Government Shutdown, OpenAI’s Sora 2, and Hegseth's Lecture

So your AI agents, they make the team that uses them more productive, right?

But if they aren't connected to other agents, or your data, or your existing workflows, how productive can they really make your teams?

Any business can add AI agents.

IBM connects your agents across your company to change how you do business.

Let's create Smart to Business, IBM.

Support for the show comes from Sacks Fifth Avenue.

Sacks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to shop for your personal style.

Follow us here, and you can invest in some new arrivals that you'll want to wear again and again, like a relaxed product blazer and Gucci loafers, which can take you from work to the weekend.

Shopping from Saks feels totally customized, from the in-store stylist to a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you things that fit your style and taste.

They'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in, or when that Brunello Cacchinelli sweater you've been eyeing is back in stock.

So, if you're like me and you need shopping to be personalized and easy, head to Sacks Fifth Avenue for the best fall arrivals and style inspiration.

To remind you that 60% of sales on Amazon come from independent sellers, here's Scott from String Joy.

Hey y'all, we make guitar strings right here in Nashville, Tennessee.

Scott grows his business through Amazon.

They pick up, store, and deliver his products all across the country.

I love how musicians everywhere can rock out with our guitar strings.

Ho one, two, three, four.

Rock on, Scott.

Shop small business like mine on Amazon.

Send me Scott AI because I'm going to have some times with him.

Hi, everyone.

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

I'm Kara Swisher.

Can you get over how excited people are about our tour?

I know they are.

Let's discuss it.

Let's discuss it.

We're selling very brisk ticket sales.

You're already, I think, like half sold out in San Francisco.

I think that's mostly because of you.

Yeah.

More people are showing up to heckle.

Toronto.

Toronto.

Toronto.

We're almost, we're like half sold out there, more than half sold out there.

So just to remind people, D.C., New York, Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco, L.A., did I miss anything?

No, I don't think so.

I point seven.

The best comment, though, when we announced it was, just say it.

You hate Arizona.

Yeah, I know.

People got mad.

Other cities got mad at us.

We'll come to those cities.

We will come to those cities, which I think we probably should have included another Midwestern city besides Chicago.

No, no, no, no.

The biggest miss is Miami.

Daddy loves the hotties.

Yes, you're right.

Miami would be good.

Yeah.

But we should go to, well, except if we go to some city, they're like, who the fuck are you?

Like, that would be, there were so many cities that would be like that, like Altoona, Pennsylvania, for example.

Yeah.

I think that's mostly cities that aren't on the coast with like a ton of liberal universities.

I love Kara Swisher.

She's my hero.

She's here quote-unquote teaching and that is telling war stories about how awesome she is for 20 minutes.

No, no, that's not how I'm teaching.

No, in fact, the school set complimented me because she said all these people who do these kind of things come in and tell war stories.

And I don't.

I talk to the students and engage them on the topics of the day.

It's like a mini pivot.

Like we talked about the comedy thing.

Mini pivot.

Oh, that sounds compelling.

Talked about swords.

Except they're paying $7,000.

No.

No, it's good.

It's a good course.

I love famous teachers.

They always add a lot of out.

They also get to hang out with Alex.

They tell people to follow their passion after they're already rich, having made their billions in iron ore smelting.

Let me just say, you have the professor, you have prof G, and you haven't been inside a classroom in, what, 69 years or something?

I taught a class the other day.

Stop it.

Where?

Where?

First section, my AI.

Yes, but not at a university, correct?

No,

I've been at Oxford recently.

Okay.

I'm going to King's College soon.

I still show up in classrooms.

But the university you're assigned to, you have to.

Oh, them.

New York University.

It's amazing they still kick me on faculty.

I think it's because, you know why they do?

I mentioned more in applications than any other profit discussion.

Of course you are.

You're very popular.

You're a popular person.

And then they show up and get pissed off I'm not there and write letters to the administration.

Have you thought about doing a course there or not?

Yeah, when I move back, I'll start teaching you now.

Oh, good.

Oh, that'll be nice.

You know, they tried to give me the professor designation on the syllabus and I took it off.

I didn't feel like I deserved it.

Because you're so humble.

That's what people know you for, is your humility.

Hostile thing.

You know why I think you're hostile?

Because most people agreed with me on the comic thing.

Did you notice in the comics?

On Kimmel?

I didn't care.

No, on the comics that went,

you know, the place where you're going to laugh your head off.

Saudi Arabia.

Oh, Riyadh.

Oh, what a shocker.

The woekers weighed in.

I love how people are virtuous with other people's money.

Whenever you lose an argument, you always are like, it's the woesters.

I blame it on Russian bots.

That's my go-to.

No, they were were like screwed well should we pull out our military bases or the universities there you know what we do i

do but no don't let bill burr go no actually you know what he had the lamest excuse i have to say i was sort of like

why don't they all just say i want the money he didn't he was like you know they're regular people they have mcdonald's there literally i was like you're stupid now you're an idiot

like he's like oh my goodness they're not on camels i'm like no they're the richest people on the fucking planet my friends i'm going to alua one of the coolest tourist places or or sites in the world i love the people there i'm i want americans to move there and make a ton of money i want to secure our fossil fuel energy pipeline if if israel and the kingdom normalize relations it'll be like the iron dome for israel mbs is keeping the crazies in line unlike some of the others they're reforming like crazy i'm well that's because he's brutal i'm going to bear hug the kingdom invite me i'm going Oh, my God.

I'm not going.

You know, when I wrote that piece about them in the New York Times many years ago,

are you teaching a class in Michigan right now?

Will, I'm glad you asked that.

When I wrote a piece in The Atlantic.

Let me just say.

As I was touching myself to Rachel Maddow.

You're so wildly insecure.

Anyway, I wrote a piece about why they're still investing.

Have you seen me naked?

It's common sense I'm insecure.

Right, F.

I haven't seen you naked.

And this is something

this is going to be part of our tour, is me seeing you naked.

I actually have seen you partially naked many times, unfortunately.

So has everyone else.

I know that's true.

So, but not the full Monty.

I have not seen the full Monty.

Daddy brings the egg salad, the good egg salad, with a little

bacon and the man.

Let me finish my point.

I wrote a piece about why tech went to get money from the Gulf right after Khoshogi, right?

It was immediately after Khoshogi.

And I was like, can't they go to Singapore?

Or can't they go to like, there's so many other choices and stuff.

And it was a really interesting debate because a lot of people in Silicon Valley also very similar to this for like we shouldn't be taking money from them.

We should be taking money.

I'm saying no, I agree.

When they murder a journalist, we should make our companies less competitive and reduce the prosperity of people working for those companies.

You know, they dismembered him and like took video.

He murdered him.

I acknowledge that.

I think it was a stupid, vile thing to do.

Yes.

Okay.

They've done a lot of stupid, vile things.

So my point is, someone contacted me from Saudi people who knew the Saudis were like, don't go to Saudi Arabia, Carris Wisher.

I was like, okay,

because I call them a thug.

But just a quick question.

How many kids will be shot in Saudi schools today?

Oh my God, stop it.

Don't do that.

That's it.

Don't do it.

How many people in the kingdom do not have health?

We are not healthy.

How many

people in the kingdom are going to go bankrupt when they find out their wife has lung cancer?

How many women are allowed to do everything that they're supposed to?

How many gay people get to survive?

Scott, we're not doing this.

They have shame.

They have absolute gender apartheid, and it's terrible.

