Don Lemon Returns, Bitcoin ETF Approval, and BI vs. Axel Springer

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Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher, and I just flew in from California, and gee, are my arms tired?

Oh, that's good.

Scott, I got diverted because of the Alaska Airlines thing.

They're grounding planes all over the place.

Oh, the 737s.

Yeah, I'm like, every like six flights of mine got canceled, and I had to keep trying to figure out how to get.

I almost went through Cleveland, and I just got back this morning at seven o'clock.

Oh, wow.

Are you happy to be back?

You seem like you're sort of in a bad mood.

Before the podcast, I always do a joke and you usually laugh and you weren't laughing.

Oh, wow.

Weren't you tired?

It was a bad joke.

It involved a Tyson vacuum.

That can't be wrong.

Dyson.

Dyson?

Oh, Dyson.

Excuse me.

Tyson is a chicken.

Also, probably the most vicious pugilist in history.

Yeah.

Anyway, oh, that's true, Mike Tyson.

So, no, I just was in California.

I'll tell you about it when we talk about Don

Die Lamont.

Die Le Monde.

I was in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

It was lovely.

We're sort of semi-friends because you introduced us.

I'm getting together with him in New York.

Oh, are you?

Cool.

No, I'll take him somewhere where people will see me hanging out with a handsome celebrity because it adds cred to me.

I'll take him to one of my members-only clubs.

Oh, yeah.

So it's the same thing with these famous people.

They sit down and they ask me for career advice.

Yeah.

You know, Alex Swisher is asking me for career advice.

You're going to be able to do it.

Yeah, but he's savable.

He's on the way up.

I usually get people on their way down.

It's very sweet.

Alex, I'll tell people Alex called me and asked if Scott could help him figure out the correct major.

Of course, I can't help him at all, apparently, but I thought that was lovely because

you were so good at helping him pick the right college.

He loves Michigan.

I've actually done some research.

I'm excited to speak to him, but just the phenomena you are experiencing, my boys want nothing to do.

I've heard from every, you know, every young man in America wanting advice, except my own children.

And they will.

They will.

Well, let me just say.

Still waiting.

You did a good job, and Alex is out partying with the University of Michigan winning

that game against Washington.

That game.

Yeah, that thing was so bad.

That's the Pollar stuff game.

Yeah, that game.

Go Blue.

Go Blue.

How was your weekend?

How was your week since I saw you?

You know, the week, I guess.

My week.

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things.

It's literally 36 degrees.

It started snowing the other night here.

It's cold here, too.

And I'm I'm just trying to get back in the swing.

I feel like I liked our podcast, but my

podcast at Prop G haven't been very good.

I'm trying, like, my writing is sort of tired.

You really do get out of shape pretty quickly.

You got to keep it going.

You got to keep it going.

You do, don't you?

It's a marathon.

It's like a long hill up and a fast hill down.

That is correct.

And I haven't worked out as much over the holidays, so I was like exhausted

today doing basic.

Anyways, trying to get back.

Get back.

I know what you mean.

I know what you mean.

It is.

It's exhausting.

Get back in shape.

Anyway, we have a lot to to talk about today, which is almost completely different.

Business insider at odds with parent company Axel Springer.

I have to say it like that because it's menacing.

And Don Lemon announcing his new venture as X tries to pivot to video.

But first, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis went head-to-head Wednesday night in the final GOP debate before Iowa.

It was kind of mean.

They were like whacking at each other.

Well, the Canada discussed taxes, abortion, foreign policy.

They spent a fair amount of time accusing each other of lying.

lying.

Let's listen to a clip.

But every time he lies, Drake University, don't turn this into a drinking game because you will be overserved by the end of the night.

Haley kept repeating, and she shouldn't have done this as much, her campaign-funded website, DeSantisLies.com.

Here's one from DeSantis.

Let's give Ron a little run around the insult train.

She's got this problem with ballistic podiatry, shooting herself in the foot every other day, saying things that now she doesn't even take questions from people.

That was really stupid.

That was really stupid.

Let me finish.

Former President Donald Trump was absent from the debate as usual, including on the debate stage.

They didn't talk about him very much, or they avoided.

They had a few things that were negative towards him, but not.

He really should be center of the whole thing.

He held a Fox News Town Hall where he hinted he had decided on VP.

He gave himself pats on the backs for Roe v.

Wade, which I thought was a huge error the way he did it.

He has nearly 50% lead in most Iowa polls.

But ahead of the big night, Chris Christie officially dropped out of the race.

And a lot of those votes are going to Nikki Haley.

So she might prevail in New Hampshire.

Did you watch any of this, Scott?

I watched the clips.

I watched the highlights.

And

both candidates were terribly advised.

If one candidate, I mean, first of all, Trump absolutely won the night.

Trump's clips from that night when he did this Foxtown hall were when they asked him directly about retribution, recognizing that he has gone full autocrat when he threatens to be, when he threatens to weaponize his powers as president to go after his political enemies.

That is a definition of kind of fascism.

He walked that back and said, I don't have time for retribution, and the best retribution is success.

Those were great lines.

They had such an opportunity, both DeSantis and Haley, and they absolutely blew it.

And it would have been the following.

One of them should have entirely ignored the other.

Entirely ignored.

She should have.

She or he.

They were both terribly advised.

They both fell into the same rabbit hole.

And that is,

they think they're running for VP instead of president.

And they're not running against each other.

They're running against Donald Trump.

And if they performed well that night against Donald Trump, they're going to bump up 10 points.

If they perform well against the other, they might go up one or two points because there's not that much pie to go after with the other.

And all

the, they would have absolutely been better advised to have pretended the other person wasn't on the stage, never respond to an insult, never go low,

never try and jab back at the distant number two, and just talked about policy and said Donald Trump is an insurrectionist.

Donald Trump's policies have failed.

Donald Trump is about to take the Republican Party to Loserville for the third time in a row and literally pretended the other person wasn't there.

They would have won the night because their competition isn't each other.

I just, they were so poorly advised.

Yeah, it was interesting.

They don't can't seem to be able to do it.

They really can't.

They cannot.

She gets closest to it, but

with Chris Christie dropping up, there's a big wide berth for that, right?

But not to not Chris Christie far.

And by the way, his speech withdrawing was quite wonderful, I have to say.

It was good.

It was really well done.

He's a beautiful speaker, I have to say.

He really can articulate everything he has to say.

You know, and of course, he got caught on a hot mic.

I don't know how hot, I think he probably didn't mind it happening, saying she was going to get, what was it, smoked?

She's going to get smoked.

Yeah, and said that Ron DeSantis was petrified.

And, you know, he'll be an interesting character in the

in, well, he's not really in the Republican Party anymore, is he?

He's in something.

Anyway.

Yeah, I agree.

