Microsoft & Netflix are BFFs, Delaware Showdown, and Sperm Donors

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Speaker 14 hi everyone this is pivot from new york magazine and the vox media podcast network i'm kara swisher and i'm scott galloway scott what do you call a house that can't host a party what do you call a house that can't host a party kara a joe mansion

Speaker 14 Anyway,

Speaker 14 a little humor because he's blown up yet another economic deal for uh president biden um although he's not acquitting himself too well by fist bumping with a thug murderous thug um but anyway it's been quite a week um what have you where are you what have you been doing this week i'm in colorado um

Speaker 2 my sister and my nifa nesu nephew are visiting we went hiking um really nice you know they're great outdoors which i hate but makes for good pictures oh nice um the dogs are great yeah dogs dogs and hiking i had the whole family in town including Lucky.

Speaker 14 It was quite a weekend. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Wow. NDC.

Speaker 14 Well, not the whole thing. My kids, all my kids were home at once.

Speaker 14 Louie's back, and they all took off to Europe this week to take, it's a long story, but we're all going to Europe on various little things, weddings and things like that. So everyone was home.

Speaker 14 It was lovely, actually.

Speaker 2 I actually cooked over Louis.

Speaker 14 And we had a great time. Nice.
I love those boys. They're so good.

Speaker 14 Anyway, so we have a lot to talk about.

Speaker 14 There's a lot going on, but not a lot. There's a lot of economic stuff going on.
Today we'll talk about Netflix and Microsoft. Netflix signed with Microsoft.

Speaker 14 Everyone thought they were going to sign with Google. Details of their unlikely partnership.
It's really a good thing for Microsoft. Also, there's a new intrigue in Elon Land as ever.

Speaker 14 We'll speak with author Krista Bilton about her new memoir and her discovery that she was one of more than 30 children of a prolific sperm donor. No, Scott, that wasn't you.

Speaker 14 But first, interest rates are going up. Probably.
The Federal Reserve's officials signal they'll likely raise rates by 0.75%. Later this month, they've done that before.

Speaker 14 People thought there was going to be a full-point rise that investors had feared. Meanwhile, the dollar is the strongest it's been in 20 years.
It's really kind of a weird recession.

Speaker 14 A lot of Jamie Dimon was saying we're not really in a recession. The head of

Speaker 14 Citibank, Jane Frazier, was saying we are, but consumer spending is up. Consumer sentiment is down.

Speaker 14 Jobs are up. There's lots of jobs

Speaker 14 and the labor market's really strong. It's a very strange recession, but most people feel like this might shove, there's no way out of this without shoving us into one.

Speaker 14 So what do you think the risks are of this interest rate hike and what's going on with the dollar?

Speaker 2 Well, there's just no getting around it. You have to incur some pain to get out of inflation.
And the U.S.

Speaker 2 is actually fairly well positioned on a relative basis because the strength of the dollar, it'll take down the earnings of.

Speaker 2 organizations like Nike and McDonald's that have a lot of overseas operations.

Speaker 2 But essentially, when the dollar becomes this strong, it's the equivalent of sort of a tax hike on almost every other country in the world because

Speaker 2 so many nations, the dollar is still the reserve currency. The majority, even if you're not buying American goods, you might be transacting in dollars.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 your purchasing power outside of the U.S. is going down.
And the dollar,

Speaker 2 for all the talk about the decline of the U.S., everyone's always, you know, rumors of the decline of American civilization, or at least its world in the world, have always been exaggerated because it's still the reserve currency.

Speaker 2 It is. and

Speaker 2 crypto we'll talk about that in a second but it's that's what crypto is supposed to like a world currency but it remains the dollar it remains it's also just a psychological indicator or a consumer sentiment indicator on a global level and that is when the dollar is strong the dollar strength is inversely correlated to how uh generally the global markets are feeling about uh

Speaker 2 about how the world is doing and when we enter into tumultuous times whether it's a war or global inflation there's a flight to safety and the ultimate safe haven is U.S.

Speaker 2 Treasuries and you need dollars to buy those. So it's sort of a, it's, what, it's a negative forward-looking indicator or present indicator of how the world is feeling about the world.
Right.

Speaker 14 Right. But like, look at this, but that it's also the weird recession, which is that people feel like there's a recession or there's going to be a recession and yet consumer spending is up.

Speaker 14 You go out anywhere in any city that I've been to and it's packed. People are out.

Speaker 2 Airports are full.

Speaker 14 Everything, it's just nuts to go out right now. It's hard to get anything.
It's hard to, people are buying up everything.

Speaker 14 You know, there is a there is a delayed pandemic response, but it still doesn't, it seems to be people don't consider that there's a pandemic, even though there is.

Speaker 14 Lots and lots of people I know have COVID again or have had it for the first time. My brother, for example, got it.

Speaker 14 So

Speaker 14 it's just, it's hard to explain.

Speaker 14 I think Jamie Diamond was, who is considered one of the people with most insight because he's got so many signals, said it's not a recession, although a lot of his numbers are off, including mergers and acquisitions and things like that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's,

Speaker 2 I mean, we might have the worst of all worlds, stagflation,

Speaker 2 where you have not only prices increase, but you have productivity goes down and basically everyone's just quality of life declines.

Speaker 2 I also worry that I wonder if the signals you and I, the anecdotal signals that you and I get are because we live in urban areas that are still doing quite well. And

Speaker 2 with workers who have the money to, once COVID was over, there's so much pent-up demand. I mean, for example, European travel is surge because people weren't able to go to Europe.

Speaker 14 I think so.

Speaker 14 I think all the numbers are every consumer spending is strong all over the country.

Speaker 2 It's strong across the board.

Speaker 14 Across the board.

Speaker 2 Yeah. This is a random walk.

Speaker 2 We've never not gone into a recession when interest rates go this high. We've never gone into a recession when unemployment is this low.
So this is definitely a random walk or an uncharted trip.

Speaker 14 It'll be interesting to see what happens, including creation of companies, because, you know, obviously venture capitalists are pulling back and everything else. Not everything's on the rise.

Speaker 14 Adam Newman's new venture, Flow Carbon, says it's delaying its product rollout indefinitely. Newman's company planned to release blockchain-based carbon credits by the end of June.

Speaker 14 Now the company says it's waiting for the crypto market to, quote, stabilize.

Speaker 2 I don't know what to say. I'm just kind of bummed it didn't launch.

Speaker 2 I would have really enjoyed watching this thing show.

Speaker 14 It's like part two of We Crashed. Scott's, you know, Kelly O'Coin plays you again going, what?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't know what's going on here. Yeah.

Speaker 2 The idea of putting carbon credits on the blockchain, I think it makes sense theoretically, but the reality, you know, there's just, I interviewed a woman named Molly who has a site called Web3 is doing just great.

Speaker 2 And it just documents all the kind of.

Speaker 14 Yes, Molly Wood. She's going to be a guest host.
Well, in Scott for you August, just so you know.

Speaker 2 Oh, is she? She's Molly Wood. Oh, yes, indeed.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 There you go. But, you know, she just basically laid it out.
She just said her basic premises, and none of us have talked about this, just like essentially said, blockchain's shitty technology.

Speaker 2 So you have an entire sector trying to base

Speaker 2 hundreds of billions of dollars of investment and value on the notion based on the back of a technology that's that's actually pretty shitty. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So we'll see. I still think that there's going to be a bit of a bounce here.
It looks like.