And the only good thing you can say about it, but you need to acknowledge it, is it's headed in the right direction.

And our gender apartheid is headed in the wrong direction.

That is correct, but we're still far apart.

I'm sorry.

You're not going to, I'm sorry.

The United States is, even in the state it's in, is, is I'm not even getting paid to be a mouthpiece for the I know.

You really are.

Somebody send a check.

Send him a check.

You're going to get into the comments, everyone, all the woke commenters.

We're going to move on.

But nonetheless, I am correct and I won the fight.

My tagline should be, I don't read the comments i don't read the you do read the comments though um i think that it was a good debate and i think you know in your heart of hearts that it was kind of sky me for those for the comics to do it i'm not i'm not thrilled with the military base i'm not thrilled but i get it but comic to sign like a censorship thing i'm going to just stick with my guns on this anyway we have a lot to get to today i'm going to have the last word there including open a launching a new video app that's actually fascinating what's been going on pete heg seth of course ranting at top military officials about beards and outfits.

But first, the U.S.

government officially shut down this week, kind of a big deal, after Congress failed to reach a deal on funding.

As of this recording, it doesn't look like this is getting settled anytime soon.

The White House is now withholding billions of dollars in funding for Democratic-led states and preparing to carry out massive layoffs.

Democrats are calling Trump erratic and unhinged.

He does seem a little bit more so, and say he's more focused on posting deep, fake videos of Makeim Jeffries and sombreros than negotiating.

Meanwhile, about 750,000 federal workers are expected to be furloughed and services across the government are being disrupted.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is suspending operations, so no jobs reports and other key economic data for the time being.

They're also targeting blue states.

Russell is saying it explicitly.

I'm going to ask your overall thoughts and the best messaging for both parties right now.

And

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the political economic consequences.

But I did talk to some Trump people yesterday, some of the more reasonable Trump people,

which there are, there are indeed.

I hate to tell you, but there are.

And they were slightly worried because the crazies have taken over in the Trump White House.

And they were talking about things like, this was crazy, that it should last 47 days because

that's the number of his presidency.

They're like, they're like.

Taylor Swift.

They're like Swifties, these people.

They're like, they were interested in numbers

and that they're very interested in a full, they're talking about a full like prostration of Democrats.

Some of the reasonable Trumpies are worried that nothing's going to happen.

And of course, everyone alludes to his mental issues, like that he's really losing a step or two.

It's been noticeable in several of his appearances.

So anyway, so that was kind of frightening to think about, like sort of the crazier people in charge of the situation with no interest in negotiating.

Well, generally speaking, the American people do not like

shutdowns as a means of negotiation over policy and spending.

Their attitude is, and I think this is the right or

an understandable viewpoint, is that you're supposed to figure this out of the ballot box, negotiations on legislative process.

You're not supposed to be taking the budget and the operations of the country and the livelihood of government workers hostage.

And it has not worked in the past.

The last couple of shutdowns were threats from the Republicans who wanted funding for a wall or wanted cuts to Obamacare, and they blinked because the nation said squarely, don't use this as a tool for

negotiating public policy.

Having said that.

Can I just make a note?

The last three have been under Trump, but go ahead.

So, anyways, my point is these things don't usually work, and Americans aren't fond of using this as a political cudgel or wrench.

Having said that, and there might be some bias here,

I think

if you look at the surveys, the majority of the blame so far is being levied at Republicans, or more blame, I should say.

It's like 34 to 24.

And the Democrats here and the leadership are being shockingly strategic.

Explain.

They are not saying, oh, no, we want to renegotiate the tariff nonsense or we want you to stop these rounding up people with ICE.

They have been very pointed.

We want you to extend.

subsidies so people can have health care because people are about potentially millions of Americans are going to see their health care become unaffordable, and it's going to primarily target the most needy.

And I wouldn't be surprised if the Democrats' demand around that would have more impact positively if they get what they want on Republicans.

So, I think they are strategically going after an issue that is both the moral high ground and a function of affordability and likely to divide the Republican base.

And in addition, the Democrats were were just screaming out with two words, three words, do fucking something.

This is something.

This is saying, okay, sorry, you've got to come to the table.

So I actually think this is strategically, and again, there's

a lot of bad things about this, but keep in mind, folks, when the Republicans say, If they continue to do this, if they continue this battle, we're going to fire people, not because those people don't add value, not because those people aren't important to landing planes safely on runways, not because those people aren't important to defend our shores, not because those people don't ensure that lower and middle income people can enjoy one of the great assets of the earth, and that is our national parks.

We're taking the Hamas approach, and we're just going to embed them in this fight, even if they get killed or put out of work.

That is just a pure collateral damage hostage strategy.

They have said to Democrats, if you do this, we're going to start firing innocents.

And also, we're going to target your stuff.

It's explicitly political.

It's explicitly political.

They're embedding government workers in the midst of the firefight for no other reason than they say they'll be martyrs on behalf of our great Republican battle.

Which some of them want, let's be clear.

Let me just say, some of them, I mean, you can see Russell Vogt getting a hard on about firing people and getting rid of government.

It's very clear.

Same thing with Stephen Miller, who's demented.

He gave a demented speech about immigrants the other day.

More demented.

And let me just caveat that.

Think about the messaging so far.

Now, I sent you the Bernie Sanders and AOC one, which I thought was adorable.

Great messaging.

Great messaging.

They looked terrific together.

They were very articulate about what they want.

This is all we want was people shouldn't have their health care doubled in price, right?

It was pretty clear.

What is the next step to do?

Because I think that, you know, John Thune is sort of puffing at his show, who seems to be a reasonable person away from Trump, right?

He seems to be one of your typical decent legislators who has been pretzeled in the Trump administration.

But he's sort of going, yeah, we're not doing anything.

Like there, I mean, I know that's a posture, and I'm not a particularly good negotiator because I'm like, this is what I want.

This is what I want.

I just want this.

Thank you.

I'm not strategic that way or tactical, I guess.

But he's sort of doing the posturing.

And I think from talking to some Trump people, there's a group in the White House, which is like, let's let it last forever.

Like, this is great.

Like, they're very, they're, they're giddy.

Anti-government techno-libertarians just let it all burn down.

Yeah.

Let's start over.

Yes, exactly.

And so how do they thread that needle?

What, what, he's saying, we're not going to negotiate until the government is open again, and then we'll do, we'll cover this.

And the Democrats should be saying, we don't trust you, essentially, correct?

I mean, I don't know.

What would be the posture for each of them going forward?

Well, so I'm a big fan of Senator Thuns, mostly because he's just very handsome and in great shape.

Yes, but also

he does strike me.

I've actually met the senator.

I think he's a reasonable guy.

He obviously has conservative values, represents conservative states, South Dakota, but he is a reasonable, he's in the seat he should be.

And I think he will be a productive member,

productive majority leader, and a productive, hopefully someday, minority leader.

What I would do, and I had a phone call on this last night, is I would would take U.S.

Senators and so Senator Warner did a great job.

Someone, and it might have even been a planet question saying,

why do you continue to advocate for giving health care to illegal aliens?

And he immediately said, and this is what is so just mendacious about the Republican talking points right now.

Folks, we are not going to have a country.

We're not going to have a democracy.

We're going to turn to Ouija boards and horoscopes if there is not an objective truth.

And the objective truth is there is no law or legislation in effect or being proposed that would give health insurance to illegal aliens.

