Amazon's Healthcare Move, Netflix Earnings, and More

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Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher.

And in the last 72 hours, I've received approximately 15 emails that can be best summarized as in the subject line, I think you're my father.

And then the body of the email will then go on to say, just kidding, but I'd love to get together to talk to you about my new SaaS platform disrupting the billion-dollar home care market.

You're kidding.

So everyone is now claiming to be

well.

I think you're my father, Scott.

That's what I think.

Yeah, every time, I got to admit, every time I'm in L.A.

and I see a guy in his mid-30s that's losing his hair and just seems like an asshole and generally unpleasant and happy, I want to go, son.

Son?

I think that's funny.

Everybody, please call me if you think you're Scott's child and we will have a get-together and surprise him for his birthday it'll be great yeah that would be a surprise i'll give you that

that would be a surprise don't do it on my birthday i get depressed we should do a find scotts children contest yeah no yeah no tasteless no i don't know i think it'd be kind of interesting to meet them and see what happened to them and what they what they did and don't you think that would be interesting

uh well it's something i've we talked about this on the last episode it's something i've thought about a lot the last 20 years and i know what if they're like someone like very famous what if like it's like a Hollywood star or suddenly Chris Hemsworth is your child, stuff like that?

Then I'd be like Brittany's father or Vanessa or the Williams sisters' father.

I would just be constantly talking about their career and,

you know, giving them advice when they didn't need it on Twitter.

It doesn't have to go the negative way.

It could be like, you know, you're like, oh, they asked me for money.

Maybe they're like really wealthy and you can ask them for money.

There you go.

That could happen.

That could happen.

Anyway, well, I'm very glad and happy Father's Day.

In any case,

we're going to talk today about a lot of things.

Earnings are in for Netflix and Tesla, among others.

We'll see who's up and who's down.

Very interesting earnings sessions for both of them.

Also, Amazon makes a leap into healthcare, as Scott predicted.

We'll take a listener question about mid-career pivots also.

But first, Elon Musk and Twitter headed to court this fall.

A Delaware judge set the show down for five days in October.

It was a very favorable ruling for Twitter.

Twitter had asked for September, but this is being a huge win for the company because it's a very speedy trial.

Twitter wanted this speedy trial in part to limit damage Musk could do via his Twitter account, which was part of the pleadings.

So anyway, so what do we think of this?

It's just a win, right?

Just a flat out win.

It's going to be fast and dirty kind of kind of trial.

Well, this is one of the myths that's out there is that when you have these kind of deep pockets and this sort of public support that he has both of, that you could extend a trial for years or decades.

That was his hope.

What people fail to realize is that this isn't like a class action suit against cigarette companies.

It's not even an antitrust case.

This is a case whose court or domain where it's tried in is literally built for speed.

And think about this.

He asked for, and it kind of already says,

This was an indication.

This was already an observation from the court.

And that is, he said, I want to do this in February.

We have a bunch of work to do and analysis.

And the Delaware Chancellor, who's, you know, she's the lead dog, so to speak,

Chancellor McCormick, who's been assigned to the case, she said, no, it's going to be five days and it's going to be in October.

I mean, and then he has one remedy.

If he doesn't like the decision, he can take it to the Delaware Supreme Court.

Usually they send it to that court within two weeks.

That's an even speedier trial.

So what we're looking at here is something that's probably over by the end of October.

So this, all this BS of people saying, well, Twitter should settle because it doesn't want to go through the pain and the time, just not accurate.

Yeah, they should, they should go for it.

This judge,

what she was saying to the lawyer, I listened to it, was not favorable to Elon, I have to say.

She was not having any of it, as you, as we talked about.

These judges really, it's a contract dispute is what it is.

And they don't treat it like it's a Twitter war and they don't care.

They don't care.

They're not interested in ship posting.

They're not interested in finding out that we're going to get to Mars sooner because of him.

And they're just, she's just, like you said, not buying it.

Now, what I think is interesting here is while everyone argues over what's going to happen, I think it's pretty obvious what's going to happen.

Then it's fun to start thinking about: all right,

and let me pat ourselves on the back and I realize the arrogance in the statement.

So far, we've been right on this.

And

so the question is: all right, every day, every day that goes forward, the stock appears to be going up because people now recognize they have a claim for 5420 against the wealthiest man in the world that's going to be upheld in a chancery court in Delaware.

So the question then becomes: well, what could someone really wily and smart and well-advised and wealthy like Elon Musk could do?

And if you you think about the likely penalty or negotiation bogey here, it'll be the delta, and you pointed this out in the last episode, it'll be the delta between the market cap of the company at that time and 5420.

So I wouldn't put it past him, and this is going to sound very counterintuitive, that when his lawyers say we're fucked, you're going to get a judgment against you, he might take actions to increase the stock price.

What if he announced in a week or two weeks when he realized he's screwed here,

we've done some information information, and while the bots were a legitimate problem, and I was smart to bring it up, I plan to close.

Stock zooms to 50, and then he calls Brett Taylor and he says, All right, you don't want me to own this.

I'm not sure I want to own it.

Stock's at 50.

I'll just give you $4.20, and we'll call it a day.

What if he announced he was buying more stock?

Because he thought it was undervalued.

In other words, he now has an incentive to move this stock price higher and move the delta between

the bogey and the agreed-upon purchase price because that will be the quote-unquote bogey for damage.

Wow, that's a little bit stock manipulative.

I feel SEC.

It is.

It is stock manipulation.

It is.

But if he just, but if Ollie would, they would have to prove that he was not genuine about closing.

And as long as he said, no, I'm ready to own it again.

I'm back.

I have another manic episode.

I can feel it coming on.

And I've decided I should own this.

And it's a.

That's an interesting situation.

That sounds like him, doesn't it?

It does.

It sounds like it's a good idea.

The other thing, though, from people I talk to close to him, there's a lot of pull from his family to not do this, like people closest to him.

Like, this is not a good thing for him to be engaged in.

Now, whether he gets influenced by it or not is another question.

This is where it goes back to the way we treat rich people differently.

Danger of the SEC.

Okay, we found a year later that you were guilty of market manipulation.

We're fining you a record fine of $100 million.

I mean, he committed securities fraud on Twitter.

a couple of years ago.

And then he did it again with the, I mean, allegedly did it again.

The numbers are so big that they don't really matter.

His wealth is so big that any fund is.

Why not say, okay, I'm going to buy it?

But if the Delaware Chancellor says, okay, the stock's at 30,

you said 54.50, you're basically got to come up with here, Mr.

Musk, another $15 to $20 billion.

And what also people say is they make it sound like he's bulletproof.