Speaker 14 Well, you've been a bit of a

Speaker 14 non-skeptic, I guess. You skeptic, but a non-skeptic at the same time, that there must be something in here.

Speaker 14 Investments in that area.

Speaker 2 There's got to be something here, right?

Speaker 2 It's just, it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. So many smart people are working on this.

Speaker 14 It's sort of like Trump's got to be innocent somewhere in here, but no, he's not.

Speaker 14 Speaking of which, Ivana Trump, RIP.

Speaker 14 Anyway, also sinking rapid delivery startups, companies that offer super fast deliveries are scaling back and going belly up. I think we could have seen this one coming.

Speaker 14 In New York City alone, BC sank almost $8 billion into companies like Joker and GoPuff. Joker has now exited the U.S.
and competitors like Fridge No More are out of business.

Speaker 14 I don't know how to say, my kids use Uber Eats if they want something. That's, you know what I mean? They never really avail themselves to all these GoPuffs and this and that.

Speaker 14 So very pandemic-oriented business, very much like Zoom, Peloton, and the others. So what thinks you of this? I mean, this has been going on and on for years from cosmo.com.

Speaker 14 These things sort of rise and fall and they never can find an economic footing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, people who are old enough to remember the kind of Coke and Pepsi wars

Speaker 2 between Cosmo and Urban Fetch. Yeah, they hated each other.
I forgot about Urge and Fetch. Do you remember? I had an Urban Fetch t-shirt.

Speaker 14 Oh, Cosmo, I remember very vividly. I used to, I wrote that they were one, a sexual assault away from the end of their business because who knows who's working for them.

Speaker 14 And I just was, I thought the whole thing was really questionable. But go ahead.

Speaker 2 It's interesting you think that way. Anyways,

Speaker 2 I'm a woman. There you go.

Speaker 2 Oh, I've been shamed.

Speaker 2 You have been. You should be shamed.

Speaker 14 Anyway,

Speaker 14 talk about these businesses because people like them, but it seems like Uber and Amazon really fulfill this. You know, I ordered something on Amazon last night.
It was there in two hours.

Speaker 14 It was crazy.

Speaker 14 It was a ski bag, if you can believe it. You know what I mean? Like, how did they have a ski bag available in two hours? Of course, probably hurting all kinds of people.

Speaker 14 But these businesses seem, I don't know why Visa, $8 billion is a lot of money. That's a crazy amount in New York alone.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, if you think about fulfillment, the most efficient form of fulfillment, at least from a shareholder or a company standpoint, is for you to go to a distribution center called a store and then take it home because

Speaker 2 you know your home when you're taking it home.

Speaker 2 There's no more efficient way to get it from the store to your home than someone who knows the exact routing and where it goes in the refrigerator.

Speaker 2 And then you have these companies, FedEx, UPS, and now Amazon, that have basically said, all right, we're going to make businesses out of the last mile.

Speaker 2 And the reality is the capital here, and because of the scale you need to reach, is staggering.

Speaker 2 And there's all these fever dreams about, and then Uber kind of, to a certain extent, gets into the last mile with Uber Eats.

Speaker 2 And I thought that Uber would get into last mile and be a competitor against Amazon, which it never happened. But people get, there's this consensual hallucination.

Speaker 2 that consumers are willing to pay extra to get their gum, their water.

Speaker 2 You know, the argument, and I interviewed the CEO of Joker and GoPuff, was that 80% of items that people get from CVS or Walgreens are the same, like 100 SKUs. They probably started right.

Speaker 2 They started renting these micro-warehouses. It makes sense.

Speaker 2 But no one, the fulfillment, the last mile, is incredibly expensive, and no one's been able to reach the scale other than FedEx, UPS, and Amazon.

Speaker 2 And every kind of couple decades, people forget history, and you have a 35-year-old venture capitalist. It wasn't around for Urban Fetcher Cosmo.

Speaker 2 But here, the literally incinerator incinerator of cash these companies have become because it's so expensive is striking. It is amazing.

Speaker 14 Have you been ever offered one?

Speaker 14 Has it struck you? I know you've made Bitcoin investments and this and that, but has this ever gotten you interested? Have you ever made an investment in this?

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 I advise a VC fund that I believe invested in the one in Europe. I think it's Gorillas.
Anyways,

Speaker 2 I've just never wanted, this to me is

Speaker 2 you're attempting to compete with Amazon. The majority of products you can get from Amazon within 48 hours for free in

Speaker 2 certain cities with Amazon, is it now?

Speaker 2 In 43 hours.

Speaker 2 The kids at L2 used to order lunch from Amazon now, and it would get there within 43 minutes.

Speaker 14 I was dumbfounded by this.

Speaker 2 You're not only competing with Amazon, you're competing with Amazon's core confidence and where they have made staggering investments.

Speaker 2 So, but this space, it's amazing just how

Speaker 2 ugly, how fast things got for this entire space.

Speaker 14 You know, you mentioned like regular retail and a coast register story wegmans just do you know wegmans it's like this incredibly successful yeah it just opened near me and it people were insane and i we went actually that was our friday night fun just so you know for this is where i am as a person in life um amanda and the two younger kids and did louis go no louis wasn't here and we had a great time i hate to say it's like going to an apple store but but apple the actual apples you know how much fun that is when you used to go to the apple store and i got to tell you the presentation, the merchandising,

Speaker 14 it's such a contrast. This is what I thought.

Speaker 14 This company has shown how to compete against Amazon because you go to the Amazon store, which also opened one of those grab and go things. And it's soulless.
You don't want to shop there.

Speaker 14 You want to flee from it because you can see the cameras everywhere. It's creepy.
It's antiseptic. I don't know how else to put it.
It's really unfun. And then you have a Wegmans.

Speaker 14 So retailers, if they're really good, like a Wegmans, can really

Speaker 14 competitive prices. Suddenly everybody's, everyone's giving you coupons everywhere.
Obviously, Wegmans is really interesting to see something on that scale of creativity and delivery.

Speaker 14 And it was packed with all kinds of people, which was really, they had a grocery store on one end, a huge prepared food thing.

Speaker 14 And I just thought, boy, they're going to clean Whole Foods clock and all the Amazon Go stores. You know, the lack of creativity is Amazon's good at logistics, but not merchandising and creativity.

Speaker 14 And it was interesting.

Speaker 2 So do you have, do you have a former romantic partner you would describe as the one who got away in your life?

Speaker 14 No.

Speaker 2 No? Now, why?

Speaker 2 Well, I wasn't asking about you. I was just setting up an opportunity to talk about me.

Speaker 14 Yeah, okay, because I'm glad the ones that got away got away.

Speaker 2 I'll tell you that. Because we don't have enough of the dog father.
Anyways,

Speaker 2 when I first moved to New York, I fell very much in love with a woman who was a doctor, and our relationship got very serious very fast.

Speaker 2 Anyway, she was one of the heiresses of the families to the Wegmans.

Speaker 2 And of course, the first thing she did to reflect that she was serious about me was we went up to Rochester, New York, and she gave me a back, you know, like an insider's tour of Wegmans. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I had never heard of Wegmans. And it was kind of like, if you want to be a part of this family, you're going to have to understand Wegmans.

Speaker 2 And it's sort of a cross. The way I described it.

Speaker 14 Buckies. I also like Buckies, but go ahead.