Nothing was gained by these two, but I feel like she's going to win in New Hampshire now.

And that'll be one of of the things I interviewed, among others, Maggie Haberman, so it's already dropped.

And she and others said that

dragging it out would be bad for Trump if he doesn't have decisive wins very early.

It creates questions around him.

It was interesting.

It was interesting.

We'll see.

Probably not.

It would be hard to believe that one or both of them, and I think it's most likely Governor Haley, doesn't come up.

It's very rare that

someone runs away with it that early.

It usually does tighten a bit.

Well, he's the incumbent, so to speak but go ahead

I mean I don't know I think you could argue it the other way I think he's a guy lost but

I'd be shocked if the race doesn't tighten it a little bit it almost always does it's usually not at this early America likes to see a fight um so I'd be I would I would be shocked if there's not at least a glimpse and the media will pick up on it the media wants a fight I'd like you to predict a vice president I have absolutely no idea what do you think Kara

I think Christy Noam although although she's got a lot of hair on her and has a nice set of hair uh uh or marshall blackburn oh gosh yeah they would literally look like i don't know the the lamest the lamest redo of golden girls yeah that's dude they're too old governor haley he's not gonna do it my fear these people are so horny for power i disagree the reason they didn't go no no he's not gonna do it because oh i see what you're saying yeah she's too establishment he doesn't want any of those people in the nuity that would scare the shit out of me because quite frankly I think Governor Haley would, I don't want to say solidify.

Her as his VEP would significantly, in my opinion, increase the likelihood that he would beat Biden.

Yep.

Yep.

I think that would be a consequential VP pick.

But he's not going to do it.

He's going to pick.

Watch if it's Marjorie Taylor Greene.

She's among the names being bandied about, just so you know.

Maybe Tim Scott.

I don't think they're that dumb.

Tim Scott.

Maybe.

He would be good.

That would be additive, accretive.

Because I think more than anything, who's going to play in this election is going to be um vice president harris and fairly or unfairly i think america is not comfortable with the prospect of her being president and when you have a president who has somewhere between a six and ten percent chance each year according to actuarial tables of dying the vice president plays a bigger role she does she's almost disappeared it feels like i think the gop is going to start running hands and saying president harris think about that yeah that's true it's it's a liability for him.

And he's already, the polls are already showing really bad things for him.

But, you know, it's a long time to November.

It is a long time.

It is a long time.

So, another story: Bitcoin, this is interesting.

Bitcoin exchange traded funds are already trading following SEC approval.

The 11-spot Bitcoin ETFs will make crypto more accessible, allowing investors to gain exposure to crypto without buying it themselves.

The decision is expected to lead to a conversion of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust holder of $29 billion of cryptocurrency into an ETF.

BlackRock and Fidelity are also expected to launch Bitcoin funds.

At the time of the taping, Bitcoin is up over 7%.

Part of it was

a day after the SEC's X account was compromised, announcing the approval early.

It's because it didn't have two-factor authentication on it.

What do you think of this?

I'm really interested because we've been sort of meh on on not meh, but just on most cryptocurrency, not Bitcoin necessarily.

But

what are your thoughts?

I think there's a lot of lessons here.

The first is that the way you get, or one of the ways you get wealthy, is running into the fire.

And when you think about, I mean, Bitcoin's up 70%

in recent months.

And some of these other coins, Solana, are literally up exponentially.

And so

when the consensus is something is just terrible and going away, you need to kind of check your emotions and say, okay, does this represent an opportunity?

Because typically the biggest opportunities are literally running into the fire.

And there's just no getting around it.

The crypto market has defied all expectations and punditry and has come ripping back in the context.

Certain ones.

Certain ones, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, crypto's resurgence has been remarkable.

I just don't, and I mean, this is in the face of the two primary characters, what is his name?

Shao and Bankman Fried, are both going to prison.

Right.

But this puts it in a much more stable place.

If you've got, you know, you can buy into it.

It's like buying any kind of asset, right?

Well, that's exactly right.

Because if I said to you, how can you buy Bitcoin today, would you know?

I would because I bought it before, but yes.

Okay, but I think, I think 90% of people who haven't purchased it would have no idea how to actually purchase Bitcoin.

Yeah.

And this not only brings a halo of legitimacy to it, it brings greater scrutiny and it also will starch out many of the transaction fees because these ETFs are already competing competing against each other in bringing down fees.

Now, everybody,

where I go with this, though, is that the analogy is that the company I think this will have the biggest impact on is Coinbase.

Because the analogy I would use is that Coinbase is the AOL of the crypto age.

Oh, nice.

I like that.

I was just thinking that.

I was like, why?

Because they're going to just, you know, they were the early people who gave people the tools.

But now, Fidelity, I'd buy it through Fidelity.

I'm not buying it through Coinbase.

That's exactly right.

Because

people didn't know how to access the the internet and the web in the 90s.

So they found this safe layer of software on top of it that was friendly and easy to use.

And that's Coinbase.

And when all of a sudden you can access the web with browsers, specifically an ETF, and it's easy to buy and sell Bitcoin, I believe the value proposition of Coinbase is dramatically reduced.

And what was interesting is Brian Armstrong, who's a very smart guy, immediately said, this is amazing for Coinbase and there will be more inflows into Bitcoin.

And I believe that the market sensed this was going to happen see above 70 run up and then last night when this was announced in the after-hour trading bit um coinbase exploded up to 160 and as we sit here now when people are digesting it it's back to about 147 and it's down i think this is really bad news for what i would describe as the aol of 2024 and that is coinbase and there's a couple of those you're right they were there to facilitate and make it easier but but people mostly trust Fidelity.

I was just when I saw the,

I would buy it through, I'm going to buy it through Fidelity.

It's just and to be fair, I think seven of the 10 ETFs are going to be sold through Coinbase, but the fees, I mean, to a certain extent, the dislocation and the asymmetry of information resulted in really fat margins and fees for the brokers.

But once Vanguard and Schwab are into this thing, they're going to starch out the fees.

They're going to say, okay,

you can trade this stuff really inexpensively right now.

It's good for Bitcoin.

It's really good for Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy and Bitcoin Bulls.

I think this legitimizes it as a true store of value.

I've never really, I mean, we'll see if it ends up being an incredible payment infrastructure, but

this is great for Bitcoin.

I do think that this is good for the SEC.

It's good for smaller coins that I think will get a natural updraft because you're just going to have more capital come into the crypto market.

I think it's bad for Coinbase and other middleware.

I agree.

AOL is a good way to put it.

Speaking of new things, great news.

The Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset will go on sale in the U.S.

on February 2nd.

Pricing will start at $3,500, making it three times as expensive as Meta's line of mixed reality devices, which used to be expensive.