Even the world's wealthiest man, even if you're worth $150 billion,

if you have a judgment against you that says you have to come up with $20 billion in cash,

that's not, you don't have that in your drawer.

Yeah, it is in his interest for the stock to go up at this point.

He tried to make it go down.

Now, the interests are to get it up, to get it up.

Yeah, that's true.

That's an interesting.

It's going to be very interesting.

Interesting.

We'll see what he's up to.

But this judge ain't putting up with any shit, that's for sure.

Anyway, also this week, President Biden announced new executive actions around climate change, including $2.3 billion in federal funding to help communities build weather-resistant infrastructure.

The move comes as heat waves cause problems for governments and industries around the world.

It's interesting why Biden didn't declare an emergency in Wednesday's speech.

There's heat, the heat wave is getting a lot of attention in Europe, obviously, where my kids are actually in England.

They said it's just astonishing.

They don't have air conditioning there.

The heat is the whole country

is in panic over what's happening.

But

what's he doing here?

Is he trying to get Manchin back to the table?

Manchin said he wants Congress to act on climate, though it's not clear if anyone should believe him.

You know, he had blocked a bunch of bills, some more mansioning, some more mansioning and things like that.

So,

what do we know?

And also, by the way, Biden apparently has COVID, we've learned.

So, like everybody else, I guess.

I think the Biden comms team has done such a terrible job.

What if two years ago

you would have been told that in the first year of the next president's term, let's not even say Biden or Trump, but the new president elected in 2020, that in two years, the country is going to have 10 million new jobs, a 3.6% unemployment rate, which is kind of an all-time low, an 86% drop in COVID death rate, the biggest ever infrastructure bill passed, the first gun safety bill in 30 years passed.

And meanwhile, his approval ratings are the lowest ever.

So, and he also has a couple of people pretending to be Democrats.

I gave Joe Manchin or Senator Manchin the benefit of the doubt and thought, okay, he's the last of a dying breed.

I'm a rabid moderate.

I get that he says the infrastructure bill needs to be dialed back.

It's inflationary.

I like moderates.

I like people who don't just immediately sign up for the party line and reach across the aisle.

What is clear, though, is that Joe Manchin is a radical narcissist and just wants to leverage his position as the swing pope for power, even when it's bad for America, as evidenced by the fact that he might get in the way of this amazing, fantastic, elegant legislation to stop these inversions that decreases our tax base, where corporations arbitrage different tax rates around the world.

Thousands of diplomats, tax people.

Janet Yalen showed incredible leadership here.

This was going to be her crowning achievement.

And he's decided, I know, here's a chance for me to be the spoiler and be in front of cameras.

And also get money from corporations, et cetera, et cetera.

And it's basically, okay, this guy and Republicans voting against it.

It's purely partisan.

How do we embarrass the president?

Even if it's good for the country, we don't want to give the president a win ever, even if it's good for the country.

And that is where Senator Manchin is right now.

There is no economic,

moral, geopolitical reason to get in the way of what is arguably should be the most important thing.

He does make the argument that he's always the one that, you know, he's right about not spending too much, right about he's the moderate middle, essentially, is his appeal.

That that's what I'm saying.

I think he lost that credibility with this one.

I would agree.

I would agree with this one.

I would agree.

I think some of the things a lot of Israeli, a lot of Republicans really like him and not the more moderate Republicans.

They think they need someone like him and them in the middle versus the ones on the right and the left.

All these Republicans in New York that are throwing fundraisers for him.

I mean, it's great to have, it's great to have someone.

People immediately say,

and we would do the same thing.

If a Republican kind of, I don't want to say turns against their party, we call them a hero and brave.

And so I would imagine that Joe Manchin is raising more money from Republicans right now than Democrats.

Yep, I would agree.

He is.

He would.

I've heard so many Republican, moderate Republicans sing his praises, saying he's the only thing in between the crazy spending Democrats and the crazy, just the crazy Republicans, essentially.

We have what, I'm just going back to the communications thing here.

We have what could, what might be looking like hopefully a soft landing out of, you know, where we've created all this underbrush, ready to start our own superfire.

I believe we have, for the first time, repaired

relationships with our allies.

So what would you do?

Give me like Mr.

Brand, what would you do?

Just do press conferences?

I think they need a more aggressive spokespeople.

I think, unfortunately, they can't rely on Vice President Harris, who brightens up a room by leaving it, but they need to find, unfortunately, biology is not politically correct.

And I think President Biden looks feeble when he speaks,

which I think

is a terrible thing to say, and it's absolutely true.

I think they need to identify some people in the cabinet and send them on offense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, like Buddha Judge, et cetera.

You're right.

It's interesting.

What would you do?

It's interesting because I think Democrats, you know,

need to fall in love with their candidates and

Republicans fall in line and Democrats fall in love, that same thing.

I think he spent his life getting to be president here.

And it's a little like.

They need to back him.

Like that, he's the guy.

It's interesting because Republican strategists are like, why are you attacking Biden?

Make him your man.

He beat Trump.

He did this.

He did that.

More interesting strategies coming from Republicans and how biden should do it than democrats who prefer to tear down their candidates um which i think is really like what's next there's sort of a what's next and the republicans are like you've got a guy who beat trump who can beat trump and who has a great you know just a great rapport he feels normal and this and that and so i don't i i i think probably you're right he's he he he looks old is what he does he looks although he looks very fit like compared to trump who you know doesn't look very good physically um he looks good.

So

I feel like he's a transitional president, unfortunately, away from getting, because all the polls right now are so anti-Trump, people who, seniors, people who supported Trump.

So it's getting away from Trump.

That's what he's served his purpose.

And unfortunately, that's where I think he is.

I think that's what he is.

Well, the Democratic Party, to its fault, is more Democratic, and that is they let people speak their minds and they don't kind of hold them in line.

And

I think AOC is an incredible communicator.

And she brings much needed, she needs a much needed kind of youthful vibe to the Democratic Party or Washington in general, as she brings the average age down about 40 years just by being there.

And she's powerful on social media.

And what I find about the far, or the more progressive part of the Democratic Party is their general view of the president is that he's not gone far enough.

And they're disappointed that he's not asking for this, or he's disappointed he didn't go further on this, or he's disappointed that he wasn't as powerful or as forceful.

Well, you know what?

He needs your help.

Right.

It's like.

I would be tougher if I was him.

It's like, you know, I'm president.

Fuck you.

And I'm going to do this.

I'm going to do that.

And not like go for consensus all the time.

I think he's too consensus driven, I think.

And at this point, he should be power driven in a lot of ways.

Anyway, the House voted to protect same-sex marriages this week, but the bill faces a rocky road in the Senate.