Speaker 2 The way I described it is it's a cross between Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. And that is it has sort of that Whole Foods special feel, but at a lower price.

Speaker 2 Because you walk into Whole Foods and you think, wow, the sushi's amazing here, the prepared food's amazing here. And then you buy a bunch of grapes and it's $73 and you're sort of turned off.
Right.

Speaker 2 And whereas Wegmans is able to create some of that like, like a real luxury indulgence.

Speaker 14 Scott, they've gone better. It's nicer than Whole Foods is depressing compared to that.

Speaker 2 That's interesting. I haven't been in Wegmans in a while.
I'm going to take it as our Wegmans.

Speaker 14 Now it is. This one is.
I'll tell you that. I can't go.

Speaker 2 It's too emotionally tumultuous for me.

Speaker 2 I got away.

Speaker 14 You could have been a Wegmans heir. You could have been working for Wegmans.

Speaker 2 Think about that. Yeah, no, it's how I kind of, my life flashed in front of my eyes that I would be starving.
I love figuring out people are crazy for it because it's such a pleasing thing.

Speaker 2 It's got a religious, like, cult following.

Speaker 14 It's because it's really good. I'm drinking their, look at this.
I'm drinking their pure coke. This is not an ad for Wegmans, but it's all their whatever versions.

Speaker 14 They have versions of everything like Whole Foods does, the 365, and they're all fantastic. I got to say, I don't want to do an ad for, but they can buy an ad if they want, but here's the deal.

Speaker 14 It's named also Great Place to Work. Fortune names Wegmans one of the 2021 100 best companies to work.
I was, you and I are going to go have a Wegman on.

Speaker 2 I just can't go there, Carol. You need to.
Well, I'm going to have it in Scott for you, August.

Speaker 14 We're doing a Wegman.

Speaker 2 Because it was really interesting.

Speaker 14 Because at first time, I thought, wow, Amazon is fucked with these people because they have done something. I have been to Wegmans in Pennsylvania and this was a step up.

Speaker 14 And I thought, oh, these people have come to play, come to play. And it actually was my Friday night date night was at Wegmans.

Speaker 14 I'm such a loser. That's a good time.
It was.

Speaker 14 We had such a good time. And then we had got some food and we sat outside.
Anyway, let's go to our first big story.

Speaker 14 Now, something not as pleasant as Wegmans. Elon Musk doesn't want to go to the Delaware court anytime soon.
Of course, he doesn't because he's going to get, as you said, railed.

Speaker 14 Musk's legal team has asked to delay his Twitter trial until February 2023. Twitter wants a four-day trial this coming September.

Speaker 14 The date could be decided on Tuesday, shortly after we release this episode. I think they're going to go with the fast and fast one.

Speaker 14 Why is he delaying? What's he doing? So he can insult them some more, which is a violation of the terms of the contract? What? Just create more evidence for them that he's a bad faith actor?

Speaker 14 What do you think is happening here?

Speaker 2 I think it's pretty obvious. This is acknowledgment acknowledgement that he has a shitty case.
And I mean, think about it.

Speaker 2 If it was, quote unquote, his bullshit launderers are out there saying Twitter is toast.

Speaker 2 And he's trying to pretend that if he says it enough times, like Trump does, if he creates a lie and a mythology enough times that people start believing it, that, oh, this is a slam dunk case.

Speaker 2 If he thought, if him and his lawyers thought that this case had any of the veracity that they're claiming it does,

Speaker 2 they'd want to get in front of a judge and have him, quote unquote, relieved of his obligations. But here's what his lawyer said: his lawyer said, as the facts state right now, we're fucked.

Speaker 2 And if we go in front of a judge, the judge is going to compel us to close. So they're claiming they need more time

Speaker 2 to look at the bots. Meanwhile, they've had the fire hose for a month.
They haven't been able to offer anything resembling any type of evidence.

Speaker 14 And he's violating it, except against him. He's, first of all, he's violating by insulting them.
He had an agreement not to do that. Now, that may be a slap on the wrist.
He also knew about it.

Speaker 14 He's just, he's put out evidence against himself. Like he's, you know, it's sort of like Trump's life.

Speaker 2 He has no self-control. He has absolutely no control, impulse control.
It's been, it's a sign of success.

Speaker 2 It's a, it's a sign of the society we live in where we tell these innovators they can get away with whatever they want with anything.

Speaker 2 But effectively, what the strategy is, what him and his lawyers have decided is

Speaker 2 They're moving to what I would refer to as a hostage strategy. This is now a hostage situation where their attitude is if we can delay it,

Speaker 2 we're going to make life so uncomfortable for Twitter. We're going to continue shit posting.
We're going to create this.

Speaker 2 We're going to maintain their status being in limbo, which will be bad for advertising, bad for the business, and weaken their resolve and then extract an unfair, an unfairly low payment or penalty.

Speaker 14 I think they're going to get the 20 billion. I think you're right.
I have to say.

Speaker 2 Well, this is the second thing that happened last week that didn't get much news. They appointed a chancellor.
And guess what? It's a woman.

Speaker 2 And guess what her one of her most recent cases was she compelled kohlberg and company to close oh right she's a compeller well she she faced they have to right she faced she was presented with a case that looks almost identical to this except the size was 550 million on 44 billion right and and guess what she asked them to do She said, oh, you went back and tried to queer your financing.

Speaker 2 You tried to create a script of non-compliance, which was bullshit. You need to show up.
And I mean,

Speaker 2 and this is what's going to happen. Look what's happened to the stock last week, Kara.
The stock keeps going up. It's up again today because everyone said, okay,

Speaker 2 this is every day that goes on, it looks more and more likely that a Delaware chancellor is going to order this guy to show up with $54.20.

Speaker 14 Or the difference between its current price. And that's what a lot of people are talking about.
This is interesting. I sent you an Atlantic story, which I thought it's a law professor.

Speaker 14 And this I thought was the best

Speaker 14 thing

Speaker 14 where he was talking about what's going to happen.

Speaker 14 The Delaware Court hears disputes between the biggest corporations in the world, represented by the most sophisticated counsel with the most significant investors on Wall Street.

Speaker 14 When they show up in a court with a contract, the court presumes that when they sign the contract, they meant it. They're not going to allow parties to walk away from deals.

Speaker 14 Musk is a big boy, and this court treats those parties like big boys and girls.

Speaker 14 When they make their mistakes, they eat their mistakes. And so it's really, and one of the other things he said,

Speaker 14 which was Delaware, this is a really important paragraph. Delaware lives and dies by corporate law.
If Delaware is unable to enforce an order, Delaware goes out of business.

Speaker 14 So enforcing an order is the highest priority for the Delaware court. Delaware has a

Speaker 14 sequestration statute that permits the judge and the chancery court to order the seizure of a party's assets in order to secure their appearance in court. Tesla is incorporated in Delaware.

Speaker 14 So in theory, the court could seize Tesla's shares in order to compel Musk. A Delaware court will not be pushed around by Elon Musk.

Speaker 2 This is his worst nightmare.

Speaker 2 It's not going to be tried in the court of public opinion. There's no jury.

Speaker 2 The chancellor overseeing this case is probably not even Twitter. She doesn't give a flying fuck what he says about her on Twitter.

Speaker 2 They are hardcore litigators, corporate litigators. And it's also built for speed, as we talked about.
She listens to the evidence and then she says, this is what you need to do.

Speaker 2 And by the way, you're exactly right.

