Anthropic IPO Chatter, Bitcoin's Turbulent Week, and Kara Gets Caught in a Scandal

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I usually walk out of things and go, I killed it once again.

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, I just want to tell you, my mother-in-law agrees with you.

She's a psychologist. And remember, I said she was going to be mad at you about your therapy rant the other day? Well, it turns out she agrees with you.
Go on.

I would like to tell you, it's incredible. So

here, I'm going to just read it to you because she's so thoughtful about everything. And she goes, my thought is I agree with Scott on every point he makes.

I know you were joking about your mother-in-law coming after him. I listened to that part about therapy twice to make sure I heard, understood what he was saying.

He was a little too strong at first, maybe understandable to me because of the off-criticisms from people who didn't get or even read his book, and he has good points about the therapy industrial complex too.

Anyone who listens to Scott knows he isn't blaming women, and that criticism is bullshit. He is smart and nuanced and completely capable of complex understanding.

Homelessness, poverty, and the lack of sustaining empathy in available relationships are chronic root causes along with traumatizing experiences and biological vulnerabilities of serious mental distress and disturbance.

The interpersonal therapy we think of as discovering and addressing unconscious convicts and deep hurts can be helpful in freeing people to be their fuller selves, working through and accepting lost disappointments, et cetera.

And so she goes on, and she says, certainly, as Scott also points out, therapy of this kind is not even remotely available to the vast majority of people. She agrees with you, everyone.

And the last thing she said,

I don't believe Scott is saying that the competent ethical therapists are overselling the benefits of therapy or thinking that structural economic vulnerabilities insecure food housing income chronically inexperienced trauma are healed through talk therapies but as the other marketed efforts uh unscrupulous practitioners may and do take advantage of struggling people and i'm sure scott would agree that health care including mental health care needs to be broadly affordable and available not just for the well-to-do

boom there you go you're now getting married to amanda because yeah i'm trying to think like um because i know you were upset by the by the therapeutic response.

Well, hearing that,

my instincts or my muscle memory is to come up with a snarky comment.

But the reality is, and you should pass this along to your mother-in-law, I really needed to hear that because when you're just constantly getting comments on TikTok, I mean, the reviews of the book have been 98% positive, but when you get a significant number of TikToks and reels in your feed from people who clearly haven't read the book saying, this guy is a pipeline to the red pill, I like to think of myself as an off-ramp from the red pill.

I agree. And the thing that really hurts is here's another man blaming women.
And I'm like, oh my God, I'm not blaming women.

Anyways, so please pass along or trust your mother-in-law is listening to this.

I needed to hear that. It feels really good.
So thank you. No problem.
I mean, I think what was, she's an avid listener, Pivot.

And I think, I think, as I was thinking of it, I thought a therapist would be mad, but you know, people are much more thoughtful.

And I think what you're dealing with is people that just do these five-second takes, like hot takes on Scott Galloway. And I get that from people about you.
And I'm like, no, that's not true.

Like, that's not the blaming women thing I have gotten from a lot of people. And I'm like, you didn't read it then.
You didn't read it then. That's my, usually my defense.

Well, what's interesting is that

if you look at big tech algorithms and if you look at headlines, we do a lot of A-B testing around titles to see what YouTube, YouTube.

title or thumbnail will get garner the most headlines or the most downloads.

The one trend that is overwhelmingly clear, the more incendiary negative comments or words and titles, the more clicks.

And also they did an analysis, inflammatory negative commentary in headlines in the media is up 140%. It's true.

And so, you know, if someone wants to say in reviewing a book, this is what he gets right and what he gets wrong. That's not nearly as powerful as, I can't stand this misogynist.
Yeah.

I mean, it's just,

it's just every algorithm and profit incentive is to be as over the top and quite frankly, not over the top positive. I, you know, to say, I just love, love, love this.
Yeah.

