat market.
Scott, go for it.
Well, you know how we said, I think it was last week that the most singular impressive quarter or earnings announcement in history was Meta, their last quarter, where they added the value of Shell in one day.
They're now number two.
This was the most impressive earnings call in history.
This company added the value in 10 minutes after the earnings announcement.
It added the value of Ford General Motors and Ferrari.
Since the beginning of the year, in the last six weeks, weeks, it's added the value, and you'll love this, it's added the value of Tesla to its market cap.
We have, I wonder.
Talk about it if it might be frothy too, though.
But go ahead.
I'd like to know.
I just don't.
I mean, any company that's trading at like 30 times revenues, it would hardly say it's not frothy.
But when people look at their dominance of a market, I mean, I think a few things are going on here.
I've been thinking a lot about, I wonder if we're evolving to a new species where a key component of our species becomes asocial and asexual.
And I don't think it's a good thing.
But
I also think we're evolving, businesses are evolving to this weird mix of AI and technology, where essentially what is being masked here is people are excited about AI, but I don't think they're being honest about how AI is being used.
I think AI is essentially corporate Ozempic.
And that is companies, if you look at what really drove Facebook's historic earnings, was that they were able to grow their revenues by 25% while reducing their employee base 25%, which took their earnings up 400%.
No one's ever been.
Reflexively, our craving as a CEO is to grow.
We have a little bit of us of every star in the world.
The universe wants to prosper.
The cosmos want to prosper.
And the way you prosper is you extend and you grow.
So everyone's reflex reaction when you're growing is to hire more people.
We want to eat more ice cream.
We want to hire more people.
And what essentially AI is, in my view, is it's Ozempic.
And it's not replacing people one-for-one.
It's not firing.
It's not replacing Mary the copywriter, but it's meaning that you only need two Marys instead of three because it can draft proposals, it can edit stuff on its own.
And I think essentially, essentially, if you think about it, a lot of corporations are losing weight on the Ozempic of AI, but essentially
NVIDIA is Nova Nordisk.
And
the
I like this whole fat shaming thing, but go ahead.
Well, I'm kidding.
I'm teasing you.
I'm teasing you.
$1.7 trillion.
By the way, the far left has totally politicized the obesity.
You're not finding your truth.
You're finding a fucking ventilator.
Anyways,
that's another day.
There we go.
So, but what you have here is a company that is asset-light, seems to have an incredible lead in what is the ability to report.
If you'll pay $1,000 a month, right, a large population of the world or America, rich people right now, will pay $1,000 a month to lose that last 15.
What will corporate America pay to be able to reverse gravity and continue to grow while cutting expenses?
And what is the Ozempic that lets them do that?
AI.
And who is at the center of AI?
Hands down, NVIDIA.
So talk about, and he's a really, you know, I haven't talked to him in a long time, but I did an interview with him.
He wasn't, he was doing game chips, remember?
They were, that was what they were focused in on, a lot of game stuff and some mobile stuff.
I think it was mobile stuff, as I recall.
And he was such an impressive guy.
This was a 2010.
I feel like I forget when I interviewed him for one of the codes, but I was so struck by him.
I brought him in.
I didn't really have many chip people at my events.
It was so technical.
And he is an impressive person and has worked his way.
The numbers, when you watch the march of the revenues over time, and it's not just now, it's over time.
And the march, the march of the revenue and the march of profits, it's an impressive, he is an undersung CEO in terms of his ability to push things through.
He's compelling.
You know, chip, you know, you go chip CEOs, ooh, dull, dull, but they're not.
Lisa Sue is the same way, really interesting.
He is
just someone that deserves a lot more attention
in terms of how he's run this company.
And he's run circles around these others, right?
He's in the right place at the right time.
Amazon, Google Meta, they're trying to do this.
Now, they'll catch up, by the way, they will, but it's expensive what they have to do.
And this money that Sam Altman's raising, I think he, you know, that was about that controversy.
He was working on a chip venture.
He was entirely right to do so.
This is a big, huge market going forward.
Now, that said for all of this, and it's going to be real competitive, by the way.
And so NIVIDI is going to have some issues once everybody gets up to speed and they will get up to speed.
But there's sort of like the Netflix of streaming, right?
You know what I mean?
Streaming and before the Hollywood companies got in.
And they will have their issues catching up to this guy because he's real good and he's had years doing it.
There are some issues around AI that I'm beginning to see crop up that are really disturbing, which is
generated news that happens, especially after tragedies now, is dominating Google.