Speaker 2 The Delaware Chancery Court could seize the shares in Tesla if he doesn't comply.

Speaker 14 They have to if he doesn't comply.

Speaker 14 He cannot do an end run around them. They cannot allow it to happen.
That is really the case. You know, they're not going to not just push around.
It would be curtains for Delaware if they did that.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry to interrupt.

Speaker 2 It wouldn't even be curtains for Delaware. It'd be curtains for a pillar of our society.

Speaker 2 And that is, oh, we know we treat rich people better. That's part of capitalism.

Speaker 2 Their kids get more opportunity. They have a larger selection set of mates.
They get to get away with what I'll call minor skirmishes around the law.

Speaker 2 But if rich people, especially rich innovators, can avoid the law and not have to comply with court orders, then we're just kind of out of business. We have gone full crony.

Speaker 2 We've gone, we're an autocracy and we're no longer America.

Speaker 14 I don't agree with the rail thing, but I think they should enforce the law, which you had. The Twitter Musk agreement has an October 24th, quote, presumptive drop-dead date.

Speaker 14 So that was also, it had to be closed by then. So this is moving fast and everybody's.

Speaker 2 We're going to decide this week.

Speaker 2 They're making arguments in front of the judge about delaying or expediting it. So the first big signal back from the Delaware Chancery Court is going to happen this week.

Speaker 2 And I don't know the semantics of an argument around delay, but my sense is, my sense is these people come to play and aren't scared of Twitter or a guy, you know, a guy's Twitter following.

Speaker 2 And what I find just hilarious is all these

Speaker 2 sycophants who are two degrees away from Elon. Elon's their hero.
And they keep putting out these tweets saying, oh, but it's like you wouldn't close on a house if there were termites in the basement.

Speaker 2 And it's like, okay, moron, if I, if I, if I sign something saying I'm waiving all diligence. Yeah.
And, and I challenge anybody. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I challenge anybody to find any credible legal scholar, any credible legal think tank who has not said the following. He's fucked.

Speaker 14 He's fucked. That is true.
Speaking of which, two of Musk's top lieutenants are vying for control.

Speaker 14 And one of, if his charitable giving, according to, I would say, a jaw-dropping story in Wall Street Journal, Also, Bloomberg had done this also earlier.

Speaker 14 A former professional gambler, poker player named Igor Kraganov, befriended Musk along with his girlfriend, who's also a very well-known professional poker player.

Speaker 14 Now, had been overseeing the more than $5 billion in Tesla shares that Musk pledged to charity.

Speaker 14 It seems like he's not anymore. He's been removed from the story.
It's very unclear.

Speaker 14 But Jared Birchall, who is really his longtime wealth manager, who's been behind a lot of this stuff, who also serves as CEO of Neuralink,

Speaker 14 Musk's brain interface company, where also his current baby mother also works,

Speaker 14 is trying to wrest control, but he sort of handed over quite a lot of power to a guy who had no experience in philanthropy.

Speaker 14 The lives of the rich and famous are behind the scenes, weird and sad, I find, in a lot of ways. I don't know.
What do you think? I don't know.

Speaker 14 Jared Birchall sounds like a very competent wealth manager. He's from banks.
He's got a good reputation.

Speaker 2 I always thought he was a great solvent that Elon Musk has really good instincts.

Speaker 2 And that is if you, as you get older, what you realize is the best strategy to keep yourself out of control is to surround yourself with people that will not only push back on your ideas, but bring a certain skill set or demeanor that is much different than yours.

Speaker 2 And I always thought that one of the savviest moves he ever made was having this

Speaker 2 man

Speaker 2 in his circle because he strikes me as just a very buttoned up, credible

Speaker 2 unlike Elon. Everything that comes out of his mouth, he thinks, is this true before he says it? All right.
And, but this other guy,

Speaker 2 I don't, can you seems interesting?

Speaker 14 Seems interesting. But at some point, all these people, they all get to think they are the person, which I thought was interesting.

Speaker 14 In his case, you know, he, they, they cycle in and out of these people who then get the power of the billionaire.

Speaker 14 And, and every one of them that has one like this, and some are better than others, but they all attract

Speaker 14 other people that are, whether it's Tony Hshea or, you know what I mean? They all attract people that maybe don't have their best interests at heart or enjoy being close to the sun. It's a really,

Speaker 14 I've always found it very sad. And I remember saying to one of them, they're like, oh, you're mean to me, Kara.
And I'm like, I'm not paying, I'm not on your payroll.

Speaker 14 Maybe that's why it seems like that. And it was, it's always really, you know, people advantaging themselves from these people.

Speaker 14 It must be, I don't think it's hard to be a billionaire, but boy, who do you trust, essentially.

Speaker 2 So I've worked, I have worked closely with a few billionaires in the hedgehog business. And what I found is the smart ones surround themselves with competence and people who push back.

Speaker 2 But the temptation, and you can understand it, is there's always a few people that sneak in that they have personal social relationships with.

Speaker 2 And everybody is trying to penetrate the circle of the billions because if they can get close to the product, if they can get proximate to the power and proximate to the money, they'll get advantages from it.

Speaker 2 Yep. And a lot of them kind of work their way in through a personal relationship.

Speaker 14 It's nice, you know, being on the plane.

Speaker 2 And you get invited to fun events and interesting things, and they will figure out a way. They will fund your next movie or your business idea or put you on contract or consulting.
And oftentimes

Speaker 2 it's through the spouse, friends with the spouse. They get involved.

Speaker 14 Yeah, in this case, it was through Grimes.

Speaker 2 And there's always a hell, what I always noticed, what I noticed was there was always a healthy number of people whose primary competence or the way they got close to power or this individual was they are pure sycophants.

Speaker 2 They're just, oh, no, you're right. This is

Speaker 2 constant text messages. This was a great move.
I know the media is saying,

Speaker 2 I know the courts and legal experts are saying that you're lying and you're shit out of luck, but you know what? That was a genius move.

Speaker 2 And it's nice to have people around you telling you that you're always right and laughing at your jokes. And I've always seen, I've always, you could always spot them.

Speaker 2 You walk into an organization, guy runs ahead of billions of dollars, a lot of competent people, and there's always two or three people that are there

Speaker 2 because they've just constantly got the knee pads out.

Speaker 14 It is also sometimes your own family, too. Anyway, it's weird.
And Elon Musk is in a weird period, and it's a shame.

Speaker 14 It's a damn shame because he's got some really amazing visions about the future, the Tesla stuff, the space stuff. This is just a weird, bad year.

Speaker 2 Well, I've got a lot of shit on this for Twitter, but I think Tesla is arguably one of the strongest brands in the world. I think SpaceX is one of the most ascendant brands in the world.

Speaker 2 Can you think of an individual whose brand equity has declined more in 90 days than Elon Musk right now?

Speaker 14 I'll do a special show on that brand equity decline. It really has.
Even my kids who really liked him are like, ugh, like, ugh. They go, ugh, like that.
And they didn't. They liked him.

Speaker 14 They thought he was cool.

Speaker 14 Anyway, we'll see what goes on here, but Delaware Corridor does not think you're cool, Elon. You better start shaping up or shipping out.
All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

Speaker 14 And when we come back, Netflix chooses Microsoft as its dance partner.

Speaker 14 And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Krista Bilton, about cults, pyramid schemes, and in vitro fertilization, all of Scott's favorite topics.