No, say why this is,

you know, why this is dangerous. You know, I nearly almost got in a fist fight.
Someone said, oh, he's sort of like Jordan Peterson. I'm like, he's the anti-fucking Jordan Peterson.

I'm like, they're they're a jade. They're in the same category.
But Jordan Peterson, I think, is quite negative. I mean, I know you like parts of his stuff, but I was like, couldn't be more different.

Anyway, anyway, thank you. Thank you for coming to my defense.
Thank you for protecting me. I appreciate it.

When we walk down the street, I need you to walk on the street side to protect me from splashes from carriages. Yeah, with my shiv.
I shall shiv people.

But I have an issue. You cheated on me with Oprah.
I didn't know she'd fall in love with me, Karen.

I didn't. It wasn't planned.
We met.

It started innocent. Let's listen.
I think she did a little bit. This was a very strange little thing she put up.
I think it was on Instagram. Let's listen to what she said about you.

Scott Galloway has written a book called Notes on Being a Man. You know, he's a great podcaster and one of the thought leaders of our time.

And I think he has his finger, his thumb, his whole hand on the pulse of what's happening with men in our society today.

So, Scott, you had your whole hand on men. That was interesting to hear.
Yeah, and then my forearm and then

my full torso is is on the scale i'll tell you um by the way i'm really i'm really you were upset not upset when you left you were sort of equivocal i would say well let me just say i'm really enjoying this podcast so far but when i left oprah i don't know about you i have trouble processing stuff in the moment people say how'd it go i'm like i'm not sure i walked out of there first off

The you know, Oprah herself individually is clearly a genius, but she surrounds herself with real pros. And you could tell they spent a month recruiting the audience.

They had these videos, the lighting, the venue. I mean, these people give really good TV.
And I walked out of there, and I maybe even have called you, and I'm like, I have no idea how that did.

I was sort of like, oh, that's too bad. You didn't have a good time.
I usually walk out of things and go, I killed it once again.

Yet again. Yeah, I was right.

Hello. Fantastic.
Hello, beautiful. That reminds me so much.
When I knew my,

of course, I got to turn this back to me. I remember I took my, you know, in Delray Beach, Florida, every weekend is on the sidelines of a soccer game.
And my son was so excited. He got put in goal.

He wanted to be a goalie. And within like, I barely even like, they kicked off the ball and there was a goal on him and then another goal.
And I was texting his mom going, oh my God, another goal.

And finally, she said, stop it, stop it. And I'm like, oh, my God, he is going to be so traumatized.
Like, it was like 11 to 1. Yeah.

And at one point, I went to the coach and like, can you just get him out of goal? I was like, it was one of the most painful 90 minutes I've ever spent.

Oh, well, we walk off the field and I'm trying to think about, okay, how do I be in reinforcement? I put my arm around him, like, so how to go out there? And he's like, great.

Did you see the save I made? You made one save. I love you.
That's fancy. I'm like, this kid's going to be fine.
Yeah. He did great.
Yeah. Yeah.
You would focus on the 11. Yeah.
Well, good for him.

That's good. Anyway, you were great.
I watched the whole thing. I've decided she's making you into the new

whatever, her person. You know, she's like, she, so far, her record's not great.
I like the Nate guy who does the decorating, but Dr. Phil and Dr.
I tolerate Dr. Oz because he's your friend.
Dr.

Phil asked me to come down to Dallas, actually. I think they saw me.
That's not happening. You may not go.
He's a terrible person. He follows around ice raids and uses.

That's not good. Yeah.
That's not good. Do you know Oprah? You know, actually, who I know is Gail King set me up with Oprah.
So Gail King is

really generous and nice. She is.
You're perfect for Oprah. I mean, I do.
I I met her at Cheryl Sandberg's house at one of these things that Cheryl put together.

And she, I didn't know what a vision board was. And it was, it was a moment because I wasn't fully in the Oprah camp.
She looks great. But I have to say, she's like, she's like a tractor beam.