And speaking of wearable devices, Humane, the creator of an AI pin meant to replace smartphones, has laid off 4% of its staff and transitions its CTO to an advisor role.

The company's weird AI pin, I never liked that, is planned to begin shipping out in March.

I invited you to a demo again, and you're trying to decline it.

You cannot insult it without trying it.

Let me just come out of the VR closet and officially decline it.

I don't need to put this prophylactic on my head.

You're wrong.

Kara, this has never been easier.

Putting on a headset.

I know, prophylactic.

I purge it.

And for all of you sending me emails saying my dick jokes are offensive, just know every one of those I got to get, I'm going to go further down the rabbit hole and go more profane.

Okay.

Putting on a mixed reality headset is like putting on a strap-on.

It communicates to the rest of the world that you have a dearth of mating opportunities and a really small dick.

Well, you know, some people like strap-ons, Scott.

Some people really enjoy them, but go ahead.

I'm not against it.

Okay.

I'm not against it.

All right.

Okay.

Two things.

This thing, the headset, is a failure.

The software and the R ⁇ D will pay off.

Why?

Because the second mouse, the biggest second mouse in history, specifically Apple, is about to come in and take the cheese of the progress in the R ⁇ D that Meta has deployed.

You know what actually is a pretty cool product and the coolest product that has ever been produced by Meta is their Ray-Ban virtual reality glasses.

Yeah, I was trying them the other day.

I like them quite a bit.

My son, my 13-year-old bought a pair.

We bought a pair for him for Christmas, and he was, when we were skiing, he was wearing them.

He wore them the entire trip.

And I'd be on a chairlift and he'd look at me and he's like, Meta, take a photo.

And I understand there's privacy concerns, but I put them on.

The audio is amazing.

And this is what's going to happen.

Apple is going to develop all sorts of cool software with this stupid headset.

And then they're going to come out with what is the equivalent of an Oliver Peoples, Hermes aspirational pair of glasses that are AR-enabled.

It's going to be the biggest fashion accessory since the AirPods.

That may be.

I just want you to see what they've done with the software.

How about that?

Not the device itself.

What they've done with the software is startling, actually.

And

I've tried them all.

And by the way, let's just give a tip of the hat to Snapchat, which was very pioneering.

I don't think they're going to 100%.

I have all their various glasses and most of the others.

So I've been trying these for a long time.

This is the, I'm going to buy one.

I'm going to buy one.

And I'm not going to let you use it for sure.

Anyway, humane, I'm not as hot on this, these, these pins.

I do think there's an AI pin.

I do think there's going to be an AI thing near you that answers questions.

Like that, it was interesting because I interviewed Mark Thompson this week in California.

What was interesting is that he was talking about CNN, you know, that you'd go, oh, what happened this morning?

Oh, what happened?

You know, like that's, you're going to have that.

And it's not going to be Alexa.

It's going to be much more intimate.

And I think some of these glasses are like that.

So they, it'll be, I mean, similar to how the seven series or the Maybach or I don't know the right analogy is the flagship doesn't sell a lot of cars, but that technology, that technology waterfalls down to the products that actually sell a lot.

I don't doubt the software is amazing, but the form factor will be a really cool pair of glasses that have sunglasses or regular glasses that have self-expressive benefit because Apple will partner with, I don't know, Chanel or, you know, my favorite sunglasses are Oliver Peoples.

They will find, they will create the ultimate ultimate self-expressive luxury brand and they'll take that software and that interface that you're talking about and they'll put it in something that increases your likelihood of having, of propagating and not having your family tree end.

All right.

Well, we will see, but I think it changes the office experience and the screen experience.

And I think the entertainment and photography is beautiful in it.

And you need it to be immersive.

Anyway, we'll see what happens.

But I'm going to stay at your apartment and go for a demo.

They've asked you, they nicely called me and said, Do you think Scott will come?

I said, Definitely.

And I appreciate it.

And by the way, my largest holding, I think it's it, I think it's either ABNB or Apple, or Airbnb or Apple.

I love Apple.

I think Tim Cook is a leader.

I love the firm.

Headsets are fucking ridiculous.

Laser disc and strap-ons combined together.

Hi, I subscribe to the information, go to crypto conferences, and have a very small penis.

Well, crypto's up.

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

Business Insider and its parent company, Axel Springer, are clashing over recent articles alleging Bill Ackman's wife, Neri Oxman, plagiarized parts of her 2010 dissertation.

Earlier this week, Axel Springer put out a statement saying it would, quote, review the processes and the motives around the stories to ensure that standards were upheld.

Business Insider Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Carlson, who I've spoken to, says he's made a call to publish the stories and stands by them.

This was unprecedented.

I want to know what you think of it, but let me just say a few things.

Axel Springer's head of communications told Puck's Dylan Byers that a review was launched because of some of the accusations Bill Ackman made about the stories, specifically the claim that investigating Oxman was anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist.

Oxman was born in Israel.

Just utter nonsense, I'm sorry.

And alleging that one of the editors was anti-Zionist.

And Elon has chimed in, of course, saying I recommend a lawsuit.

It's ridiculous because it's accurate.

I think most reporters were like, this was accurate.

This is crazy.

And I can't believe they meddled like this.

I am highly disappointed in them.

You know, it's because he's prominent and he screams a lot.

And he's also gone back

on what plagiarism is.

He's changed his opinion after he got Claudine Gay.

And now when it applies to his wife, it's not plagiarism.

And, you know,

you and I agree about it.

Neither of them is that big a deal.

So he's been talking to Matthias Dopner.

He's talked to the directors and shareholders.

You know, he's, he's applying the same bullying aggression here that he does in all his world.

And it's somewhat embarrassing, his giant,

like long thing, long things he does where he thinks he's on some sort of

a holy grail of some sort.

But, you know, he's, he, he created this situation for his wife, unfortunately.

So, what do you think?

So, first off, I really appreciate that Bill Ackman is using his platform

to talk about what I believe is unprecedented racism and anti-Semitism that I didn't know existed.

And I admire that he is speaking out because you do get a lot of blowback.

And as a big donor and a leader in finance, I think he has the right to speak out.

This,

having said that, this is total bullshit.

When Claudine Gay says that she was fired because of racism, that is not true.

She was fired because the ground shifted beneath her and because she said things that played into people's worst fears about a tolerance of anti-Semitism, of which there is no similar tolerance across any other form of bigotry.

And she was fired, which, by the way, happens all the time.

And neither was it racism when the president of Penn was fired a couple of weeks before.

At the same time, if, again, we said this on the last show, if Bill Ackman wants to weaponize a time machine and start combing through Claudine Gay's past and specifically accusations or AI-discovered accusations of plagiarism, he sets his wife up, who is also a prominent academic, for the same type of scrutiny.