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Speaker 14 Scott, we're back. There's new details in how Microsoft landed the Netflix deal.
The coup is credited to an ad technology called Xander, which Microsoft bought off ATT last year.

Speaker 14 The tech allows ad buyers and sellers to transact across different platforms, including connected televisions. This is a big deal.

Speaker 14 If Microsoft's moved in and out of tech, you're very familiar with this. I know they bought different companies over the years.

Speaker 14 And this was thought to go to Google or one of the, there's one other big one. I've been blanking on it was, I think it's Magnum or something like that.

Speaker 14 So this is a big deal that they went with Netflix. Now, Reed Hastings was on Microsoft's board.
I don't believe he's still on the board, but

Speaker 14 it's a big coup for such Nadella.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it is. And something I didn't realize, you know, realize that Microsoft's the fourth largest advertiser in the world.
They have like a 3% market share,

Speaker 2 not just behind, but they're behind Amazon that's at 12%. Most people don't think of Amazon as a media company.
It's a huge media company. And then it's Facebook and then it's Google.

Speaker 2 And what I think this says is, I mean, there's a couple of things.

Speaker 2 One, when the economy, the last 13 years have been just so much champagne and cocaine and so much capital that everyone has vertically integrated backwards and forwards.

Speaker 2 So let's not outsource ad sales. Let's build our own ad Salesforce team.
Let's not put our iPhones in stores. Let's build out our own stores.
And when capital is cheap, you go vertical.

Speaker 2 Now capital is getting more expensive. And Netflix has made the decision with our stock off 70%.
If we're going to try and go into the ad supported business, let's not build our own ad sales team.

Speaker 2 Let's go somewhere else.

Speaker 14 For now. When I interviewed Ted Saran, it's a sound local.

Speaker 2 The other thing it says is, and it's such a 180,

Speaker 2 is that in terms of partnerships and your reputation in the community, I remember I did a brand strategy project for a company called AMB that ultimately ended up becoming ProLogis.

Speaker 2 And it's run by one of the biggest brains in the real estate world, a guy named Hamid Mogadam.

Speaker 2 And his brand, when I was interviewing him about what their strategy was, our strategy is to be known in the marketplace as being a fantastic partner.

Speaker 2 And that the real estate business has so many cowboys and so much full-body contact negotiation that we want to be seen as a great partner that wants to make money, but also wants our partners to make money.

Speaker 2 And I thought, that's such a unique, visionary positioning. And this is what's happening in the tech community.

Speaker 2 And that is, of all partners, the Darth Vader of the 90s is now perceived as a better partner.

Speaker 2 People don't,

Speaker 2 Oh my gosh, Amazon has been the greatest partner, said almost no one ever. Oh my God, I love working with Facebook.
They told me they've been honest, they've been transparent, said no one ever.

Speaker 2 And Google, who puts, you know, Google, which is kind of nicer, but still at the end of the day,

Speaker 2 they can do it in the driver's seat. They can do an algorithm change and you're shit out of luck.
But Microsoft is generally seen in the business community as being a thoughtful, good partner.

Speaker 2 Emphasis on the word partner. And that's why I think they went with them.

Speaker 14 Yeah, they've been buying, moving in and out of ad tech during the bomber years. What was that one they bought?

Speaker 14 They bought a couple of big companies and they sort of went sideways on quite a few of them. Apple has done the same thing, like had moved a little bit into advertising and moved out.

Speaker 14 What's interesting is the ones that lost out, specifically Google here, which means that Microsoft has come to play.

Speaker 14 And if other companies follow Netscape and Netflix's lead and bringing in Peloton, Stitch Fix, Substack, any of them, Microsoft is now an option and ways, you know, a good partner.

Speaker 14 Like you said, it's not their core business, but it's good for their business and it's related to their business.

Speaker 14 And they buying this company, which was a lot less than their previous ad buys,

Speaker 14 is, I think, very important to them. And it shows their resurgent interest in ad tech, which sort of waned after their last.
thing didn't go as well.

Speaker 2 Hmm.

Speaker 2 So yeah, we'll see. I think it's a bad move.
Going back to Netflix, I personally think it's a bad move. You like it.
I like it.

Speaker 2 I think core to Netflix's brand is you don't is uninterrupted storytelling, but it'll be very, it'll be.

Speaker 14 It's almost nowhere. I was using free TV this weekend that watched Madagascar Paramount Plus.
I ended up buying Paramount Plus, but I didn't mind the advertising at all.

Speaker 14 I found it very relevant and it was fine. It was

Speaker 14 painless because it's much shorter than linear television.

Speaker 14 Interesting,

Speaker 14 Disney is also in the ad tech business too. So it's a really, it's a lucrative side business for a lot of companies.
So we'll see where it goes. But congratulations to Microsoft.

Speaker 14 Again, nobody, no, their name was not anywhere when I was at Con Lion

Speaker 14 as possible. Anyway, we'll see where that goes.
There you go. So let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

Speaker 14 Krista Bilton is the author of this amazing book called Normal Family on Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings, a memoir of her unconventional childhood and her revelation that her father was a prolific sperm donor.

Speaker 14 Krista, this book is better than I thought. You told me this story once when I was at your house.
And I, you know, I have kids who we use sperm donors for my kids, all of them, all four of them.

Speaker 14 And I just was sort of blown away by the stuff you found. So, so let's start with your mom, who I also met, who was also a character, let me just say, if I, as I recall,

Speaker 14 talk a little bit about

Speaker 14 your mom. mom.
She was an out lesbian in the 1980s. She's still sort of

Speaker 14 running around. Your mom has got a lot of energy and stuff.

Speaker 14 Talk a little bit about that and like what, how this set up to get to have you being born and these other people also by other parents.

Speaker 15 Yeah. Yeah.
So my mother,

Speaker 15 as you mentioned, she was a lesbian, wanted to have kids.

Speaker 15 She grew up in the 50s and 60s at a time when,

Speaker 15 you know, when she

Speaker 15 sort of first

Speaker 15 when she first realized that she had feelings for women, it was so not a part of society at that time. And it was so hidden that she actually thought she was the only lesbian in the world.

Speaker 15 She didn't even know there was the word lesbian.

Speaker 15 So, just to contextualize where she was coming from, and when she decided in her 30s that she wanted to have children, she didn't know a single gay person who had had a family or had kids.

Speaker 15 So, just to sort of set the scene, so she then went, she really, really wanted kids, and she,

Speaker 15 but she, you know, sperm banks were just starting to crop up at that time. And so she went on a manhunt to find a sperm donor.

Speaker 15 And my dad walked into a hair salon and she looked at him and he was this physically gorgeous man. And she just had this feeling that this was the one.
So she.

Speaker 15 She asked him out to lunch and offered him $2,000 to give his sperm to her. And that was the beginning of the journey with my dad.

Speaker 15 And I call him my dad, not a sperm donor, because she felt then a lot of shame not giving us this traditional family. So she then proceeded to,

Speaker 15 after I was born,

Speaker 15 financially support him so that he would play a role in our lives. Right.

Speaker 14 And he promised not to donate to anyone else, correct? Yes.

Speaker 15 And she made him make this promise that he would never donate to anyone else. And so he made that promise and then secretly started donating as his main profession for almost a decade after that.

Speaker 2 So first off, I don't think this is that unusual. I meet a lot of people that I offer money for sex in exchange for.
I don't.

Speaker 2 Hello, Krista. Welcome.
Welcome to Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast.