Like she touches your arm and she goes, you know, and I apologize for not knowing what it was. And I said, I'm sorry I didn't know what a vision board was.

And then she touched me on the arm and she put her hand in front of my face and she goes, that's because you have a vision board in your head.

She has that, she has that Bill Clinton magnetism where you get the sense, you meet her and she's like, oh my God, this woman really likes me.

And the fastest way to get someone to like you is to like them. Yeah.
So you're immediately like, oh, she really likes me, which makes me like her. She has that Bill Clinton magnetism.

She just touches the arm. Magnetism

looks you right in the

character beam. I was like, oh, no, I'm being Oprah.
Anyway, you were great. Of course, while you're getting fame and fortune from my mother-in-law and Oprah, I am.
Terra Swish is in in the news.

I'm in the news. I'm a swizzle stick.
You're a swizzle stick. Yeah, the New York Times referred to the Olivia Newtsie Ryan Liza drama as a cocktail of Kakamami with a swizzle stick of Kara Swisher.

Give us the cliff notes.

I'm going to do this super quick. Olivia Newtsie had a digital affair with Ryan, with RFK Jr.
Wasn't it more than digital?

I don't know.

She says digital. He's denying it completely.
He's a big

online or fingers. I don't know, Scott.
It's pictures, I think. I don't know.
I don't know. Here, you're dragging me into this.
I don't want to know about it.

So, here's the, it was not good for a journalist. What hotels did they check into?

What did they wear? I get it.

Listen, it's none of our beeswax, but it was wrong for a journalist to do this and then not disclose it since she was covering the presidential campaign and he was a candidate, right?

Kind of an issue. This, it's fine if you're, you know, an episode of scandal, but not if you're living in the real world.

Anyway, I found out about it through means nothing to do with Ryan, nothing to do with her. And Ryan is her

her fiancé they were getting married they were getting married oh yeah um and I wasn't even told by him that they broke up um uh in any case

I found out and it was through other means because it was getting out and I was worried about this and the minute I found out I knew I had to tell New York magazine and I was hoping that Olivia would do that or Ryan or one of them would would do it but nobody did it and so I called um I confirmed it I made sure it was accurate and did reporting on it and then i told david haskell it's the only person i told at box uh later i did talk to jim bankoff but it but i thought the editor was the right way to handle it and i didn't want business involved and you told me and i had no idea what no no i didn't exactly i had what does i wanted in case it came out um so so anyway that was later i actually told you later so i told them and i said you need to talk to olivia she can't cover the presidential campaign if this is true and i said you need to investigate and you need to uh figure this this out and then disclose it to our audience.

And that's all I said. I moved on and I've been dragged back in one, because Olivia has put me in her book,

calling me her mentor. And essentially I ratted her out, but I didn't.
I did the right thing.

And then Ryan

is doing a series in retaliation for her book, which got very badly reviewed,

deservedly, I will say, having read it.

She should have written it and put it in a drawer. That's how I feel about this book, like written it and put it away.
Feels like Kamala Harris's book.

No, Kamala Harris's is really good in comparison. So,

but I would agree with you on that too.

So,

he started to write a series on his substack, trying to attract readers. I don't know what he's doing.

I've told him I think it's he should have written one piece if he felt he had to and moved on, but he's decided to do this. And in this newest episode of like

the really grotesque pickwick papers, as I like to call it,

As someone told me, he has put me at the end. He has all these hot kickers at the end.
And the last kicker is a well-known journalist just texted me three letters, RFK.

And then the last line is, Kara Swisher had cracked the case. Like I'm fucking like encyclopedia Brown, but the case of the make it fucking stop you two.

And so I got dragged into their ridiculous drama. Thank you.
That's it. So a couple of things.
One.

I teach a course on crisis management, and there's only three things you have to remember, but they're really hard hard, and people end up not doing it.

The first is you have to acknowledge the problem. If she had just come out and said, I'm human, the heart sometimes

overrides the brain, as it does to a lot of men and a lot of women, I fucked up here.