If you search on a news thing, all of a sudden there's all these clearly AGI generated news stories that pop up that are really full of not just errors, but some of them aren't totally wrong, but they are dominating and overwhelming the information ecosystem.
The ability to be more efficient is also problematic.
So I would say we really do need to look at both the positives, as you say, saving costs, and the negatives, which is a whole overturning of situations by mere flooding of information.
I want to bring this back to politics.
I think Biden and Newsom are missing a huge opportunity and a huge narrative.
They should, for all the shitposting about California and the homeless problems and the border problems, Gavin Newsom should say, okay,
Jensen Huang could have started his company anywhere.
But by the way, where did he go to school?
He went to Stanford.
He went to another amazing state school called Oregon State.
He immigrated from Taiwan.
And where does he decide to live?
Where did he decide to start a company?
Guess what Gavin Newsom oversaw in the first six weeks of this year?
He has created in California through a mix of innovation, amazing culture, very wealthy people, despite the crime, decide they still want to live there.
They make a concerted decision to live, to continue to live in California.
And what has he been able to do oversee?
He has recreated the entire auto industry in six weeks in terms of shareholder value.
And then Biden needs to get out there and say, because of our focus on AI,
our AI mandate,
because Jensen Huang can shitpost me, as can Elon Musk, and they have absolutely no fear that I will send a bunch of fucking thugs and throw them out a window.
These people choose to move here.
They move to the U.S.
What's the last AI company that was started in your hero country, Russia?
We have a series of laws here that protect people, that offer them opportunity, that offer them rights, protections, family planning, and incredible prosperity, the likes of which no one has ever seen.
Biden should be up there saying,
we are creating more wealth than any nation in any period in history.
And it's because we are a democracy.
And if we go back on being a democracy, despite how you feel or what you think is fucking macho, guess what?
We're all going to make a lot less money.
Jensen Huang isn't going to move as are the most impressive people in the world.
Neither is Google.
And let me just say, can I just take a little lap?
The story in the Wall Street Journal.
Tech leaders fled San Francisco during the pandemic.
Now they're coming back.
Founders and investors who moved to Miami and elsewhere and didn't shut the fuck up about it are returning to the boom in artificial intelligence and the abundance of tech talent.
This is what I said would happen, right?
It was overblown, this idea.
And there are big issues in California.
By the way, it's raining like hell there and office vacancy.
It is such an opportunity for this is a...
San Francisco and the Bay Area as a whole, as I'm going to put it as a bulk call because you can like wander around and look for poop in San Francisco.
You'll find it.
You find it in every city, by the way.
But
what has happened in California in terms of pure talent remains so, besides being the most beautiful place, like from a physical point of view,
it is the most astonishing creation of tech talent, tech money, tech innovation.
that is you've ever seen.
And the fact that these people who made all their fortunes here in, I'm not in California, in California, and then they shitpost it and they blame like other people's deaths on the homeless when it didn't happen that way.
And they just can't stop fucking talking.
This, this, this, what happened here and what is going to happen here is remarkable.
Again, once again, there's never been
a business area that's generated so much wealth and will do it again and again and again.
And they will fix the problems.
They will never be fully fixed.
But boy, is this, you know, you're right.
He's he, NVIDIA's in California.
Google's in California.
The AI boom's in California.
I'm not doing an ad for California.
Well, it's also an ad for America.
I'm not going to see this.
It's an ad for America.
Yeah, an ad for America.
The whole state, the whole Bay Area, the whole, the whole ideas behind California should be replicated across the country.
You shouldn't, your attraction as a tech center should not be that you don't have to pay taxes.
It should be that you are a place of innovation.
That is just, you're just greedy then.
You know, you're just greedy.
And it should be because you believe in innovation and tolerance and ideas and forward thinking.
And that's who's going to win the next era.
Thank you.
That is my speech for governor of California.
All right.
We need to move on.
This is congratulations to NVIDIA.
This is really interesting.
Just very briefly, there was another big merger, which is astonishingly big one.
Capital One is said it's going to acquire Discover.
If the deal goes through at a $35 billion all-stock deal, if the deal goes through, the two companies would form the largest U.S.
credit card company by loan volume.
Big trouble getting past antitrust regulators.
Well, there's a lot of big players in this area.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, no surprise, posted on the Dion X calling for regulators to block it immediately.
I'm not so sure it's going to get blocked.
I think it might get blocked because
it's,
I mean, one, people are spending a lot of money again
and credit card debt's going up.
It's an amazing business.