And what is most upsetting about this is we are entering an era where billionaires like Peter Thiel or Elon Musk or Bill Ackman, unfortunately, can use their billions and their influence to suppress free speech and journalism.

This is a free speech.

I mean, if you want to actually talk about a free speech,

billionaires, in my opinion, should not be creating a chill around what is, he may not like the reporting.

I don't see anything that was not true in this.

Yeah.

But I also, quite frankly, and I'm a big fan of Matthias Dopfner.

I'm disappointed he didn't stand behind Business Insider in this.

I went back and I read the article.

I'm like, this is hardly slander.

Everything I see in here is accurate.

She handled it.

His wife handled it well.

They're right.

Citation inaccuracy.

I have fixed it.

Bill was absolutely on the right track.

And on the whole, I think his contribution to this mess or situation has been positive.

But when he starts trying to put a chill on journalism, with his billions, that is just bullshit.

It is bullying and it's bad for America.

Yeah.

You know what?

I don't agree with you.

I agree him calling out the issues of anti-Semitism, but this is a piece by Tim Noah, who I like quite a bit, wrote.

I've written previously about Ackman's oligarchic bullying and brazen hypocrisy on the subject of anti-Semitism, even as Ackman was trying to blackball a bunch of teenagers whose Harvard student organization signed onto a foolish and offensive letter about the October 7th Hamas massacre.

Ackman was simultaneously defending an anti-Semitic tweet made by 53-year-old Elon Musk.

Elon Musk.

Defending anti-Semitic tweet was not Musk's first, and it sent corporate advertisers leaving Twitter X in droves in a classic two-step maneuver characteristic of bullies.

Ackman punched down and kissed up, which is what I've said.

Now, Ackman has extended his hypocrisy into the realm of plagiarism, a project that includes bullying

Axel Springer, the publisher of Business Insider, into investigating the ethics of its own scoop.

The new campaign is more bizarre and potentially more dangerous.

And he just changed his tune, like completely, like as if we're not paying attention.

He said it was, he was going after gay

on the board finally publicly acknowledged some of Gay's plagiarism,

blah, blah, blah.

And then and then he's now changed his opinion about plagiarism,

which is because it applies to his wife, which is and

the family off limits,

the

saying it's because his wife was Israeli.

It's just nonsense.

Saying they didn't call him quickly enough.

But then it's also that we were having a Shabbat dinner.

He knows how journalism works.

It's just they don't, as Tim says, scoops do not arrive on a convenient schedule.

It's just,

that's, it's just ridiculous.

We were having Shabbat dinner.

I know.

This is, again, I really didn't like it when Claudine Gay immediately pulled out the racism card when she was fired.

I don't think it's any less distasteful that he is immediately going to anti-Semitism here.

And also, George Carlin, who's kind of a hero of mine, said, I love people as individuals.

He's like, you can see the universe in their eyes.

It's when they begin to coalesce in groups, when they begin to clot that they're dangerous.

And one of the most dangerous clotting, as epitomized here, is white billionaires in their 50s and 60s.

And the question I would have for Matthias Dopner, who is a role model of mine.

I like him a lot.

I think he represents a lot of wonderful attributes of masculinity.

Is

if

someone who just made a really good living, if this article was written about them and they weren't a billionaire with the influence of Bill Ackman, would you be calling for a review of this article?

This is

when it's another billionaire, when it's Musk, Doefner, and Ackman, they just have a dangerous tendency to agree with each other and support each other, distinct of what are the standard.

If you look at the logic here, business insiders, they had every right to write an article like this.

And what's happened happened is Bill Ackman has absolutely activated his army of publicists.

He's gone to

this positioning of anti-Semitism where you're like, okay.

He's doing it himself on Twitter.

It's just, he keeps changing his tune.

It's as if we can't read what he wrote.

I mean, the hypocrisy, before he was all over gay about

he demanded attention because this is Tim Noah's art represented exception violation of academic standards.

Now Ackman was saying they all do it.

You know what I mean?

This is ignorable.

So did he have a problem with it or has he changed his mind?

And he's calling more attention to the issue.

I thought his wife handled it really well.

Yeah, I was wrong.

I need to clean it up.

Shut the F up about this.

And he doesn't have to.

And Claudine Gay, Claudine Gay needs to clean up her stuff, but that's not, but that it wasn't reason nor why she was fired.

It wasn't reason to fire nor why they fired her.

And he's created a total sideshow that, in my opinion, distracts from and diminishes

the importance of the issues he had raised.

Yeah, I would agree.

Anyway, it's creating a sideshow that just didn't need to be there.

And also, I'm just, when you're Matthias Dopfner and you own these, when you own something like the Business Insider,

I mean, you support it, you back it up.

You don't.

I mean, my God, if he wants to do a review of this, I'll send you about 100 articles on political and business insider that are much more suspect than this.

Yeah, I agree.

They've had some stuff that's, that's, but you know, this is a very solid.

Every

very good reporter came to.

It's a good article.

It's a solid article.

Two things, last things on this is, you know, I agree with you.

Bill Ackman has just been a bully his whole life, a bullying billionaire, essentially.

And he just can't stop.

He's got something, something's something's in his nature that he can't just stop.

Well, he's an activist investor.

I think it's unfair to call him a bully.

Yeah, but he's he's beyond.

I know a lot of them.

I know a lot of them, and they're not quite like him.

And nobody, by the way, I've talked to a lot of people on Wall Street.

Most people don't like him.

He has a lot of detractors who find him irritating.

I've never met the man, but let me also say I know a lot of good people who are big fans of his.

But I'm just saying he's a controversial figure.

I think that's being kind.

He's a billionaire activist investor.

That's just not where you go to be well-liked.

I guess Carl Icon's not that well-liked either.

Yeah.

Carl Icon.

I know.

I know.

I know.

They're all kind of a.

Name a billionaire activist who's seen as warm and cuddly and everybody loves.

I like Dan Loeb.

He makes me laugh.

And I don't agree with him almost.

Dan is funny and a good guy.

And not only that, I will say, and also Dan has mellowed.

Dan has absolutely mellowed.

Those poison pen letters he used to write.

Charles.

Oh, that one guy who was after Microsoft.

I liked him.

There's David Einhorn, who is a class actor.

Einhorn.

David Einhorn.

David Einhorn.

I like him.

He is very good, super smart, class actor.

He's Charles Sandberg's Sandberg's cousin.

Really?

Also, Jeffrey Ubben of Value Act developed a reputation for being kind of an operational activist and very smart.

Yeah.

I think the best tweet on it was, everything I know about Bill Ackman, I learned against my will.

There's a lot of good tweets.

And let me just say last thing on Axel Springer.

You know, we know Dopner, and I know a lot of people at the organization.