And then two, take responsibility, my fault. I'm not going to accuse my...
you know, my fiancé or even RFK, this is on me. And then third, overcorrect.

And I'm not entirely sure how you do other than other than showing contrition, you just try to overcorrect. She's done none of that.

And then one of the many damaging things about this is I don't know that many emerging journalists. She caught my eye because I thought her work on Biden and other people was fantastic.

She is clearly a rare talent and she has really shot herself in the foot here. And if you look at the damage done in crises, it's typically not the detonation, the crisis itself.
It's the shrapnel.

And the shrapnel is your attempt to cover up, excuse it, not take accountability for it. That's when people get really angry.

And the other kind of sad thing about this, and it does represent a dual standard in sexism in our society, it's almost like we kind of expect RFK Jr. just to be a pretty low character human being.

But the reality is, it just, how Olivia handled this sort of plays into the worst cartoon of women

not having control over their emotions in a professional context. And I'm not saying, I don't think that's, I don't think that's reality.
I don't think they have any less or more control than men.

I've never bought, oh, there's so many people out there saying women are better managers. I'm like, well, show me the data.
I don't think they're any better or any worse.

Actually, it's probably not true. They're probably better relationally and better managers.

But anyways, this just plays into this trope of how it feels like it's setting women back like two minutes on the cosmic clock of women's progress. I agree.
Because she just looks terrible here.

Yeah, and she keeps doubling down and he does too. And the whole, I literally, I hate being a side character in this.

And I hate that now they're using, like, now they've made me a character, which I'm like, I just did the right thing and I'd like to leave, please. Like, make it fucking stop.

And the book's not selling, by the way. It's not like, I don't know how many, how many sub stacks he's selling either, but

it's the whole thing is just not a good look for journalists. It's not a good look you write for women.
It's just, it makes us look like fucking idiots.

Like instead of we made a mistake and we're going to tell the audience everything. Exactly right now.

It's as if they don't have friends because a good friend with any reasonable perspective would have sat it down and said, this is exactly what you do.

I fucked up next.

Don't talk about it. Don't write books about it.

Don't go on Morning Joe or Substack interviews and try and position it that it was your fiancé's fault and drag other people into it. Just I fucked up.
I take responsibility next.

I'm going to continue. If New York Magazine doesn't want me around, I'm going to continue to try and make a living as a journalist.
She said Vanity Fair. I don't know if she'll say that.

I always thought the way she corrected it is by doing good work again, just doing good work. Work right through it.
That's exactly right. Work, not about you.

Work through it. And not about this scandal because she's just digging herself.

deeper and deeper. Yeah.
I would recommend reading the reviews because I thought, even though everyone's like, oh, they're so mean to her. I'm like, no, no, they're quite kind.

It's what the editor should have done. Like, especially Becca Rothfeld, who I think is amazing

at the Washington Post, did a great review.

I thought it was incredibly fair um these people actually said what it was it was lack of honesty anyway i i again i don't want to talk so one of these topics i'm like let's fucking move on from this stop like stop doing the all of you stop doing the fucking fan dance and leave me out of it because i'm a swizzlestick anyway um we've got a lot to get to including what's going on these trump accounts for kids uh and why investors are worried about a crypto winter things are going bad with bitcoin but first anthropic is exploring an ipo as early early as next year, according to the Financial Times, tapping the law firm that advised on Google's and LinkedIn's IPOs.

That's interesting. Though the official word from Anthropic is that it hasn't decided when or if it will go public, but it feels like it is.

Anthropic is also reportedly pursuing a private funding round that would value it at above $300 billion.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodi was at the New York Times Dealbook Summit on Wednesday. While he didn't talk about the IPO directly, he did discuss the risks at play with all this AI spending.

Let's listen.

When the timing of the economic value is uncertain, there's an inherent risk of underreacting or overextension.

