Holiday Spending Surge, Fed Chair Future, and Melania's Production Company

Support for the show comes from BetterHelp. The holidays are a time of traditions, but it's also a time to reflect on what traditions mean to you.

BetterHelp can ensure you take time for yourself during what can be a very joyful but sometimes hectic and lonely time of the year.

BetterHelp does the initial matching work to find the right therapist for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences.

This December start a new tradition by taking care of you. Our listeners get 10% off at betterhelp.com/slash pivot.
That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P.com/slash pivot.

This episode is brought to you by OnInvesting, an original podcast from Charles Schwab.

I'm Kathy Jones, Schwab's chief fixed income strategist, and I'm Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist.

Between us, we have decades of experience studying the indicators that drive the economy and how they can have a direct impact on your investments.

We know that investors have a lot of questions about the markets and the economy, and we're here to help.

So download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/slash on investing or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support for this show comes from MongoDB. You're a developer who wants to innovate.
Instead, you're stuck fixing bottlenecks and fighting legacy code. MongoDB can help.

It's a flexible unified platform that's built for developers by developers. MongoDB is ACID compliant, enterprise ready, with the capabilities you need to ship AI apps fast.

That's why so many of the Fortune 500 trust MongoDB with their most critical workloads. Ready to think outside, rows and columns? Start building at Mongodb.com slash build.

Okay, I want to be clear. I think we're all for sale to a certain extent.
I don't begrudge her. I've done worse things for a lot less money than sleep with Donald Trump.

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway.
Scott, how was your Thanksgiving?

I saw a beautiful picture with you and your sons. Oh, isn't that nice?

Yeah, it was.

you know, the highlight of it was

my

oldest brought two friends from boarding school home. Oh.

And they say that from about British folk? Yeah, both

British kids. And they say that the key indicator of your son's outcome is

his peer group from a certain point on.

And it just made me feel so good about his prospects. These kids are just such good kids.

You know, you want to say impressive kids and all that, one's implying, or got a review at Cambridge, but they're both just like lovely, nice men. So there wasn't any like rich kid loosh thing,

you know, British rich kid thing.

Oh, they had to sneak out to go score ketamine. Right, of course.

But other than that,

and you know, and they yelled at the help. Oh, good.
But other than that, they were really, I'm kidding about all of this. I understand.

Really lovely young men, and it made me feel much more

safe and less worried about myself. Good, good.
And they have not done Thanksgiving, right? That's not a thing they do in the, in the pilgrimage. It's not a British thing.

So they were excited to come home. And

it was, yeah, it was, it was really nice. How was your favorite? Did you make them act out the pilgrim, the ridiculous pilgrim stuff? You know me in American history.
I just am such a

I didn't know it was Thanksgiving until Wednesday night when my calendar the next day. Do you have any preparation, do you? You don't do any.
Why would I? Comparative advantage.

What do you mean comparatively? Daddy does one thing. He pays the freaking bills.
Daddy is the nuclear reactor. Maybe not make it a side dish.
I didn't do anything either. What am I talking about?

Don't describe Amanda as a side dish. I mean, she's good looking.

Her mom does it all. Her mom and her dad.
Oh, you had it at the in-laws? Yes. We went up to Boston.
But first, I got to see the boys, and we had a lovely family dinner, the four kids. They look great.

They look great. And I worked out with Alex and hung out with Louie and stuff like that.
And

then we went up to Boston, which was fun.

The cats has put on a good Thanksgiving, I have to say.

Yeah, Amanda strikes me as someone who has well-adjusted parents. Indeed.
There were seven pies, which was nice.

And I got a special pumpkin pie because I like pumpkin and they never made it, but they made me one, which was very nice. I almost cried.
Yeah. It was delicious.
That's nice. That's nice.

And what do you got going on this week?

Oh, lots of things. Gosh, I've got to do just, I'm going to do something interesting.
There's this 100th anniversary of the New Yorker, and I'm interviewing.

I like the New Yorker. Oh, God.
You're not, I'm saying at your place, by the way. They wrote a critical review of my book.
So I am canceling the subscription.

Documentary by, I think it's Judd Appetow did the documentary, and it's on Netflix. And they asked me to come and interview them at the event.
So I'm going to do that for my friend David Rudnick.

I love the New Yorker. I think it's done a great job over the many years.
I didn't know it was still around. Oh, my God.
It's really successful, actually. It's one of those, like Wired.

Yes, it's doing just fine. Cutting asked, not all of it is, but Wired's doing great.
And New Yorker's doing great. And Vogue to an extent.
I'm just saying it still puts out quality, quality work.

And then what else am I doing? I'm just here. I don't have to travel, Scott, which except for that, just a trip to New York is super easy.
But I'm coming up and coming back. But I'm here.

I'm going to Christmas parties. I'm very excited to be home.
What's the hottest inviting Christmas parties in DC? Oh, I don't know. I don't.
We're going to friends. Matt Gates.

I bet he throws a good party.

I don't think he's still here. I think he's trolling little girls down in Florida.
I'm not a big party goer, Scott. I told you, I'm not very social.

I'm not like you. I'm not very, I don't like parties that much.
I like small gatherings. That's what I like.
Anyway, Thanksgiving was great. I'm looking forward.
My birthday's coming up, obviously.

You're preparing to buy me a present.

Very excited about that. Yeah.

Otherwise, I'm just here. I'm very excited to be in Washington.
But Thanksgiving was nice.

I like Thanksgiving. I think it's one of my favorite holidays.
Anyway, we have a lot to get to today. There's so much.
And speaking of, like, the news didn't friggin stop all weekend.

It was kind of crazy.

And a lot of it really quite grotesque, including the double bombing of people. You know, you bomb someone and then you go rescue them after you bomb them.
But we'll get to that.

We've got a lot to get today, including tech stocks are still on this crazy roller coaster. We're going to talk about consumer spending because it's something you've talked a lot about.

But those numbers are starting to come in. And then Trump's AIs are David Sachs reaping his White House benefits.
Of course, he's losing his mind because it's a mild criticism of his

inbredness.

But first, shoppers turned out in force, as we said for Black Friday spending, both record-breaking amount both online and in stores.

Online spending alone hit $11.8 billion, up about 9% from last year, and overall sales were up around 4%, which isn't enormous.

A lot of the growth is just inflation, though, not people going wild with their wallets. People actually bought fewer things.
Order volumes dropped 1%. Prices jumped 7%.

Another twist, which, Scott, you talked about all the time. Higher income shoppers are spending like usual, but middle and lower-income families are pulling back.

Retailers are somewhat optimistic about the holiday season overall, with sales expected to top a trillion dollars for the first time ever. Again, inflation.

You know, you could talk about this. If the rich people pull back, that's a real problem.
But obviously, middle and lower-income families are feeling the pinch from inflation.

And so they're buying, as Trump said, you don't need so many dolls. And apparently, they are not buying so many dolls.

