The GameStop, Reddit, Robinhood saga

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Speaker 10 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher.

Speaker 2 And Kara, I've officially submitted my status as a boomer. No, what have you done?

Speaker 10 We have a lot to talk about, Scott.

Speaker 2 It's not easy to offend every constituency with a tweet, Sarah. It's not easy to do that.

Speaker 10 Scott, you offended me. You offended many people.
Yes.

Speaker 10 We will talk about it. We will talk about it.

Speaker 10 It's also the wrong take. That's the worst part about it.

Speaker 10 It's the wrong take, which we can debate in a second when we get to the big story. Scott did a tweet.

Speaker 2 I did that all the time, by the way.

Speaker 10 Scott did a tweet that many people did not like, and we will discuss it when we talk about the big story soon. But Scott, Scott, you're getting beat up on the Twitter.

Speaker 10 I am, you know, honestly deserving.

Speaker 2 It's good for me every once in a while, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 10 When's the last time this happened?

Speaker 2 Oh, gosh, it's been at least, let me think, 24 hours. Are we talking about my home life or Twitter? What are we talking about?

Speaker 10 Twitter. Twitter.
Twitter.

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 2 I've gotten a bunch. Occasionally, I just

Speaker 2 combinate.

Speaker 10 I've gotten a bunch. Rebecca's gotten a bunch.
We've all gotten a bunch.

Speaker 2 Let me just tell you.

Speaker 10 We're going to get to it in a minute, but let me just give you a basic rule of life. Women are not the reason men are bad.

Speaker 2 Okay? Let's just say that. Well, okay, hold on.

Speaker 10 No, we're not arguing right now.

Speaker 2 You're saying that. Well, you can't get away with that.
You saying that somehow implies that I intimated that.

Speaker 10 I understand that. So I want you to explain yourself, yourself and you're going to do that in in full no explain yourself i don't quote it in any i think a lot of people came away

Speaker 10 yes but people implicitly came away with that idea i got dozens and dozens of texts about it so i if everyone and me thought that same thing we can talk about it which is the problem with twitter in general which we will discuss i think you didn't mean to say it that way but it how people hear things especially in this highly my dad always said communication is with the listener exactly so anyway let me just let me just talk about twitter by the way speaking of this idea idea of misinformation, then we will get to the big story.

Speaker 10 It's actually GameStop. I think your take on it is inaccurate, but we will discuss it and debate it.

Speaker 10 But Twitter has launched a new crowdsource tool called Birdwatch to regulate misinformation on the platform.

Speaker 10 It will give a few select users access to the tool to flag information and give more context, much like Wikipedia. Oh no.
Is this a good move for Twitter? Too little, too late?

Speaker 10 You know, you have been on Twitter and you've been doing a lot of research on the platform.

Speaker 10 and including how badly its stock has been doing compared to many others and how many opportunities it has missed. But what do you think of this crowdsource tool?

Speaker 10 I'm like, why do we have to do their work for them? That's what I thought.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think whatever. It's a way of doing it.
I would clip this back to you with one question.

Speaker 2 And that is, is this an interesting tool that leverages technology to make the platform a less toxic place?

Speaker 2 Or is it kind of the typical big tech, we want to abdicate responsibility and give it to somebody else so we don't have to take responsibility like every editor, every producer, and every other media company takes.

Speaker 2 What's your take on that?

Speaker 10 Well, it's interesting because I just, as you know, interviewed the CEO of Parlor who gave that, had this weird jury system of five people that are in a pool and they all decide up and down on things.

Speaker 10 And obviously there's the controversy around Facebook's oversight board, which is taking the big questions off of the, off of the table of Mark Zuckerberg.

Speaker 10 It all smacks. I agree with you.
There's a lot.

Speaker 10 This is so big, it's going to be really hard to figure out how to correctly, and I hate to use the term police, but moderate these platforms in the best way possible. And any tool is welcome.

Speaker 10 But this idea of crowdsourcing stuff, and I know it works sometimes, but Wikipedia has all kinds of big giant holes people drive through and abuse.

Speaker 10 It's hard to check. It's just, ultimately, so someone asked me what to do is I don't think you can do anything given the way these platforms are built.
They are not controlled in any way.

Speaker 10 And with everybody flowing over them, you're going to miss, you know, a lot of the problem. And so I just, I don't know.
I just, I'm like, oh, all right.

Speaker 10 Here's everybody else sort of telling on each other and it might work in general. But and Wikipedia sort of works, right?

Speaker 10 I mean, mean a lot of people rely on it and in a lot of cases it's good in other cases there's issues and so i'm not sure i i honestly i don't know if this can be fixed because humanity just never stops um

Speaker 2 lying essentially well the issue is twitter doesn't lack from a guardians of gotcha and so there's a self-policing mechanism that is actually part of the toxicity because i think a lot of this is nothing but

Speaker 2 a head fake around what they should and could do, and that is identity. And they fall back to this purist journalistic viewpoint.

Speaker 2 Well, what about the anonymous Twitter feed that a female journalist in the Gulf needs?

Speaker 2 And I'm like, there's got to be a way we can figure out such that legitimate people with legitimate issues that have real threats to their person can be anonymous without having trolls and bots create a level of toxicity and elevate content that is bad for the Commonwealth and just generally just kind of digital exhaust.

Speaker 2 So but they don't want to move to

Speaker 2 the more obvious, more effective solution because it would reduce

Speaker 2 money. And they don't have the ability to do so.

Speaker 10 And, you know, as we'll get to in a minute, Reddit is the same thing.

Speaker 10 I think Alex Damos made the point is they don't have the systems in place to figure out who's lying and who's not and who's gaming it and who's not.

Speaker 10 And that, you're right, anonymity is a real problem for these platforms. And the other part is that it's people do catch each other and check each other, but it's mostly on opinion.

Speaker 10 I don't like your opinion. I don't like just experience.
But that's what really happens more than factual stuff. And then it becomes an argument over

Speaker 10 factual stuff. Like, no, that's not what happened.
No, the election fraud. So I think it just gets into this.
It's become such an opinionated space. It's very hard to do.

Speaker 10 fact checking on the platform that's not done by a larger source that just makes the determination rather than a group of people.

Speaker 10 And I, this is, I just heard this from the parlor guy and he got in so much trouble for the idea that he didn't have any control over his platform and didn't seem to care and took no responsibility for it.

Speaker 10 And so,

Speaker 10 and put in a system that wasn't scalable and wasn't quick, you know?

Speaker 2 But again,

Speaker 2 so my understanding of LinkedIn is they kind of pretty much verify your identity. Yeah.
And

Speaker 2 I don't think lying is even really the biggest problem or toxicity.

Speaker 2 It's that the amount of lying and toxicity that not taking responsibility for your comments

Speaker 2 leads to. Yeah, you're right.
Anonymous. And when somebody comes on

Speaker 2 this is a bad take and you lose a lot of credibility here. If it's someone's, if someone's identity is there and they really think that, then fine, have at it.
I get it.

Speaker 2 And if someone has a bad take on something, fine, own it.

Speaker 2 But when it's, when you don't really know their intentions, you don't know if they're trying to undermine credibility because they don't like your take on something else. You don't know their motives.

Speaker 2 You don't know if they're just there to create dissent and argument and fracture our society.

Speaker 2 I think identity, again, I think identity solves a lot of this problem, problem, but that would probably clear out 60% of accounts, 40%.