And because the companies are competing with each other, and frankly, we genuinely need to compete with our authoritarian adversaries,

there's kind of a lot of pressure to push things. So I think there's some amount of irreducible risk here.
And I absolutely don't want to deny this.

But at the same time, as that, I think there are some players who are not managing that risk well.

I like him a lot, I have to say. I like his product, I like the way he talks about safety.

I talked about him last week when David Sachs was insulting the company for talking about safety as if there was something.

What do you, I'm going to add on one more thing. And speaking of other AI players, Sam Altman is clearly feeling the heat from Google Anthropic and others.

He told employees this week that the company was declaring a code red to improve chat GPT, delaying other products in the process, like an advertising product.

So, do we think we see an Anthropic IPO before an open AI IPO? And how, talk about the bubble fears. I know you're a fan of Anthropic as a product, as cloth,

but talk a little bit about this. I really think Dario is one of the people I appreciate because he,

I don't always agree with him on everything, but at least he's he seems to be telling the truth.

I know

it's like the lowest bar of all time, but he's positioned himself really well as sort of the more measured,

honest, less cheerless. You know, he even said, he even acknowledged that this is probably going to, at least in the short and the medium term, destroy a lot of jobs.

And he offered up the notion that maybe the exceptional market share or increases in shareholder value should be taxed to help pay for some of the retraining.

And he's been pretty, I feel like he's a pretty honest broker here. And he's been a nice, a little bit of a nice antidote to Sam Altman, who I think is a little bit overexposed.

And Anthropic's positioning is a little bit different. It has a much smaller consumer footprint, no mass market product like a ChatGPT.

It primarily is in the business of enterprise APIs and it's really deeply integrated into finance, legal healthcare, super strong partnerships with Amazon.

And so they're trying to position themselves as sort of high trust, enterprise first LLM provider.

And I like that positioning because in my experience, And I'm biased because I like B2B, but B2B typically is more consistent.

If a company assigns an enterprise or a site-wide license, they tend to not, consumers are fickle on the upside. Something can get hot.
You don't even know why. Like, why is, you know,

laboo-boo, like, explain to me the logic behind that. But they're positioning themselves.

But go ahead.

They're positioning themselves as sort of the enterprise AI. And it's,

you know, OpenAI is sort of universal AI platform and Anthropic is sort of enterprise safety and reliability leader. And I think that's a really good positioning.
And it sounds basic.

And they have, the trade-off is they have slower consumer adoption and less cultural buzz.

But some of the things they have tried to do is reduce hallucination rates, better model control, better governance, better regulatory comfort. Better safety.

And they stepped on, I mean, it sounds basic, but they basically stepped on OpenAI. and said, we're thinking about going public.
And they've got a ton of attention.

So I think this was a really smart move. He also didn't settle with copyright shareholders.

That's right, he's trying to, yeah. Right, right.

So, you know, whereas ChatGPT is about subscriptions and API usage and enterprise licenses and integration fees through Microsoft and Azure, Anthropic is really about API usage and enterprise contracts with long-term commitments and also cloud partnerships.

So, I like it's also priced premium relative to competitors. It's marketed as a safer alternative for regulated industries.

So, OpenAI now, you know, this, I've always talked about this idea of what if it becomes Netscape, right? This is my fear and not Google. And that feels like that.

It feels like Google's going to stay Google or

whatever it happens to be. Which one's going to have the IPO first? You know, the honest answer is I don't know.
It comes down, it's a lot about the cab table, your shareholders.

But you got to think that OpenAI's bankers are saying, let's file tomorrow. Let's go.
Wouldn't it be good if they went together? Would it be a bad thing?

I don't.

What would be the best thing for both companies is if one goes out and rockets and gives everyone a chance to breathe, and then institutional investors look at the 80% first trade up on X-Firm and pile into Y.