And then there's the tariffs, et cetera. Talk about this.
About, you know, you ran a retail business, an online retail business. What does this mean? What do you think is happening here?

Well, there's a lot there. The reason why,

I mean, in addition to the kind of moral problem or societal problem of having the top 10% responsible for 50% of the consumer economy, what that says about our economy

is that it makes the economy more fragile because

60, 70, 80%

of

spend from a middle-class household, probably closer to 90 percent, are things they can't adjust up or down.

They're going to have to figure out a way either on credit or to get a second job to maintain, to continue to pay to their mortgage or for groceries. Whereas

when

Oracle, I mean, Oracle's off, I figure what it's off, like 24%.

It's down, excuse me, it's down 22% in the last 30 days. The markets are still rocky again as we tape the S ⁇ P 500, the NASDAQ down, all down.

Palantir was down 16 in november its worst month since august 2023 nvidia ended november down 12 oracle fell 28 last month market sale analysts are warning that oracle's credit conditions could worsen next year you think so put that all in there because that's the that's the the big spenders presumably right the consumer confidence for for the top 10 is based on the most damaging metrics ever invented for western society and that's the s p and the nasdaq because

more more indicative or fruitful metrics would be like self-harm or suicide or body mass index or what Bhutan does, a happiness index, whatever it might be, or divorce, things that actually drive purpose and meaning.

And wealthy households will buy

based on a number. They look at the value of their stock market portfolio.

And when it's really high, they feel comfortable going to Van Cleef and Arpels and giving money away to nonprofits and spending money on nicer vacations, whatever it might be, buying another car.

And the thing about wealthy people that makes this economy less

more fragile or less robust is that if Palantir goes down 80%,

which it easily could, easily, and if Oracle went down 60%, which the above easily could, and NVIDIA went down 70%, which it easily could,

what the top 10% are capable of doing, which the bottom 90 90 are not, is the top 10%

on a dime could cut their discretionary spending by 70%.

Right. Will they, though? Will they feel not as jolly or what?

Yeah,

you can correlate fractional jet ownership and inquiries to the stock market.

You can correlate the amount of inbound. I've done the analysis.
My speaking inbounds, well, I track very closely. I love data, the number of inbound inquiries I get for speaking gigs.

I've created, I've tried to create artificial scarcity around my speaking. The sexiest word in the English language is no.
I don't like to travel. So I charge crazy fucking rates.
That's my rate.

Crazy. I hear it for people when I go speak for lesser amounts, but go ahead.
When I, my rating, my price card is crazy or free.

And

I can correlate the number of inquiries I get to the stock market. Because when Salesforce,

when I'm speaking at an investment bank's annual gathering, MA is way up. And all of a sudden, these niche investment banks are asking me to come speak.
Why? Because they're making record fees.

So when all of a sudden, and that's the dangerous thing about an economy relying on the top 10%, it's not only morally problematic, it makes it very fragile because they can take spending down on a dime.

And if you take the top 10% out, the economy is basically flat. And then if you add an inflation, you could make an argument that spending is down.

Now, in terms of attributes that I think are a little bit more interesting about or are interesting about this Black Friday, one,

AI did play a role. Kind of these AI tools and bots were responsible for,

I think they think that about 10%

or a 10% increase was due to AI tools.

And that, so in-store sales were basically flat. They were just up 1%.
Online was up 10%.

Right.

But also, AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail stores soared 800% or 9X.
So AI is starting to creep into retail.

The stat that people aren't talking about that I think is really important and, quite frankly, very upsetting and a negative forward-looking indicator is that

buy now pay later usage surged on Black Friday, and it's up 9% overall. With young people or everybody? Young people.
41% of shoppers aged

16 to 24 use buy now pay later.

and millennial millennials get this increase their usage 87 percent

compared to 2024 even 38 of people making over 100k are now using buy now pay later yeah we hate those we hate by the way just for listeners we hate buy now pay later we think it's and you can't infantilize people they get to use their own credit you know people get to decide if they want to use credit or not but the thing i hate about the positioning of these things is they somehow frame it as innovation and that it's not actual debt it's it's a new culture.

Young people don't want to get caught in a debt. It's debt.
It's usury. It's debt.

I agree.

And if you don't pay it back, I mean, the innovation is they take the initial VIG, the initial interest rate from the retailer because what happens is I was on the board of Urban Outfitters and the initial buy now pay later guys came to us and said, Let us do this.

We offer people automatic credit. They're checking out and say, would you like an additional $100, $200 in purchasing power? And someone's headed to Go Chelsea.
Yeah.

And they go back and they fill up their basket. And we pay the fees.
Urban Outfitters pays a small portion of that incremental purchase back to the BM.

It's a great business model, except all you're really doing is tapping into the urgency, the need for now.

Right. And a lot of these kids end up, a lot of young people end up in debt.
I don't know what to do about it because you can't infantilize young people and I need the right tools.

Except that it makes it, it's sort of like the subprime mortgage.

Of course, you can buy a, I was seeing bits and pieces of that movie that it was based on because I wanted to go back because of the the situation the big short the big short michael bury is in the news obviously and i i have to say like the people who are selling of course they can't afford it just load them up like i i it's not in infantilizing people to say you're not credit worthy you're just not right and to give people sort of these long lead

i don't know i think it's usury i think it takes advantage of them and it makes it feel like it's free and therefore it it spurs spending like you said like go in and get more i i just don't it's they can't can't pay back.

And then we're stuck in sort of this credit squeeze. And then the retailers will be eventually, or whoever's holding these loans.

And it just go, it just iterates through the system that we're encouraging like ridiculous spending well beyond people's ability to buy. I was in a store and they were pushing on me.

I'm like, I'm taking your shitty like buy now pay later. Like, I don't need to.
And I'm not going to.

So let me let we're going to move on to another important story, but what do you imagine is where spending is going to end up in December down?

What does it depend on, really briefly?

Tell me where the market's going to be in December. Okay.

Even up to Christmas. Yeah, you're right.
It'll

be a lot of people. The media is obsessed with the metrics around the market.
And if

stocks and AI stocks hold on, I think you're going to see more spending. And also these,

this is why I was talking to a kid today who's negotiating a new job. This is why options and equity is where you want to negotiate around salary if you're working for a big company because

you're up against godlike technology to try and sequester you from your relationships and take figure out the exact right offer at the exact right moment to take every conceivable dollar and all your debt capacity from you and i want to be clear up until the age of 35 or 40 i spent everything that came through my hands i just oh

I have a, I could, well, you know, at the exact right moment, oh, just for $80 more, you can upgrade to business class.

Oh, why not a pair of bomba socks with these new pairs? I mean, it is just impossible. It is so difficult to have the discipline to save money.
So, what you want is you want forced savings. Yeah.