Speaker 10 What do you do about people who don't mind their identity, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, and just lie and put up all kinds of nonsense and toxic and talk about dangerous nonsense, truly problematic nonsense, where she's just lying?

Speaker 10 I guess you then remove those players from the system and who decides to...

Speaker 2 I don't even think she's the biggest problem because I think people will weigh in and say you're wrong. I think the bigger problem is the thousands of bots that say, all right,

Speaker 2 here's the flame we can pour fuel on to divide America.

Speaker 2 And those people don't take responsibility for endorsing or disagreeing with her viewpoint. They just see an opportunity to tear at the fabric of our society and create more rage on the platform.

Speaker 2 And unfortunately, the algorithm's like that. I think she has a right to have her take on Twitter.

Speaker 2 And quite frankly, if it's seditious or it is so traffic in misinformation that's dangerous, that results in harm to people, she should be censored and or expelled.

Speaker 2 But I think the real problem is you take these these this crazy and then you pour so much fuel on it with no repercussions i think identity is uh remember all the all the the throwing up their arms you can never moderate the platform one account gets rid of 72 percent of a certain type of misinformation right well that's according to one study people are not i think identity i just don't i just i i think it's too they play this it would be impossible card too often if if linkedin can figure out a way to have your identity if netflix can figure out a way to have your identity and not violate your rights and make it a healthier safer platform then i think twitter can do it all right well you know they don't want to do it this expensive all of them find it expensive all right so that leads us to the big story

Speaker 10 amateur investors on reddit blasted hedge fund managers this week game stop the video game outlet had a meteoric rise over the past few weeks mostly driven by a reddit subpage called wall street bets although that's in context a lot of people are doing some reporting it's a little more complex than than the original story uh had been but it nonetheless a group of Reddit's Wall Street Bets Board have been promoting a number of stocks, hoping to squeeze the short sellers that have been betting against them.

Speaker 10 These are stocks that short sellers have piled into, by the way. Let's be clear.
On one side, short sellers have been over-attacking some of these companies.

Speaker 10 And so the Reddit Wall Street Bets Board was pushing back. In one case, I think in GameShop's

Speaker 10 area, I think it was 136% or something like that.

Speaker 10 The best-known bet has been GameStop, which soared over 10,400% this month. Brian Cohen, the co-founder of Chewy, invested in GameStop last year.

Speaker 10 His 13% stake in the company is now worth $1.3 billion.

Speaker 10 I'm sorry, this is not real money in a lot of ways. It is real money, but it's not real money.
Now the Reddit, if he, so he could, he should sell it if I were him.

Speaker 10 Now the Reddit group has its eyes on AMC Theaters, BlackBerry, among the other short stocks, all companies that are in distress really and have been attacked by short sellers and their actual core businesses are in distress.

Speaker 10 AMC stock, nonetheless, already shot up 200% despite the fact that its recent financial statements have been pretty weak due to the pandemic and other issues around people shifting their watching to home.

Speaker 10 And BlackBerry, I don't even want to go into it. There's such a long book about, there's books about what happened to BlackBerry.
So, Scott, let's talk about this.

Speaker 10 We can talk about your take if you want, but you had a take about this being a bunch of men gone wild, essentially.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so let's separate the two. Let's try and understand

Speaker 2 what is going on here. I'm fascinated and I'm trying to wrap my head around it.

Speaker 2 And I'm actually doing, or it'll be out by the time this podcast releases or dropping, I'm doing a podcast with Aswat Demoter and my colleague at NYU, who's much smarter about this stuff than I am.

Speaker 2 But effectively, stocks move for several reasons. And this is I'm parroting Matt Levine, who I think is fantastic at Bloomberg.
And they move on fundamentals.

Speaker 2 So their earnings go up or their growth goes up. Or an activist comes in, as this guy at Chewy did and says this company is undervalued and it's been hit too hard.

Speaker 2 And it moves up based on some sort of underlying fundamental reason specific to the company relative to its peers.

Speaker 2 The second reason, and let's be clear, that might have happened when the stock went from 4 to 40.

Speaker 2 It's hard to attach to any fundamental move when the stock goes from 40 to 450, where it opened this morning. So it's probably not fundamentals.
And I think even the Redditors would agree with that.

Speaker 2 The Wall Street Bets guys.

Speaker 10 Yeah, they note that. They note that.

Speaker 2 Then there's technicals, and that is if a stock is vastly has incredible short interest and for whatever reason it moves up, the people who borrowed stock and have to deliver it back at a certain price want to cover their shorts and they have to go out and buy more stock, which creates this nitro meets glycerin effect.

Speaker 2 And the stock runs people through a crowded door, what is referred to as a short squeeze.

Speaker 2 The third thing, the third and maybe the fourth thing here that's sort of unique to this is that, and this is where I kind of all think, I'm trying to look at the underlying primal reasons why this is happening.

Speaker 2 In 1989, people under the age of 40 had

Speaker 2 19% of the nation's wealth. Now they have nine.

Speaker 2 And I think that a lot of younger people, younger investors, younger cohorts across every professional class are sort of fed up with a construct and a system that always seems to leak wealth from them to quote unquote the establishment run by previous generations.

Speaker 2 And this, to a certain extent, is sort of, I don't want to call it a coordinated attack, but it's a coordinated movement for the stock.

Speaker 2 Now, now, this isn't anything, people describe it as a mob, market manipulation.

Speaker 2 It might be both of those things, but it's no less or more of a mob or market manipulation than what a lot of long and short hedge funds have been doing for a long time.

Speaker 10 Let's focus on them because that is absolutely true. I think it's fair.
They've been sort of treated as if they're this group of dummies.

Speaker 2 They're just better at it. They're just leveraging new mediums.
The way Kennedy leveraged TV and quantum traders leveraged supercomputing, they're leveraging new platforms. Good for them.

Speaker 2 The fourth thing, though, and where I think it gets dangerous, is that I think it's being described usually by people who don't have identity linked to their accounts as a movement. Right.

Speaker 2 And the problem is: okay, here we are. You've invaded Castle Black.
You've taken down the Boomer Hedge Fund. Good for you.
You are now running and owning the castle.

Speaker 2 Is the person next to you going to keep or hold that stock for the movement? Or at some point, are they going to decide their own financial security is more important?

Speaker 2 And just as there was a stampede into this thing, there's a stampede out.

Speaker 2 And is there a danger that a lot of people who are either in it for the movement or first-time investors get really, really hurt here? Because at some point, at some point, as someone who started,

Speaker 2 I started my first job was in Morgan Stanley. I was on the floor of the stock exchange when it melted down in October of 1987.
I was 22 years old.

Speaker 2 The reason I'm somewhat financially secure is because of the markets and stocks. I love stocks.

Speaker 2 And what my observation, observing the markets for the better part of a quarter century, is that the arc of the attachment to the underlying fundamentals of a company may be curved, but it bends towards at some point, attach reattaching to the fundamentals of the stock.

Speaker 2 And we have a company that opened this morning at a valuation greater than Best Buy.

Speaker 2 GameStop is $6.5 billion. This is actually a company.
Equity means ownership and rights to

Speaker 2 cash flows and present value of growth opportunity.

Speaker 2 And this is a company that's $6.5 billion, especially retailer, that is losing money and is in decline because my kids who are obsessed with video games, we've never been in a GameStop because we download everything.