I don't think they want to go public too close to each other because they'll soak up all of the quote-unquote

LLM IPO capital. Right.
And there's worry at the same time among investors. I think Anthropics should probably go fast.
That's what I would do about it. Well,

it is, quote, it's an instance where they, quite frankly, can establish a leadership position because OpenAI right now is pretty dominant in almost every,

you know, I mean, OpenAI is trying to become a full operating system for AI with consumer and enterprise ubiquity. Yeah.
And even Anthropic is trying to focus on enterprise and also the safety and

more nod to the regulatory environment of

different verticals in enterprise open ai is doing too much stuff that's what i feel like i'm like turducken we have a turducken problem here like and maybe just focus on the product itself i i don't know i always worry when they're oh we're going to do this and now we're opening a store and selling t-shirts and why by the way we hired johnny ive i was like Great, but can you say no to something?

Like, that's, you know, being very disciplined. Anyway, we'll see what happens.
That was a great interview. I recommend it.
Our favorite Canadian, Andrew Ross Sarkan, had a good day yesterday.

He did a bunch of really good interviews. He's great, isn't he? Yeah, he did a great job.
And he had a little more teeth, Andrew. I appreciate it.

You were a little more toothy with people, which is great. I thought they were great and very insightful interviews.
Another story, the latest bids are in for Warner Brothers Discovery.

Netflix has come back with a mostly cash offer after leaning on its stock for the initial bid, but the stock has been a little bit down, actually.

Paramount is also putting together an all-cash bid financed by Apollo and some Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, despite denying that involvement a few weeks ago.

That'll tell you everything you need to know about these people. And Comcast has reportedly made a cash and stock bid that would merge NBC Universal with Warner Brothers Discovery.

Up next, Warner Brothers would either accept one of the offers or move to a third round of bids or break itself up like it was going to.

One thing that I find really particularly disturbing is that, well, first of all,

the Paramount bid has a $5 billion breakup thing because they're so confident in their closeness with Trump.

And White House officials and some Republicans are already raising antitrust concerns about Netflix.

Part of their their main strategy is Trump loves us and we'll do whatever it takes,

which is really horrible.

Whatever. That's their strategy.
It's so non-economic what they're doing here.

And then involving the Saudis is really, I can't believe that they would be big in any foreign country would be a big investor in owning this much of news and entertainment. I find that troubling.

I don't mind them owning the golf things, but this is a whole other story.

Your thoughts? Emerson Junior High School, ninth grade. We had the ninth grade prom.
Oh, dear.

Buckle up. Where's Anne? Where's Anne? Where's Anne?

And you know, you have your root, you have your pattern, yeah, and how you walk to school.

And my junior high school was not a hallmark, there were just certain routes you didn't go down because there'd be a kid there that got used to sort of beating you up or

asking you for money. Were you beaten up?

Oh, I was pulled into bathrooms and beaten. Yeah.
No, it wasn't me. It wasn't, um,

I mean, not a lot, but yeah,

a lot of that.

And by the way, I'm not going to, in a weird way, I think some of it was probably good. You learn negotiation skills and

adversity. Don't break my face.
Yeah. Okay.
There's a reason my nose goes to the right. Anyways, I can't wait to see how this relates.

Going from home economics to Spanish class, me and my best friend Brett Jarvis would pass Kelly Mayhew and Lynn Sugamora. And Lynn was this beautiful, intelligent 14-year-old.

And we neither of us had dates. And I just yelled out as Lynn was passing me by, Lynn, will you go to prom with me? And they both laughed.

And the next day, she cornered me outside and said, Were you serious about me going to prom to you? And I'm like, You don't have a date? I mean, Lynn was beautiful.

And said, No, I'm like, Yeah, yeah, will you go to the prom with me? And she said, Yes. And then immediately I go to the next class.
And I tell everyone, I'm going to the prom, Lynn Sugamura.

And within like

the next day, she's like, five guys have asked me to the prom in the last day. So once people knew Lynn was actually going to go to the prom

and would go with Scott Galloway, all of a sudden, everyone decided to bid for Lynn Sugamore at the prom. Wow.
Okay. All right.
I can see it.