Senate Democrats haven't agreed to vote on the bill before the August recess.

Again, thanks to Chuck Schumer.

The Republicans are saying,

saying,

aren't saying how they're going to vote, but some of them are like, oh, maybe I'll vote for it.

Democrats need 10 Republicans to pass the bill.

If passed, the bill would protect same-sex and interracial marriage from potential Supreme Court decisions.

The House also voted on a similar bill to protect contraception.

Many Senate Republicans said there's no need for the bill because the Supreme Court is unlikely to overturn these rights, which is the same court that said Roe was settled law.

So I wish they would just pass it.

It would be, you know, it would be nice if everyone came together on these things just to protect it and not wait until the Supreme Court does something.

Trevor Burrus: Do you think, I haven't looked closely at this, but it all comes down to, are there 10 Republicans who would vote for it, a senator specifically?

Do you think there are 10?

I would imagine there are.

I just, I don't know.

I don't know what Chuck Trimmer's doing to whip their votes, but Tom Tillis said he might vote for it.

I don't, probably not.

But why wouldn't they vote for it?

This is not something abortion is a very,

is a third rail for a lot of these people in their elections.

But, you know, I can think of 10 right now.

Yeah.

Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Tom Tillis.

Don't they always have a

i mean if it strikes me they never fail to disappoint though that they'll come up with reasons why this in fact is not good for the gay community or it doesn't go far and they'll find reasons to not

to not codify it uh i don't i'm not as hopeful as you i think

i think they always disappoint they always they disappointed the entire time susan collins will come up with a thoughtful reason for why she actually thinks you know brett kavanaugh is is not going to i think susan collins will vote for it in this case but you need 10 of them.

That is absolutely correct.

And, you know, of course, the enemy of this is Ted Cruz, as he is the enemy of many things.

We'll see.

Because a lot of people don't like the Supreme Court decision.

So, by the way, I'm staying married and they can try to take my marriage away from me.

Why should you not be subject to the same pain and misery as the rest of us?

I just don't get it.

I am subject to the same misery, but I'm not miserable.

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

Q2 earnings are rolling in and markets are responding.

Netflix stock is up after the company announced that it lost just under 1 million subscribers this past quarter, 970,000 to be exact.

They projected a loss of 2 million users, so 1 million is a bit better.

But this is the first time that Netflix has lost users for two consecutive quarters.

But their ad business, you know, people are excited about their ad business and the money they'll bring in.

It says it plans to add a million users this quarter,

but the ad-supported business won't launch until 2023.

It's cutting down on password sharing.

And that's another area of revenue growth, I suppose.

It faces competition from the streaming players.

People felt very positive about Netflix this week.

And also, there were several interesting stories, Bill Cohen wrote one about possibly it being bought by someone, that it's in the striking range of being bought, which was interesting.

Didn't used to be, but now it is.

I think it's $90 billion versus $300 billion in terms of value.

But what do you think of Netflix?

They seem to have turned a little corner, at least in the minds of some on Wall Street.

Yeah, it's a bit of a market indicator.

I think people, what's interesting is people find proxies for the broader market, and

they kind of extrapolate the performance of that company to the broader market.

So Bitcoin appears to have found a floor, and people are saying, well, maybe this is a bottom of the crypto mess, even though I think there's going to be more dominoes to fall there.

But also in Netflix, what you're going to start seeing is, you know, how you've seen over the course of the past year, people are constantly, and I do this a lot, saying Snap is off 76% since it's 52-week 52-week high.

What you're going to start seeing more and more of, if hopefully we have a bottom of the market here, is people saying that Netflix is 20% above its 52-week low.

In other words, people will start tracking the bounce.

And Netflix...

I thought it was really interesting.

The market's just so fascinating.

It's really more about expectations and actual performance.

And the expectation here was that it was going to be worse than it was.

They lost subscribers and the stock was up kind of double digits after the announcement.

The article you're referencing with Bill is that they're really only, there are a finite number of players that could acquire Netflix.

Microsoft would be interesting.

Amazon Overnight would be kind of the gangster video streaming platform.

I don't see how Facebook would justify acquiring this or how they could, but there's just a handful of companies.

But I think it's more likely that Netflix goes out and makes some acquisitions.

I've always thought that Netflix should acquire Spotify, and then basically they would have the most elegant media subscription company in the world.

Because with Spotify, I think a company that's undervalued relative to what they've been able to achieve is Spotify.

I think it's below its IPO price.

And think about it.

No company has been able to distill an entire medium down to one icon that's sortable and easy to find.

Imagine one button on your phone that could sort through every TV show easily and bring it up.

Yeah, I agree.

I've talked about this a lot, Netflix and Spotify.

But, you know, they do have to acquire.

You're right.

Or they get acquired.

I think Bill's piece is very compelling.

I've always thought that, but at one point, they were down very low.

And Yahoo had thought about buying them many years ago.

But they seem, they're a beautiful service with a great brand, and they're affordable now to several different companies at this moment.

At this moment, it won't last necessarily, but they're the only great branded streaming platform that's not owned by someone.

Hulu's going to get sucked into Disney.

Warner's consolidating its stuff.

And so it is sitting out there.

So is Spotify.

So yes, acquisition or be acquired, I think, is probably in its future.

And if this ad thing works, Microsoft's an interesting question.

Do they want to get into that?

I guess they kind of do.

They have a lot of commercial consumer stuff.

It's hard to see the fit there.

There's just maybe only two or three.

They have a lot of gaming.

It could fit in there.

Netflix,

you know, and that's sort of, it'd be interesting to see, you know, just bought Activision.

It just, it has Minecraft.

It's got, yeah, it's all around the same metaverse kind of stuff.

Anyway, it was good for them for for for doing better.

And I think Wall Street, I mean, excuse me, Hollywood really wanted them to fail and probably is breathing a sigh of relief because it affects their other businesses there.

Tesla, on the other hand, stock is up even as it reports its sales and profits are down.

The company beat earnings expectations and blamed sales dip on COVID lockdowns in Shanghai.

But Tesla said it's still on track to increase production by 50% overall this year.

It also revealed that it sold 75% of its Bitcoin holdings worth more than $900 million.

That's their little weird game over off to the side.

And, you know, they've got more and more competitors.

What do you think about the stock jump?

The revenue was lower than expected.

Deliveries were lower than expected.

Inflation and supply chain problems still exist.

The cyber truck is nowhere to be found.

whatever.

And Elon's other problems.

He's got a lot of pressure on him.

Yeah, but I think you have to, I think Tesla's earnings reflect that the company continues to perform.