And yet Speaker Johnson continues to go on these shows and say this lie.

And then they fact check him and he just starts talking about, well, no, that's not true.

And it's like, well, okay, Speaker.

Speaker Johnson, you didn't answer the question because you know you're lying.

And also,

what do we want?

We want people dying in the streets?

Oh, I'm sorry.

You don't have an effective visa.

We're going to let you bleed out here in the parking lot.

So

Senator Warner immediately said, the premise to your question is factually incorrect.

No one is proposing or asking for coverage for illegal immigrants.

What they should be doing, and my advice to the person I was speaking to in comms yesterday,

I would take your, I would literally send 500 and what is it, 535 congresspeople

out to districts, specifically Republican districts, and I would interview people on their porches who clearly look, smell, and feel Republican and talk to them about

what it would mean if their premiums for Obamacare double.

I'd go right into enemy territory, quote unquote.

You know that's what Bernie and AOC are about to do.

And go right in and say, hi, who are you?

I'm so-and-so.

I'm a single mother.

I struggle with diabetes.

My kid has cerebral palsy.

I don't know what I'm going to do.

I don't know what I'm going to do.

I would go right into the deepest, reddest states, which by the way, tend to be the ones that need the most federal funding.

That's right.

That's right.

And make it very human.

But who did you vote for last time?

All of them are going to say Trump.

Okay, fine.

Let's get that out of the way.

Tell us about your health care.

Tell us about what would happen to you if this resolution goes through and there's not an agreement to keep the tax credits or funding for Obamacare premiums.

What would happen to you and your children?

And

then

show their Trump flags.

We are in Trump country.

Because the smartest thing about, I think, what Leader Jeffries and

Senate Minority Leader Schumer are doing is they're fighting over a topic that's going to divide Republicans.

So let me ask you another question because one of the other talking points is that Schumer is doing this at the behest of the left.

He's worried about being primaried by AOC.

And so they're pulling, they're being pushed into the shutdown by the left.

I've just noticed that one as a big talking point.

It's hard for me to relate to, quote unquote, the other side.

I don't think that's a very effective talking point.

What is their most effective talking point then?

What would you do if you're the Republicans?

The most effective talking point is the following, that shutdowns are not meant to be taken.

The government is not meant to be taken hostage.

We negotiate policy in the chambers of Congress and at the voting at the ballot box.

Which soon was saying.

That's their most effective message.

I hate to say it.

If it were true, providing health care to illegal immigrants would be an effective talking point.

I think the Democrats and the media has done their job here.

I thought George Stephanopoulos was actually quite strong on this.

He just pushed back and said, that is not true.

That is just not true.

I think that's gotten out there that it's not true.

Yeah.

But I think

I think a guy like Thune standing up there just saying, look.

We can't continue to have these shutdowns.

And then, of course, once the Democrats are in charge, they'll threaten.

They'll take the shutdowns hostage.

Right.

It only goes to November 19th, I think.

It doesn't even solve the problem, right?

That's the thing.

It just kicks the fucking can.

Well, that's it.

We keep just kicking the can down the road until until we actually get reasonable people to say, all right, at some point, we got to stop behaving irresponsibly and stop spending $7 trillion on $5 trillion in receipts.

This is just going to keep happening over and over.

They do think they're going to peel off Democrats.

They peeled off, obviously, Federman, who's essentially Republican, and then the Independent guy.

And then they peeled off the Nevada senator who just didn't believe in shutdowns.

But I don't think they're going to peel anybody else off.

I don't think they're going to peel.

I was talking to Tina Smith last week in Minnesota, very centrist, very reasonable.

She's like, no way.

She didn't seem lefty to me.

She's just like, this is ridiculous.

We're going to, you know, this is, we're not.

She was adamant about the situation.

So I don't think they're going to peel anyone.

And she would be someone you could peel off, presumably.

I don't know.

These things have a habit of, I wouldn't be surprised if they come to some sort of accommodation where the Republicans say, okay.

We'll give you something around, we'll give you something that results in funding for these healthcare premiums.

And we'll pretend that it was already in the bill or something.

Yeah, oh, the Republicans will do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think they'll figure out a way because

he will own that there's so much chaos surrounding the president right now.

And this has been a bad week for him.

I've always pushed back when people say, oh, he's senile.

I've always said, I think President Trump comes across as remarkably robust.

I think he's dumb.

I think he's strategically totally inept.

I think he goes on, rambles on weird shit, but I've always thought he presents as robust.

I don't know.

I'm just telling you.

Go watch some.

I'll send you some videos because I'm like,

it reminds me of his father, Fred Trump, who they pretended he was just fine.

But we'll see.

We're not doctors.

Well, hold on.

For the first time.

Yeah, but we have eyes and ears.

You know, if you met my dad in the last year, you would say, okay, he should probably not be president.

So

look, the president in the last week has had a couple of instances, specifically the one that sent the shivers down my spine when he said, oh, so we're sending two submarines.

I'm not going to tell tell you we're off the coast of Russia.

And there's two N-words and you can't see either of them.

And it's like, Jesus Christ, is this guy lost his shit?

Yeah, what am I seeing on TV?

Is that real?

Yeah, I was just, I thought, is this AI?

And his voice was weak.

Yeah, I think something's coming down.

Anyway, we're going to move on.

Video game maker Electronic Arts is being taken private in a deal valued at $55 billion and largest leveraged bio of all time.

The investor group includes Saudis, the Saudis sovereign wealth fund, private equity firm Silver Lake, Jared Kushner's firm Affinity Partners.

Obviously, Jared is right in the friggin' center of this.

And also, for people who don't know, MBS stays up all night and plays video games, apparently.

That's what I was told by several people who hang with him.

The deal requires approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., but it's please, it's coming through.

It's because it's Jared Kushner.

Scott, you and I predicted in March that we would

see a deal like this.

Let's listen.

I bet a lot of these companies may go private.

Do you ever see one of the very big companies going private?

That is an excellent point.

If you look at some of the fallen angels and you look at the amount of money, capital sitting on the sidelines in private equity, it's over $4 trillion of capital waiting to be deployed.

I think we're going to see, I did my predictions deck yesterday, I think we're going to see the biggest take private in history this year.

There we had it.

We were so smart.

We called it.

What do you think of this deal?

And others will follow suit.

Obviously, the players, I know Egan pretty well.

Obviously, Kushner was right in the middle of it because of his close ties to the Saudis and his getting the money from them.

You know, it's a big deal to go private.

The guy, the company has sort of struggled over the years, although they have some hits.

It's run by this Australian guy who's a surfer.

He got all tight with Egan, and then they have houses next to each other in Hawaii, apparently.

And then they pulled in Kushner, obviously, who was the

unjuant here, whatever, the Greece in this particular.

uh deal so putting kushner aside and again the trumpet the democrats are corrupt.

They just do it for small ball, right?

Hunter Biden shouldn't have been on the board of any company.

He just shouldn't have been.

But he gets hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And Jared says, oh, I know how to be Nepo-corrupt, but I'm going to do it for billions.

And not only that, he hasn't done anything illegal.

He's raised money on the back of his father's influence, and he's doing a big deal.

These deals are not easy to get done.

So congratulations to him.

This is a smart deal.

First off, essentially, the Gulf is desperately trying to diversify away from a fossil fuel economy.

And they know that the oil runs out.

They're not sure if it's 30 years or 80 years, but they basically got the bad news is they have to diversify away from this fossil fuel economy.