They're basically trying to go vertical to boot both the processing and have the front-end card issuance such that they claim they could compete with Visa and MasterCard.
It's an amazing business.
But this strikes me as a fairly easy target for a populist argument.
And there is some evidence showing that as these companies get bigger, their fees go up.
So I see a lot of what I'll call posturing on the left around the big getting bigger.
And I wouldn't be surprised if,
I mean, some of this might be a bet that they can wait till a new administration.
Trump would let this go through.
But I wonder if they're going to just try and slowball it.
Because I think Cantor and Lena Kahn and some Democratic, powerful Democratic senators might say,
these brands are so well known to consumers that I think they might see this as an easy way to get in front of cameras and say we're protecting consumers at the bigger getting too big.
Yeah, fees, fees.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right.
That's a fair point.
We'll see where it goes.
But it's a big deal.
It's a huge deal.
In the old days, this would have occupied everybody's attention, but the money is so big and these numbers are so big now.
Well, I think it should get blocked because I think the fewer Discover cards out there, the more people will propagate.
Because the fastest way to ensure you're not having sex is to throw a Discover down at dinner.
That's basically like showing up in a Kia or talking about your magic.
That it really is a prophylactic.
It's basically
that for a present.
It's basically saying, I don't want to have sex.
Just throw down Discover.
Just throw down Discover.
What's in your wallet?
That's Capital One, right?
That is Capital One.
I can't believe I know that off the top of my head.
How could you not know it?
It's everywhere.
I know it is.
It's a very good ad.
Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question.
This question comes from a listener in New York.
Let's play it.
Hi, Karen Scott.
As a New Yorker, I'm curious what you think.
After Trump was fined $355 million in his civil fraud trial, Kevin O'Leary was on Kristen Welker's show and said that this ruling is horrible for New York businesses and that all real estate developers do the kinds of things Trump did, but don't get prosecuted for it, and that New York is going to become a flyover state because of how unfavorable it is becoming for businesses.
Thanks for taking my question.
Okay, this is a great question, actually.
I just read a column in the Wall Street Journal by Joe Lonsdale and Jeb Bush, what a strange pairing, talking about this.
And at first it was like, oh, what's Joe Lonsdale going to say?
But actually, it was, Joe, it was pretty good.
It was an interesting, it was an interesting argument.
You stayed away from you know, pumping Trump and this and that and saying it was a victimization.
I think the argument you're making is very similar to Martha Stewart and many others.
Is why are you targeting him for things other people do?
Well, that happens.
I'm sorry to tell you, unfortunately.
And
just because people don't get prosecuted for these things and this is how it's done doesn't mean they shouldn't or wouldn't.
But they were making a case that this is going to hurt New York.
I'm not so sure.
I think this is just what happens.
Some people get prosecuted for things and others that, you know, some people jaywalk and get a ticket, some people don't.
I'm not so sure.
I mean, Kevin O'Leary, of course, he would say this, right?
But it was, they made, I would, I would point you to the Wall Street Journal column by the two of them.
I can't believe I'm recommending it, but it was actually a good,
it was pretty good.
It was a pretty good argument for against this rulings like this, right?
And the same thing, it was also including, of course, because Joe's
Elon Stan,
saying that the argument against taking away Elon's share
money compensation package in delaware it's going to hurt delaware i think that's ridiculous it won't hurt delaware at all but scott so i think london and new york compete for the number one spot of best city in the world if you like cities i think that everything else is a distant number three
and but they're different in the sense that london in my view or my observation doesn't have a lot of organic value creation What they have is very strong private property laws implemented by Tony Blair, such that if you're a war criminal or if you made your money stealing, whatever it is, you're an oligarch, a war criminal, bring your money to London and it's safe here.
And
you can be totally opaque.
We're not going to take your shit away.
It was very unusual what they did with sanctions on Russia.
They traditionally haven't done that.
But in New York, we passed transparency laws around real estate ownership.
New York is so singular, in my view, in terms of actual wealth creation.
People come up with business ideas in finance, publishing, media.
It creates so much value and it's so singular that I think that it will survive
this quote-unquote chill.
I don't think it's really going to have much of a dent.
I think wealthy people still decide to move to New York, build their fortunes here, ambitious people, and it's worth it.
However, however.
I don't like this case, Kara.
I mean, I like it in the sense that I like the idea of Donald Trump scrambling to try and find half a billion dollars and him going.
him going broke.
I love that because I don't like the man.
I think this was a misallocation of
prosecutorial resources, and I think it's politically charged.
I think they do.