You know, they had about $2.30 in earnings per share versus a buck 80 that was expected.

Given all the supply chain issues, I think this was a, I think the bottom line is it was solid quarter now.

Is the company worth more than, you know, I've always said, is it a great company that performs really well with an amazing product or is it overvalued?

And I would say the answer is yes.

I still, I think the company could continue to perform and the stock could go down 50% because I just don't think it makes any sense from a valuation standpoint.

The other thing that I would argue is going to be a real,

I don't know,

create real pressure on their margins.

But I've been saying this for tears and it hasn't happened.

I just got an email for the new Electric 7 series from BMW, and it's beautiful.

And it has the range and it has the acceleration.

So I just think there's so many people.

The F-150 is puzzling incredible.

The Electric One, there's just

the analogy you were just talking about, Netflix, and you said this several times.

Netflix had the entire streaming market to itself for about a decade.

And Tesla is coming up on essentially having the entire electric market for itself for about a decade.

And then what happened?

Disney, Amazon, everyone got into streaming and put huge pressure.

They're serious.

They're quite, you know, whether it's General Motors, with it's a high, they have high and low end.

General Motors is serious.

Ford is serious.

BMW is serious.

You know, they're all serious now.

So, and leaning into it, I would say, very heavily.

And so it's not a side thing.

They're changing their, they're changing all the way they deliver cars and thinking about it.

So I think they've gotten the religion, all these companies.

And that's, it's exactly the same situation as Netflix found itself.

And not to say that it's not, Netflix is still not the best of them, really, but the others are pretty good and very good, not just pretty good.

And so as you start to see them rolled out, it depends on, you know, it depends on people wanting to buy these things and the price points.

And there's only so many, I think rich people still.

I went to a party last night and everyone drove up in a Tesla.

Now, the question is, will they buy whatever Cadillac or BMW is offering?

That's the question.

Can they sell it?

But they're making aggressive moves to attract them for sure.

But the broader point is that 12% so far, 12% of S ⁇ P companies have reported earnings and over two-thirds of them have beaten analysts' expectations.

So it doesn't appear, if you will, that at least corporate earnings have gotten a memo regarding an imminent recession.

You wouldn't know it if you were just looking at earnings.

I mean, two-thirds have beaten their estimates.

That's really

impressive.

And so,

you know, this is all a random walk, but I was really interested in

the different earnings calls because so far it's been pretty

powerful.

And I think Tesla's up today.

I think Bitcoin's up today.

You know, markets don't go straight down or straight up, but this does feel like a little bit.

It'll be interesting if this was just a bounce, a dead count bounce, and that we're back to a W and it starts resuming its decline.

Or if we're going to look back and say that, you know, two to four weeks ago was the bottom.

Yeah, yeah, you'd love to say dead cat bounce.

Anyway, Tesla also said it is open to buying more Bitcoin.

I mean, this should not be taken as a verdict on Bitcoin.

We'll see.

Anyway, we'll see what happens.

But let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, we'll talk about Amazon's big move into health and take a listener mail to question about career pivots.

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Scott, we've got a few more big stories today.

First up, Amazon will buy One Medical for $3.9 billion.

Who would have thunk it, Kara?

Who would have thunk it?

Yeah.

Shares of Teladoc Health, CBS Health, and Walgreens Pharmacy fell amidst the news.

Scott, you've been mentioning Amazon making big moves into the health arena.

One Medical is a fascinating company.

Let's play a clip from June 2021.

I think the business that will gain the most market capitalization over the next several years is Amazon, and it'll be on the backs of their entry into healthcare.

There you go.

We talked about this a lot.

And in fact, oddly enough, at a dinner party this week, I said, you have relationships with certain people.

And I went through Apple and this, I said, and Amazon, why can't they own healthcare?

Like, why can't they deliver your healthcare?

They'd probably do a better job.

So I looked very smart at this dinner party, but because I was quoting you.

So what do you think?

Is this the right move?

Is it good for the healthcare industry?

Does it pressure other tech giants who have been there?

Google had been in health for a little bit to move into health.

Apple, I think, is probably the one we'd be thinking of.

I don't see them doing a one-medical-like thing, but what do you think?

And then we'll get to legislators in a minute.

I love this.

So just some context here.

There has never been a sector in the history of our modern economy that's more disruptible than U.S.

healthcare.

Its prices have increased faster than inflation for the last 40 years, and one out of five people are satisfied with their health care.

It's a huge social ill in America.

The number of people who have moved in the last 20 years has been cut in half, and we're trying to figure out why, because a lack of mobility of human capital makes a nation less productive, less dynamic, because human capital isn't being applied to its best use.

When there's economic growth in Texas, people should be moving to Texas.

When your parents need help, you should be moving.

So, a lack of mobility is really a bad thing.

And I think one of the drivers is a lack of portability around health care.

In addition,

the happiest nations in the world, seven of the 10 of them, are in Northern Europe, and it's not because of the weather, and maybe it's partially because of the culture.

But a big component is happiness is not only a function of the things you get, but absence from the absence of fear of the things that can be taken away from you.

And in our country, you can be firmly middle class.

And if your wife is diagnosed with lung cancer, that means there's a good chance you're going to go bankrupt.

And so this is an industry that has consistently raised prices, has exercised all sorts of legislative or regulatory capture, has terrible customer satisfaction.

It is the worst retail in the world.

I've been to doctors' offices more in the last two months than probably in the last 20 years.

And I just imagine like going into a best buy and say, hi, I was here yesterday.

I want to look at a TV.

And them saying, well, fill out this same 14 pages of paperwork that you filled out yesterday again.

I'm not even going to stand up or look you in the eye and go sit down and we'll call you when you're fortunate enough that we can take your money.

And you have all these people up front, all these eight people up front trying to organize and bill for and get insurance reimbursement for the 11 minutes you're going to finally have in an hour with a doctor somewhere hidden back in the bowels of this shitty real estate.

It is this industry is literally the mother of all chins being

waiting to be stuck out.

Now, what do you need?

The biggest trend in business history over the last 50 years has been globalization, then digitization, and then I think it's dispersion and specifically dispersion away from doctors' offices and hospitals.

So medical is, is a really, I've tried it.

I was joined it for a little while.

It certainly was a lot easier.

You know, I just, it was right around the corner.

I went in, I had the flu and I got the stuff right away.

Like it was, it was a little sort of more of a glorified, you know, in CVS, they have those quick minute clinics and stuff like it was a more glorified version of that.

And I remember talking to the doctors and they kind of liked working for it.

They were like, well, it's better.

It's more regular.

I wouldn't say they were the top doctors, right?

They were sort of like, this is a good life kind of thing.