The good news is they have almost limitless capital to do it.

So gaming, which is bigger than the TV and motion picture industries combined, doesn't nearly get the amount of attention it deserves, is a huge industry.

It's intellectual property.

It would invite a new generation of young people.

The other companies they have investments in are better in mobile.

And also since 2020, the gaming industry stocks have underperformed the market.

And so this thing was, I don't want to say it was on sale, but what you have with Electronic Arts is they're kind of dominant in the old world, and that is consoles and handsets.

And you go buy a game.

The future is around mobile and free games.

And when you look at the amount of time that young people who are very attractive consumers, especially young men, spend on video games relative to the advertising they capture, there's an enormous, remember those graphs, those charts we used to see that would show

people spend 7% of their time reading newspapers and newspapers get 19% of ad dollars and people spend 30% of their time on the internet, but it's only getting 4% of ad dollars.

This is like 20 years ago.

You knew that eventually they would

calibrate to the time spent.

Essentially, ad dollars effectively lag, but eventually catch up to where attention is.

The big opportunity, and the kingdom has some investments in companies that are really good with mobile and free.

The company had underperformed.

It diversifies the economy in the Gulf.

I like it because I think it brings us closer together.

I really, you know, my bet and hope is that the kingdom goes capitalist and continues to party in Mykonos as opposed to goes going Islamist and fundamentalist, which the older folks' leadership wants.

So I like this deal.

I think it kind of works for everybody.

You know, EA has always, we've had the heads of EA at my various conferences years ago and years ago, and they were always sort of struggling in the digital age.

Like, you know, I mean, obviously video games are digital on some level, but it was always like they moved from executive to executive.

They had a lot of executive Sturm and Drang over at that company.

And the question is, where is, is, are they going to be able to compete with the ones from China, the ones from

all over the world, Japan and everywhere else?

And I think they've always had an issue with that.

And so they definitely need the money, right, in order to try to reassert themselves.

But they kind of remind me, I know it sounds crazy, but like of a broadcast, like CVS, like, oh, here, what are you going to do with this piece of shit?

Like.

elephants.

Oh, no.

No, because they were older.

I mean, that's what I'm saying.

I'm just saying EA always had, always seemed behind the eight ball constantly compared to especially China or any of the other many video,

Korea,

all the different places where really interesting innovations were happening.

No, no, okay.

So I would just say that

to kind of try and personalize this or humanize it.

I would say EA is Tom Brady in that, okay, maybe it's not winning Super Bowls, but it's young and it's strong and it's vibrant.

CBS is Tom Jones.

I mean, awesome in the 70s,

sexy in the 70s.

But, you know, on his final, you know, on the back nine.

By the way, I love Tom Jones.

Yeah, I'm just looking at their games.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, God.

That guy's a genius.

That guy's a genius.

They have all the sports stuff.

Madden was their bid, but their sports were the biggest, most important games.

And that does dovetail into the Saudis with their investments in sports and things like live, golf.

It's a great take for everybody.

What's the next one?

What's the next one?

The next one?

Well, that's my big prediction at the end of the show.

And I'm excited about it.

Oh, wait.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, OpenAI's new video app is stirring up copyright concerns.

What a surprise.

Support for the show comes from Silicon Valley Bank.

Silicon Valley Bank is deeply embedded in the company's products and services that form the innovation economy.

They're a proactive partner that helps bring their clients' vision to life, and they fuel high-growth companies with tailored solutions and the hands-on support that turns potential into performance.

Now, SVB is a division of First Citizens Bank.

First Citizens Bank has always been dedicated to highly personalized service and supporting emerging sectors.

That's why buying SVB made sense for First Citizens Bank and for you.

SVB clients can now benefit from this combined commitment to tailored solutions, incredible service, and deep expertise from a top-20 bank with a national footprint.

So, if you're serious about being part of the innovation economy, there's really only one bank for you: Silicon Valley Bank.

Yes, SVB.

Learn more at svb.com slash box.

Support for the podcast comes from Zeta.

If you listen to Vivid, you might be a CMO who dreams of unifying your marketing and advertising in one platform to grow revenue instead of wasting it.

With Zeta, that dream is now a reality.

Zeta is a marketing platform that unifies both paid and owned channels in one system.

This helps eliminate duplication, wasted spend, and slow execution.

With Zeta, there are no more silos, just accelerated growth.

The Zeta marketing platform is the only AI-powered solution that unites both owned and paid channels together in a single system, giving CMOs and CFOs a measurable path to predictable, profitable customers.

So, you can forget about the days of relying on third-party cookies as Zeta is built on first-party data, so you have a reliable foundation for your marketing growth.

Zeta is the AI Marketing Cloud, the platform that unites paid and owned channels into one system, giving CMOs and CFOs a measurable path to predictable, profitable customers.

To learn more about Zeta services, go to zeta global.com/slash pivot.

That's zeta global.com/slash pivot.

One last time, that's z-et-t-aglobal.com slash pivot.

Support for pivot comes from better help.

October 10th is World Mental Health Day, and it's a day to celebrate the therapists out there, but also an acknowledgement that your mental health journey isn't restricted to a single day.

It's something to work on every single day.

And BetterHelp therapists have helped over 5 million people worldwide on their mental health journeys.

That's millions of stories, millions of journeys, and behind everyone is a therapist who showed up, listened, and helped helped someone take a step forward.

Moments in therapy, like asking the right question, providing a safe space to cry, or creating a small win can change lives.

It's why BetterHelp is honoring those connections and the therapists who make them possible while showing how easy it is to get guidance from a licensed therapist online with BetterHelp.

So this World Mental Health Day, we're celebrating the therapists who've helped millions of people move forward.

If you're ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey.

Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash pivot.

That's better H-E-L-P.com slash pivot.

Scott, we're back with more news.

OpenAI is taking on TikTok, Reels, and YouTube with a new AI video generator app, Sora 2.

The app will feature user-generated clips and feeds with algorithm-driven recommendations.

Notably, Sora 2 will include copyrighted content unless copyright holders opt out.

What a, what a fucking set of what?

Anyway, OpenAI has been notifying studios and talent agencies about that over the last week.

They're losing their minds, obviously.

Meta also just introduced Vibes, a feed of AI-generated videos that will live in the Meta AI app.

You know, a lot of it is AI slop.

Some of it is funny.

Gavin Newsom has been making fantastic Sora

or different AI-generated videos making fun of Trump and Vance and everything else, which are quite good.

But talk about the copyright opt-out.

And Disney just separately sent character AI a cease and desist letter to stop using its copyrighted characters without authorization.

Talk a little bit about this.

What will happen here?

Well, I just want to send a message to, you know, Sunder

and

Satcha and Sam.

I opt out.

Take this as notice.

I'm opting out.

Do not crawl my shit.

Of course.

Of course, if I want to play, if I want to use someone else's likeness or

if I want to start playing, I don't know you know

if i want to start reproducing i'm in my gym right now and i'm looking at my weights and they say rogue if i wanted to start in china producing plates that said rogue on them does rogue have to call me before and say they're opting out of ip protection no there's no such thing the whole point of ip is people don't have the time to send a letter to everybody and say we opt out why do you think they think they can do this why do you this reminds me remember youtube kind of played this game and then later did the deals.

They just went ahead and did it.

Remember, they said you have to find your stolen content and tell us.

Remember that one many years ago?

Well, this is this is the dynamic of play.