And equity, or some to a certain extent, housing. The reason why housing has built so much wealth is not because it's outperformed other asset classes, but because it's a form of forced savings.
Yeah.

That's why 401k, tax-advantaged vehicles.

But basically, if people feel if the stock market keeps going up or it recovers, and especially with AI stocks, that's what, and then AI will come in with great offers.

And I think it's going to be an AI Christmas. Everyone's going to be talking about how much traffic AI drove.
Yeah. And I think you're going to see luxury brands continue to do better and better.

But tell me what, if the week before, I mean, this is a dirty secret of retail. I was starting a company called Red Envelope.

About 46 weeks a year, we lose money. And then for six weeks, we print it.

Basically, from a week before Thanksgiving to New Year's, full price, fluttering women's inbox, full margin, and you just print,

print money. So this is really kind of very, very important to

retail. But I think that, I mean, Amazon saying that headphones that were $300 are now on sale today for $2.99, I wouldn't call is really courageous.
And what I'm hoping.

For me, I kept going, browsing all these sites who were offering emotional stability on on sale. That's the Black Friday I need care of.

So, speaking of stability, Donald Trump says he's made his pick for the next Fed chair, though he's not sharing a name yet. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett,

probably the most excellent suck up I've ever seen, is a rumored frontrunner with several current and former Fed governors, also in the mix.

Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, who previously said he didn't want the job, said last week that Trump could announce the nominee before Christmas.

All of this is happening as the Fed prepares to meet later this month for a closely watched interest rate decision, which people aren't really sure about. Two things.

I think Hassett is like literally, and so many economists I talk to have always thought he was smart. Now are like, what happened to Hassett, essentially?

And of course, he sucks up continually and I would say lies on on the air quite a bit about where inflation is and numbers.

Like he did one about gas prices, none of which was factual and he had to be fact checked on in real time. And he just kept smiling like an idiot throughout the whole thing.

Do you have a someone, you have a bajark horse, do you think? And then what do you think they'll cut rates in in their, and when they meet later this month?

Yeah, I mean, it's not going to consider the people I'd want.

I'd want something like Austin Goldsby or

Justin Woofers.

I'd like,

I think Janet Yellen was fantastic.

I want someone who's just a total fucking wonk and sits by the fire with their Labrador and just looks through data all day long. That's not happening.
We could do a lot worse than this guy.

He's known for writing a book that could not have been more wrong. He tried to predict the market.

And

that's a difficult thing. We could do worse.
He wrote a book that was completely wrong. Okay.
I know, but he does. Okay.

He is an economist in the research and statistics department in 1992. He did serve in the Treasury Department under Clinton and Bush.
He's not a dumb man.

People think he's lost his mind. Every economist I talked to liked him and now does not like him.

Let me be clear: not my pick. It could be worse.

I just wouldn't have put it past.

And that's where we are. Yeah, exactly.
I wouldn't have put it past him to appoint Don Jr. I mean,

he would get fired. Anyways, I don't, this is not who I would have picked.
I would have re-nominated Chairman Powell. I would have said, hey, you can leave anytime.

Will you do this for another three or four years? He's not listening to me. But I actually, when I first saw this, I thought, yeah, not ideal.
Could be a lot worse. All right.

Any other names you think? Just all of it out of the blue? Could be Don Jr. You're 100% right.

At this point, if he had a pet, it could be his pet. That's where we are.
I actually have a pet.

If someone had said, guess who it's going to

be, I would have thought it would have been Besant.

Another thirsty person who's lost his reputation. Again, you're asking me who I thought he was going to appoint, not who I think he should appoint.

But yeah, I don't. I thought it was Hassan.
He's been all over the airwaves, and that's what Trump likes, right? He's been all over the, he can't shut his.

I mean, Kevin Wars, he's a former Fed governor, Christopher Waller. The thing about Trump is he does take, he clearly doesn't take national defense seriously.

He clearly doesn't take the health of America seriously. The Department of Education, he just thinks is a joke.
Yeah. He thinks it's a joke.

And he's almost a joke. He's almost angry at it.
And he puts a woman in charge who, when asked about AI, describes it as A1. She thinks it's steak sauce.
Yeah.

But around the economy,

he at least appears to acknowledge the person has to have at least taken statistics in high school.

He will appoint an economist. He should have been Jamie Diamond in the job, not that he would take it.
I don't think Jamie's that wonky.

I think Jamie would be a good Treasury Secretary, but not Chairman. President.

He wants to be president. Yeah, I think Jamie, I wouldn't say that.
He's all over the place. Speaking of all over the place,

you know, he's going to an opening of a door.

Anyway,

we'll see. He won't come on our pod, though.
I keep having bitterness.

He won't come on mine. I had a chief economist on really.
We had a very testy dinner. So he doesn't.
Are you and Jamie? Yeah. I think he's really smart.
Oh, he's very smart. He's a great one.

He reminded me about China. He was lecturing me about China and the internet

not having it. I was just like, no.
His chief economist, Michael Simbliss, is really impressive. He kept saying they were copycats.

I'm like, they are to an extent, but they're actually getting very innovative. This was years ago.
That's a key to economic growth. What do you think we did? That's what I said.

We stole textile manufacturing technology from Europe. And then we got innovative.
We kidnapped their artisans to build up and down the eastern seaboard factories.

Yeah, but then we did something with it, right? And I said, I think there's a lot of innovation. This was years ago.

I said, in cars, in all kinds of areas, like in manufacturing, and we just got into it. It was very funny.

He's not used to being disagreed with. That's all I'd say.

I like him. I'm impressed.
Very impressed by him. I'm impressed by him.
He just won't do an interview with me.

But he won't do it with us either. I've invited him on.

David Solomon's coming on Prop Prop Tree. Oh, he's a fun guy.
We've got him. He's good.
He's smart. He's a fun guy.
He really is. Anyway,

we'll see what happens. We think it's going to be

the best suck up, which is Kevin Hassett, who's not the worst choice. It's not Don Jr.
That's how we say it. It's not Don Jr.

Wouldn't it be funny if they gave it to Baron? All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back.
How David Zach is benefiting as White House AIs are.

So you're telling me that the AI that's meant to make everyone's job easier to manage just adds more to manage on top of the thousands of apps the IT department already manages.

Funny how that works.

Any business can add AI. IBM helps you scale and manage AI to change how you do business.
Let's create Smarter Business, IBM.

Support for the show comes from Sachs Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to holiday your way.

Whether it's finding the right gift or the right outfit, Saks is where you can find everything from a stunning David Yerman bracelet for her or a sleek pair of ferragama loafers to wear to a fancy holiday dinner.

And if you don't know where to start, Saks.com is customized to your personal style so you can save time shopping and spend more time just enjoying the holidays.

Make shopping fun and easy this season, and find gifts and inspiration to suit your holiday style at Saks Fifth Avenue.

Support for this show comes from NetSuite. There's a lot of talk nowadays about how AI could make things easier for your business.