So, and most people, most of their problems are minor, right?

When people have medical issues, it's the flu or an ear infection with kids or stomach ache or something.

And it's not serious.

So, and then there's been the concierge medicine movement among rich people, like Forward and some others that are a little even fancier than that, but they are sort of the same thing.

Like, like storefronts that you go like you go to a grocery store, essentially.

So, what can Amazon bring to this?

Like, they could deliver your pharmaceutical, pharmaceutical stuff, you know, your drugs and stuff like that to you.

They can, what?

What can they bring to this that's better?

Because I don't love their stores.

I got to tell you, I find their store experience dystopian.

So I've been a member of One Medical for two years.

I think it's outstanding.

When I got when I found out, you know, you always think I thought I was going to be the person that advances to the next round of the squid games and not get COVID.

I think I've been sick two or three times since the age of 18, and I started believing that somehow I had some special immunities.

So I get COVID.

I pressed the icon on one medical within 30 seconds or maybe a couple of minutes.

I was speaking to a nurse practitioner.

She not only prescribed me Paxlovid, but was able, she had visibility into which pharmacies most likely had enough stock.

It was a fantastic experience.

I think it's fantastic.

As a matter of fact, when I was so enamored with one medical, but its stock seemed rich that I invested in another health tech company called 98.6 that does text-based preventive care.

So they'll sell into a Walmart Walmart or Costco, and they say to all their employees, if you have any issues around health, you just literally text these guys and a healthcare professional starts a chat message with you.

And

I just think that's the future.

And what Amazon brings together.

I would agree.

But what do you think about what does Amazon bring to this?

Now, I met one of the founders of One Medical at one point, a long time ago.

I mean, it's a very innovative system.

It is a glorified minute clinic.

It just is.

That's what it is, like a better one.

And I've gone there, again, for vlus and things like that.

But what it's got better tech.

What could Amazon bring to it?

Well, first off, just to protect one, one is a much more aspirational brand than most

urgent care.

It feels better.

It might feel dystopia.

Your dystopia is it feels apple-app.

No, I'm talking about their groceries, their new Amazon Go's.

I don't like them.

I have my web news thing.

But what does Amazon bring?

Amazon brings much needed capital.

The company was at 40 bucks a share, it declined to 10 bucks a share.

And it has

700, it has about three quarters of a a million members, but it lost a quarter of a billion dollars.

So it needs capital.

But what Amazon brings simply to this, that is just going to be gangster here, it brings the largest membership base in the history of business.

It brings Amazon Prime where query me this.

Amazon Prime now includes remote health care.

Say, Alexa, connect me with Amazon One Medical.

And in 10 seconds, you're on with a medical professional where you can say, okay, I think my kid has cholera or

cholera.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

No, colic.

I'm sorry.

Colic.

Okay.

Whatever they get.

I don't get to a hospital.

If you have cholera, get to a hospital, but go ahead.

But my point is, if over, tell me, tell me what's going to happen to one medical if Amazon Prime announces it's now a feature.

You get 48-hour free fulfillment, you get storage capacity, you get Amazon Prime, and you also get remote health care.

Right.

I mean, all of a sudden, one medical would be one of the biggest problems.

Would you do a vaccess?

You wouldn't do your vasectomy there.

You go to specialists, right?

So it doesn't solve the bigger problems when it gets complex.

Oh, it solves a lot of it, Care, because here's the thing: you can't get a vasectomy over the phone, but you can get.

Okay, so again, to MI, I went into for to get a vasectomy.

I went to the fucking consultation, and it was an old man saying, Oh, you're closing up shop and making a bunch of jokes after I'd waited in

his waiting room for an hour and filled a bunch of bullshit paperwork.

I'm like, Why didn't we do this over the phone?

Right, right.

Why am I here?

Laser big Big Ed and the twins.

Let me go home and have gigantitis of the testicles for two days.

I can't believe that you, let me just take a moment.

My kids were like, he donated sperm for a year, three or four times a week.

That's all they said to me.

And then they know what it's called?

It's called being 19.

Mommy wasn't paying my tuition, Alex and Louie.

Mommy wasn't paying my tuition.

Okay.

And Big Ed had to step up.

Back to your vasectomy.

So you would go for it.

If you have a big thing, I can see going, it was very convenient.

I do have a big thing.

By the way, Ari Emmanuel looked great, didn't he?

Yes.

This is a photograph for people who don't know of Elon not looking so fit and Ari looking fantastic.

Okay, you saw my tweet.

The picture does too.

I saw your second thought.

And I said,

I got attacked for you body shaving, just so you know.

Okay, but we should talk about that.

I wrote my favorite, this one, I'm especially proud of this tweet when I tweeted that picture out.

Yeah.

I said, everyone's second thought, our Emmanuel is hot.

He is.

I want to talk a little bit about foul shaming and shit posting.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because I got attacked a lot.

I made a lot of very snarky comments.

Like, you know, we rolled him back into the ocean at high tide and he was seen doing great in the bay a few hours later.

So I got attacked for foul shaming and I have a code around shit posting.

Yeah.

And that is, I never draw first blood.

If this guy, if somebody shit posts about me once, fine, I take it.

Try to be a stoic.

If they do it multiple times, I counter And two, you only shit post

against people who are much more powerful than you.

Otherwise, it's just bullying.

Even if someone comes after you, if they're less powerful than you, you ignore it.

But let me be clear, folks.

This ridiculous notion that somehow it's below me to fat shame this guy.

Oh, wait, were you indignant when he sent out an emoji of a pregnant woman and a picture of Bill Gates?

Were you outraged when he references or attacks or shit posts women of color at companies he's turning into his kongball.

So yeah, I will absolutely shut down.

That was my excuse.

I was like, this guy invented shit posting.

Let me dig my hole even deeper here.

Okay.

Some people live in food deserts.

Some people are genetically predisposed.

My kids are going to have a bad, bad hair.

There's nothing they can do about it.

My 7,000 kids.

By the way, if they all show up and they're fit and they are tall and got my better jeans, I'm going to assemble an army and take over Australia.

I would like to take over Australia.

I already have plans for this.

I want to get back to.

Rise up, little gala

Rise up.

Tomorrow belongs to us.

Here's the deal.

I'm going to link these together in it in a, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but if you need to get fit,

these kind of one medicals are very helpful, like regular, easy access to healthcare, including storefronts and discussing things.

And I think people don't have an ongoing relationship with their medical doctor that they should.

They need to do it more regularly versus when something happens.

And that's how we do medicine now, when it's the worst.

And so that's one good thing: this idea of making it easy to do your basic health care.

And I think Amazon is very good at that.