Speaker 2 And then it opened this morning at a valuation. greater than Best Buy, a $60 billion company that is profitable.
It's got a greater valuation than

Speaker 2 restoration hardware and William Sonoma combined. Amazing retailers and growth categories.
It's got a greater valuation than a mall that we could never get into, specifically Simon properties.

Speaker 2 So at some point,

Speaker 2 at some point, does the movement or the people who have bought into the movement by people with no identity, does it get crushed?

Speaker 10 But this is who gets crushed here then. One of the other things.

Speaker 2 The guy who bought at 400.

Speaker 10 Right. So let me just say, one of the things they're also talking about now is that there's other players here in these anonymous areas that

Speaker 10 might be bigger hedge funds trying to screw middle side because it put a couple hedge funds out of business it looks like and it's a lot of people feel the hand of a sneaky one of the sneaky bigger hedge funds oh there's shit going on here we're you know what I mean I think that's why the SEC has to and and what happens is on one hand this is exciting and it's it's interesting that that that the attacks on look sometimes short sellers are great sometimes they're just as abusive and suck money out of the system and play ridiculous financial games in the same way but it doesn't mean that it's the way nothing here is about the fundamentals of the company that's one two um i think alex Stamos had a good take.

Speaker 10 There's tons of really good takes on Twitter, by the way. FY.

Speaker 10 He said, Reddit had some thoughtful policy people thinking through. Oh, he goes, The Wall Street bets manipulation of GME is now the best template for how one could monetize an influence operation.

Speaker 10 Of course, Alex worked for Facebook and he knows that.

Speaker 10 Reddit has some thoughtful policy people thinking through these issues, but I'm not sure they have a dedicated influence ops-focused investigation team like Twitter and Facebook.

Speaker 10 If they leave WSB up, they will need one. And people are incorrectly reading this as defense of hedge funds.
It is not tax, their carried interest as W-2 income.

Speaker 10 Who do you think is going to be messaging everybody the well-followed channels and lots of Reddit gold to drive the next rally?

Speaker 10 Of course, it's going to, Wall Street's going to get in here because they're the greediest of greeds. And so that's one of the issues.
And the other one is that

Speaker 10 someone will be left holding this bag. And in a lot of ways, it's the companies because right now, GameStop, everyone's like, now they can buy things.
I'm like, no one's taking their stock.

Speaker 10 No one's taking their stock. Not one person will be taking their stock.
Or they could get bought. And I'm like, no one will be buying.
No, no. They can't.

Speaker 10 They can't.

Speaker 10 They have frozen this company in a way that is that it is.

Speaker 2 It has nothing to do with a company. People are treating it like cryptocurrency right now.
It's right.

Speaker 10 Exactly. And so that's what I'm like, there's people working for this company, including AMC theaters.

Speaker 10 AMC Theaters got to revive as a business, not as a speculative game for people, whoever they are, whether they're hedge fund people hidden as these people or these people, which I think they're very dedicated.

Speaker 10 But it gets to that idea of democratization of stock market. And I think, you know, we have had issues with Robin Hood and how they do that, but this idea of like, we're not stupid.

Speaker 10 It's so interesting when you hear, and I'm not comparing to the capital people, but a lot of people who are disgruntled and want went run to Trump is no one's hearing us.

Speaker 10 We will be heard.

Speaker 10 And it has the same sort of tone of we're tired of Wall Street screwing us. And I think this is part of what happened when the banks didn't get.
Nobody went to jail in the banking crisis.

Speaker 10 Nobody went to jail in the mortgage crisis. They're 100%

Speaker 10 right that this is a silly game and they're showing, to me, what they're showing is what a silly friggin game this is. Like for, and that Wall Street people tend to

Speaker 10 tend to win it. The casino tends to win and what a casino it is.

Speaker 10 So that's what's going to be interesting. And when you, when they sort of pull it apart and see who was in these things and how do you, how do you make these, these, so what, what happens next?

Speaker 2 Well, this is, this is really interesting. And first off, so

Speaker 2 people compared this to Tesla, and I'm like, this is no Tesla. And I'm not a fan of that.

Speaker 10 And Elon Musk entered the picture here because he hates short sellers.

Speaker 2 But see, that's the problem is that, okay, so what do we have here? And this goes to.

Speaker 10 He hates short sellers, and they've gotten killed because of COVID.

Speaker 2 And by the way, in some ways, it's inspiring.

Speaker 2 They're not doing anything that short sellers and other hedge funds don't do, but their weapons are CNBC and investor relations conferences and going on background and going on message boards.

Speaker 2 And these guys have just leveraged new tools to better effect. But the problem is, so Tesla goes up 8x.

Speaker 2 iOmega used to go up. I remember iOmega used to go up 80 or 100% in a day.
This has gone up 80-fold in the last several weeks. And look, I think it's sort of this perfect cocktail of volatility.

Speaker 2 And the first is

Speaker 2 you have new mediums that people leverage to coordinate.

Speaker 2 The second is, and this is where I got in trouble, I think a lot of young men are at home and bored and not attaching to work, not attaching to school, not attaching to relationships.

Speaker 2 And the young brain is very creative, very risk-aggressive, and the young male brain is more prone to a type of addiction called gambling.

Speaker 2 And I think when you put a weapon of mass destruction, specifically a phone with a Robinhood app on it, and then you have really impressive billionaires who they idolize way in.

Speaker 10 Jamath did, Jamas Pollyan.

Speaker 2 And sort of egg them in, egg them on, and they see everybody making money. Okay, it's fun when you take the castle, spirit of camaraderie, but the problem is now what? And I worry, I worry.
worry.

Speaker 2 And they'll say, well, this is an excuse for, okay, your concerns are nothing but another means of not letting a younger generation have access to the same returns that your generation has had.

Speaker 2 I think that's a fair point.

Speaker 2 But I do worry that there's a lot of young men and a lot of depression that's going to incur when the quote-unquote righteous invaders here head for the exits, as Chamoth did.

Speaker 2 Chamoth sold his stake when it ran up. He was in the thing for about, and to be clear, he's donated his proceeds to charity.
He's been very open about it. He said he wanted to learn.

Speaker 2 But this feels to me, I was anxious last night. I imagine, and I'm projecting,

Speaker 2 I coach a lot of young men, and I see them spending too much time on their phone trading Bitcoin because they're bored.

Speaker 2 And the male, young male brain is very approne to addiction specifically around gambling. And I heard immediately last night from a lot of men who said, I am.
35 and married.

Speaker 2 I just saw this as an interesting way to make money. And your generation has made money like this just with different vehicles.
That's a fair point. That's a fair point.

Speaker 2 When the castle, all of a sudden, when the white walkers of the market show up and say, okay, we're going to start thinking of this thing as an actual stock and start looking at valuations.

Speaker 2 The guy, your brother in arms next to you, is going to head for the door. And just be careful.
If this thing can go up 80-fold, it can go down 90% in 48 hours. So look,

Speaker 2 understand your risks. The market is risk.
There's incredible learning here, but just understand the risks here.

Speaker 10 What an intelligent assessment of this, Mr. Bad Tweeter.
Let me just tell you. But what did you not like?

Speaker 2 So let's dive into this.

Speaker 2 I have shitty takes all the time, but let's dive into my shitty takes.