Speaker 2 First off, we'll have to talk about that later.

Speaker 15 I'm so curious.

Speaker 2 It's pretty straight. It's been happening throughout history.
Anyways,

Speaker 14 ask a question, Scott.

Speaker 2 My first observation is your mother sounds like a remarkable woman. And I always have just a ton of respect for people who were outwardly gay before it was cool or acceptable.

Speaker 2 It sounds like your mother was a real, for lack of a better term, courageous woman who was just, you know, I am here.

Speaker 15 Yes, she, my mother was incredible. She, she lived this fabulous out there life.
She, you know, as I grew up, she would come out of the closet in big ways.

Speaker 15 She was on talk shows talking about her family. And then that led to her losing a job.
She would go back in the closet. So she had this in-and-out relationship with that, but

Speaker 15 she was an incredible and fascinating woman in ways beyond this story. I mean, she pioneered many new age religions that some think of as cults.

Speaker 15 She was a leader in several multi-level marketing companies that some might call pyramid schemes. So growing up, we lived this really, you know,

Speaker 15 big life. Sometimes we were living in multi-million dollar mansions one minute, on the verge of homelessness the next.

Speaker 15 So the book is really a love letter to my mother because she's

Speaker 2 something else. So but take us back to Krista in the eighth grade, like any 13-year-old girl, becoming more cognizant of your social status and what people think of you.
What was that like?

Speaker 2 Is it something where you admired her courage or was it just really fucking embarrassing and

Speaker 2 an object of insecurity for you?

Speaker 15 You know, it.

Speaker 15 I think my feelings about it vacillated with my mother's feelings. I think so often kids take on the attitude that their parents have.

Speaker 15 So, I think when it was tough for her, or when she became overwhelmed with shame and went back into the closet, then I myself would be in the closet about my mother's sexuality.

Speaker 15 So, you know, I went to many different schools growing up just because of our up and down financial circumstances. And

Speaker 15 at about 12, I started just lying about this part of myself. I mean, it was, you have to understand that at that time, you know, that was then the mid-90s.
Yeah.

Speaker 15 It was like a huge deal when Ellen came out as gay and she didn't have kids. And then the reaction reaction that, you know, the reaction to her coming out, I think she lost her show.

Speaker 15 The first time I ever saw a gay parent on television was The Birdcage. That movie was a big deal for me.
So

Speaker 15 it's so different now. You know, Carol, when you decided to have kids, that was probably still a unique movie.
It was very early.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was at the time.

Speaker 14 And I wanted to have kids since I was 18. I bought children's clothes.
You know, I bought baby clothes when I was in college because I was certain I was going to have kids, but you couldn't.

Speaker 14 And one of the issues was sperm donation and it was so disorganized. And I did it in San Francisco, which made it easier.
But it was a very disorganized and not very regulated situation.

Speaker 14 You know what I mean? And so, what was it?

Speaker 14 I found out stuff I wasn't supposed to find out. It wasn't very organized, even though there were sperm banks by this time.

Speaker 14 And so, you, one of the things is you found out about your siblings and your family's relationship to them, because your father, who had a very,

Speaker 14 you know, unusual journey himself,

Speaker 14 continued to to do this. So you write about possibly unknowingly dating your half-brother.

Speaker 14 You talked about meeting your siblings. Can you talk about this? Because it is, you know, my sons just found two of their sisters.
We've found out about another through 23andMe.

Speaker 14 And I am not supposed to, I have a no donor, and I'm not supposed to contact the donor, but my kids could easily find him, I'm guessing, if they tried.

Speaker 14 So the whole thing feels like not very thought out as it was happening. But talk a little bit about your experience.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I think people are starting to figure these things out.

Speaker 15 And that's one of the reasons I wrote the book because, you know, I was an early child of a donor, but now I feel like these kids are coming to an age where they're asking these questions and connecting with these siblings.

Speaker 15 For me, the, you know, my father never told my mother that he was donating. And this story came out.

Speaker 15 It's a sort of long story that you'll have to read in the book, but in 2007, he was on a front page Sunday Sunday New York Times story.

Speaker 15 And he called my mother and he said, go get the newspaper. And she was like, why, Jeffrey? And just go get it.
And so she went down to the local Palisades newsstand.

Speaker 15 And there on the cover of the newspaper of record was

Speaker 15 a picture of my father with his arm around this girl that looked exactly like me and my sister. And so she proceeded to have a giant

Speaker 15 what she would call mental breakdown at that point, because then she realized that not only had we had this very unconventional family, but it was was also a growing unconventional family.

Speaker 15 And she was trying to grapple with how many siblings there might be. So she did not want to tell us that this, that she had made this discovery.
And she, in her mind, thought she would never tell us.

Speaker 15 And then she discovered that I was probably dating my half-brother, as you said. And so she had to tell us.
And that's when she sat us down and had this conversation.

Speaker 14 We'll talk about that and meeting your siblings because you then sought them out, correct?

Speaker 15 yeah so when i first learned about the siblings i think because i had had such a complex and ever-changing family unit my mother had many different girlfriends growing up she had addiction stuff and you know we had step siblings who came in and out and so i think i just couldn't fathom the idea of having relationships with new siblings and possibly over a hundred of them.

Speaker 15 It was just too much for my brain at that time. So for almost 10 years, I wanted nothing to do with these biological siblings.
And then a wild set of circumstances changed my whole perspective on it.

Speaker 15 And, and now I've, I've come to love and be close with several of them.

Speaker 14 So and there's 35, is that correct, that you know of?

Speaker 15 I think it's now up to about 40. Um, we find out about a new one, you know, every few months, usually a lot around the holidays when the, when ancestry and how do you do that?

Speaker 14 Technology, right? Ancestry or 23 and me.

Speaker 15 That's right.

Speaker 14 Or something like that's where we did.

Speaker 14 I mean, at one point, Anne Wojski said she gets a call a day from an angry sperm donor who now has been found out, but when they were no donors and things like that.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Because it's impossible to once one of your relatives.

Speaker 2 People don't know.

Speaker 15 Anonymity, yeah, is a thing of the past. I don't think it really exists anymore.
So that's something I think people are grappling with now as well.

Speaker 15 So yeah, we, yeah, when they're hosting specials, when the when the DNA testing kits are, you know, around the holidays hosting

Speaker 15 specials, that's usually when we find out about new siblings. New siblings.

Speaker 15 Because the thing is that at the time my father was donating,

Speaker 15 it was mostly heterosexual couples

Speaker 15 where the father was infertile. And at the time, the sperm banks advised those families not to tell their children that they were donor conceived.
So

Speaker 15 a lot of my brothers and sisters, the early ones we discovered were the kids of gay families because they knew that there was something to seek out.

Speaker 15 But the ones, mostly the ones we find out about today,

Speaker 15 took a DNA test for fun and realized that they had a different biological father.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's really technology.

Speaker 14 One popped up the other day, and my, again, my one of my sons has met two of them who reached out to him. The other is like, I'll just wait and see.
I'll just, you know what I mean?

Speaker 14 He's like, maybe not. And my other ones embraced it.
It's a really interesting thing. Scott?

Speaker 2 So I have some personal experience here. I was a sperm donor when I was at UCLA.
And

Speaker 2 do you think that

Speaker 2 my mom made me stop because of what the situation that you described?