And so it makes sense that they would own this.

Well, look what Amazon did for retail.

There were a lot of barriers in retail.

One, I got to get in my car.

Two, I usually go to a place where I might not have as much selection as I'd like.

Three, I might have insecurity around it being the best price.

Amazon took away all those barriers.

The barriers that have emerged because of regulatory capture and HIPAA and over-regulation, the barriers between you getting six or 12 minutes.

I'm flying to freaking Europe and I need to get a prescription for Lunesta because I can, you know, the jet lag and daddy needs to sleep.

It requires an hour on the fucking phone and then a visit to the doctor's office because it's considered a class two narcotic.

They can't get me on text message and go, okay, it doesn't appear you're an addict.

We'll give you the script and we're sending it over now.

And also, more broadly, when you look at Amazon and Apple, you're talking about,

I think Walmart, I think they're the three largest top line revenue companies in the world.

Now, Walmart has a lower PE, so it only needs to grow kind of 6% to 10% a year to maintain its stock price.

If Amazon and Apple, in order for them to maintain their stock price, they have to add both of them in the next five years a quarter of a trillion dollars in top line revenue.

So what does that indicate?

It makes it obvious what industries they need to go into because there's only a handful of industries that offer a carcass that large for them to feed on.

Specifically, and this is another prediction: Apple is going into the automobile industry because they have to.

Yep.

Where else can they find a quarter of a trillion dollars?

And Amazon, we predicted, was going into the healthcare industry, not even because they want to, or I do think it hits the brand.

They have no choice.

These companies can't go after the speaker market.

It's actually a good business for Amazon.

It's a good business for we'll see.

I think there are two big issues.

You know, they've got to figure out a way to comply with HIPAA.

It's much more complex.

And they should do something about prescription drugs.

Mark Cuban is doing this.

But we'll see if legislators do anything about it because also, by the way, first of all, many, they're looking at the MGM merger and things like that, but they're not going to be passing these antitrust laws

before the midterms, possibly.

But federal prosecutors and the Department of Labor are inspecting Amazon warehouses as they look into working conditions.

The U.S.

Attorney's Office in Southern District of New York says it's interested in potential worker safety hazards.

OSHA says it's joint investigations.

Amazon says it's cooperating cooperating with authorities.

This is a long time problem at Amazon.

They also have late, they have labor issues.

This is going to be scrutinized as a purchase, but the problem is there's so much competition in this area.

That's right.

I think this goes through because I think people, there's never been an industry and more consumer receptivity to disruption.

But they're still Amazon.

And so they've got a lot of fronts with legislators.

And this opens up a new one that is going to be, they're going to have to bring their best Washington game here.

And, you know, interesting, Anti Jesse, who's coming to code, he's been spending a lot of time in Washington compared to Bezos, and he should.

He's being smart about that.

And this is going to require that because people get all funny around healthcare.

And so this is going to be scrutinized by lots and lots of different regulators.

And the labor stuff is one of the many different things they have to deal with.

I'm really excited about this because we need to move away.

There's a large cohort in America whose only interface with healthcare is the emergency room.

They let a rash

evolve into a full-blown infection.

They let

a UTI turn into a kidney infection because they're intimidated or they don't have the money.

And

we need to push preventive health care in addition, and also family planning out to people and take advantage of the infrastructure of processing power, smartphones, and smart speakers.

Agreed.

Amazon's probably the best purchaser and it makes sense.

And you have a relationship with them.

You have a relationship with them.

Anyway, Scott, just so you're aware, just my son still can't believe you spent that much time masturbating.

Anyway, let's pivot to a listener question.

You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman.

You've got mail.

The question comes from Josh via email.

I'll read it.

Hi, Kara and Scott.

I'm a digital marketer living in Brooklyn, New York.

Though my drive and work ethic have allowed me to advance quickly in the field, I'm all but certain advertising is not for me.

I would like to pivot my career towards investigative journalism.

Oh, wow.

My question to you, Kara, is what do you recommend to someone who wants to build a bead?

I'm close to paying off student loans and would like to avoid enrolling at an institution like Columbia School of Journalism if possible.

Scott is someone who cautions listeners about following passions.

You pointed out most people can recommend doing so already rich.

I welcome your feedback on significant career changes.

Big thanks to both you and the team for all the work that goes into the podcast.

To Josh, Josh, wow, going into investigative reporting from marketing.

I don't think you need to go to school.

I think you need to start working and get yourself affiliated with even a smaller job at places like ProPublica.

There's a whole bunch of places that are doing all kinds of really the Center for Investigative Journalism.

There's lots and lots of stuff, but doing it or work for a small newspaper, move somewhere, and there's always something to investigate in small towns and things like that.

And start to really just do gumshoe reporting and just figure out something you want to focus in on and see where it leads.

I just, there's no way to do it except by doing it.

And I think journalism is a craft and not an art, as many people do.

And just doing it over and over again.

If I were you, I would get affiliated with one of those organizations at a low level or else go find a job at a small newspaper in a city, a small city, and start to find there's some, you know, you just start with a local government and go from there.

School board, whatever.

There's always something.

There's always something that needs to be investigated.

And then just start asking questions.

You don't need training for this.

It's just someone who can ask questions well.

And get yourself attached to a great editor at whatever one of those organizations, because they're critical.

My wife was an investigative editor, investigations editor at CNN and before that at the Boston Globe.

She worked on spotlight stuff.

She was a poetry major of Brown, you know what I mean, or something like that.

And so you just have to have a keen sense of question asking and then just do it over and over and over again.

Oh my God, you married a poetry major from Brown?

Yes.

Yes, but you do you like, do you guys read Atlantic stories to each other for four years?

I don't.

I don't.

She's very smart.

Jesus Christ, you're so fucking

smart.

My wife is so smart.

I love it.

She actually is now working for the Washington Post as an op-ed editor, but yes, I did.

Yes.

She's a very good poet.

I'm going to send you some of her poetry.

It's quite lovely.

You may understand.

And it's well beyond you in your masturbatory ways.

I'll sit staring in my email inbox.

Exactly.

I love poetry.

Karis Fisher loves poetry.

I'm going to introduce you to some great poets.

Yes, I do.

I read a lot of poetry.

Yes, I do.

It's funny because I didn't think you did edibles.

Anyways, I thought your advice was right on, and that is the best way, the key step to any transition is starting.

And that is open your laptop and start writing and start

trying to be quote unquote a journalist.

Now, having said that, the easiest way or the most important attribute you can have in a pivot into investigative journalism, and I suggest you acquire this as rich parents.

Not everybody's rich.

Lots of investigative reporters are not.

That's my point.