That's okay if you're not sure what exactly that looks like in practice. Just don't let your uncertainty keep you from finding out, especially not when your competitors are already making their move.

NetSuite by Oracle is your solution. With NetSuite, you can put AI to work today.
It's a top-rated AI cloud ERP trusted by over 43,000 businesses.

It's a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into a single source of truth. All that connected data is what makes NetSuite's AI smarter.

So it doesn't just guess, it can intelligently automate routine tasks, deliver actionable insights, and help you cut costs and make quick decisions with confidence. It's not another bolted-on tool.

It's AI built into the system that runs your business. Whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you stay ahead of the pack.

Right now, get the free business guide, Demystifying AI at netsuite.com slash pivot. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash pivot.
Netsuite.com slash pivot.

Scott, we're back. Tech bros are reaping the benefits of the Trump administration, as if we didn't know that, but the biggest winner might be White House AI and Cryptozar David Sachs.

By the way, crypto's Bitcoin's reeled down recently, by the way, according to a piece in the New York Times, which was a mild criticism.

And all sort of the obvious. Sachs has kept his role as Silicon Valley investor while serving as a special government employee.
That's the way he gets out of it.

Ethics waivers, he said he was selling or had sold most of his crypto and AI assets, but the Times found he has more than 700 tech investments that stand to benefit from policies helping shape and, in fact, are focused on AI.

In his White House role, he's opened the doors to his tech network and pushed to clear regulatory hurdles to AI firms and attacking NAI firms that don't go along.

Like he did a really weird attack of Anthropic as if they were like part of a, I don't know. And he, of course, never talks about safety, never talks about anything.

And they all get to have dinner with Trump. So Sachs deemed the story a nothing burger.
And tech folks, of course, are really in a very overly sensitive way coming to his defense.

Mark Benioff said the article is almost strategic sabotage. Oh, fuck.
Mark Andreessen called Sachs a credit to our nation.

Let me just, I'm going to start with this. Listen, I'm thrilled we're doing lots of stuff in AI.
I think we should invest in it.

I've talked about it for years, but this is such an in, this is such an insider game for all of them. They don't have anyone who has safety issues.

He zeroes out people who like Anthropic, who have just a little bit of concern for people. This is not about the American people.
This is not about democracy.

This is about the rich getting their shit and telling us what to do. And their ridiculously

over-weaning reaction was just an example of that. This was the mildest of criticisms to point this out.
And they're losing their ever-loving minds. And I find nothing wrong with pushing AI.

I think it's a real opportunity for whatever the president is. But this is so clearly these dinners, these is grifty to the extreme.
And it's benefited all of them, including David Sachs. Thank you.

I didn't even read the article. I knew what it said before I read it.
Yeah.

And this all they did was go through the companies. It was just a, it was a mathematical thing, but go ahead.

Yeah, look, I come back to the same place, and that is he's playing the game that's been set up where if you don't, I don't, I've never listened to the Allen Pod, but I've seen clips of it.

And it strikes me that they figured out the best economic model in history is to try and

his proximity and suck up to the president in hopes that he'll give he and some of your companies regulatory capture or just straight up government contracts or maybe award you TikTok at 80% off, that that's the fastest way to go from being worth $50 million to $5 billion.

Or to get your nephew out of prison is just to show up at one of his fundraisers and say, I'm in for $3 million for you renovating the East Wing. So I don't, you read the article, I didn't.

I don't see him doing anything different than anybody else that is engaged in this conflict of interest. And it all leads back to the same place for me.

I think the government, to get that call to serve at the highest levels and be an official advisor in a senior policy position is is extremely prestigious and it should be.

And in exchange for doing that, it's absolutely

a signal, a commendation, acknowledgement of your success. And in exchange for taking that position, everything you own, everything you have an interest in is put in a blind trust.

And also, I think we need to pay these people more.

But

we can't have public policy and competitive markets shaped on who has proximity to the president because anyone who doesn't ends up seeking advantage to those who do. This is just more of the same.

Yeah, I think that if he was going to go in and

improve AI, which is a great idea,

he would look for ways we could all agree. Like he would deal with universities.
He would bring in other people, not fucking Mark. How many times has Mark Andreessen been to Mar-a-Lago? Dozens, right?

Or whatever the number is.

They all get to go. I haven't been asked by David Sachs.
I disagree with him. I think I have some ideas.
Like, he doesn't ask critics. He doesn't ask for feedback.

He's not, he's never said the word safety once at all. He's not doing this for all Americans, people.
He's doing it for him and his cronies. And that is perfectly fine.

This is not a new Washington thing where the cronies don't belly up to the bar or pigs to the trough. This is not a new thing.
It's just this, every time they get criticized, like literally,

I don't even mind them like going crazy about this and acting like it was, oh, how dare you insult our genius. I'm so used to that bullshit, like, because they're such victims themselves.

I really got offended when he attacked Anthropic in a really, like, he picked out an, this is the AI head. He should shut his fucking mouth about individual companies.

Anthropic is more safety conscious and they should be able to say it and be part of the conversation in a bigger way.

And everybody, if you're the real AI advisor of the president, you let them hear problems too, right? You let them hear like criticisms. You let people in.

And this is just, this is just pigs at the trough.

same thing and again not new but when they get offended by it it makes me exhausted by these people they're so overly sensitive anyway go ahead let me just say that i find the thing that's most problematic in that

and i don't know if the nyt reported on this he received ethics waivers in march and and said that he'd sold or begun selling many conflicting assets so i understand the conflict i'm not guilty of it and i'm making personal and financial sacrifice to reduce the actual and appearance of conflict.

And what it ends up is he has hundreds of investments in companies that have reclassified themselves as computer or hardware that are basically AI companies. They have AI in every website.

That's all they did. That's all the Times did.
Sorry, Mark Benioff. It isn't like strategic fucking sabotage.
What is, I'm sorry, I know you're on Mark's size, but stop it, Mark. There's no...

I do not understand why Mark came to David's.

It's because he's so thirsty and wants to get in. Mark, it's so disappointing.
It's just a story that shows that his companies are very much in conflict of interest. That's all.

So calm the fuck down, all you dudes. Anyway,

anyway, it was so mild. It was so mild.

Anyway, Donald Trump is escalating his immigration crackdowns in another area after two National Guard members were shot, one of them fatally near the White House last week. And

condolences to the family of that woman, National Guard woman, allegedly by an Afghan national on Thanksgiving. It's very confusing.

On Thanksgiving, Trump posted he's permanently pausing migration from, quote, third world countries, whatever that means, and is ending federal benefits for non-citizens.

He also, these are workers who contribute to our society. He also threatened to denaturalize Americans he claims are undermining domestic tranquility.
That means you and me, Scott, I guess.

Trump said only reverse migration can fully cure this situation. All asylum decisions have been halted for the time being.
Christy No made it, went around and said illegal things all over the place.