Speaker 2 Do you, do you,

Speaker 2 has this been a good thing for you? Is there a way, it seems to me this is an issue of if you had two or three siblings you didn't know about, that feels like a feature, not a bug.

Speaker 2 But if 300 people are all of a sudden, and this could have happened, it was totally unregulated back then.

Speaker 15 It's still totally unregulated.

Speaker 14 It still is.

Speaker 2 And it creates, as somebody who's on the different side of this, it creates a lot of questions.

Speaker 2 It's like, if you had four kids out there, then that's one thing, because you can sign up and then a message goes out to them saying, this is your donor father.

Speaker 2 But what if it's 400? And I'm just curious what your experience, has this been, what have been the positives and the negatives as you get older of meeting biological siblings?

Speaker 15 You know,

Speaker 15 at the end of the book, it's a complete positive, but it was a journey to get there. And as you said, Kara, every kid has a different relationship to it and a different different journey with it.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 15 I think often the more difficult journey that I've seen is the kids who were lied to and not told, because then in their adulthood, it's just this big piece of biological piece of them that they didn't understand.

Speaker 15 And so, but

Speaker 15 I think understanding it and the truth of it and the, you know, what's wild is that there is a biological connection that you wouldn't expect.

Speaker 15 But I've become really close with several of my siblings. And some of the,

Speaker 15 some of the similarities are what are truly incredible. Yeah.

Speaker 15 But it's a complex thing. Scott, have you developed any relationships with them, Scott? I mean, that's.

Speaker 14 Yeah, Scott.

Speaker 2 So I have not signed up.

Speaker 2 To be honest with you, I find it

Speaker 2 an unusual situation to think that you might have somewhere between one and 1,200 kids out there. Yeah.
And that's a lot of donations.

Speaker 2 They don't let you calibrate it. They don't let you say, yeah, I'd like to meet

Speaker 2 a statistically significant sampling of the ones who aren't going to ask me for money.

Speaker 2 And I can, I also just hate the idea of a bunch of 38-year-olds recognizing they're losing their hair and having trouble maintaining an erection and getting increasingly angry. You're welcome.

Speaker 2 You're welcome.

Speaker 14 Let me just say, Scott, they can find you without your consent. That's the thing.

Speaker 2 When you say it's rewarding and there's biological,

Speaker 2 do you feel something meeting them? Do you feel it's just such a fascinating experiment? Do you, do you feel something emotionally? Is there something in the air about biological connection?

Speaker 2 Or is it because they walk the same way or they look the same way or you do have a shared history?

Speaker 15 You know, that's something I'm still parsing out, but there is something to biology that's hard to explain.

Speaker 15 And I do feel an instant closeness.

Speaker 15 I'm sure part of that is, but you know, in the same way that you have family members where some of them you resonate with in a deeper way way than other ones It has a lot to do with what you have in common your proximity to each other as a in a location

Speaker 15 So but from a nature nurture perspective, I think a lot of the kids it's it gives them so for me, you know, I have a complex relationship with my father now.

Speaker 15 He struggled with homelessness and some mental illness or some mental health stuff. And

Speaker 15 that's that was hard for me growing up because I really cared about this man who had wound up playing a role in my life. And so

Speaker 15 I think connecting with the siblings in a strange way is a way of connecting with him.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 100%.

Speaker 15 And I think for some of them, it's a way of connecting with a biological side of themselves that perhaps I didn't grow up with.

Speaker 14 Yeah. So last question.
With the overturn of Roe versus Wade, there's concern that IVF could be banned.

Speaker 14 What's your message to lawmakers? Should we regulate the sperm donation industry? Where do you think this is going with the overturn of Roe v. Wade?

Speaker 15 Well, I obviously think it's terrible.

Speaker 15 I think that, you know, something that I share with all of my siblings is that we each had at least one parent who desperately wanted us to exist and how lucky were we for this.

Speaker 15 And there are so many kids that don't have that. And I think that, you know,

Speaker 15 I think that for kids born into a family where they're wanted this deeply, we should, we should. help those families have kids as much as possible.

Speaker 15 And if people don't feel prepared to be parents, then they shouldn't be forced to because raising kids is a lot. And, you know, as you know, as I know.

Speaker 15 And I think that to feel desired is the best gift you can give a kid.

Speaker 14 That is a very good point. Just so people know, one million babies were born using IVF or other assisted reproductive technology between 1987 and 2015.

Speaker 14 It's going to be a big issue for a lot of people. Anyway, Chris, this is a wonderful book.
I'm so thrilled you wrote it. I loved hearing about it at the time, and I love the book.
It's fantastic.

Speaker 14 The book is called Normal Family on on Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings.

Speaker 14 Now it's more. You'll have to change the book for the paperback.

Speaker 14 Thank you so much, Krista.

Speaker 15 Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2 Thanks, Krista. Nice to meet you.

Speaker 15 Nice to meet you, Scott.

Speaker 14 Scott, how did you become a sperm donor?

Speaker 2 I was a junior in college, and I lived, I was close friends with a couple of athletes. And the athletes at UCLA had a different job board.
And one was for sperm donation.

Speaker 2 And you could make $100 to $200 a week doing something that, you know, we were doing anyways. Yeah.

Speaker 14 And I went. You went a lot.
Probably you quite a bit.

Speaker 2 Hey, don't rag on my hobbies. Anyway, so

Speaker 2 I went to this place in Santa Monica with my two friends who were both world-class water polar players. And these guys were like golden gods.

Speaker 2 I mean, they were physical specimens, but they were also really smart. Yeah.
And it was interesting. They do a full analysis and create a file on you.
They take pictures of you in your underwear.

Speaker 2 You take an IQ test. They do a personality test.
And a couple of things I remember. One, they said, do you you do any drinking or drugs? I'm like, well, I'm an attorney.
I do some drinking.

Speaker 2 And I said, what about drugs? I'm like, pot every once in a while. And this guy looked up at me and gave me the stare.

Speaker 2 And he looked and he said, in the most earnest, upset way possible, he said, that stuff kills sperm dead. Like I was literally like,

Speaker 2 like, that sperm was the

Speaker 2 source.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, and then, and then, okay. And then the last part of the test, and this is, this is a little graphic, but it's funny and it's relevant, is

Speaker 2 a test for venereal disease. Yeah.
and let's just say i won't go into detail but big head and the twins were not expecting the violation of autonomy that is a venereal test for men oh okay and so

Speaker 2 what did i do being being the big man i am i fainted i passed out

Speaker 2 and I woke up. I woke up.
This totally true story. I woke up and there was a semicircle of very concerned people looking down at me.

Speaker 2 And the first thing I said was, I'm like, you're not going to want my sperm, are you? I was so upset because I really needed the money. And I'm like, I had to pass out.
Anyways,

Speaker 2 I ended up doing it.

Speaker 14 Two things. I have two questions.
What did you do with the money?

Speaker 2 And two,

Speaker 14 tuition. Pay to it.
You used it for tuition. And then.

Speaker 2 Sperm donation put me through my junior year at UCLA. Wow.

Speaker 14 So you have a lot of kids, I hope.

Speaker 2 Well, that's the fear. I've thought about this a lot.
But the thing was, they're going to find you. The thing is, my two water polo players, I mean, it was like a competition.

Speaker 2 We were all going to see how much they said, we'll let you know. We'll call you in.
And I thought, there's no way. I was literally like, you know, the

Speaker 2 least attractive Kardashian or the, you know, I was, I, it was just on the ride home, it was pretty obvious. I was not going to get called a lot.
I got called three or four times a week for a year.