And most of them.

It's Kara, there's just no getting around it.

Investigative journalism is a shitty business.

And this is situational.

If you have the money and you've saved some money or you have a low cost, you have a low burn or low overhead, then my brother go for it.

But just to be your dad for a moment, if you're making good money in advertising, what I would just suggest is the following.

Don't quit your day job until you have a good offer from somewhere and start doing it as a side hustle.

Start writing articles on Medium, then seeing if you can be a regular contributor.

I just had a guy do something.

I am having a profile on me, which scares the shit out of me for the New York Times style section, but he does contract work.

He interviewed you, right?

Yeah.

Did you talk about my pastectomy?

Anyway, so I talked about your masturbatory actomy.

There you go.

Again, stop ragging on my hobbies.

So, but I would suggest, like, yeah, do what Kara says, get started, but also just have a sober conversation with yourself.

I don't know your situation around the economics you need because you are going into a field.

that is notoriously shitty in terms of compensation and it's getting worse.

Yeah.

Because

it's a bad business.

It's a business in decline.

Having said that, if you can write well, if you can write well, what I'd suggest is commit to being a journalist, but you don't know, be open to where it takes you because I have journalists working for me.

We do a lot of writing and we pay them well.

Defining yourself to what I'll call long-form investigative journalism is a career that is going to be underpaid.

And if you can afford that, then go for it.

Or if you're someone who doesn't need to, you know, you're fine living a more modest lifestyle and remote in a low-cost area, but have a sober conversation with yourself around the expectation of the economics or the pivot here.

Regarding a pivot at a later stage in life, I would say to people, well, I get calls all the time.

Should I apply to business school?

I'm 35.

And I'm like, well, okay.

In two years, you're going to be 37.

Would you rather be 37 with an MBA or 37 without one?

It doesn't matter how old you are.

Yeah.

So don't let age get in the way.

But I would have a sober conversation around the economics involved here.

Yep.

I think that's what you talk about a lot.

And I do.

It isn't a great way to make money.

But if you have asking questions, that's what it is.

It is not a money-making opportunity for you.

But, you know, if you can swing it, it's really fascinating.

And, you know, in some cases, you can really

start small.

Start with a small problem that you see.

And don't always assume everything becomes an investigative thing.

There's not a controversy around every corner, but usually if you go near government, oh, there's so many schools, education, healthcare.

There's always some.

You can find a story somewhere, no question.

In any case, if you've got a question of your own you'd like answered, send it our way.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51 pivot all right scott one more quick break we'll be back for wins and fails

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Okay, Scott, we're going to do wins and fails.

I'm going to start with the Secret Service.

The agency provided just a single text message exchange to its inspector general when the office requested months of records around January 6th.

When asked where the other messages went, the Secret Service blamed device migration policy.

Secret Service says it provided over 10,000 pages of documents in response to Correctional Subpoena.

There will be more news here from the January 6th Committee after you record.

We'll get into that next week if there's a prime time session tonight.

It looks pretty spicy.

They were asked to preserve these records.

They did a migration after that, even though they've been asked to it.

Pure incompetence here does not explain it.

And they're already under siege after Casey Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Trump tried to grab the steering wheel.

The SUV Trump defender said the Secret Service agents would deny her report under oath, which they haven't done.

And other police officers are there support Cassidy Hutchinson's story.

I think

there needs to be a top-to-bottom cleanup of the Secret Service.

One of their agents became a Trump advisor.

He sounds pretty sketchy to me.

It feels like an episode of scandal.

I've talked to a lot of tech people, and they're confused by the Secret Service's response because some of this should be available.

And it required multiple steps of failure and bad decision making.

So at the very least, they're incompetent.

At the very most, they're culpable here in covering things up.

So I just, I

can't believe the more I hear from them about what happened here at a critical time in history, what they did.

It seems unbelievable as far as I'm concerned.

So that's my fail.

It really is.

It's hugely damaging to the Secret Service brand.

The Secret Service has always been seen as like kind of like, I would describe it a little bit like the Navy SEALs.

They just take orders.

They're not political.

Their job is to protect the president.

They're also in charge of counterfeiting.

It's an unusual organization or policing counterfeiting.

But when they become nakedly political like this, it's terrible for all the

incredible work.

And they kind of do it in the shadows.

They're not they don't seek fame.

Well, except the Navy SEALs have sort of gotten out of hand, all these books.

There's crazy ones.

You mean the guys killing an enemy combatant when he's a 17-year-old and he's contained or going on speaking tours, claiming they shot bin Laden when they were just there?

They went the one.

Anyway, I agree with you.

Every tech person I talk to says this is a very sketchy story from them.

And by the way, they said that all the Secret Service, the U.S.

Secret Service always knows how to do forensic work on texting.

They do.

They're supposedly very highly skilled in technical areas.

And the fact that they're acting like, well,

we let them erase erase what they want they should have backed up what they want you know the whole thing and i love that they sent them one

oh here it is here's one here's one

should we go to chick-fil-a or chop today it also creates conspiracy theories that there's a text that says trump just attacked tony or whatever the heck or whatever the other guy but you know then testify too guys like give me a fucking break stop like trashing this woman if you're not going to testify y'all look like you're up to tricks and and and and every single tech person I talked to says the whole thing sounds really sketchy.

So there you go.

And my win is Michael Pollan's series on his book,

Changing Your Mind,

on all kinds of psychedelics.

I thought it was beautifully done.

Where is it?

Is it on Netflix?

It's on Netflix.

Oh, no kidding.

It's really good.

They managed to show a trip in a way that was interesting.

I don't know how they did it.

He's my guest on today's Prop GPod.

Yeah, he's great.

I've interviewed him a bunch of times.

I thought the book was.

You had to say that, didn't you?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I've interviewed him.

I've talked about him a year, many years ago when he had other people.

You were famous.

He was omnivores.

You were fine.

Oh, stop it.

Stop it.

He's a great guy.

And

he's a wonderful guy.

I wanted to adopt him as my father.

Didn't he seem like a guy who'd be a great guy?

He's a great guy.

He's a great dad.

He's a great guy.

And very interesting.

And he did the first episodes on LSD, a really interesting show.

And about what happened to LSD.

There was a lot of research happening before they decided it was criminal because of the countercultural movement and Timothy Leary.

And the stuff we've lost in terms of research is really significant.

So that was just LSD.

Now he's moving out to the thing.

I thought it's just really beautifully done.

Anyway, that's my win.

All right, your win and fail?

My win is I'd like to think we've hit peak idolatry of famous people or peak megalomania.

I think we hit peak founder with Adam Newman.

I think people are, boards and investors are realizing that some founders are great, others are not.