Ian Bremer pointed out on threads is basically a a gift to China and any other country eager to scoop up foreign talent.

It also hurts everybody from people who take care of the elderly here to stores to factories to

go after. And there was some, there was a really interesting look at Chicago and almost all there was just of the 4,000 arrests, maybe 100 had

criminal problems and very few of them had serious problems. It was more like they missed an appointment

versus anything serious. I think the number of serious people was a dozen of the 4,000 people.
It was mostly hardworking people that they targeted

and violently, I would say.

So thoughts on this? I mean, from an economic point of view, this is, and denaturalize Americans? How in the hell can you do that? Oh, this is just awful on a number of levels.

And we don't know if this person had a mental health episode or

I don't mean to diminish the tragedy here.

But I mean, watching Secretary Noam put herself in knots trying to blame the Biden administration for setting in place the policies that the Trump administration then granted this

individual sum. And by the way, I think it's really important that when we have people supporting and collaborating with us and saving American servicemen's life and taking huge risks themselves.

Like in Vietnam, we did it every day. And then repatriating them, giving them opportunity to immigrate here.

If this threatens that, I think that's just awful because I mean, there's a bigger issue around

letting the best and brightest come to our nation at all levels of the kind of labor stack.

But I think we do

we weaken or we put our servicemen and women in much greater peril when we are not taken seriously or the promise of getting you out of a hostile territory when you decide,

you know, these people, if you don't get these people out, And after you've abandoned Afghanistan and

these people are going to die terrible deaths and their families if you're going to give them asylum here. So when I saw this, I thought, I hope they don't use this as an excuse to stop.

At the end of the day, we will be less safe overseas and our fine men and women in uniform will have a more difficult time accomplishing missions if they don't, if the people over there don't feel as if America is going to look after them

if they in fact. if they in fact

aid us. So this is just, I mean, this is bad all all the way around.
I don't, I don't know how to, I don't know how to frame this other than this is a tragedy on a number of levels.

Yeah, it's just, it's nuts. Like, look, obviously, we bring people back here, as you said, because they helped us.
This was vetted by the Trump administration.

And of course, Kirsty Nome is doing every pretzel possible.

By the way, saying she wouldn't follow federal judges' rulings, I was like, are you like getting ready to be arrested soon when this is done?

Because she's just like, these people are self-owning themselves legally, like a lot. You know, I don't listen to judges.
Oh, good. That when we arrest you, we will be playing this particular thing.

The fact that she doesn't want to figure out what happened here and instead just lay blame.

Obviously, there was a mental, he was working for a, I think it's called the Zero Team, which was a particularly brutal

group that he worked for. He might have had a mental breakdown.
He obviously wasn't. When he was granted asylum by the Trump administration, he obviously was not vetted properly, right?

And that is what it is. And again, I wouldn't even blame them for that, right? Like nothing's perfect in any of these vettings, by the way.

But the fact is they have to lay on blame to Biden, by the way, who looked rather rigorous over the holidays, I will say.

It just felt, it just felt, it's just, it's like... These people cannot ever just have a tragedy happen and try to solve it.

They have to do threats and they have to use everything for a political end. And in this case, it's really bad for our economy.
That's all I kept thinking as they were memoring on.

And still, and it remains a tragedy for all these families that get upended in a really unnecessary way. Anyway,

I would recommend you listening to people like Ian Bremer and others so you can understand the economic implications of this.

All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back.
Milania's new production company.

Support for this show comes from from Solidigm.

The world runs on data and data relies on storage, but most businesses aren't thinking about data storage as a key part of their infrastructure or really at all.

Solidyme is a storage optimized for the AI era, offering bigger, faster, and more energy-efficient solid-state storage.

Simply put, the old approach to storage is no longer sufficient, especially with the new demands and new constraints that AI companies face with rapid expansion of AI.

Hyper-dense, hyper-fast, solid-state storage from Solidigme acts as a catalyst for your data, helping solve energy and physical footprint constraints from core data centers to the edge and everywhere in between.

It's time to build your data infrastructure on a solid foundation with SolidIm. Learn more at whatstestateofyourstorage.com.

Support for this show comes from S. Steve Johnson.
We've all been there. Choosing not to wear your new white shoes because there's a 10% chance of rain?

Bending awkwardly over the tiny coffee table to enjoy a sip of your latte, not ordering the red sauce. Those feelings of dread are what we call stainsiety.

But now you can break free from your stainsiety with Shout's Triple Acting Spray that has stain-fighting ingredients to remove a huge variety of stains so you can live in the moment and clean up later.

Just breathe and shout with Shout Triple Acting Spray. Learn more at shoutitout.com.

Every day, millions of customers engage with AI agents like me. We resolve queries fast.
We work 24-7 and we're helpful, knowledgeable, and empathetic.

We're built to be the voice of the brands we serve. Sierra is the platform for building better, more human customer experiences with AI.
No hold music, no generic answers, no frustration.

Visit sierra.ai to learn more.

Scott, we're back with a very important story. Melania Trump has launched a new production company called Muse Films.

The first project is a documentary titled Melania, set for a global theatrical release in January. The film will spotlight the 20 days leading up to Trump's 2025 inauguration.

The documentary's rights were reportedly bought by Amazon MGM Studios in a bribe. Oh, I mean, they thought it was a great thing for $40 million.

I don't know the last time a documentary got that amount.

The director of Melania, Brett Ratner, is staying busy thanks to the Trumps again. Ratner, who'd been accused very credibly in a really

astonishing piece in the New York Times, actually, of sexual harassment and misconduct,

is at work on Rush Hour 4 after President Trump really pushed Paramount to revive the franchise. I don't feel like we need Rush Hour 4.
I did like Rush Hour, the original one.

So what do you think of this? I feel it's like another Obama group that's not going to, she's going to make one shitty thing and then that's it. These sort of vanity production companies, right?

Yeah, whether it's the Markles or the Obamas, this is nothing unusual. And that is people who

studios convince studios like proximity to famous people, powerful people. Also, their fame can lead to

usually when they write a book, it does really well, sells a lot. Sometimes, yeah.

What the Obamas and the Markles, quite frankly, developed a reputation for was cashing checks and then not wanting to actually do any work. Right.

And these things kind of fizzled out and really didn't go anywhere. But what

and look, buyer beware, if they want to leverage their celebrity,

every author wants to be overpaid. Everyone who writes assigns their film production wants to be overpaid.
That's your agent's job is to make the studio

regret it. But when my book agent negotiates my book deals,

if I don't get royalties, that means he's done his job. It means he got a big upfront advance.

So, them going out and getting deals is fine. What's different here is the following, and it is a distinct difference.

They waited, the Obamas waited until they were out of office and weren't in a position to influence mergers and acquisitions with the DOJ of the FTC.