And that is these companies with a leadership position that is helped by ignoring laws, by starting your ride-hailing app in Argentina without going through the bureaucratic process of getting business licenses.

By showing that kind of growth in this market, you make so much fucking money that it's worth it to face the legal ramifications.

So they've done the math and they've said, if we can maintain the kind of growth we're going to have by molesting other people's IP, even if it eventually gets swatted down in court, we'll have more than enough money.

We're better off economically.

It's the analogy I've been using for 10 years.

When there's a parking meter in front of your house and it costs $100 an hour, but the ticket is 50 cents, you break the law.

And that's what they're doing here.

They're saying they know this will eventually work its way through courts.

The biggest IP owners in the world will hit them hard and they will start paying, similar to what YouTube has mostly done.

YouTube used to be able to put anything on your videos, a Beyoncé song to start it, whatever.

Yeah, they did.

And now they have said, okay,

and they've done these deals.

Just about the moment it became after they spent hundreds of millions of dollars pushing back.

Sam has already said, oh my gosh, take a billion dollars and give it to the meanest, baddest lawyers and delay and obfuscate

a decision which will clearly come down against us.

Because between now and then and any fee they come up with, we're going to get another quarter of a trillion dollars in market cap by offering.

funny funny memes of the family guy starring in a Star Wars film with Darth Vader.

And everyone will have their hair on fire.

But by the time they actually get a judge to say, no, you can't do this, they'll have accreted another $100 or $150 billion in market cap.

cash.

Exactly.

This is such, this was the sort of the YouTube playbook.

And I remember when YouTube said, you need to find your stuff and tell us.

I was like, why don't you not create a thieving service?

Like, you have to tell us who's shoplifting.

You know, we've given them softlifting tools, but it was really astonishing.

And the idea that they, all of them, the character AI, there's Disney stuff on there.

There's so many, so much copyright thievery happening again.

And they just, they do it over and over again.

And it's sort of like Lucy and the football with charlie brown with the media companies i mean ultimately again this has to be stronger copyright protections in congress presumably um but it's really quite astonishing that they continue to have this much cheek you know they're thieves they're they're years ago walt mossberg called Facebook and Google and all of them rapacious information thieves.

And they remove, let's add open AI to that list.

One good thing they did after being, after people died, they rolled out some parental controls this week, allowing parents to adjust settings on their teens account.

And they'll also be notified if an account shows signs of potential self-harm.

Let's see how well they do that.

I can't believe they didn't do that in the first fucking place, but there they are.

There they are.

Now, in this genre, a lot of people in Hollywood are also up in arms over AI-generated quote-unquote actress that some talent agencies are reportedly looking to sign.

She's a very attractive actress and looks very real.

And they sort of must have crafted her out of a bunch of appealing actresses.

Her name's Tilly Norwood, and

she's really quite appealing.

I have to agree.

And so they're going crazy because they didn't make it out of anybody, but it looks like they made it out of all of them.

But you're in the AI mix right now.

I'm disturbed by AI Scott Galloway picture that you sent me.

You partnered with Google Labs for a new project called Portraits.

They created an AI version of you to answer your questions and provide life and career advice.

Let's listen to this AI Scott answer a question.

Hey, it's Pop G.

Ready to get started?

I've got a good job offer, but it's in a random town.

What should I do?

A job offer in a random town?

That's a classic fork in the road.

What kind of job is it?

And what are your career goals long term?

Oh, wow.

You sound so...

Not you, but you kind of, you adjacent.

So talk about this.

How are you feeling about it?

Well, I'm genuine.

I want your view on this because, quite frankly, how I feel about it has changed dramatically.

I get between 10 and 30 emails a day from usually thoughtful young men, sometimes mothers, asking for mostly professional and career advice or sometimes investment advice.

You know, I'm 30.

Am I too old to go back to business school?

I have gotten into this school with a full ride, but the better school is not giving me money.

What should I do?

How do I ask for raise?

Those kinds of questions.

And they're usually really thoughtful young men who take a lot of time to write to me.

And I can't get back to all of them.

I can't get back to 1% of them.

And you feel bad.

You feel bad.

Yeah.

You don't know.

You don't want to do an automatic response.

You feel like you're ignoring them.

I'm constantly virtue signaling about trying to help young men.

And then some young man takes a ton of time.

I don't respond to people under the age of 18 because I think men should not have a

not for, you know, not for anything terrible, but parents should decide what the influences are

in terms of their kids' life.

Anyways, so about 18 months ago, we built a thin layer of innovation on top of an LLM and created Prof.AI.

And it answered about two or 300 questions a day.

We thought it was really cool.

And then about nine months ago, a woman who is one of my graduate student instructors at Stern, who is just so impressive.

I'd use her name, but I don't want to get her in trouble.

She's just an incredibly impressive, competent person came to me and said, we can do this, but much better.

At Google Labs, we're going to launch a series of thought leaders to answer questions.

There's no money involved.

So it's an AI masterclass, essentially, right?

Is that the so the idea is that people who want to answer questions and that you might get some benefit from understanding how they feel about things, but you don't have access to them.

And it's from Google Labs.

I felt sort of funny in the beginning about working with Alphabet, but I really trust this person and think a lot of her.

So they ingested all your things.

So they crawled every podcast, every newsletter, every public appearance, and created a visual of me.

And I actually think the voice is okay, such that you can ask this thing almost anything.

And we spent a lot of time on safeguards.

No one under 18, no advice around mental health.

But the reality is, in between the time when we started developing it nine months ago and now, Kara,

I have become increasingly freaked out about AI companions and synthetic relationships.

One,

I have a nightmare that I wake up and find out that some kid hurt himself and he had a series of AI relationships, including one with me.

I just don't, I would never want to read that.

Two, on a more or on a less mendacious level, I'm worried that if I created an ability to have a dialogue with me, that it might someday reduce a young man's motivation and mojo to establish mentorships in the real world.

With real,

with real a teacher, their dad's friend, their scout leader, whatever it is.

And so

the thing launched, I said to them, look, I'm increasingly uncomfortable with this.

I don't know how to reconcile it.

I worry that synthetic relationships are attacking what's mammalia about us, especially among young men.

So what happens to it?

So they ingested it.

Do you still have the rights to your things?

Like they just, you're lending it to them?

What is the situation?

So one thing I built in was that I can take it down at any time.

And what I said to them is I said, let's launch it for 12 hours and look at the data because I don't want this out there.

I'm just, and quite frankly, Kara, the interview you did with the parents who lost their son really rattled me.

And

I am increasingly uncomfortable with synthetic relationships doing anything that replace a young man's mojo to find relationships in the real world.

So let me ask you a sort of a bigger question.

Some of the stuff they're making with AI, to me, is solving problems that aren't that big, right?

I know you can't get to everybody, right?

And I get that.

I get that you want to reach out to more people and you want people to avail themselves to your wisdom, et cetera.

But it seems like a lot of this stuff they're making is not problems we have.

Like, you know, and I, and I, and I think it's hurting problems that we have with what you're just talking about is men, men especially making mentorship relationships kind of thing.

And so what are we solving here by doing this, except for you feel feel guilty about not being able to get back to all the young men?

Is it a real, is that the real biggest problem to use all this technology, all this effort?

I mean, do you see it as ever being a good thing, except maybe working out, I guess?

I guess it's just a better Google, right?

I think there's more upside.