Speaker 10 I think you were, it felt like this is what I read and what a lot of women read, especially and a lot of people, because I got in lime stop stopping listening to this show because of Scott,

Speaker 10 was essentially he's blaming that they're not getting sex for their incel behavior. You know what I mean? Like essentially.
And I think it's a whole lot more complex than that.

Speaker 10 And there are elements of addiction here. The issues we talk about around Robinhood, around boredom, which you just intelligently explained, which you cannot do on Twitter.
So I think

Speaker 10 you sort of leaned heavy into the it's bored men who aren't getting sex kind of thing. Like that's

Speaker 10 that's what I read.

Speaker 10 I'm not the only one. So don't try to gaslight me on this.

Speaker 2 Wait, Rebecca, you're Rebecca, you're my focus group. Did you read my tweets? Did you find them offensive?

Speaker 11 I did.

Speaker 10 I did.

Speaker 2 And how did you interpret it? What

Speaker 11 you stepped into a trope that we all live in all the time is the problem. I think women always live in a world where we're held accountable for men's behavior, specifically around sex.

Speaker 11 And here was a moment where you just read it wrong. And I know you personally, and what I appreciate about you is you always come back and you're like, huh, I thought about it and maybe you're right.

Speaker 11 But you just stepped into our world without thinking thinking about it. Yes, that's fair.

Speaker 10 Which men do all the time.

Speaker 11 Yeah, right. Exactly.
It's just that you did what men do all the time. You didn't do something new or outrageous.
You just did what men do. Anyways,

Speaker 11 I wasn't offended because I know you, but I got several text messages from friends that I talked to all but once a year being like, get your boy. What's Scott doing?

Speaker 2 FYI, just on GameStop. It opened at 480 this morning.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's now at 264. Yep.

Speaker 2 I'm telling you. I'm telling you, so many young men are going to get so fucking smoked in this thing.

Speaker 2 So smoked. And they are.
Hopefully it's just like $100.

Speaker 11 That's the thing, also, Scott, is I was like, yeah, I totally get what you're saying.

Speaker 11 I know you and I know your background with Robin Hood and I totally understood where you're coming from, but you stepped into the wrong narrative.

Speaker 2 100%. No, I think you're, I think you're.
Thank you, Rebecca. I think your analysis is the right one.
I just read the room incorrectly. Yeah.
First off,

Speaker 2 I think a young board man is a dangerous human being.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 women took that as it's our responsibility to somehow serve as guardrails. Most of the young men who I were friends with in college were having sex with other men.

Speaker 2 So I don't pin this on women, nor did I say, nor do I say that it's women's obligation.

Speaker 10 All right, okay. That's a true story.
But it's not about sex.

Speaker 10 It's about a lot of things.

Speaker 2 No, okay, but I stand by this, Kara.

Speaker 2 Men behave better when they are in the pursuit or they engage in relationships. And sex is a key component and bridge to a relationship.
Okay. All right.
And there is nothing wrong.

Speaker 2 And unfortunately, because of the pandemic, both men and women aren't attaching to things, including relationships. Gen Z is having sex later, which, quite frankly, I think is a bad thing.

Speaker 2 50% of young people are seeing their friends as much as they used to. That is really dangerous for mental health.
And I think

Speaker 2 it leads to risk-aggressive and bad decisions, especially gambling amongst young men. So when I say this is about guys not getting enough sex, it has nothing to do with it.

Speaker 2 that.

Speaker 10 But you understand why in the world, I get it, but in the shorthand,

Speaker 10 when it's so complex, this is a complex story where there's lots of things happening, ultimately.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but no one bothered to read the next five tweet,

Speaker 2 my five tweets. And also, I've done some information on this because I'm desperate for affirmation and very sensitive and it dealt with a little five.

Speaker 2 The majority of the really toxic, hold on, the majority of the really toxic tweets coming after me are Redditors who are some of the same people pumping this thing.

Speaker 10 And by the way, you know, if they're kind of the first you're also insulting them maybe they are smart i mean i think one of the things they're talking about and some some of the i went onto these boards and we were reading a lot of them they're actually super smart research people i have to say some have great analysis great analysis great and i think they don't want to have their analysis not here not around game stop there is no there is no fundamental analysis

Speaker 10 they do say that and i think ultimately the original idea of these short the original idea of these shorts piling on to companies like tesla or or GameStop, and it needs to be stopped.

Speaker 10 This group of people

Speaker 10 who are benefiting are sort of vultures on the system, you know, or hyenas on the system. They need to be taken down.

Speaker 10 Now, I think in the interim, other hedge funds took advantage of that feeling, and they're making bank.

Speaker 10 When this all sorts out, I suspect bigger company, bigger, bigger Wall Street firms will have been on both sides of it.

Speaker 2 We're going to find out hedge funds who are in here on the board pumping it themselves. Yeah, so it reminded me of I Omega.

Speaker 10 That's what happened back then. They turned out there were all kinds of players.

Speaker 2 I think they're fighting the wrong city hall.

Speaker 2 They're stating this as some sort of movement against the young versus the old. And I want to legitimize their rage is warranted.

Speaker 2 But if you think about the alternative investments industry, it's actually quite a young industry. It's quite frankly, it's women of color that should be angry at alternative investments community.

Speaker 2 There just aren't that many women or that many people of color in this industry. But if you walk into a hedge fund, I work with a lot of them.
It is kids.

Speaker 2 And maybe there's an old white dude's name on the door, but it is a fairly young industry.

Speaker 2 And you're going to find that a lot of those people they claim they're tearing down are in here making money and manipulating this thing. But good for them.
I think it is a passing of the baton.

Speaker 2 I think calling them a mob or saying it's market manipulation. Okay, then every short seller and every hedge fund is trying to incite a mob and manipulate the market.
They're just better at it.

Speaker 2 You're just angry because they showed up. And just the way a company that's all short tries to come in and crush a company.

Speaker 2 And I agree that at some point you're just piling on and making it very difficult for a company.

Speaker 10 You can't figure out what this is going on here in a lot of time.

Speaker 2 We're going to find out a lot. Yes, of course.

Speaker 10 And so, what should the SEC do? Investigate, right? They were saying they just got their jobs.

Speaker 10 They just literally were moving in their offices and setting up their pens and papers and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 So this goes to my prediction.

Speaker 10 By the way, the last SEC commissioner, may I just say, was known for

Speaker 10 taking the brakes off way too much in terms of not enforcement. And that guy has done all kinds of like 10 or 12 things that has led to this ability to what has happened here.

Speaker 10 And by the way, I'm not for like the old system at all, like necessarily. It's just that there's been a lot.

Speaker 10 There's been, as usual in the Trump administration, not much watch in the store kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and there's two kind of, there's two key issues here that the SEC needs to weigh thoughtfully.

Speaker 2 The first is, do retail investors end up being the ones, the ones with no seat to sit in, that bought in at $400 because they saw people they admire, they saw saw this thing going up and get unnaturally hurt through market manipulation.

Speaker 2 And at the same time, that argument has been used to preclude or inhibit smaller investors from investing in better opportunities.

Speaker 2 Accredited investors, okay, so you're saying only rich people have access to these types of investments. So there's two sides of that story.

Speaker 2 The other thing is, does this type of coordinated activity introduce so much systemic risk into the system that it creates a threat to markets, which are really important in terms of capital formation, investing, saving.