The First Lady should not be entering into commercial agreements in exchange for wink-wink. Oh, make sure this acquisition does or does not go through.

Netflix probably will not get, unless it's some sort of club deal, Warner Brothers, because Reed Hastings is known as a Democrat.

And so when you say to him,

this has nothing to do with the untapped, extraordinarily deep creative talents of Melania Trump.

Okay.

So what this is, is, okay, will this put us in a favorable light for $40 million on all regulatory concerns from the FCC around mergers we want or business we want from the most powerful man in the world?

And it's bullshit. It all comes back to the same level.
If you decide to be in public service, you and your family give up, you get a lot. You get a lot of great shit.

You get to fly out on a really cool plane. You can get reservations anywhere for the rest of your life.
You get a library named after you. People stand up when you walk into the room.

The downside is you cannot have conflicts of any sort like this.

And Melania Trump, I've always thought, quite frankly,

First Lady Trump, I've always thought, like, I've never understood. I think she's a first, let me, I think she's the worst first lady in history.

I don't think she does anything redeeming.

I'm still convinced. I want to give her this.
I think her English is better than my Czech. I've never heard her speak.

She's guilty of the same chain migration that they're all claiming. Yeah.
Fine.

She obviously wants nothing to do with him. She's never at the White House.

Fine. But at the same time, there's no, I don't ever feel a need to, I think it's a little unfair when people go after family members, whether it's the first lady or what have you.

If she wants to go into film production the day after she leaves office, more power to her. And if someone is stupid enough to believe she has any insight into the creative process, fine.

And maybe she does have contacts. Maybe people would be so interested if she's willing to say, okay, this is.
This is the behind the scenes story of this guy.

Oh, it's not going to be interesting in any way. I agree.
But my point is,

this all comes back to the same thing, whether it's what we were talking about with David Sachs, conflict of interest.

You don't do these deals and accept tens of millions of dollars.

She did all your money. She's been for sale from the get-go since she took a plane over here.
Come on, let's be clear what she is. It's just the price.
It's just the price. Well, okay.

I want to be clear. I think we're all for sale to a certain extent.
I don't think

I've done worse things for a lot less money than sleep with Donald Trump. I don't think you would fuck Donald Trump.
I don't know.

Enough beers.

I don't think think so. I literally think you, even you, would be like, there's no amount of money.

No.

I don't begrudge people for wanting a better life. Who knows? Maybe he's powerful.
Maybe she's attracted to him. I don't even want to go there.

I shall. That's pretty.

Let me just make one Milani observation:

the only thing I ever liked about Milani were those fucking crazy blood trees. I thought, what a bitch.
I love her for this.

Remember when she did the Christmas trees that were all red and they were bloody?

The bloody Christmas tree, when she took the White House and she decorated with these really blood red trees, it was so evil that I was like, good for you, girl.

You decided to lean into crazy and you did it. And that's the only part of like, if she did, if this film is like that, I'm going to watch it.
That's my only dream.

You know, so now I'm having trouble. Every time I see.

a really cute picture of penguins greeting a pigeon or a

lion taking care of a small wolf or something, I immediately go, is this AI? And I saw this thing that I was convinced it was AI.

And it was First Lady Melania Trump talking about the threats of AI to a squadron of military

self-guided drones,

spacecraft-driven AI satellites. They are all already here.
This is not the future. They are here.
And I'm like,

and then I'm like, this isn't AI?

Who decided that the First Lady

should go talk to the military about AI warfare?

she also did a white house thing about it was so again cara swisher's not invited invited but melania trump can talk about a i'm just pointing out donald invite me i will give you some thoughts on ai but let me just say rush hour four i'm not whatever the whole thing is such a fix

you know who i like as melania trump laura benanti she's the one who does melania on colbert and she's a genius oh yeah i'll give her this i i think as i think she's very fashionable i think she's very hot and i think that's important in a first lady

you know whatever whatever. I don't want a hot first lady.
Well, Jackie Kennedy was, was she hot? Yeah, I guess at the time. For the time, I mean, come on.

It was like Mamie Eisenhower before her. So it's First Lady Bush is very pretty.
I think she was actually hot, too. She was a hot girl.
Anyway,

all right, let's not stack rank the first ladies. Anyway,

one more quick break. If I ran for president, do you think Emily Radikowski would be more interested? She stopped thinking of you.
I told you, she's in a room with AOC and your ex-fourth grade.

I realize you're trying to protect her. And they're not talking about you.
Somewhere, they are together, not talking about you ever, ever. One more quick break.
We'll be back for wins and fails.

I got a good one this week. Scott.

Support for this show comes from Atlassian. Wish projects could manage themselves? With JIRA AI-powered project management software, keeping things organized and on track is a snap.

AI agents manage the busy work, handling details that let your team focus on the work that matters. Now, that's a team changer.
Visit atlassian.com slash JIRA to learn more.

That's A-T-L-A-S-S-I-A-N.com slash J-I-R-A. Atlassian.com slash JIRA.

Sometimes, the difference between success and failure comes down to one chance encounter or following a counterintuitive instinct or ignoring conventional wisdom to make a bold decision.

Like when the founders at Palo Alto Networks wanted to redefine cybersecurity for the modern age. Everybody thought we were crazy.
Nobody would use the cloud for cybersecurity.

Or when mobile gaming giants Supercell could only rewrite the rules of the industry after failure in the company's formative stages.

Many of the best things we've learned have actually come through failures. These are all examples of crucible moments.
Turning points in a company's journey that made them what they are today.

Hosted by Sequoia Capital's Rolof Boto, Crucible Moments is back for a new season with stories from Zipline, Stripe, Palo Alto Networks, Supercell, and more.

Subscribe to season three of Crucible Moments. New episodes are out now, and you can catch up on seasons one and two at cruciblemoments.com on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen to Crucible Moments today.

Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odo.

It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier.
CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part?

Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.
So why not you? Try Odu for free at odu.com. That's odoo.com.

Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. I'm going to go first.
I'm going to tell you. First, I want to pay very quick.
This is this is a... Well, it's a fail, I guess.

I want to pay tribute to one of my favorite playwrights, Tom Stoppard, the legendary writer who died at 88 over the weekend. I loved Tom Stoppard more than any other playwright.
It changed my life.

Particularly, everything I saw of his, Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead, all these things. But there was a play, Arcadia, that I saw as a young person, and it literally changed my life.

I don't know how, you know, storytelling does change people's life. I'm going to read a quote from,

he was very scientific and complex.

He always had science running throughout many of his plays and ideas metaphysical, religious, all kinds of things but there was a quote we shed as we pick up like travelers who must carry everything in their arms and what we fall what we let fall will be picked up by those behind the procession is very long and life is very short we die on the march there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it the missing plays of sophocles will turn up piece by piece or be written again in another language ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again Do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we'd be at loss for a corkscrew.