And they're often, they're always like, Kara, you should come over here.

Kara, why are you a box?

They're They're always saying, let's have a meeting.

And now, guess what, boys?

Kara's not having a meeting with you ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.

Like, it's just that we're.

We've got our contracts coming up.

We need to cut that out.

Danny wants the cheddar.

No.

The wealthier I get, the more interesting I get.

No, we're not going there.

We're not going there, Scott.

That's a great firm.

They screwed up here.

They're allowed to screw up.

Then they need to do a public apology.

Anyways, and Matthias Doefner is a fantastic role model.

I don't agree with him.

He's a little too.

Yeah.

And Bill gets him mostly right, in my view.

Anyways, Glass Half.

Glass Half.

No, no, you're you defend rich white men.

Anyway, by the way, Duffner, I think, is a billionaire.

That's not fair.

That's not fair.

Oh, I know that.

I know that.

I just defend rich white people, not just men.

I defend rich white women as well.

Let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, we'll talk about Don Lemon's new project and X's attempt to be a contender in the online video space and take a listener mail question about tech and healthcare.

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off.

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

De Lamont, Darren Lemon, is back and he says he's bigger, bolder, freer.

He was pretty free.

Lemon announced this week that he's starting a new show that will stream exclusively first on X.

Episodes will cover politics, culture, sports, and entertainment.

This is part of X's larger push into video.

In a blog post this week, the company declared itself a video first platform.

Dom was on our show during Scott Free August this past summer.

I asked him about his future plans.

Let's listen to what he said.

I think I want to do something next that scares the shit out of me.

And I had a very successful career in cable news for a long time.

I got to do and say exactly what I wanted to.

I have and had a very important voice that most people don't get to hear

on that platform and still don't.

And I expect that to continue.

But I'm going to lean into the future of this medium.

So it's a podcast that's going to be first on X, I guess, which, you know, they've been, Linda's been going around.

I knew a lot about this because I talked to Don about it quite a bit.

I had other suggestions for him.

I suggested he do a deal with Ben Shapiro or do the Megan Kelly route.

I didn't think this was a good idea.

So that's just full disclosure.

And I told him so.

And I said, you know, get the money up front.

I just don't think it's going to go well for you on this platform.

But

he did it.

He's other things he's doing.

But he also called X the biggest space for free speech in the world.

I think it was also Tulsi Gabbard and sports commentator Jim Rome are doing video partnerships.

Obviously, Tucker Carlson's been there, but then moved to his own subscription-based platform.

Scott, what do you think?

I said he shouldn't do it.

I thought there were lots of other choices.

And again, if I'm recommending Ben Shapiro, who I think is abhorrent in many ways, but he's quite a good media executive, that's the kind of outfit I thought he should have affiliate, you know, to create a great media property.

I think you're right.

So first off, I think, I think Don is a is a real talent.

And he is, I think he's unafraid.

He connects with people.

He's really handsome, which I think is incredibly important in media.

Not as important in podcasting.

But if I were him, I would have just started with a podcast with a Vox or, you know, daily, you know, whatever it's called, Daily Wire, and developed a following there because X sort of creates a halo that,

okay, congratulations, you're now, you know, on the same platform as Alex Jones.

And the guy who runs it is just sort of reckless and strange.

And I don't, this reminds me a little bit of when Yahoo did a big deal with Katie Kuric.

Yes.

I broke all those things.

It's not,

it's not,

I don't, this is not what I would have done if I was Don.

If I were Don, I would have figured out an outlet where I could still have a 30 or 60 minute show because

he has a face for television.

And I do think him in TV is still, he would still do well, even if he had to go to a quote-unquote second-tier network.

And he should have done a great podcast.

To kind of announce this,

it's not just Don Lemon and what the topics are going to talk about.

It's Don Lemon and X.

And X, in my view, is a bad umbrella brand.

But on the whole, he's a big talent.

And the thing I do about this is that he is doing something.

The key for all of these folks, and I've spoken to a lot of them recently as they're all trying to figure out their third or fourth act,

is don't let perfect be the enemy a good.

And that is just get on to the next thing and iterate.

Well, they're used to a different world because they're used to being coddled in the whole network system, right?

You know,

in Katie's case, I actually did break that through.

That's how I got to know Katie from that story.

She she got a ton of money up front, but then they buried her inside of Yah, who never was on the front page.

A whole bunch of things that happened.

Well, she only got 1% of what Marissa Mayer paired for Tumblr, who is obviously arguably one of the worst shows in the history of technology.

I think they paid Don a pile of money.

I know they did.

Pile of money up front, a pile.

X paid Don Lemon?

Yes.

Really?

Oh, I didn't know it.

Well, if that's the case, then I,

you know, I think economic security is important.

If he's, if he's, he has a lot of money.

He's still, you know, he, he got, when they fired him, I got, I think they had to pay out his contract.

So

I don't know.

He could have had more money.

I think I, again, can't stand what Megan Kelly's doing, but I, I get it.

I get it.

Oh, she's very good at what she does.

Yes, that's what I mean.

I'm like, uh-huh.

She's very good at what she's doing.

And I talked to her before she did that.

And I recommended the other thing I recommended to Don is if you want to stay on television, go to a big market like Los Angeles and be the anchor for the top TV station and start to do interesting things.

Those guys will never go local after being able to do it.

I get it, but like you could do some interesting things.

That's a great kind of place because they're anyway.

Whatever.

I just, I don't think this was a good idea.

But, you know, I guess if you got a pile of money, good for you.

X has the money to pay these kind of things.

I would think it is.

Yeah, I said get it up front, Don.

Like, get like, like Bitcoin or something.

Get it right up front.

Yeah, just be, just be mindful.

If you get fired, you might not get the severance or health care you were contractually obligated to.

Speaking of which, I was in San Francisco.

There are going to be some lawsuits soon because he hasn't paid any of them what he owes them.

From top to bottom, the ex-Twitter employees.

And he's using specious

ideas of why, I forget what the one was.

There was a couple different people told me different things they're accusing them of, so they don't have to pay them.

But it goes back to the same thing with this bullshit around, well, I'm a billionaire, so I can put a chill on all of media.

And that is, if I'm a billionaire, I'm not subject to the nuisance of a contract.

Yeah, I said I would pay you severance,

but I've decided not to.

Yeah, this is a good idea.

Yeah, I would say

I would pay your Cobra so you could have health insurance for you and your family.

Well, guess what?

You can't even reach someone in HR because I've already fired them.

And go ahead, sue me because I'm a billionaire.

Yeah,

I have a PR team.

I am optimized for conflict because I'm an activist investor and I am a billionaire.

And I'm going to see Matthias Dopner at Davos next week.

I'm going to fuck with you because I can.

Yeah, I agree.