Speaker 2 But whatever they do, they're going to have to do it on both sides of the wall here. If they want to go after the Redditors, they've got to go after the short funds and the long funds.

Speaker 2 If they think there's too much market volatility or systemic risk, then they're going to have to say, okay, well, everyone's involved in this.

Speaker 2 And I just don't think they're going to be able to, nor should they, go after these folks and pretend that they're any more or less guilty of anyone else that has been playing the system, whether it's through supercomputers or coordinated.

Speaker 10 What's Reddit's responsibility here?

Speaker 2 I think Reddit, so I don't, I'm curious. I'll pivot back to you.
My gut is, is that Reddit is trying to be thoughtful over?

Speaker 10 They have been, I have to say.

Speaker 2 And trying to thread a needle with a tiny, tiny eye.

Speaker 10 Yeah, he has talked to me about that. Steve Huffman, the CEO, is like, we don't have the amount of time to, the staff and money to moderate as much, even though they did a whole lot more.

Speaker 10 They talk about a company that's tried very hard to control itself compared to the bigger companies, but but they don't, they certainly, and they've, they certainly don't have the resources to do that.

Speaker 10 And so it'll be really hard for them to really bring in, you know,

Speaker 10 they'll have to shut down some things they may not want to shut down. And then they'll get, people will get all mad at them as usual.

Speaker 10 But and in this case, instead of things where they shut down, which were racist and sexist, in this case, everyone's like, you're shutting down our

Speaker 10 financial future kind of thing. So it should be, it's a really interesting moment right now for these things.
But it's interesting. The last thing, Scott, is media and their focus on it.

Speaker 10 I think a lot of the media tags

Speaker 10 initially have initially treating this group like a bunch of dummies was just, I really didn't like it. And defending hedge funds who are so would like

Speaker 10 sell their mama for, you know, five bucks, essentially, a lot of these people. So what do you imagine? What do you think about the media?

Speaker 2 and their role? So just, I'm name-dropping and doing real time here, but I just got a call from Stephanie Ruhl, and she just texted me to be mindful of this.

Speaker 2 And I want to disclose, I'm an investor in public, which is a competitive.

Speaker 10 That's That's what I was going to ask you about. Yep.

Speaker 2 And I disclosed it on this show.

Speaker 2 I invested in them after I went on a rail against Robinhood. And they reached out and they said, we are not allowing margin.
We are not allowing options. We are about education.

Speaker 2 I'm going on a live stream.

Speaker 10 It's a community. It's also a community investment.

Speaker 2 40% are women. It's people of color.
They're taking a different approach. And I wanted to be supportive.
I also think it's an opportunity. I like the space.
I like online trading.

Speaker 2 I just think that there's toxicity that one player specifically is ignoring. ignoring.
But Stephanie just texted me. You need to be careful of this.
So thank you, Stephanie.

Speaker 2 And I want to disclose it over and over. I'm an investor in public, which I think is the good side.

Speaker 10 All right. So the media, last question, then we have to go on to our next thing.
So what is the media's role?

Speaker 10 And I think they kind of did this sort of broadbush, because I had like normal people say, explain this to me, Karen. Like everyone got interested in this story.

Speaker 10 And it was painted as sort of this weird attack on Wall Street. And I'm not so sure that's what happened here exactly.

Speaker 10 This narrative is

Speaker 10 very complicated.

Speaker 2 This is nothing different than it's been going on from traditional players. They're just as like I said,

Speaker 2 Churchill used radio. They're using a new medium and good for them.
In some ways, it's very inspiring. The question is.

Speaker 2 On both sides of the traditional guys, the short sellers, the people, the long guys who use bots or go to investment conferences, at some point, are there certain regulations?

Speaker 2 So, for example, when I was an activist investor, if you ever coordinated with someone and your group that you're coordinating with amounted to more than 5% of the outstanding stock, you had to disclose who you were and what your intentions were.

Speaker 2 So, at some point, when does a community of people officially be coordinating? But the SEC's got to be very careful not to be seen.

Speaker 2 So, quite frankly, I've always felt the SEC is not protecting investors, they're protecting management. They put in place all these regulations that makes it hard to

Speaker 2 kick directors out of a company, to create management out of a company. And the SEC can't be seen as someone

Speaker 2 who is just protecting the establishment of old white guys and not letting people under the age of 40 weigh in and do the same thing, the same thing that long and shorts do, but just do it better.

Speaker 2 But we're going to find out. We're going to find out that the people that they think they're invading the castle and hanging

Speaker 2 are many of the ones in there pumping it and making money right now.

Speaker 10 It should be interesting.

Speaker 2 And I just, the warning I got to give to people, and you're big boys and big girls, and there's not only learning about investing, there's life lessons around sometimes losing money.

Speaker 2 If you're in this thing at a valuation that is impossible to justify around a specialty retailer of this size, just keep in mind you are speculating.

Speaker 2 And you're not even just gambling because gambling, if I get up from the table at Blackjack, the other people don't get hurt. And when you gamble, you sort of know, okay, this is consumption.

Speaker 2 And maybe I have a problem, maybe you don't.

Speaker 2 But just be mindful, I would say to the retail investors, especially first-time investors, when you buy a specialty retailer at eight times revenues that is losing money, at some point when it reattaches to fundamentals,

Speaker 2 it's not going to be likely trading at $450 a share. Just be mindful of that.
You're a grown-up, make your own decisions.

Speaker 2 And the SEC has to be careful not to be seen as just favoring the establishment. Yeah.

Speaker 10 Well, Scott, that was an intelligent take. Thank you very much.
I appreciate it. And I'm glad we have this, I have this effect on you.

Speaker 10 Are you ignoring me?

Speaker 2 No, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 I'm with my

Speaker 2 other favorite person, Stephanie Ruhl. I'm ruined parading me right now.

Speaker 10 She should. Thank you, Stephanie.
Give him a hard time.

Speaker 10 In fact, she can't hear me.

Speaker 2 No, she's like, be careful, Tucker Carlson is going to eat your face. And I'm like, what, you're talking about sex now? What's going on here?

Speaker 10 Oh, my God. You can't.

Speaker 10 Today, you do not get any

Speaker 10 rude penis remarks to make.

Speaker 10 You're completely out of them. Focus on me.
Over here, look up.

Speaker 10 Look, look eyes up and don't tell i'm sorry don't text me late at night and be angry at me it upset me oh my god really upsets me stop that you know what you're like a kid that like makes a big mess and then you're like how dare you note my big mess no i'm not even gonna love me don't judge me no listen let me tell you you just literally told people you're a big boy you're a big boy

Speaker 10 you're a big boy you can take you can take it anyway stephanie rule i will text you at seven in the morning next time and call you an asshole all right all right scott let's go on a quick break When we come back, we'll talk about the changes in Google's Political Action Committee funding and a listener mail question.

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Speaker 10 Okay, Scott, we're back. Pay attention.
Google's political action committee will stop funding its members of Congress who voted against the presidential election results.

Speaker 10 Google's PAC donated to Senator Ted Cruz's Senate campaign in 2017 and 2018.

Speaker 10 Earlier this month, tech companies, including Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, said they'd be pausing contributions for their political action committees in the wake of the insurrection at the Capitol.

Speaker 10 Meanwhile, this week, a group of congressional Democrats sent a letter to the CEOs of some of the major social media platforms saying that, quote, violent insurrectionist mob was radicalized in part in the digital echo chamber that your company designed, built, and maintained, which Carol Swisher has been saying for a long time.