It is politically charged.
Go ahead.
Okay.
When a guy is charged like this and has to pay half a billion dollars because he is a Republican president that Democrats don't like, it is politically motivated.
And that's what this is.
Oh, well, then.
I think this guy's been doing fraud for years and years.
And you know what I mean?
I think you're right.
When the Martha Stewart thing happened, I kept saying, why her and not the 20 other people who do just what they say she's doing?
Martha, Martha lied.
She lied to public FBI investors.
That's what she went in.
But I'm talking about the original allegation of insider trading.
I mean, I've been at dinner parties where I've seen insider trading.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, it's just, I don't know.
I don't know.
I just feel like I don't, it has, I, it has the perception of political payback.
It does.
This guy has a history of fraud and lying about and inflating wealth and things like that.
And eventually they were going to get round to him.
If we're going to haul in front of court every millionaire and billionaire that has inflated the value of their assets to get better terms on loans, you better hire more judges.
But we're not going to do that.
That's the whole point.
It's just sometimes they'll do something.
It's a selective prosecution.
I just
want to, let me be clear.
Sorry.
You hide nuclear secrets in a golf cart charging station.
You try and overturn an election.
You catalyze an insurrection.
I think those are
offenses that you should potentially be prosecuted.
And if a judge decides, go to jail.
This, in my view, was a very politically motivated
prosecution.
And not only that, it reduces the veracity of the other ones because everyone's going to say, all of this is politically motivated.
Yeah, I get it.
I get it.
And
the best argument Trump has is Joe and Jeb Bush say here is judges have ordered massive punitive judgments on behalf of dubious or non-existent, quote, victims.
And they wrote, every American has the right to be critical of Mr.
Trump's politics.
One of us ran against him in 2016 or Mr.
Musk's public persona.
But equality before the law is precious, and these rulings represent a crisis not only for the soundness of our courts, but for business environment that has allowed the U.S.
to prosper.
If these rulings stand, the damage could cascade through the economy.
It's a little dramatic boys, creating a fear of arbitrary enforcement against entrepreneurs who just seek public office or raise their voices as citizens in a way that politicians dislike.
And I don't like them linking the Elon thing here because this board looks so badly formulated that it's always doing, it's a bad board.
And
this was not an arm's length negotiation.
So I wouldn't include Elon Musk thing and I think that ruling makes perfect sense.
This guy makes a joke of boards and makes a joke.
His own employees ignored him in order to follow the law of
what would have been illegal orders.
So I wouldn't link Musk in here.
I felt that ruling made perfect sense.
In this case,
we'll see where it goes.
You're right.
You would absolutely see where it goes.
I do think it's, you know, down in Florida, they have a judge that's pro-Trump who is obviously making rulings and may get disqualified for that.
I don't know.
I think these things shake out, Scott.
I guess I'm cynical.
Yeah, I don't think it's going to affect business across the country more than that.
As I said, I don't think anyone who was planning to move here or business that was planning to come there sees this and says no.
Because
I think they recognize, and this is what's wrong with it, is that it was politically motivated.
I just don't think if it was a popular Democrat who would engage in the exact same behavior, you would have Letitia James go after them.
They went after that guy who ran like the Democratic machine in Albany.
They went after, oh, I see it all the time.
I'm sorry.
You do.
You do.
You do.
You do.
I just, I don't, maybe, I mean, it's the entire plot of billions.
But yeah, I don't know.
You see it on both sides.
And look right now with the Hunter Biden thing.
Hello.
Hello.
It was a Russian agent who you got your information from.
I don't know.
I'm cynical, Scott.
I'm a cynical person.
Anyway, we'll see.
It'll be interesting to see where this one goes.
But he's he's got a lot more criminal indictments on the docket.
So I don't know if this one matters as much.
And I don't think it's going to destroy New York.
It's just not.
Sorry.
Sorry, Kevin.
Not going to.
If you've got a question on your own, you'd like it answered, send it our way.
Go to nymag.com/slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-Pivot.
Scott, one more quick break.
We'll be back for wins and fails.
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I'm Peter Kafka, the host of Channels, and on my podcast, we've been talking about the future of AI in media for what seems like forever.
But what if I told you that future is already here?
So at what point, if any, does a human get involved before it gets sent to my inbox?
Not at all.
That's Warren St.
John, the CEO of Patch, the local news network, telling me how he's producing thousands of newsletters every day just using AI.
You can hear our entire conversation on channels wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Scott wins and fails.
All right, I will go first.