It's the same bullshit.

And that is the government and media to a certain extent are, we're here to push back on power when it gets,

which in too much of it is concentrated, it corrupts.

What kind of billionaires would we be?

Well, I'd like to find out.

Yeah, yeah, I'd like to find out.

Yeah.

Don't you think we'd be good billionaires?

Maybe not.

The Kent's impossible, I guess.

Well, there's a lot of good billionaires.

As a matter of fact, I would argue there are just as many

good billionaires out there as a proportion as there are good millionaires or good poor people.

I've never bought into the demonization of people who are rich.

But anyways,

when you get drunk on your power, most billionaires I know, as they get wealthier and more powerful, they use power judiciously and they recognize that they shouldn't abuse it.

And

I mean, mean, I always took this lesson from Warren Hellman, who was the first billionaire I ever met.

And he taught me something that I have put into practice my entire career.

I met him when I was in my 20s just out of business school.

Hellman Friedman,

huge, probably the iconic private equity firm on the West Coast.

And I was, he was a mentor of mine.

I used to meet with him once a month and have lunch.

And I said,

this firm has treated us really poorly.

And I'm so angry.

And they signed a contract and they're not paying.

And I asked him, can you recommend a law firm for me?

And he's like, Scott,

in our, my 50 years in business, I have never sued anybody.

And he said, if, if someone doesn't treat you well, unless they really are abusing you, just don't do business with them again.

Yeah, they love to threaten lawsuits, these people, constantly.

I'm just waiting for mine, for my book.

So, so let me get back to Don.

Let me get back to this video strategy because I get it.

It's so abusive.

It really is.

But the video strategy that they have now, now ex-CEO, Linda Yaker, you know, is CES this week, getting asked why advertisers should put ads on X given the hateful content risk.

She said that hate speech is an issue on every platform faces.

Can they pivot to video?

No, I said, you know, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, two would like to have a word, Twitter.

Like, they're so behind.

They blew all their chances early.

They have TikTok.

I'm sorry, I left out TikTok.

Their competitors are superb and good at what they do.

They have no chance.

I don't see how they have any chance.

This is another, you know, bullshit thing that they

aren't going to like.

A lot of the Twitter blue stuff is now falling off of Twitter Blue, all their promises.

So I don't see them being able to pivot to this at all.

Well, sort of back in the day, one of my investors was Tim Armstrong, a really talented, nice man.

And I don't know if it was him or his head of strategy.

So what would you do if you were Yahoo?

That's probably a decade ago.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

He bought it.

Yeah.

I mean, I would be the world's largest TV network and that your distribution platform is the internet.

And a lot of word is out that video is big.

And to your point,

YouTube does a really good job.

TikTok does a really good job.

So I'm not saying, yeah, it might be the right strategy, but it feels a little bit late.

It feels like they don't have the capital, the engineering talent.

And they were there already eight years too late.

So I don't, yeah, it makes sense, but the notion that,

you know, I just don't, if I were,

we'll see.

Look, Twitter X has to do something, right?

They have to innovate.

They have to do something.

They have to experiment.

This is, this is, it does feel late.

This is a media strategy by someone who doesn't know media, which would be Musk and Linda Yaccarino, who came from NBC.

So this is her move.

And she was not in programming or editorial or anything.

She knows how to, you know, putting names like Tulsi Gabbard and Don Lemon out.

She thinks it's going to, this is, she goes for the deal, the splashy deal at CES.

That's not how it works anymore.

It's people you don't know.

It's interesting, like Mr.

Beast, or it's, oh, it's just not this.

It's just not this.

Oh, it's people who are native.

I will say, I saw, I watched Tulsi on

Fox.

Yeah, she's got some talent.

She was good.

And I think she's talented.

I was shocked at how good she was on air.

I think she's good.

If I would have done a deal, and maybe they just got bought, you know, they just threw so much money at the end, which, and if that's the case,

D Lemon, I take it back.

Good for you.

No, it's not good.

It's not good for him.

He could have made just Megan Kelly is making bank and she controls her destiny.

I'm sorry.

Good point.

Good point.

You know, you don't need it.

I was talking to someone about this and they, about my own career, and they're like, why don't you come with us full time?

I said, you can't afford me.

You don't understand.

But you know what I mean?

Like, I can do better by myself.

Like, you don't, things have changed, and I'm not even very big.

So

you stay at the nicest hotels in Manhattan.

Wait, never mind.

Never mind.

You go through my closets and comment on my face.

I actually love your apartment.

I love it.

It's nice, isn't it?

I love it.

I'm kidding.

It makes me happy to know you're there.

You know, I love people's homes.

I stayed with Brooke Hammerling in Los Angeles.

He has a beautiful home.

I don't like hotels.

I'm not a hotel liker, but I love your apartment.

I like hotels.

Home service, call, scream at people.

Where am I A?

I don't like it.

I like your apartment quite a bit.

And I don't know why

I have an affection for it.

I really do.

And it's not because it's not that fancy.

It's just really lovely.

It's a lovely feeling.

It's your apartment.

Anyway, it's got a nice vibe.

It's got a good vibe.

It's full of love and see Alice.

It's full of love.

Last thing is this world of online video changing then.

Where do you think it's going?

I did interview Mark Thompson at an off-site for Warner Brothers.

I don't know if it was off the record or not.

I was never told it was, but it was a really interesting conversation.

But he said,

among other things, the conventional TV can no longer define us.

Although he wasn't abandoning TV, that wasn't what he meant.

That's when he started his job.

Well, I think he's like, I think I was trying to get more out of him about it, actually, because it was, you know, I think he has to, they're trying to figure out where, how to, how to move that, where and how to move their stuff and control it.

A little like, you know, he said it wasn't one thing I'm going to just say what he said.

He said it wasn't a shift and lift from or lift and shift from what he did at the New York Times, which was move it over to digital while keeping the print thing going.

Because he thought video,

like T V distribution, linear, would be around for several decades.

And I would agree with him.

And it's already there, so why not take advantage of it?

But that you have have to sort of move everything,

think of it as a digital product over time.

And he said, we have to own it and not be subject to other people's platforms.

It was interesting.

He's a smart man.

But what is the

strategy, if you were to define, maybe you didn't get this information, how Mark Thompson is going,

what is the strategy or the shift?

in programming or distribution that we'll see under Mark Thompson that we weren't going to see under Chris.

A subscription.

Subscription.

That's my.

She didn't say it, but there's no other way.

Like what they did at the New York Times, some of it's free.

You mean like CNN Plus?

Yes, exactly.

That's what I said.

I said the problem with CNN Plus was directionally correct, but there was no CNN.

It was like hamburger plus without hamburger, right?

Like, I don't get it.

Why don't you?

But I think some of the stuff, I think he's right.