Speaker 10 They are calling for a fundamental re-examination of way these algorithms work, which I think there's going to be a lot of pushes around that.

Speaker 10 So what do you think about? I think money's the big thing. I think a lot of the Republicans who know about this

Speaker 10 are worried about the situation. They're not going to be able to raise enough, you know,

Speaker 10 grassroots money, especially when they rely on all of these corporations. Although I think the corporations will be back quietly.

Speaker 2 Look, Citizens United and money in politics really is an enormous problem. And I've never bought into the notion that money is speech.
And what we have is, if you look at the presidential campaign,

Speaker 2 just 400 families were responsible for 50% of the donations.

Speaker 2 And then you speedball that influence with think tanks, PACs. The major media companies in this nation are owned by a handful of families.
And what do you know?

Speaker 2 The 1%, the shareholder class, the establishment has just too much influence over our politics.

Speaker 2 And we end up with an anemic response to the pandemic because of people being really damaged by this pandemic and an insurrection.

Speaker 2 And what do you know that one in five households with children are food insecure because people who control the government aren't those households? Money in politics is really a cancer. And

Speaker 2 so is the hardening of our districts and gerrymandering. But there's something's got to give around money in politics.
And this is just,

Speaker 2 okay, all this is, is our side is winning right now. You know, the Republicans said, well, well, money is voice when they were getting Microsoft basically learned from the sins of the father.

Speaker 2 And that is Bomber and Gates refused to play the game in the 90s. And what do you know? The DOJ weighed in and broke them up.

Speaker 2 And then they learned from that. And basically, all the big tech guys now, their fastest-growing expense line isn't RD, it isn't AI, it's lobbying because they learned, guess what?

Speaker 2 Marco Rubio is coin-operated.

Speaker 2 You insert a quarter into Marco Rubio and say, hey, we want for-profit education that preys on the hopes and dreams of lower-income

Speaker 2 adults. And all of a sudden, he'll start talking about how important education, I mean, there are too many coin-operated politicians because

Speaker 2 97% of the people who win office are the ones who raise the most money.

Speaker 2 And whether it's matching funds, similar to what they do in New York, whether it's what they do in Europe, where you get to a certain amount of signatures, you're guaranteed a certain amount of fun.

Speaker 2 And then, guess what? You know what you have to win on? You have to win on your fucking ideas, boss. Yeah.
And your willingness to go shake hands at Rotary Club meetings, money in politics.

Speaker 2 Something's got to give, Kara.

Speaker 10 Professor Galloway goes to Washington. This is such a nice movie.
Let me just.

Speaker 2 That'll happen. That'll happen.
Have you seen Twitter today?

Speaker 10 Yes, I do.

Speaker 10 Do you think anything that happens to you doesn't happen to me? Like, hello. Like, hello.
I get this. How can you talk to this man? I was like, I can talk to this man.

Speaker 2 How can you? I know.

Speaker 10 You can tell because I'm dreaming. I literally can't.

Speaker 10 Of course, I can't go, he's an idiot on Twitter. I can't do that because you get all mad.
So I'm caught in a well, that's an option.

Speaker 2 You were contemplating that?

Speaker 10 I was. I was like, this time,

Speaker 10 he deserves a hit Twitter smack, but I can do it.

Speaker 2 I want you to be. I can't do it.
That's what I want my co-host and pivot to be another guardian of God show. Here's the thing.
I want you to join

Speaker 2 the feminists who take a tweet as the entirety of your view on everything.

Speaker 10 I controlled myself. I controlled myself.
I'm sorry, people of Twitter. I've controlled myself because I knew I could knock a better insight out of him on this show.

Speaker 10 Nonetheless, on this issue, I don't think they'll stick with it. It's sort of like the advertisers who left Facebook,

Speaker 10 the people who left Facebook and then came probably are back now and did this sort of high dudgeon thing. I do think

Speaker 10 they should commit to never giving people who voted for against the election results any money. They should do something like that.
Like we're never giving Ted Cruz

Speaker 2 across the line.

Speaker 10 That's what I would say. We're never giving them.
Not we're maybe going to give them. We're never giving them.

Speaker 2 Well, the Lincoln Project is going after Microsoft saying, look, you can't give money to seditionists and I think look if you want to play this game where money

Speaker 10 I'm sorry I'm talking to Microsoft Brad Smith hopefully about that soon he's the one that talked about he was being honest he was saying this is what we do we buy literally this is the game

Speaker 10 this is the game I don't think he was saying anything surprising yeah

Speaker 10 But I think they should commit. Okay, here we go.
Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, commit to never, don't pause your contributions.

Speaker 10 End your contributions to anyone who voted for this. It just says something.
It says something.

Speaker 10 And let the chips fall where they may. That's all give money to people who don't

Speaker 10 vote for insurrection. It'll be interesting to see on the impeachment thing, you know, what those votes are.
It looks like those senators have now decided they're going to

Speaker 10 give Trump a pass on that,

Speaker 10 which of course they were. What a struggle.

Speaker 2 They have to do just 51, though, to make sure he doesn't run again.

Speaker 10 No, they have to first pass the impeachment, and then they can patch the second one.

Speaker 10 So, no, you know, I think what's interesting is a lot of these people would dearly love Trump not to be a factor in the 2024 cruise and Rubio.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, everything they do is pose for the cameras for the

Speaker 2 Noah Des Moines register or prediction before this is over.

Speaker 10 Those two are never going to be president. Never, ever, ever, ever.
Both of them are.

Speaker 2 I'm not sure what you say about who can ever, never be president.

Speaker 10 They're never going to be president. These two, no, because here's the thing.
I got the whole appeal.

Speaker 10 You did.

Speaker 2 You saw Trump. I will give you this.
You saw Trump. You were able to put your feelings aside and objectively evaluate Trump.
Yep.

Speaker 10 Let me just say these two, and I'm going to use a term they used against women, Hillary Clinton, they're not even likable enough, either of them. They're not likable.

Speaker 10 And people do not vote for not likable people. And both of them, Ted Cruz is the most not likable, but Marco Rubio, not in a million years

Speaker 10 is he appealing in any way as a candidate.

Speaker 10 I think Tucker Carlson is in a lot of ways, even though he offends most of my sensitivities.

Speaker 2 I think he's very handsome.

Speaker 10 Not just that.

Speaker 10 He's very clever. He's very,

Speaker 10 I can see, I can see people liking him.

Speaker 10 And Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, nobody likes you.

Speaker 2 Well, you know what I'm thinking about? You're talking about money and politics? I'm actually thinking about making a donation to the

Speaker 2 Trump in 2022 campaign for Ivanka to run against Senator Rubio. I would just love to see it.
I would just love to see it. Come on.
That would be fun.

Speaker 2 You can enjoy yourself.

Speaker 10 Can I say Florida?

Speaker 2 That would be so Florida. That would be

Speaker 2 Florida. That would be so on-brand for us.

Speaker 10 Speaking of Florida, and we're going to go to listener mail in a second.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 care about that?

Speaker 10 I've been trying to get my mom a vaccine there. Your system is so screwed in Florida.
Now, she's going to have to fly to New York, where she is on a list that is much more organized.

Speaker 10 The DC list is really organized. I feel like I can reach them.
I can look at all the information. Florida, it took me like hours.
They had shitty websites, shitty information. Awful.
Yeah.