I think a fail was besides the Alabama embryo baby thing.
This story, Oklahoma non-binary team died after school fight amid reported bullying.
What's happening in Oklahoma is disturbing.
The governor and then the guy who's running the education department are like, he's a cons,
Superintendent Ryan Walters appointed Chaya Rychik, the conservative activist when lives of TikTok, which targeted LGBTQ-friendly teachers at these schools, to state library advisors and Kevin Stitt, who is just,
he signed an executive order defining individual sex,
individual sex as biological sex at birth.
Laws have been taking effect requiring students to use bathrooms that match their sex-assigned birth and restricting gender-affirming care for trans use.
There are more than 50 anti-LGBTQ plus laws in states, according to the ACLU.
This is in the Post article.
This is a story about a person
named Nex Benedict, who collapsed the day after an altercation in the girls' bathroom at a public high school.
They attended a school where relatives say the 10th grader who used they, them pronouns, has been bullied for being non-binary.
This is the fucking repercussions of what these people are doing.
This will happen again and again.
And Kevin Stitt made a statement: the death of any child in Oklahoma is a tragedy, and bullies must be held accountable.
Fuck you.
Fuck you.
A complete,
please call me because I'll say that to you if you call me.
What he is doing and what they are doing in this state to these kids who are struggling, struggling, and have always been struggling is they have blood on their hands with this.
This poor family, this story is heartbreaking.
It is heartbreaking.
And this is the direct fear.
And there was one quote by someone, Lance Preston,
said the Rainbow Youth Project received 237 calls from Oklahoma over the weekend.
Two-thirds of the callers mentioned next is death.
So more than 80% they were victims of bullying at school or on social media.
We already have kids who are reporting they don't want to go back to school, even though it's not a lot of information available.
Still, there's a fear, oh my goodness, they killed a student because they were non-binary.
What's going to happen when I go to use the bathrooms i just
this is if you spew violent rhetoric like another person ryan walters who runs the education theater this is what happens this is directly what happens it's a direct line and it is on you and
again i just you know this topic is important to me but he can burn in hell for doing what he will burn in hell for what he's doing i don't really believe in hell but there you have it thank you that is my negative um and my positive uh is is my book's coming out.
And I'm very excited to go.
Scott's throwing me a party in New York next week, which he's not coming to.
So thank you, Scott.
They're in spirit.
They're in spirit.
You are.
I want you to send the video.
I'm excited about the book.
I'm excited about the book.
I'm finally that it's done.
And I'm excited that it's selling with Scott's book on Amazon, which I pointed out this week.
And everybody should go buy Scott's upcoming book and all his books, but he has one coming out soon too.
So I'm excited about our little book world, Karen Scott's book world.
We're multi-hyphen it in case you're interested.
Or multi-hector.
So my fail is Ukraine's military is retreating from the southeastern city of Abdika, I believe it said, amid a Russian barrage.
And supposedly during the retreat, there's reports that a thousand Ukrainian soldiers were either killed or taken hostage.
And these were hard-fought
gains for us in the West and for democracy
that the EU came together around, we came together around, and we've literally just lost it for no other reason than the American government can't get its shit together.
It literally can't get out of its own way.
Most people believe that, yeah, we've made unbelievable gains there with the incredibly brave Ukrainian army and a ton of technology and the West binding together to provide resources.
They didn't lose the town because they lacked soldiers.
They didn't lose it because they lacked strategic positioning.
They didn't do it because they lacked weapons.
They did it because they lacked artillery.
They lacked munitions.
They're firing now 10% of the emissions they used to.
And Putin is winning.
He's just, he correctly diagnosed the U.S.
as dysfunctional.
And he said, all I've got to do is wait these guys out.
And because our system has great checks and balances on a lot of levels, but because one, we have a group of people that want to tie this to a variety of other initiatives, whether it's the border, whether
it's Israel, and they create
so many yeah butts and stuff it with so much shit that we can't have just a vote on whether or not we should continue sending arms to Ukraine.
And it is giving, it has resulted in a retreat.
We are now in retreat.
And the media will try and spin it.
There was talk about how they
are now kind of bunkered in another city and they took down three Soviet jets.
But this is a battlefield defeat that started in Congress,
or specifically started because we can't get our act together in Congress.
This is having real impact on the battlefield.
They're good.
That's such a myth that they're not successful.
They've been extraordinarily successful.
And
it's because we're not sending them what they need to do the job.
So that's my fail.