Some news does lend itself to television, fast news, fast-moving.

But I think the dependence on

the platforms like Twitter or YouTube or whatever, there's not the modernization's not there.

And I think the Times was doing that too.

Just the way everybody gave all their content to Netflix and regretted it, I think, in a lot of ways,

and didn't own it themselves and take the costs of doing it.

I think that's his inclination.

I think he's correct, that it has to be a product that people want to buy.

a news product that people want to buy from CNN.

And some of it is free, some of it's not.

I mean, he has to, he's, you know, they could look at Netflix, is now very successfully doing advertising.

Amazon is about to make its ad tier for it default for its millions of prime video subscribers.

So, you know, there's a lot of ad stuff in a different and interesting way.

So

they have some interesting opportunities, and he's very canny.

So I don't know.

What would you do if you were running CNN?

I would try and elegantly integrate it into

kind of the Max offering and always have a CNN bug where you could click it and they did, you know, they had six, 10, 20 minute loops where you could get your quick hit of news and then you could go vertical, quick hit of news around politics, around business.

To me, it's the kind of kind of becomes the ingredient news brand for the subscription service Max.

I don't think it's a standalone subscription service.

I think it's the ingredient, it's the neutra suite of Macs around news.

And because when you think about it, the biggest players,

whether it's Disney Plus or Netflix, what they lack is news.

So it is, it's the AstroTame or I don't know what you would want to call it.

It's the Intel inside of Macs.

I'll tell you the most interesting thing he said offhand, which was this idea of you wake up and

you're like, I want to know more about that.

I want like an AI generate, you know, that their news done by people is then applied, you know, digitally and with AI, with generative AI, so that you start to get there.

They're exploring deals with open AI.

That was just reported yesterday and he he didn't say as much but obviously everyone's talking to them but um that you have some kind of relationship with your news it's not um because Google laid off hundreds of jobs voice activity assistant software this is all going to be uh AI generated and he had some ideas around that and I thought that was smart so he's working it out but it's definitely a transition uh David Zaslov was there he was wearing he was wearing his David Saslov outfit and everything.

But it was interesting.

He's a really smart thinker.

I think this is going to be a great year for CNN.

Yeah, I do too.

Mark is very thoughtful.

I really enjoy talking to him.

And I can see he's working it out.

I think he's working.

It's not going to be unlike what happened at the New York Times using this amazing brand.

And there are huge amounts of reporters to really

bring to bear.

There's modernization there, as opposed to like Linda doing these one-off deals, and it's just not an editorial product.

Very similar to what happened at Yahoo.

Anyway, let's pivot to a listener question.

This question comes from Brian.

Let's listen.

Hi, Scott and Kara.

My name is Brian and I'm calling from Los Angeles.

I'm a longtime listener to the show and I appreciate the opportunity to ask a question.

My question is on technology in healthcare.

Specifically, where is it?

There's a huge need for competition competition at the payer level, at the provider level, at the facility level.

I see Amazon moving into primary care and prescriptions, but within the healthcare system I work in, no one actually considers that competition.

What about surgeries or inpatient care or health plans?

I feel kind of like a conspiracy theorist telling people that tech is coming, tech is coming.

But is it?

I would love your thoughts.

Thanks so much.

Interesting.

I mean, it's gone on for decades now.

You know, Google and others were in the healthcare, the Health Vault, Microsoft, and they were always going to, this was always going to apply.

And

now it's AI that's going to save us.

It's going to know what you have by speaking into it and this and that.

So I don't know, Scott, what do you think?

I honestly have given up on the notion that in the current construct that technology is going to save us.

So I'm sort of it's been interesting living in the UK contrasting or comparing and contrasting the health the approach to healthcare.

And where I start is that

it's almost impossible to fix a system where infant mortality and obesity and depression are greater, despite the fact we spend on average 12 and a half grand per citizen as opposed to Australia, Canada, and the UK that spend $6,500.

It's literally arguably the most wasteful, biggest tax on the American economy is the U.S.

healthcare system.

And if you want evidence of that, just look at every hospital system and insurance company that every year increases their earnings and their profits through regulatory capture.

They have quietly weaponized government and have created a ton of moats around any, even Google and Amazon can't crack this nut.

Well, I think one medical, I'm going there tomorrow.

I have some I want to push.

I'm a member.

I love one medical.

We're talking about a pimple on the pimple of the green economy.

And where I am is gigantic structural change over the long term.

And that is I'm an advocate for, if you look at the UK system, kind of what you call the, I don't want to call them the bottom 90, but 90th percentile and lower access NHS.

And I've accessed NHS.

The waits are longer.

It can be frustrating.

But there's something really wonderful knowing that if your wife gets lung cancer, it doesn't mean you're going to go bankrupt.

You know, that is six of the 10 happiest countries in the world are socialist countries in Northern Europe.

And it's not only a function of what you have, but absence from having things taken away from you, specifically your dignity if you get sick.

We do not have the absence from that fear in the United States.

So, the question is: how do you disrupt a traditional system?

And where I am is the following: is that Medicare each year for the next 65 years should be lowered by a year until it's all Medicare.

We need nationalized health care.

The only way you're going to get there, Hillary couldn't do it, is to say, all right, every year we're going to lower the age of Medicare until we do away what is with the most profitable, unearned regulatory capture profits in history, and that is the privatization of healthcare.

I don't want to say I've given up.

There'll be just some disruption, but we need massive structural change in America.

You know, doctors hate it, patients hate it.

It's really government doesn't really like it.

It's really,

you know, how we develop drugs is also, it's also, it's so antiquated.

I just find it's whenever I feel sick, I feel frustrated because I don't even understand, I don't understand it.

And I'm a very aggressive consumer, you know, in that

and there's, there's hacks.

We need better tax policy because we're so narcissistic or jingo, whatever you want to call it.

I mean, Japan tries to figure out ways to incorporate exercise into people's lives.

There's just, we,

we, we don't want kids to eat well because guess what?

Once they get obese, there's a ton of money in it for us.

Yeah.

I call it the diabetes industrial complex.

I wonder where you got that.

Anyways, so

there are too many economic incentives and too many people making too much money to pretend that they give a good goddamn around the long-term health benefits of American citizens.

And government needs to pass a law and say, okay, we're done trying to fine-tune this.

Too many of us have been weaponized.

We're going to lower Medicare, which is nationalized health care and healthcare for all, which, by the way, the majority of Medicare recipients are pretty happy with.

And also on a cost basis, it's pretty efficient.

And every year for the next 65 years, we're going to lower it

a year.

we'll see we don't think there's much tech in it there's tech applied to it and people have great hopes for generative ai uh brian but uh we've seen this before so it really does take a bigger effort on the behalf of the government and industry to make this turnaround but yeah there's only one payer there's only one if they all complain about it too um anyway um we'll see we'll see uh by the way next week we're going to try something a little different with our listener mail we'll be taking calls directly from you during our regular taping little scary.