I love him. Such a good writer.
Such a great writer. Anyway, speaking of that, I finally watched Pluribus.
Scott, thank you for the recommendation. I fucking love that show.
Really? I love it.

I love it. I haven't gotten to episode five of this.

Amanda and I watched three episodes last night. To me, it's all about AI.
That's what I think it's about. It's about AI come to life and giving you everything you want and being very pleasing.

And she's like, that guy has just made me think in all kinds of new ways. He's a genius.

He's funny, funny, funny, funny. Like every bit of it.
And I just, it's not dark, but it is. And I just, it's made me, I can't stop thinking of it.
That's what I would say. The winner.

Run, don't walk to watch Pluribus. It is so good.
It is that good. And I, I appreciate you showing that, giving me that.

I'm glad. Yeah, that's my, I guess that's my win-fail, I guess.

I mean, my fail is the continued ridiculous sensitivity of the grifters of tech who pretend that they're doing this for all of us when they're doing it for them.

That would be my fail, but they're always my fail. They're such greedy little pigs.
Anyway, go ahead.

So, my win is: I haven't been a fan of the series, but I went and saw the third one and I thought it was just so fantastic. I saw Knives Out.
Oh, I love that. I love that.

And I saw the third and I just thought it was so wonderful.

Benoit, right? Is his name Benoit?

Yeah.

So

Daniel Craig, I thought he was the most physical James Bond. He's also, I think, the best actor.
I think he, and he's also, he is great in this. And the kid who plays the priest.

I got to get the cast. The kid who plays the priest is going to be a movie star.
Yeah, Joe. What's his name? Who plays the younger? Yeah.
The younger priest.

And also, you know who I've never been, I'm not, I would say I'm not a

huge fan, but I just think I hope she's the most talented actress that has yet to win an Academy Award.

Glenn Close was so good.

I also love Tom Spopper. She gave a great tribute to him.
She's also, she's 78. She's been nominated Get This eight times.
Oh, she's so good. And

Thomas Hayden Church is in her. She's in that Tim Kardashian thing that everybody hates, but it's gotten renewed again.

False fair. Anyways, I just thought it was a, I thought it was a really

wonderful movie. Oh, I'm going to see it.
It's on my list.

So my fail is going to be more controversial, but

I've spent a lot of the weekend reading, you know, because I'm a narcissist reading my reviews for my book. Oh, no.
And most have been positive.

The harshest pushback I've received have been almost universally from therapists who say that,

one,

one,

you know, here's another man blaming women for men's problems. I'm like, okay, clearly this person hasn't read the book.

But the basis is that men, before they can move to having a relationship or focusing on economic security, need to work on themselves.

And I feel as if online and generally as a gesture in America, that therapy fixes everything.

And I feel like it's sort of becoming the new take this supplement to solve solve all your problems. And just as I think sometimes supplements

are a pipeline to being red-pilled, I think this therapy fixes everything is a bit of a supplement to focusing on

certain virtue signaling as opposed to focusing on the material or economic well-being of Americans.

And that is,

I think over-prescription of therapy can pathologize normal life

when

every frustration, conflict, or sadness is framed as something that needs therapy. I think people can lose sight of the fact that some problems are situational, not psychological.

Some difficulties require structural solutions, not introspection.

And

market forces reward influencers right now who promote therapy for fucking everything.

And also,

saying that you just need more therapy to fix this problem is a little bit like me saying you're frustrated by airport delays. Well, you should fly private.

The The majority of people do not have access to $200 an hour therapists. They do not.
And what I would argue is that it's an answer, but it's not the answer. Oh, I liked your defense.

Although, my mother-in-law is going to come after you now.

Well, therapists are hammers, and everything they see is nails. And also, there's a feminist.
I don't know if that's the case. I don't know if that's the case, but I can see your point.

I'll let you respond and let me get through this.

Also, just so I can trigger a lot of people, the feminization of therapy means a lot of young men don't relate to these therapists. Uh-oh.

And that's not to say they can't help them. But if you're a young man who can't get a job and is having trouble finding or leveling up your own offering such that you can

at some point find mentors, friends, and mates, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure sometimes that these young men are, I'm not to say they can't benefit, but my point is it can help, but it's not the only or always the best tool.

Supportive friendships or community, lifestyle changes, addressing financial or structural barriers, developing skills, medical evaluation for underlying conditions, cultural or spiritual frameworks, self-education.

And when therapy becomes ideology, my sense is all the nuance is disappearing.

This sense that if you don't go to therapy, you're refusing to grow. If you disagree with therapy, you're avoiding healing.
If therapy didn't work, it must be your fault.

I feel like it's not mental health. It's becoming dogma.

And I'm not anti-therapy, I'm anti-oversimplification, and that it is a powerful tool for many people. But to be clear, folks, logistically and financially, it is not a universal fix here.

And the argument isn't therapy is bad. It's that therapy is being marketed like supplements, promised as the answer to everything

pushed by people who profit from the narrative and stripped it of the nuance required to be truly,

truly useful. And also,

I would argue that if you have real mental health issues or you have the money and the luxury of getting therapy, have at it.

Hugely beneficial.

My therapy bomb, a nuclear fucking detonation, fluoride in the water that would be as good as therapy for the vast majority of young men who supposedly all need to work on themselves before they can make money or have a relationship would be higher wages and lower chronic stress, $25 an hour minimum wage, paid family leave,

universal childcare, 8 million homes in 10 years, universal health care, reduced fear and earlier intervention,

less student debt, less medical debt, childcare support, lower parental burnout, student debt relief, longer-term stress and higher well-being, a stronger safety net, fewer crises will escalate.

Guess what? We can have more and more more high blood pressure and diabetes medication, or maybe we get people working out and get them access to healthier food.

Workplace standards, safer, healthier environments. Bottom line, you can't therapy your way out of material precarity.
And what I see online is everyone stating that mental health is the only answer.

No, it's an answer. I don't know if everyone does that, but let me.
Oh my God, go online, Kara. I will.
I will. It's worse than self-consciousness.
Let me ask you a question.

Two Two questions, and then I will make an observation. Let me with observation.
I've never been in therapy myself. I know it shows.

And I don't, I have not thought I needed it. I went once for a couple's therapy, and I just wanted to.
Oh, my God. I'm the exact same thing.
I was like, let me off.

Just to clarify, we should get divorced. That's the only therapy I've ever been in.
Yeah. Well, they are.
You should get divorced.

The therapist, I swear to God, I was like, this is the last stop on the relationship train. That's my feeling.

Oh, my God. I love you.
You're literally

channeling my every thought. And so the therapist goes, Kara, how are you feeling? And I said, I feel like watching television.
And they're like, I'm excited to go through this.

My ex was like, I'm super excited to go through this. And I said,

and my ex was like, that's not a feeling. I go, no, it is.
It is. I feel good when I watch television.
I'm very happy. I feel like doing that.
And the therapist was like, you're fine. You can go.