I think if you're 85 and in a state or county seniors home and you've lost the capability to communicate and all your friends are dead and you've lost, for whatever reason, you're estranged from your family and you want to talk to someone about the Packers,

it's almost an age thing for me.

I think over 80, let character AI, let them have at it, because quite frankly, the downside's not that great.

Anyone under the age of 18 shouldn't be on a character AI.

And I have slowly but surely come to believe that these synthetic relationships have more downside than upside.

I would agree.

I would agree.

Let me just interject.

I just did an interview with Sherry Turkle, very famous MIT psychiatrist.

And she's done a lot on this has been talking about artificial relationships for a long time.

And sort of everything is now, what she had predicted, has come home to roost.

And one of the things she was noting is it used to be sort of an outlier people did these relationships.

She goes, now it's at the dead center.

She has friends who are having trouble with their husbands or wives that are having, you know, relationship problems, et cetera.

And they spin up their best gay friend to give them advice.

Right.

Except that what it does is, say, women have issues with men not listening to them or not being sensitive enough.

So now you got a sensitive man talking to you.

And men have issues.

And we aren't, folks.

And we have to, we all have to learn how to deal with them.

That's right.

So she was talking about, so, and men, like a very acquiescent female, which is why getting back to Tilly Norwood, she is exactly what Hollywood studios want, an actress who doesn't get old and doesn't act up, right?

Or doesn't start to demand things.

And so what Cherry was saying, the one thing that I thought was interesting, and I love your observations, is there's no there there.

It's not, there's nothing behind it except for stuff you inputted, right?

So you're not there, Scott, as Scott AI.

It's not you, really.

You know, I think you would react if someone asked you, a general question is one thing, but a more complex question, it just doesn't,

you, you shift and move as a person and this doesn't.

And there's no there there.

I don't think.

Well, okay.

So

I don't think, I don't think it's that there isn't a there there.

A repository of all

Peter Atti or Andrew Huberman's advice on creatine for women versus men, there's access, there's, there's, and these are neuroscientists who are thoughtful and I think fairly measured, there's value in having access to that put in sort of a narrative format.

I do think there's an upside.

However, however, I see the downside

is that,

and I'll be snarky here, women are constantly saying they want a more sensitive man.

Well, that just leaves two people in the car crying in a parallel parking spot that is still empty.

And that's snarky.

But here's the bottom line.

It's true.

I've been in that car.

The most rewarding things in life, hands down, come from navigating, figuring out shit, and then the victory

of doing really hard things.

And there's nothing harder than having relationships.

And that's what's so wonderful about them, right?

When you figure out a way to come together with someone and decide you want to have kids with them, when you figure out a way to get your kid off off screens and come to some sort of agreement, when you figure out the pecking order of high school and establish your crew and your friends, when you figure out

how to navigate all the bullshit and frustration and bureaucracy of work, the end is where mammalia, and that's what real fucking victory is.

So, what are you going to do with this thing?

Are you going to kill it?

This is where I am today.

I had them pull it down after 12 hours.

And by the way, Google Abs could not have been more cooperative,

empathetic.

You have a loud platform, but go ahead.

Yeah, but

they spent a lot of time on this and it launched yesterday.

And I'm just, and we were going to let it go for a little bit to look at the data.

And I looked at it and I thought, I'm just not down with this.

I just, I've got a bad feeling about this.

And I emailed.

I text messaged my friend there last night and she said, I'll pull it down right now.

All right.

Okay.

Well, that's what we're going to do.

Can you send it to me so I can hang out with you all the time?

Can I have it?

So you can yell at it.

Yell at it.

You know, here's the thing.

I don't like Scott AI.

I like Scott.

That's how I feel about it.

And I think it's a really, you know, the only thing I would think about years ago, Martha Stewart said she was going to start Marth AI.

Get it?

Put an I at the end of her name.

And I thought, okay, for stuff like that, like how to boil an egg, how to make mashed potatoes, that makes perfect sense.

Well, robo-advisors are basically synthetic

stockbrokers.

Right, exactly.

And those make those kind of things, cooking tips, things like that make sense.

Although I do like a good chef talking about cooking.

I just, I think you made the right decision.

I think you made the decision.

I find most life lessons come from Twilight Zone, the old series, which, by the way, is the first time I ever saw Robert Redford was in the Twilight Zone.

But remember that episode where this guy, this criminal, is shot and he goes to heaven and he's in heaven and every woman he approaches says yes and wants to date him and when he goes up to the blackjack table it's blackjack every time

and he there's huge lines to get into the hottest restaurants and they're like right in this way sir and he starts getting sick of winning all the time and he says he says come on guys this is supposed to be heaven and the guy turns and goes my brother this is not heaven

That's the point.

I love Twilight Zone.

That's the point.

Yeah.

The greatest yeses in your life involve one thing: a shit ton of no's.

Yeah.

That's the whole shooting.

Could they make Scott AI be more of an asshole?

Like, so that it was more like regular life.

I'm getting there organically.

I'm getting there.

That's what they have to do.

Like, oh, what?

I'm telling Dick joke suddenly.

Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break now.

And when we get back, we'll talk about Heg Seth declaring the military free from wokeness and body-shaming generals.

Support for Pivot comes from LinkedIn Jobs.

As a small business owner, your work hours aren't dictated by the hands on a clock.

Your business is on your mind 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

So when you're hiring, you need a partner that works just as hard as you do.

That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs.

When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in by making it easy to post your job, share it with your network, and qualify candidates that you can manage all in one place.

LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and quickly get your job job in front of the right people with deep candidate insights.

Either post your job for free or pay to promote as promoted jobs get three times more qualified applicants.

At the end of the day, LinkedIn wants you to feel confident that you're getting the best because the most important thing to your small business is the quality of candidates.

And based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small business owners using LinkedIn say that the platform helps them find high-quality candidates.

Plus, you can let your network know you're hiring by adding the hashtag hiring frame to your profile picture to get two times more qualified candidates.

Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today.

Find your next grade hire on LinkedIn.

Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash pivot.

That's linkedin.com slash pivot to post your job for free.

Terms and conditions apply.

I need a job with a steady paycheck.

I need a job that offers health care on day one for me and my kids.

I want a job where I can get certified in technical roles, like robotics or software engineering.

In communities across the country, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $23 an hour with opportunities to grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs and apprenticeships.

Learn more at aboutamazon.com.

Oh, the car from Carvana's here.

Well, will you look at that?

It's exactly what I ordered.

Like, precisely.

It would be crazy if there were any catches.

But there aren't, right?

Right.

Because that's how car buying should be.

With Carvana, you get the car you want.

Choose delivery or pickup and a week to love it or return it.

Buy your car today with Carvana.

Delivery or pickup fees may apply.

Limitations and exclusions may apply.

See our seven-day return policy at carvana.com.

Scott, we're back with more news.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegg says held nothing back while addressing senior military officials in Virginia this week.

Let's listen to some of his, and I have to say, it was a crazy rant by someone who has moved on to other substances, it felt like.

Go ahead.

If the Secretary of War can do regular hard PT,

so can every member of our joint force.

Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops.

Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world.

It's a bad look.

It is bad, and it's not who we are.

Trump followed the sentiment.

Let's listen to a clip, someone who happens to be actually fat.

Go ahead.

If you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room.

Of course, there goes your rank.

There goes your future.

Uh-huh.

That was one of the few laughs.

The generals looked horrified by the entire thing.

The president also suggested military use, quote, dangerous U.S.

cities as, quote, training grounds and told reporters of the White House that he would fire generals on the spot if he didn't like them.