Speaker 10 I was on the phone with them. Let me just say, Governor DeSantis, you suck in terms of what you're doing.

Speaker 2 Well, here's where we are, are, and it speaks to a larger problem.

Speaker 10 I don't care if you don't have enough of them. Your systems suck.
Even if you're telling me no, you're not explaining how I can get on a list.

Speaker 2 But this is part of a 40-year screed started by Reagan where government is incompetent, so let's defund them. which leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy about ineffective government.

Speaker 2 And this whole notion that we're going to decentralize everything and leave it up to the hospitals is nothing but similar to Facebook abdicating responsibility.

Speaker 2 And Governor DeSantis is, you know, this big, we're going to let the hospitals figure out the vaccination websites. You know what? We need scale.
We need the federal government.

Speaker 2 The federal government is really good at some things. They are really good at defending our borders.
They are really good at ensuring that you can't segregate schools.

Speaker 2 The federal government is outstanding at a lot of things. And guess what? Federalized.
This needs to be federalized.

Speaker 10 You know, it's so, you can fill out a form to get an amazing. I can get a ginger ale during this show from Amazon right now.
Come on, we know how to do this.

Speaker 10 And now every single county is making its own list system. This is just astonishing.
And by the way, and Florida in particular, you wasted five hours of my life last night.

Speaker 10 And I still wasn't able to figure out the, anyway, thank you.

Speaker 2 Come down to Miami. Let us make it up to you.
No, I don't. Come down to Miami.

Speaker 10 No, not coming to Florida. Anyway, we were going to, we'll just, we're going to discuss the algorithms.

Speaker 10 We've got to move on, but asking these companies to readjust their algorithms, we'll see about that.

Speaker 2 Do you know who you would love?

Speaker 10 We'll see about that. What?

Speaker 2 The new mayor of Miami.

Speaker 10 I have talked to him. He texts me all the time.
I did a little column. I quoted him in

Speaker 10 Francisco Suarez, right? Suarez.

Speaker 2 Mayor Suarez. Mayor Suarez.
He wants us, by the way.

Speaker 10 He's very eager. Mayor Suarez wants me in the middle of the night.
Speaking of texting in the middle of the night, he texts them.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I like it. He's like all over you.

Speaker 2 He's very nice.

Speaker 2 He wants the jungle cat and the dog to host an event in Miami.

Speaker 10 Perhaps we will.

Speaker 2 Perhaps. Bring your sunblock.

Speaker 10 If they don't give my mother a vaccine, no, they can't. I'm not coming down there.

Speaker 10 God. I don't want them to help.

Speaker 2 Did I know your mom was in Florida?

Speaker 10 She's in Vero Beach.

Speaker 10 Just don't drive around in your car nearby. She has a car.
So that's even just stay away.

Speaker 2 I've met Lucky. That's not a car.
It's a weapon.

Speaker 10 So she's a weapon.

Speaker 2 So anyway.

Speaker 10 All right. So we're going to move on and take a listener mail question.

Speaker 13 Let's go.

Speaker 2 You've got, you've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman.
You do, you've got mail.

Speaker 2 Hey, Karen Scott.

Speaker 14 This is William calling from Connecticut. I'm a recent college graduate who has found themselves unemployed due to the pandemic.

Speaker 14 I'm viewing this as a time to reinvent myself and maybe dive into something new. If you were in my shoes, what industry or sector of the economy would you choose to start a new career in?

Speaker 14 Something that has large potential upside and will be prevalent for years to come? Thank you.

Speaker 10 Interesting. I'm going to answer this first, because I am teaching a course at University of Chicago, and I just last night talked to a dozen students.

Speaker 2 Yes. Hold the phone.

Speaker 1 University of Chicago?

Speaker 10 Yeah, I'm a professor. I'm Professor Karasori.

Speaker 2 Are you lecturing? Are you an adjunct?

Speaker 10 I am in a fellowship that David Axel wrought at the politics. I'm with Tim Alberta, Will Heard, Representative Heard,

Speaker 10 Heidi Heidkamp.

Speaker 10 And we're all fellows in this.

Speaker 10 Yes, it's very sad to say. We're doing it.
I should have been in Chicago, but because I love Chicago.

Speaker 10 But we cannot go.

Speaker 10 So it is via virtual. And I spent, they have these office hours where I talk to students literally on a Zoom for 20 minutes each.
And all of them were asking this question.

Speaker 10 So I'm going to answer this first.

Speaker 10 Climate change tech. Thank you.
Climate change or food tech. That's where I would go into it.
It's a really interesting area.

Speaker 10 It's highly competitive in terms of there's going to be lots of companies in here. And I would focus on investing in climate change,

Speaker 10 figuring out the problems, whether it's things like cleaning up the mess, like carbon capture or solar, or I just, that's where I would head.

Speaker 10 I think that's where obviously the Biden administration is putting a lot of money into it. Sheldon White House stopped doing his speeches now because he feels like we're on a better track.

Speaker 10 I feel like that is an area of of great promise. Thank you.
All right, Scott, you do it because you're an actual professor.

Speaker 2 Well, I get, you know, my office hours, kids don't come to talk about brand strategy or strategy. They come to talk, they come basically to ask this question over and over.

Speaker 2 I think the most exciting areas, I agree with you. Those are both great areas.

Speaker 2 I personally think that the greatest opportunity or the reshuffling of stakeholder capital will be in the largest part of our economy, and that's healthcare.

Speaker 2 And we're about to see 17% of our GDP dispersed from doctors' offices and hospitals to homes.

Speaker 2 And it's not only a fantastic opportunity economically, it's an opportunity to take primary care and push it out to people who end up in the emergency room because they're underinsured or intimidated.

Speaker 2 A woman who has a child that suffers from diabetes spends 12 weeks of her life every year managing that child's diabetes. And let's be honest, it's almost always the mom.

Speaker 2 And most of that time is spent commuting to and from the doctor's office and then waiting in the waiting room of some specialist.

Speaker 2 So it's not only a huge opportunity, opportunity, you're going to see $3 trillion reallocated away from the medical industrial complex. So get in between healthcare and technology.

Speaker 2 My industry, EdTech, $750 billion in the U.S., a couple trillion dollars. It's not sustainable.
There is no reason that kids should be paying $7,000 to take my course.

Speaker 2 280 kids, that's $2.1, $2 million for 12 nights of this.

Speaker 2 Think about it. All you have to endure is an ad from ZipRecruiter.
What a deal. But But EdTech is huge.
Also, just some lifestyle stuff. Get to a city.
Give up on the myth of balance.

Speaker 2 Work your ass off.

Speaker 2 Invest in relationships. See opportunities to help other people as an opportunity.
And also, Kara, spend less time on your phone and have more sex, specifically attached to a relationship.

Speaker 2 Attached to a relationship.

Speaker 10 All right. Just don't call them incels.

Speaker 2 They're not incels. When did incels become a special industry?

Speaker 10 Text. I'll show you.
I'm going to send you. I'm going to go.

Speaker 2 Where were you when I was 19? I didn't realize I needed protecting and was deserving of carrots.

Speaker 2 I didn't know I was a thief.

Speaker 10 As usual, typical white man is like, make a mistake and then get defended. My son did this last night.
Same thing. Like, he wasn't supposed to be at my house for dinner.