I don't, I agree with you. I don't, both, by the way, both my in-laws are, but one is a psychiatrist, the other is a psychologist.
Yeah, psychologist. And they're wonderful.

And I think they do believe in therapy and its uses and everything else. I think that you're right, that it has to be a well-rounded thing.

And not everyone avails himself to therapy in the ways that are possible.

And that you don't necessarily, like, I do think, you know, like one of my kids' mental health is better because he works out all the time. I think it helps him mentally.
I can see it.

You know what I mean? He feels better about himself, especially he eats better. He's been eating better.
And he wasn't depressed, but he's a better person for it. Like, I don't know what else to say.

It wasn't like he was like dealing with all kinds of trauma, but I do see improvements. Or my other son, I know it sounds crazy, loves to drive a car and he loves driving.

And it's mentally healthy for him to, he like goes on road trips and it's like, he takes a minute. Like there's other ways to therapy.
I go to the hardware store. I love a hardware store.

Like I feel better. Like, I know it sounds crazy, but I do, or clean or something like that.
But I see your point. I do, I do see one of the things I push back on your behalf.
And then, and then

just tell me this: everyone's like, Oh, he does, he's not a therapist.

I said, He's not seeing that in this thing, he's not, he's not like, You haven't read it because he's not putting himself like there are a lot of man writers that see themselves as therapists.

You know, that, right? There's that kind of like, here's the answer. I don't think you're doing that, so I don't think it's fair.
That's that would be my, that would be my observation. What, what I'm

look, I think economic policy,

I think we need, I think the greatest mental health,

the greatest source that gets to the same

or a similar place of therapy would be mental health policy.

When people have stable housing, health care, reasonable work hours, predictable pay, child care, and a social safety net, their mental health improves to the point where they may not need to speak to a $200 an hour therapist.

Or if they can, if they're available. That's why there's so many online therapists.
I had an interesting discussion. I had dinner with the governor of Massachusetts.

We were talking a little bit about like homelessness and mental health issues. They're so linked.
They're so

linked.

If you are in a position to afford mental health and it's accessible, if you are clearly struggling with mental health issues, absolutely, it is hugely important.

I'm in favor of it. But I believe this.

If we had,

if we could give young people structural foundation for more economic opportunity and the chance to meet people and have more stronger relationships, I think the need for therapy would be substantially reduced.

I want people in the gym before they need statins or diabetes medication. Statins isn't.

I guess. Yeah.
Some things are just genetic, though, right? I mean, well, no.

And if you inherit, if you're bipolar and you have mental health issues in your family, by all means, help those people find therapists yeah and psychiatrists but it what i'm seeing online is a and most of these people by the way are no longer practicing they're just on tick tock

and i find that's i know which one you're talking about the one that that the one that the guy talking about yeah i think chelsea handler sent it to you or one that someone did

but if you research if you look at these folks background it's like all right the algorithms support dogma over mental health policy and they want to shame people that aren't.

Well,

these people, these men shouldn't even be thinking.

You're sending them down the wrong path. They need to work on themselves first.
I'm like, you know what?

I bet if this kid got a good job and had a better friend network, that would solve a lot of this. No, I think that piece,

as well-meaning as it was,

it wasn't what was happening. Anyway, I like that.
I like that. We're going to get a lot of pushback, but that's okay.
That's fine. That's fine.
You know what?

Both of us have the same therapeutic situation. It's like World War II.

When bombers targeting sites used to malfunction, the pilots used to say, drop your bombs when we're getting the most flack because that means we're over the target. Oh, all right.

There's the old man coming out. Anyway, we want to hear from you.
Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind.

Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question from the show or call 85551 pivot. We have a special listener mail show coming up.
So please get those questions in.

Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, on on the latest episode of On with Kara Swisher, I'm talking to comedian Tig Nataro. Let's listen to a clip.

Do you feel a shift in comedy? There is the whole bro comedy circuit, of course. Yeah, I feel a massive shift, whether it is the bro comedy, very conservative comedy.

You know, when I first started almost 30 years ago, it was very unusual to find a conservative

out conservative comedian. Right.
People would all all kind of reference Dennis Miller. But

yeah, I feel the shift.

Anyway, very interesting interview. She's just done a really fascinating documentary.
She's having a moment, though. She's doing really well, right? She is.
She's amazing. She was on The Morning Show.

She's on this Great Handsome podcast that she does.

And she did this documentary that is oddly, it's about the death, the cancer death of a spoken word lesbian, not lesbian, non-binary poet. And it's riveting.

Like, I was like, huh, I don't know, but it was beautiful. She's done this.
She's executive producers really quite good.

Anyway, she's also a lovely person, let me just say. And I love interviewing, as you know, comics and comedians because I really enjoy it.
I'm going to do Michelle Wolfe soon, just for you.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
I know. My hero.
I know. She just did a hysterical thing about the relationship between the two wicked stars that make you laugh.

She was like, oh, I thought of you when I saw those two. Yeah, I know.
Oh, my God. It's going a little bit over the top.
But Michelle, I'm going to send you the Michelle Wolf take on it. A little bit.

I usually don't like to comment on people's, but what the hell? Like,

she did a great, I'll send it to you. Anyway, I love Michelle Wolf.
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 on Friday. Scott, read us out.
Today's show was produced by Larry Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Brandon McFarlane. Ernie Datod engineered this episode.

Jim Mackle edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Bros, Brosmey, Severa, Dan Shallan, and Kate Gallagher.
Ishak Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer podcast.

Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.
You can subscribe to the magazine at nmymag.com/slash pod.

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

Mercury knows that to an entrepreneur, every financial move means more. An international wire means working with the best contractors on any continent.

A credit card on day one means creating an ad campaign on day two. And a business loan means loading up on inventory for Black Friday.

That's why Mercury offers banking that does more, all in one place, so that doing just about anything with your money feels effortless. Visit mercury.com to learn more.

Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group Column NA and Evolve Bank and Trust members FDIC.

Defenders in cybersecurity are always there when we need them. They should get a parade every time they block a novel threat and have streets, sandwiches, and babies named in their honor.

But most of all, they deserve AI cybersecurity that can stop novel threats before they become breaches across email, clouds, networks, and more.

Darktrace is the cybersecurity defenders deserve and the one they need to defend beyond. Visit darktrace.com forward slash defenders for more information.

As the U.S. gets ready to host soccer's biggest moment on a worldwide stage, Volkswagen is helping people discover new turfs and new ways to play the beautiful game right here in the U.S.

From deaf and power wheelchair soccer to beach and futsal, Volkswagen is actively supporting all the communities and teams within the U.S. soccer ecosystem.

They're supporting talent from across the U.S. soccer extended national teams and are focused on helping to give these less widely known forms of soccer a platform moving forward.

From the pitch to the sand and everything in between, welcome to RTUF.