Wow, that was a real disaster.

I have to say,

the visuals from the military leadership were sort of set at all.

And of course, they leaked the hell out of the thing.

Also, Hegset's focus on looks and outfits.

They were expecting a strategic discussion about U.S.

military forces in the world.

Instead, they got a rant by someone who was a lower-ranking person and someone who was a five-time draft dodger about how to run the military, but focused only on looks, essentially.

Let me tell you one other thing someone else told me was that the reason he did this, and it was all from Hegseth, because he is considering a presidential run, which I thought was insane when I heard it.

And that people, other forces who are not so keen on Pete Hegseth running for president and think it's ridiculous, got Trump to go to try to ruin his mojo there.

I thought it was hugely embarrassing

for everybody, especially the military, which had to sit there and put up with it.

Any quick thoughts?

There has never been, possibly in history, a room with more competence, bravery,

honor, humility in one room than there was in that room.

It was a security risk to have them in one place.

You don't think there was GRU and CCP taking photographs and saying, these are the most,

let's find what devices are on, what algorithms are on, their kids, their movements.

That was just a stupid security risk.

And for a guy who was,

I mean, first off, I'm very into fitness.

There is no

to hold a general who served honorably, probably in Vietnam as an 18-year-old who

has overseen combat.

Okay, Pete, I want to see what you look like at 65.

I mean, the notion that he has any license being demeaning to that room is literally is laughable.

And all of this bullshit around,

you know, I get it.

Beards, whatever.

That's supposed to attack, especially men of color.

Some men have issues with

shaving, but go ahead.

It's so performative.

so it's so stupid.

It doesn't result.

It makes us weaker.

And you have you're you're talking to the he's a fuck, he was a major, which means if he had been much better and spent another 20 years in the armed services, he might have been able to pack the bags for the people who ended up in that room.

To lecture these people on leadership and what they need to do to.

It wasn't even on strategy.

It wasn't on our position in the world.

It isn't, you know, if he had said, now we're going to be this, instead, it's all performative.

The other part is him talking to them about being individualistic.

This guy, there's not more of a fop in that cabinet than this guy.

He's got funny socks.

He's got weird things on the inside of his jackets.

He's got tattoos.

He wears the stupid glasses.

This guy is one.

Speaking of individualistic, this guy just relishes in it.

And to act like he's some like paradigm is kind of fucking ridiculous.

He's such a ridiculous performative clown.

And the fact that he's thinking of running for president, I mean, oh my, and this was what he was using this.

He was wasting tax spare money to give himself a shine up and he ended up looking like a clown.

The two features that just are always present in a room of leadership from our armed services are one, competence.

These people are literally charged with deploying lethal force in a thoughtful way, and they're responsible for a ton of young men and women's well-being as it intersects with some of the most complicated supply chain, technology, geopolitics in the world.

And these people figure out a way to do it.

From a young age,

one of my roommates was Rotzi.

I'm 24 doing fucking PowerPoint decks talking about taking over some

refrigeration company in Wisconsin.

And my friend was commanding 1,219-year-olds.

I mean, these these people,

they, one, demonstrate competence.

And then the second key feature, which these people do not demonstrate in any fashion on stage, is humility.

They don't brag.

They don't, they, they don't,

you know, and the other thing that the armed services represents, and it's not to say it hasn't had its problems around racism, but it's been an enormous means of lifting up people based on character.

and competence.

There's nothing that, there's nothing that melts away racism and homophobia like being in a foxhole where both of your lives are under threat.

All you care about is the competence and the character of the man or the woman next to you.

You're not thinking, well, I don't like Puerto Ricans.

And so the armed services have been an amazing means of creating equality and progressive advancement.

And then when you have these guys up there with this sort of like this, you need to be fit and you can't have beards.

They bring up, you know, I said fat boy and little man bombed, right?

And misogynistic.

I do, I got to be honest.

I do agree with one thing.

I think in combat, the standard should be gender neutral.

I think if you're applying to be in a combat position, you have to qualify

by being able to drag somebody 90 feet if they're wounded.

I get that.

But the reality is today's combat is more about, it's like, I think I would bet less than 2%

of our armed services.

And you know who are also warriors?

The man or the woman that agrees to get in the driver's seat and drive a fucking fuel tank across a highway of IEDs.

I mean, that's correct.

I mean, the whole thing is, it was such an embarrassment.

And listen, President Pete, you're not going to be the Pete that's president.

It'll be, it'll be Buddha judge.

Oh, let's hope he's the Republican nominee.

Let's pray that he's the Republican nominee.

If he runs for president on the Republican side, I will donate money to his campaign because that means the next president is going to be a Democrat.

Literally, he makes Sarah Palin look smart.

It was just such a disaster for you, Pete.

And you got totally, they shoved other people who don't agree that you should get this little

fancy shine up shoved.

There was a whole machination happening among Republicans on how Trump ended up there.

Who also, by the way, when he said cities should be used as training grounds, that is dangerous and scary and ridiculous.

And I'm sure those military people all thought that.

Just as long as he doesn't use the N-word.

Oh, I know.

Yeah, don't use it.

Oh, God.

YouTube, lastly, YouTube will settle a lawsuit over banning President Trump's account for over $24 million.

YouTube banned Trump's account in 2021 after January 6th and reinstated it later.

The settlement funds will go to building the new White House ballroom.

It's so ridiculous.

As a reminder, other big tech companies have done the same with similar lawsuits with Meta settling for $25 million and X settling for $10 million.

Oh, God, why are they selling?

They did nothing wrong at the time.

It was very dangerous.

Then they reinstated.

It was the right decision at the moment.

They shouldn't be paying off these bribes.

That's what they are.

They're bribes.

I don't know.

Your thoughts?

Yeah, I keep waiting for someone just to hold the line and say no.

I mean, all it means is

they're going to come back again.

You're setting a really terrible precedent.

I don't,

I mean, these companies are the same companies that fight people tooth and nail when their 15-year-old gets

is served content that encourages suicidal ideation and self-harm.

They'll go to the mat for that shit.

But when it comes to the president being butthurt about something that was said, they'll they'll settle for tens of millions of dollars.

Ridiculous.

They look like such toadies.

They look like toadies, these unctuous right down to Sindar Pichai.

I like Sindar Pichai, but Sindar, you're an embarrassment at this moment to me.

I have to say, I've known you for many years, and I know you don't care what I think, but ugh, just really.

I get your little problem.

You should have held out.

You'd have looked smarter.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for predictions.

Not all journalism is the same.

Take The Guardian.

Our coverage has something unique, fierce independence.

Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say, so we're free to report the whole picture.

We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe, expose corruption wherever we find it, and give fresh perspective on everything-from wellness and soccer to culture, the climate, and more.

Read, watch, and listen to The Guardian for free at theguardian.com.

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start?

Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to.

Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is?

With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro.

You just have to hire one.

You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app.

Download today.

Support for the show comes from the Match Insights app, powered by Microsoft Copilot.

The best tennis happens when world-class athletes are playing at the highest level.

That's why competitors at this year's Billie Gene King Cup by Gamebridge are using Microsoft to enhance their gameplay.

Match Insights AI-powered analytics give actionable feedback on every serve, return, coverage, hit point, and so much more.

So players can adjust their strategy in real time and find new ways to win.

See how the Match Insights app, powered by Microsoft Copilot, is changing the game and this tournament at microsoft.com/slash BJK Cup.