And just because of the founder doesn't mean they should be able to, you shouldn't, you know, you shouldn't have to indulge kind of what is behavior that is not good for stakeholders.

And I wonder if we've hit the same thing with what I'll call peak megalomania or these cultist-like leaders.

And that is, I believe that Donald Trump is going to be indicted.

I also believe that

Chancellor McCormick is going to make very short order of this Twitter case and just say, this is a contract.

You signed it.

You're a big boy.

Pay up.

And

I think that is a good moment, or I'm hoping it'll be a good moment for America where we reinstitute that we are a nation of laws.

So my win is: I do believe we have hit what I'll call peak megalomania and that the rule of law is going to,

I think the arc of justice in America is crooked, but it does bend towards the righteous.

And I think our institutions are strong.

We spend a tremendous amount of money, thought leadership.

We have the best law schools in the world.

And there is a gestalt among most legal professionals that they do respect the law.

And I like to think that

we're seeing an overdue immune response from the Department of Justice, and in this case, the Delaware Chancery Court.

Anyways, the other win is: I love Mark Cuban and Amazon getting into healthcare.

I think that more competition in healthcare could effectively be the biggest tax cut for consumers in history.

If we can give people absence from fear, if we can reduce costs through competition.

Do you realize, and I've said this before, people always say, oh, you're a bad person.

I canceled my health insurance about five years ago.

You did.

And because what is health insurance?

45 cents on the dollar goes to profits or administration, meaning that you're getting 55 cents worth of goods.

And who's it for?

Health insurance is essentially for, and I noticed I looked at our health insurance payments.

We were always going out of network, never getting reimbursed.

And it was costing my family, me and my family, because I'm a narcissist.

I'm like, oh, I got to get the best plan.

I was paying about 45 or 50 grand a year.

And what is health insurance for?

It's to protect you against the big one.

And if you have some money and

you have the economic resilience to protect against the big one, you don't need health insurance.

So, like everything else in our country, health insurance is a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

And over five years, I've saved a quarter of a million dollars on health insurance.

That will buy a lot of health care.

So, our ability, if we can create more competition and bring costs down and bring service up using technology, using the cheap capital that Amazon has, using, I think, some of the innovation that hopefully Mark Cuban will bring at the Pharmaceutical, the biggest tax cut in a long time and the biggest increase in time or giving people back peace of mind and time is going to be increased competition in healthcare.

So that's my win with it.

And drug prices, it's all a scam.

It really is.

And everybody gets it.

Everybody gets it.

And we still participate in it because we're fearful of dying.

Well, look at health insurance companies.

Yep.

Every year they just make more money.

And I'm a capitalist.

I like that.

But what does it say when one type of company in the same sector is always increasing profits?

And it's lack of innovation.

It's lack of innovation.

And the prices should be driven down the way they were in newspapers, you know,

the media.

Everything.

Everything.

Driven down.

It's ridiculous.

Though I really do think with all your children, you really should have more health care and health insurance.

You're going there again.

You're going there again.

Okay.

Anyways, so we're going to wear that thing out.

I'm just going to save that.

Yeah.

No, you didn't underline that book.

That's your hair falling out.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

I'm taking over Australia.

All right.

Okay.

No, you're not.

No, you're not.

General Consulate of Australia.

My fail.

Supposedly somewhere between one and four and one in three women are leaving the workforce because of an absence of child care post-COVID.

And

I think the Democrats are, again, positioning this as outrage and that this is about women.

I don't think that's the right way to position it.

There needs to be a class of worker that you say is a caregiver and you are going to invest in and give them the technology to work remotely so they don't have to spend 10 hours on the fucking MTA every day.

And they can take care of a dad who's suffering from dementia.

They can take care of kids that might have to do remote schooling for a variety of reasons.

When we don't allow or we don't support women in the workforce, we reduce our economic might.

It has been a huge, it has been a great

woman knows this.

This is like one of, you know, when the whole sexual harassment thing happened, every woman had a story.

And every woman knows this.

And also, no matter what, where you are, it's difficult.

Childcare is a difficult issue to deal with.

It's because it's hard.

It's so full of friction.

It's so full of friction.

It's just not organized in the way it should be.

It should be easy.

It should be simple.

And it's simply not.

And so you're right.

Good for you, Scott Galloway.

I remember in the third grade, we had one of those assembly where they bring everybody out in a line into the main area, you know, in case there was a nuclear war or something.

Duck and cover, and I'm your principal.

I'm not going to talk about nothing.

We'd all line up.

I was violently ill and began throwing up in front of the entire Emelita Elementary school, which was really good for my brand.

I was known as the kid, like I think they called me the porcelain god of the technical or Yoner all through the fifth and sixth grade.

I went, I mean, I was really sick.

They took me to Nervous Office.

I called my mom, they called my mom, and my mom couldn't leave her job.

She had a kid really sick at home, but she was a secretary for an insurance company in the valley, and she just wasn't allowed to leave.

To not support or figure out a way to leverage new technologies and new

processes around remote work for caregivers is just stupid.

We need workers.

We need to reduce inflation.

We're losing people out of the workforce.

And we're making, and all of that, again, let me politicize this.

How on earth do we expect women to balance career and their personal life if we don't give them access to family planning?

That's going to hurt the economy.

It's true.

Oh, Scott, I'm so glad you finally arrived here at our little party of shittiness.

Anyway.

Send me the poetry.

Send me your poetry.

Wow.

Oh, goodness sake.

Anyway, one thing before we go: life is not always happy.

This week, we lost Anastasia Golvashkina, I think I'm pronouncing that correct, to cancer.

Anastasia was a digital strategist for many progressive causes, including Elizabeth Warren campaign.

She texted me a lot.

She DMed me a lot.

She was a big pivot fan, and the feeling was a mutual.

She tried to give Elizabeth Warren for us and various things.

She was just a very bright light.

She died of cancer, which came suddenly.

She wrote a great piece in L a couple of years ago about it, which you should read.

I linked to it in a tweet.

But rest in peace, Anastasia.

What a lovely soul you are.

And condolences to all who knew and loved you.

Scott, that's the show.

That's the show.

We love our fans, just so you know.

We've met lots of them this week on planes and trains and automobiles.

We think you're all wonderful, and we really love your suggestions.

Okay, Scott, that's the show.

We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot.

Scott, read us out.

Today's show is produced by Larry Neyman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin.

Ernie Ingertott engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Meal Severio.

Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

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

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

Have a great rest of the week and weekend.

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

We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well.

Collagen smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes, and fitness trackers.

But what does it actually mean to be well?

Why do we want that so badly?

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

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