That's right.

You can ask us your questions to our faces.

Well, over

digital, so you can't touch us.

I mean, as much as Scott might like that.

Call 855-51PIT to tell us what you might like to ask and leave your name, age, and where you're from and where we can reach you.

We won't be able to fit everybody in, but our producers might be reaching out to you to join the show.

So get those questions in now.

You can talk to Scott directly.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for predictions.

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Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

So I'm going to do a quick prediction, and then I want to take license here and talk about a win or something that really moved me this week.

My prediction is that Coinbase is the AOL of, you know, I said it.

The stock's up.

I mean, the stock has just skyrocketed.

I think it's overvalued.

I think it's a good firm that's well run.

I think it has a role to play, and they'll find new ways.

But it's just, it's like AOL.

It's going to dramatically shed a ton of value, I think, over the next few years because it's been the on-ramp into crypto and people no longer need

a safe, you've got mail kind of friendly place to buy crypto.

So occasionally you see something or a piece of

a piece of content that inspires you.

And I bond with my kids over media.

I send them Tom Petty, which they don't listen to.

And they send me rap that I don't get.

But anyways,

we watch full shows together.

I'm watching with my 13-year-old.

Have you seen The Last of Us?

Yeah.

Parts of it.

It hasn't caught on with me yet, but that one with the gays, I saw the gays one.

You're stealing my thunder.

So I have no interest in anything around the zombie apocalypse.

It's a genre that has no interest to me.

I haven't watched a single episode of The Walking Dead, nor will I ever.

But my son wanted to watch The Last of Us, and I'm like, oh, God, here we go again.

Episode one.

I think Pedro Pascal is a leading man.

I love him.

I loved him in Narcos.

He's the best guy with a mask on in The Mandalorian.

Episode three, which you just referenced, is

so moving and such a great piece of art.

And it's about, I won't give it away, but it's about a survivalist slash prepper played by Nick Offerman from Parks and Wreck.

And then, but the story is about he helps protect somebody and he falls in love.

And it's just the story of these two men.

And

the reason why it was such a nice moment for my son and I, because we were talking about it afterwards.

And the thing I take from it, I've been thinking a lot about masculinity.

I'm trying to write a book on it.

And here you had a guy who brings what Richard Reeves, who's sort of my yoda around this stuff and is able to kind of articulate the things I'm feeling and seeing.

But he talks about the notion of men and their need to create surplus value.

What do we mean by that?

That when you become a man, it isn't about reading from some religious scripture or having sex or turning 18.

or getting a job.

That when you become a man is when you start adding surplus value.

And as a boy,

your return on investment is negative.

People give you love.

They give you resources.

They give you attention.

They spoil you.

And quite frankly, other than the people who love you, you don't add a lot back to society.

And some people never grow out of that.

Some people just, for their whole lives, take more than they return.

And his notion is, and I love this, that what it means to be a man is you add surplus value, that

the time, the attention, and the resources you take in, that you are so skilled and you acquire so many strengths and competences that you produce more than you consume.

You add surplus value.

And I absolutely love that as a metric.

And here's this guy, this prepper and the survivalist, who is so talented.

And obviously, you know,

those politics are a little bit crazy, but this guy is so talented.

Not only can he put up, create a compound with electrified fences that zap the zombies, but he raises chickens.

He's a great cook.

He's figured out a way to maintain running hot water in the middle of a zombie.

He's so talented.

But the surplus value is that he finds someone to protect and to love.

And I, I absolutely love it.

It's a very, it's a really good show.

Let me, may I recommend another one?

This is a, it's a gay love story, really, but um,

is uh, Sanjay Dipero on, uh, did you ever see that?

On

please, please avail yourself to that.

And it's in a, it's got a very similar vibe, and it's about two women, and they're in a, um, a virtual reality setting.

And I think you will weep, weep giant tears.

I love the idea of this notion of defining manhood and masculinity as surplus value.

And that I thought this represented that.

And this is the conversation I was having with my 13-year-old.

I'm like, this is what men do.

They develop the skills and they acquire the strength such that they can protect and love others.

And there's this great line at the end.

You know, this guy, Nick Offerman, says at the very end of it, and I won't spoil the end of him anymore, he says, you gave me purpose.

And that's, I love that.

I'm like, that's what it means to be a man.

You find purpose and your purpose is to protect others.

I just thought it was wonderful.

Anyways, my win, episode three, season one, Last of Us.

I'm surprised you haven't seen it.

It's so funny because

when it appeared, people went crazy for it.

May I ask you a question?

Yes.

Doesn't that apply to women?

Masculinity is not the domain.

Yeah, I'm going to, let me finish.

Okay.

Aren't women supposed to protect and add at the same time?

Masculinity and femininity are social constructs that we invent.

They are not the domain of people born as men and women.

However, people born as men and people born as women have instinctual predilections and competences that oftentimes lend them towards more feminine or more masculine attributes.

I believe femininity is more about nurturing and more about being loving and also protecting.

And I think a lot of women demonstrate wonderful masculine attributes.

And I think a lot of men, also the men I'm usually attracted to as friends, can indicate and represent wonderful feminine attributes.

But I think masculinity, which typically, typically people born as men, have an easier time embracing,

is again, needs redefinition.

It needs a modern aspirational definition.

Because unfortunately, right now, anything that is seen as masculine is conflated with toxicity, and that's bullshit.

It's not sequestered from women, nor is femininity sequestered from men.

We need to,

we absolutely appreciate femininity.

I would argue it's more being more nurturing, more loving, more graceful, less prone to judgment.

Maybe we need new words.

Maybe we need new words.

I'm up for it, sister, because we need a better dialogue around this stuff.

We need to respect the fact that most people, 90 to 95% of people, identify as binary and the attributes and competences and feelings and instincts they feel are wonderful.

And that doesn't mean it's sequestered from the other gender.

You know, I think you demonstrate a lot of wonderful masculine attributes.

I'd like to, I'd like to believe I demonstrate a lot of wonderful feminine attributes.

But we can celebrate both those things.

We need new words.

We need new words.

Anyway, that's a good one.

It's a great show.

You should see it.

But I promise you, if you watch Black Mirror, that San Junipero, it'll make your heart sing.

It's beautiful.

Same way.

Black Mirror.

Can you say it again?

Black Mirror, San Junipero.

Yep.

It's very tech-focused, too, which is interesting and it's really cool.

Anyway, we'll be back next week.

Read us out, Scott.

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

Ernie Intertod engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, and Neil Severio.

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

Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Box 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, season one, episode three, The Last of Us.