Speaker 10 He was supposed to be at my ex's house. And so I work late.
And then I get home. He's like, why aren't you here? And I, because he had told me that morning he wasn't going to be there.

Speaker 10 And I was like, but you told me he wasn't. And then it was, he was, he was mad at me for something he did.
I'm just, I am so,

Speaker 10 I am so good at dealing with men who are, or do this, who displace their anger. So don't even.

Speaker 2 I need it. My angers are embers that actually inspire a lot of professional sex.
I'm so upset I'm not more successful that I try to be, I think anger is actually very motivating.

Speaker 10 It's not actually not anger that you all have, by the way. It's insecurity and that you,

Speaker 10 where is mom in the case of my sons? And in your case, where is Kara to slap the

Speaker 10 Jesus out of me?

Speaker 2 Angry, insecure men, i.e. men.

Speaker 2 What I mean.

Speaker 2 Those men that have testicles. Yeah, that's a bit redundant, isn't it? Insecure, angry men.

Speaker 10 Not everybody. With many people, it's because they're insecure.
And that's where rudeness and anger comes out of, or say unaccountable.

Speaker 2 I hate myself less and less every day.

Speaker 10 You know what? I'm glad that Stephanie Ruhl was attacking you, too.

Speaker 8 Yeah, she's like, now she's coming out.

Speaker 2 That's worse. What's the deal? But it's kind of affectionate.
Perhaps you deserve it.

Speaker 10 Perhaps you deserve her. This is someone who cares about you and doesn't want you to drive yourself into a wall.

Speaker 2 I just wrote back. I appreciate you looking out for me.

Speaker 2 I need these guardrails. Oh my God.
How inappropriate.

Speaker 2 How inappropriate that I'm doing this.

Speaker 10 I knew you would do this. It's not because she's a woman.
It's because she's a badass. Stephanie Ruhll is a badass.
And if she's badassing you, I'm good with it. I'm feeling good with it.

Speaker 10 Anyway, Scott, William from Connecticut, I say climate change check or food.

Speaker 2 I sent to my Scott says.

Speaker 10 And the one of the other thing is an unconventional skill we have that you think people should be learning for the market.

Speaker 10 Just creative thinking.

Speaker 10 Not learning Chinese. Maybe you could learn Chinese, whatever.

Speaker 2 Creative thinking. Creative thinking.

Speaker 10 Yes, yes. I don't think that's a good idea.

Speaker 2 Let's write up there with Ivanca's advice. Just do something different.
Creative thinking. Oh, that's actually

Speaker 2 a good thing.

Speaker 10 You mean senator, though? Thank you, Kara. Oh, my God.

Speaker 10 She cannot be senator. I'm sorry.
I would go down there.

Speaker 2 God, I would love that. Knock George.

Speaker 10 Not for Marco Rubio either. Let's find someone else that maybe you could run.

Speaker 2 I think Valdemings would be outstanding, the police minister from Orlando. Oh, yes.

Speaker 10 Let's get Valdemmings. Let's back her.
That's who we back to get rid of these two

Speaker 10 grifters. We need to get rid of the grifters and put in Val Demings.
Thank you very much. I agree.
Anyway, Scott,

Speaker 10 one more quick break. You have a prediction.
So when we get back, you're going to make a quick prediction. Good.

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Speaker 10 Okay, Scott, prediction time. You have a very short amount of time.
What's your prediction?

Speaker 2 Okay, we're going to see.

Speaker 10 We're going to tweak all day today. That's my prediction.

Speaker 2 We're going to see the SEC and FINRA weigh in here, but they'll weigh in on both sides, and there'll be some sort of regulation or some sort of new guide rules, but it'll impact the existing players recognizing the new guys aren't doing anything different.

Speaker 2 I think they'll get that.

Speaker 2 Two, the more interesting thing is just as Roblox has dispersed creativity past Activision or Blizzard, such that creators have a platform and can build their own games and then let kids decide what games get oxygen, just as TikTok has built a platform such that Jeffrey Katzenberg doesn't decide who the creators are, Greenlight or CAA, consumers get to decide what content or creativity gets oxygen.

Speaker 2 We're going to see some sort of platform create

Speaker 2 the opportunity to microinvest in influencers.

Speaker 2 And there's some very talented people doing fundamental analysis and also quite frankly, figuring out tools of influence and persuasion to create alpha and generate returns in the market.

Speaker 2 And somebody, some very smart entrepreneur is going to figure out a platform that lets you take five, 10, 100 grand and disperse it to a group of individuals, kind of what I'll call creators or investors for a lot of people.

Speaker 10 I've been tried many times. You know that.
This has been something. But go ahead.

Speaker 2 I think the time is here, though. I think the technology is here.
And I think you're going to see a platform that lets you participate in this.

Speaker 2 And because most of us don't have the skills, the time, the inclination. No, there is.

Speaker 10 I've literally written about this like 10 years ago. This was this idea of new.
I remember being at Sundance and they

Speaker 10 were talking about this issue of people being behind the scene. You know what I mean? Like that you could fund in different ways.

Speaker 10 And at the time, they went right back to the old funding method and it wasn't available. But you're right.

Speaker 10 There's kind of an interesting, you know, Patreon doesn't get enough credit for a lot of the changes it's made, these constant ideas, but there were ideas before Patreon like this, and some of these others, the Kickstarters, the Indigo Go and stuff like that,

Speaker 10 it's ripe for how things are funded. The issue is, I think there's some regulatory issues around investments and things like that, but it is an interesting time to do that.
That's a good prediction.

Speaker 2 And this is what will happen. As soon as this airs, I'm going to get about 100 DMs and tweets saying it already exists and it's called this.
I bet it's out there. We just haven't heard of it.

Speaker 10 No, there had been.

Speaker 10 I've written about it, but it's just how you fund movies. You're right.
It has to change rather drastically, and it has been. It's such a weird system.
It's such a weird relationship-based,

Speaker 10 you know, bring a rich guy in. Oh, there's a guy from Russia.
There's a guy from China. There's a guy from Saudi Arabia.
That kind of thing.

Speaker 10 It's always a guy, by the way.

Speaker 10 So I think it's a really interesting area. And we'll see.
We'll see if you can really break.

Speaker 10 Speaking of industries that have stayed in the dark ages much too long, although there's been lots of changes by some companies, it still does operate a lot in the way it used to.

Speaker 10 Anyway, Scott, thank you so much. That's the show.
I feel like we've settled our differences and I'm glad about that.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 I hope you don't do it today.

Speaker 10 This was a really good idea.

Speaker 2 Step away from the keyboard.

Speaker 10 But you gave a very good explanation and I appreciate that. So anyway, I'm sorry for the people that are mad at him.

Speaker 10 I feel your pain, but here's the deal.

Speaker 2 You know, the dog deserves it. Every once in a while, every once in a while, the dog should get, you know, a little paper whap on the nose.

Speaker 10 No, no, whap. They told me to beat the living crap out of you, just so you know, but I did not want to do that.
Anyway, go to nymag.com/slash pivot to submit your questions for the podcast.

Speaker 10 The link is also in our show notes. Scott, read us out.

Speaker 2 Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanas, Ernie Indritott, engineered this episode. Thanks also to Hannah Rosen and Drew Burroughs.

Speaker 2 Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts, or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or frankly, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 2 If you like the show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.
We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business.

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Speaker 2 Why not both?

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Speaker 16 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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