And we've become so numb to a dysfunctional Congress that we don't really think about, okay, and there's so much news and good and bad that we don't realize, okay, this has got to be, just think of the frustration here, these hard-fought wins and these very brave,
these very brave men on the front lines, and they're ready, they're ready to risk their lives, and they don't have the ammunition.
They're ready.
They could hold the town
because all of a sudden the West, who claimed over and over, don't worry, we have your back, and now for reasons they can barely understand,
aren't getting the ammunition and have been told no we'll figure it out but we haven't anyways that's my fail my win my win is the first book review on burn books so let me just i'm gonna there's a lot here i'll read it yeah it's long um all all good
okay can i read just the last two sentences they're pretty yeah pretty good place to um
She is particularly wary of the ramifications of social media as it continues to eat the news.
And while Swisher's story of her own rise sometimes feels like background, there are important lessons here for women looking for guideposts as they make their own way.
Body,
body brash and compulsively thought-provoking, just like its author.
Burn book.
Here's the last thing.
Burn book sizzles.
I'm going to get a lot of fire things, aren't I?
I'm going to get a lot of fire.
And that was by that was the Advanced review.
It's bookless.
There's four things, Publishers Weekly Bookless, Kirkus, and Library Journal.
They do the advanced reviews.
They're very important, and they do set the tone for what's coming up.
But they're not as important, just as a quick surprise, as my first review from.
Oh, God.
Yes.
I got my first review, and it's from.
Your aunt?
What?
No, it's from another.
Oh, Kirkus.
I got my first review from Kirkus, who is
very important.
Very important.
Yeah, they are.
They are.
It's important.
And while you're sizzles, I'll read the last sentence of mine.
An agreeably told but unoriginal entry in the field of financial self-improvement.
Well, thank you.
So
you're an inspiration, and I'm unoriginal.
And you're brash body and an inspiration to all women.
And I tell unoriginal stories.
You know, Kirkus is known for being cranky.
They're the cranky one.
They are cranky.
I'm sure they'll take a slap at me.
They always do a slap.
That one's not very nice.
That's unoriginal.
Breathtakingly unoriginal.
Oh, my God.
And I mean, I literally, I would have read your whole one, but I was worried I was going to throw up in your mouth.
It is literally, as you said, they licked you up and down.
No, it's a good book.
Oh, you haven't read it.
It doesn't matter.
You'll see.
Well, I don't doubt it.
People who don't like me.
I don't doubt.
People who don't like me have written me.
I don't like you, but I like this book.
That is one of the things that I found, though.
I've written several more books in the last few years.
Interestingly enough, the reviews are inversely correlated to the sales.
My best-reviewed book.
Interesting.
My best-reviewed book was my least-selling book, The Algebra of Happiness.
And my worst reviewed book, The Four, was the biggest seller.
Strange.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah, I think they matter a little bit.
Sometimes, a little bit.
I think you really do have to market the shit out of these things and get people's.
Well, they don't pay to write it.
They pay to market it, as we are doing now.
Yeah, I don't do it.
Yeah, I'm doing a really good work.
And you are too.
But I really do think I'm very excited.
It was so funny.
What I was referring to was when I went to Amazon, they said, people who buy, would you like to buy this package?
And it is all, all Scott Galloway books.
There's nobody else mentioned.
It's just, if you want to buy Cara, you should also buy this package for $70.
You can't quit me.
I know.
I can't quit you.
Toddre and Brash, Burn Book, Cara Swisher, Sezzals.
What they essentially are saying is,
this seems like a lot of fun, but it's deep.
Yeah, I'm deep and fun.
I think so.
That's what they're saying.
I think we're scared to this pitch.
I think that's what they're saying.
Yeah, I know.
Anyway, all right.
An unoriginal story told by.
Well, thanks for that.
Thanks for that.
Yes, anyway.
Okay, Scott, that's the show.
We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot.
Tuesday, I'm going on The View.
I'm so excited.
I can't stand myself.
You're on The View.
I've been invited on public radio on Bend, Oregon at the midnight drive hour.
So I got Yeah, that's because you're breathtakingly unoriginal.
I got some big media appearances coming on Kiara.
And also the Washington Square Muse is interviewing me.
The NYU student newspaper.
So you know
it should be good.
We'll meet.
Maybe three or four books.
It'll be really good.
Tens of dozens.
Watch his shoulders.
Tens of dozens of sales.
Tens of dozens of sales.
Anyway, Scott, read us out.
Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.
Ernie Intertott, engineered this episode.
Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miles Severio.
Nisha Kurua 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 next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.
Sizzle.