Speaker 2 And my friends didn't get called that much.

Speaker 2 And we couldn't figure it out because they were smarter than me, much better looking than me. Yeah.
And I caught, I asked the folks at the clinic, I said, why is my my man gravy so in fashion?

Speaker 2 And they said, you have the peanut butter and chocolate of sperm donation. Do you want to guess what those two things were? I'll give you a hint.
I just put it, oh, what? I don't know.

Speaker 2 I was tall and Jewish. And that was the gangster cocktail of sperm donors.
Is that a lot of parents in West LA were Jewish? They liked the idea of having a Jewish donor.

Speaker 2 And I'm six foot two, which was also, I guess, they wanted their kids.

Speaker 14 The peanut butter. Thank you for that visual.
Isn't that nice? No, it's not. Isn't that nice? Let me just say, I know a lot about my kids.
And so does Amanda about Clarence Hall's father.

Speaker 14 I know a lot about him and his family. I didn't get the pictures, but I have since gotten pictures, and it's really quite something.

Speaker 14 They look just like my kids. He looks just like my kids.
I don't have adult pictures, but it's, I think about it a lot. I did agree not to contact him.
My kids did not. You know what I mean?

Speaker 14 Like, I can't sign a contract for my kids. And so it'll be interesting to see if any of these kids meet him.

Speaker 14 They certainly would be able to if one of his relatives does one of these genetic tests, one testing thing, which is interesting. But Scott, a year, three or four times a week for a year.

Speaker 2 And I still found time to do it recreationally. Of course you did.
Of course you did.

Speaker 14 I'm not going to even ask how or what your methodology was because I think we've gone, we've had enough detail for today.

Speaker 2 Back then, it didn't take much care of.

Speaker 14 But you are not the father of my children.

Speaker 2 Your kids seem too well adjusted.

Speaker 14 That is true. That is, and they have fantastic hair.
That is correct.

Speaker 2 They do. Actually, you know what?

Speaker 2 Back then, I had a ponytail. Okay.
I had a lot of hair. All right.
Well, that was my best feature. I used to roam around Berkeley on a skateboard with a ponytail.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 14 Well,

Speaker 14 that's another story. Anyway, one more quick break.
We'll be back for predictions.

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Speaker 14 Okay, Scott, let's stop talking about sperm and here's some predictions.

Speaker 2 Mangravy.

Speaker 14 I have a prediction that you're going to meet all your kids, but go ahead.

Speaker 2 Go ahead. My prediction is a little bit different.
I'm so excited.

Speaker 14 The little scotlets.

Speaker 2 So super interesting, I think, obviously, the stuff with Twitter, but what people have missed this week, there was another fairly big event in the world of corporate governance and shareholder activism, and that is Elliott took a 9% stake in Pinterest.

Speaker 14 Yes, I saw it.

Speaker 2 And it'll be interesting because Ben still controls 30% of the voting shares. So it's not entirely clear how much,

Speaker 2 I mean, Musk could show up to a single class of shares at Twitter and paint them into a corner, which ended up, which it ended up being ironically him painting himself into a corner.

Speaker 2 That's going to be the most expensive bout of mania in Hispanics.

Speaker 14 I mean, the Harvard Business School case, but go ahead.

Speaker 2 So, but I think essentially in social media, the sub-scale players, Twitter, Snap, and Pinterest,

Speaker 2 one or two of them in 12 months is probably not going to be an independent company. Because here's the reality.
I think they're all now trading below their IPOs. They just haven't worked.

Speaker 2 and they're great products they're addictive products they kind of remind me a little bit of the new york times and that is i remember when i was involved with the new york times there's all these amazing sets 40 of world leaders including leaders in muslim countries the first thing they read the leaders read when they wake up in the morning is the new york times right if you watch any news program it's like reading the front page the front page of the new york times dictates what the world thinks is important in media but it was always a shitty business we could never figure out a way to scale it it's gotten better but the stock's still below where it was 20 years ago.

Speaker 14 Still, it's not a big business, not as big as its reputation for sure.

Speaker 2 And you could say the same thing about Snap, Pinterest, and Twitter, especially Twitter. Its influence vastly outsizes the quality of its business.

Speaker 2 Snap's very creative, has incredibly loyal and a lot of attention. Pinterest was always kind of the little engine that couldn't.

Speaker 2 We've always wanted Pinterest to win, but it's never been able to build a sustained business. I think of these three companies, you already have

Speaker 2 one guy who's painted himself into a corner is going to have to show up with $54.20.

Speaker 14 Horrible version of that.

Speaker 2 It's just weird to imagine where Twitter will be in 12 months. You have an activist, Elliott, which is one of the deepest pockets and also very smart people

Speaker 2 in at Pinterest.

Speaker 2 And so my prediction is it just makes sense. The third domino to fall here, even though I believe it's also a dual-class shareholder, Snap is off 50%

Speaker 2 in the last several years. These companies are creative.

Speaker 14 They have so many creative people there. They just hired someone else.

Speaker 2 It's a great product.

Speaker 2 It's a great product. It's just all of these things are ending up to be shitty businesses, which means.

Speaker 14 Well, they have been getting some traction in some of the stuff they're doing. It's a lot having to do with the market right now.
But I would say among those, probably Pinterest, no question.

Speaker 14 It will get bought by someone.

Speaker 14 Twitter, probably. We'll see what Parag Agrawal will do once he's got Elon in his rearview mirror.

Speaker 2 They could change their business model. That's what Twitter needs to do.
100%.

Speaker 2 I think the next point's prediction is you're going to see something happen in the next 12 months

Speaker 2 around Snap because it's a great product. Okay.
All right. It's like all the, it's like the other two companies.
They're great products, they're addictive, and they've proven to be unreliable.

Speaker 14 Which is perfect because he'll be coming to code. Maybe you could do the interview with me.
He's dreamy. Evan's.
He is dreamy. He's a lovely guy.
He's turned out to be a lovely guy in the end.

Speaker 2 And he could be my son. He's the right age.

Speaker 2 Introduce me as daddy. No.
Come here.

Speaker 14 No.

Speaker 2 No. You're stupid.
I'm going to be like, Evan, families hug and hug him.

Speaker 14 He's going to run screaming.

Speaker 2 Was he born in LA? And the late ones?

Speaker 14 I want you to stay away from him.

Speaker 2 There's no way that guy is related to me. That guy looks like a different species than me.
You see how dreamy he is?

Speaker 14 He's a lovely guy. I'm not going to call him dreamy, but he's a lovely guy.

Speaker 14 He's really evolved really well as of the many people I cover. A big surprise.
He's turned out to be really interesting and creative. And anyway, we have such an interesting life.

Speaker 14 We want to hear from you. Send us your questions.

Speaker 2 You're my biological kid. We do not want to hear from you.

Speaker 14 All those kids, call me. Use 23 of me and call me.
Anyway,

Speaker 14 you'll find out before I will. We want to hear from you.
Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.

Speaker 14 Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, that is the show.
It's turned out to be quite a feckin' show.

Speaker 14 We'll be back on Friday for more.

Speaker 2 There you go. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Angle, and Taylor Griffin.
Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Meal Severio.

Speaker 2 Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from York Magazine and Vox Media.

Speaker 2 We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business and just FYI. I don't even enjoy hearing from my former students.

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Speaker 20 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.

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