Okay, Scott, let's hear that prediction.

I'm curious who you think is going private.

How interesting.

What's a fallen angel?

Well, we talked about this.

My picks were, and this isn't my prediction, but there's just some really big iconic companies that have a lot of IP and revenue that probably should be either acquired or taken private.

My favorites were Boeing Intel and Target.

But I think

you are about to see, and we predicted this.

By the way, our prediction at the end of beginning of this year was that MA was about to boom again.

And it was in a deep thaw at the beginning of the year.

What did the investment banks announce?

Record M ⁇ A.

The universe of companies that Palantir can potentially acquire right now has gone up a thousand X.

Yeah.

If you don't do it, you're stupid, right?

Their banker can show up.

Well, when you're trading at 100 times revenues, anything you acquire that's trading at less than 100 times revenues, which is every company on the planet, is accretive to your earnings.

The way I would describe it is: if your stock doubles, then effectively everything else has become 50% less expensive.

And I think we're going to see a titanic acquisition

or merger from Netflix.

I think there are so many existential threats, clouds forming around Netflix right now with some of this.

I mean, Sam Altman putting out these

kind of AI-driven videos and saying it's so you can communicate with your friends and family.

That is a lie.

He's doing this and trying to pretend it's friendly such that every Hollywood producer starts going, Jesus Christ, why can't we start producing films for 3 million instead of 300 million?

So I think there's some real existential threats to a stock that is now worth, you know, I don't know, 440 billion.

That stock,

by the way, one of my great investments, I bought Netflix at

$12 a share.

It's now at $1,146.

The part of the story I left out is I sold it at $10 a share to take the tax loss and never bought back in.

But basically, Netflix now has

almost a half a trillion dollar market cap.

And I think they face some real threats.

We need to do something.

Well, the merger, the gangster merger of the ages would be the following.

Netflix and Disney.

Because

look at,

it's very synergistic.

Oh, and then Ted could run Disney.

How fantastic.

Ding, ding, ding, ding.

So there's this co-CEO, this guy named Greg Peters.

I saw him speak at Canon and I thought, Jesus Christ, this guy is so bright.

He is bright.

So is Bella.

By the way, let me note a woman who's at the top of that business, Bella Bajaria, is doing all the programming.

Amazing.

They have an outstanding, and then Ted Sarandos

is like built in a factory of lesser, from parts of lesser CEOs.

He is so good.

I saw him on stage recently and they asked him these really pointed questions.

Yeah, I like Ted.

Well, first off, he has the primary competence of any great CEO, and that is he has outstanding hair.

Yeah, he has good hair.

He has very good hair.

It's good with talent.

Good with talent, smart.

Not afraid of anybody.

Any question, he handles it.

The guy literally reeks of aplome.

Anyway, a plume.

You're a plume.

Disney.

Disney's leadership right now is Neville Chamberlain in a cashmere sweater minus the dignity, right?

That's their.

And who the fuck?

And then the number two is a woman who's gotten dragged down by the Kimmel shit.

They are desperate for leadership.

What does Disney have that is absolutely singular and can't be threatened by open AI?

It has the parks and cruise lines, but the IP at the parks, Cinderella and Darth Vader, are getting

hired.

put stranger things in there.

Stranger Things, Wednesday.

Can you imagine a Stranger Things ride at Disney?

Amazing.

Hunting Wives, the whole lesbian ride for me.

The streaming market, you have Netflix and Disney.

It's over.

Hulu's in there.

Remember.

You have Disney Network.

Social Geographic is in there.

It's over.

Over.

I love it.

It would give them such heads.

They would own place-based entertainment and they would own streaming media.

They would own cruises parks and also netflix is going into live events too also comedy comedy they don't comedy it solves it solves their leadership problem yeah this would be anyways uh 220 210 billion or 200 billion disney 450 billion netflix netflix would own call it 70 of the combined companies this would be the first trillion dollar pure play entertainment will it get passed by by well that's the thing it might now it might now yeah or might is they can't if there's a debt they couldn't have done it seven months ago ted's pretty democratic remember ted's pretty like down democratic highway so but my point is as soon as there's under biden it couldn't happen and if there's another democratic administration it won't be allowed to happen this is the window let me add something to your deal snapchat snaps snaps probably more trouble than it's worth not really it's like a great system they can shove all kinds of shit on it like why not own it like the way allison owns tick tock because it's kids and it's it's...

It is.

So is Disney.

No, but there's not a feature.

There's not a feature.

Put it on your, on your, in your saucepan.

There's not a feature on Disney channel that lets you see people around you, the drug users, the drug dealers are using.

People don't go on the Matterhorn and start self-cutting.

Snap is.

Snap has got real issues.

I don't think they want near it.

I don't think Ted Surround Us would want anywhere near Snap.

All right.

I'm just saying they'll get a social platform too.

Think about Tesla and Snapchat.

Okay.

That was a great prediction.

This feels like your Whole Foods one.

I like it.

I love it.

And I think it has to happen.

I'm going to tell Ted to do it.

Okay.

We want to hear from you.

Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever is on your mind.

Go to nymag.com/slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

And don't forget, we're going on tour.

We'll be coming to Toronto, Boston, New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, and LA.

Because we hate Arizona.

We hate Arizona.

We don't.

We love Arizona.

We'll go there sometime.

But anyway, we're very excited to see the fans.

We are going to be there for you.

We're going to try to put on our best show.

We're going to dress up.

Scott's going to do a strip tease.

I have some surprises for Scott that he doesn't know about.

You know it.

Visit pivottour.com for tickets.

Anyway, before we go, I just want to mention legendary conservationist Jane Goodall, who died this week at age 91.

I had the opportunity to speak to her back in 2020.

Let's listen to a brief portion of that interview.

I will never ever believe that the way for change is confrontation and aggression because people change when you reach the heart.

And so, you know, when people ask me what do you do when you meet somebody who's behaving in a way that you really dislike or something,

try and find a connection.

Maybe they have a dog or a cat or a horse or a child or something.

Just for one minute, if you have a short time to talk to them and vent stories tell stories

oh what a what an amazing woman what an amazing life

what an amazing life be jane goodall everybody she just was i love that interview it was fantastic anyway scott by the way you've been fantastic today i don't know what's in your weedies but very fine

lots lots of stuff you're not jane goodall but you're on your way and and and again send me scott ai because i'm gonna i'm gonna have some times with him Okay, that's the show.

Thanks for listening to Pivot and be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel.

We'll be back next week.

One special thing, Clara Joe Swisher Cats.

Happy sixth birthday this weekend.

We're very excited to have a fantastic mermaid party.

Nice.

And now, read us out.

Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher.

Ernie Intertod engineered this episode.

Jim Mackle edited the video.

Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Ms.

Severo, Dan Shallan, and Annika Robbins.

Nishak Kuruz, Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts.

Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform.

Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine Vox Media.

You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/slash pod.

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

Have a great weekend.

Adobe Acrobat Studio, so brand new.

Show me all the things PDFs can do.

Do your work with ease and speed.

PDF spaces is all you need.

Do hours of research in an instant.

With key insights from an AI assistant.

Pick a template with a click.

Now your prezzo looks super slick.

Close that deal, yeah, you won.

Do that, doing that, did that, done.

Now you can do that, do that, with Acrobat.

Now you can do that, do that.

With the all-new Acrobat.

It's time to do your best work with the all-new Adobe Acrobat Studio.