By the way, she left a dance with Ashley Tucker and broke my heart. Oh, but she went with you.
Yeah, she did. You got her a corsage.
Oh, yeah.

The big thing we wrap around and like a tuxedo that I didn't know how to put on

and I didn't know how to tie. Anyway, and of course, in the high school gym uh and it was great we played rock lobster and they put steam out and live lot

live lobsters on the floor anyways end scene back to warner brothers i got this wrong i thought the ellisons were going to show up with the biggest bank and get this done and it appears what has happened is that ted sarandos and the roberts family have said you know these assets kind of are singular we should pull out our pencils and it's like to a certain extent and this is one of the failures managers make, and that is they typically don't appreciate an employee's value until about the day after they leave.

Right.

And that is, they think of they have a tendency to look at people through the lens of which they enter the organization rather than saying, if you really want to know what someone is worth, imagine they're leaving and what you would pay them.

And the same thing's happening here. And that is, there are a set of assets and also, you know, a streaming platform and

HBO, which by the way, HBO still is the

premier draw for talent. And whenever I've been involved in any type of Hollywood thing or series, if the producer, the actors could pick the distribution platform of all of them, they would pick HBO.

Talent loves HBO. Anyways, and also with Warner, there's just some singular aspects.
Yeah, they decided, what the fuck, I'm getting in here.

And everyone's showing up with what I would argue, it seems right now, kind of an irrational amount of money. And I think it's like, well, okay, except for Comcast, our stocks are up.

Netflix on a balance sheet level makes a lot of sense because they have so much freaking money and shareholder value right now. But I am surprised, and I got this wrong.

I thought the Ellisons were going to walk away with this. Here's what I find offensive: is that their whole strategy is we're friends with Trump.
I did talk to someone from Comcast.

I'm like, you know what? Just fucking sue them and win. Like, because by the way, Trump, the last time tried to stop the ATT merger, remember with

Warner, they lost. Trump has maybe seven, eight months left on this thing that he has any real power, right? If he loses that last election, they just very troubling for the Republicans.

And so to me, I'd lean into, yeah, like your entire strategy is we're friends with the president and

we can make a stupid rush hour four forum because we're big fucking suckups.

And by the way, let's drag in some people from let's drag in some people from the Middle East who shouldn't be in this in this thing at all. And they lied about it.
They denied it. And they're there.

Like this group of people is the sketchiest group of people you could think of. By the way, the best owner probably is Comcast on

a basic level.

If I had to pick and then spin off the news things and Diversent or whatever you want to do, Netflix is definitely is frightening for both Paramount and Comcast because they would own everything, as you know.

So there are antitrust concerns. At the same time,

doing this non-economically because you're pals with the president is about the most non-capitalist thing I can think of. And 100%.

I just, it's like, really,

you know,

I hate to say this, but, you know, just because your dad is friends with the president doesn't mean you get to own everything. Like, sorry.
Like, and I feel like the others are better.

are better suited. Now, I get the Warner people are going to want to take the best deal.

But if they keep LARDing LARDing this, Donald Trump's my best friend, it's going to bite them so hard later. That's my feeling.
I mean, I don't know. We'll see.
We'll see what happens.

I find that's all quite confusing. So I just want to give a bit of a breakdown or an unpack of what's going on around the bids.
Paramount has made five bids so far.

All cash. And this is the interesting part with a $5 billion breakup fee, which is them saying, trust us, we're butt buddies with the president.
This will go through.

No one else is going to offer a $5 billion. I think that's probably the largest breakup for you.
That was chilled to me. That was like, you're not going to win this.
We're on the inside track.

Yeah, but it also is we're insecure. And they're also looking to buy the entire business, and they argue a spin-off would be a taxable event.

And the stock, by the way, when they announced all this, was down 7%. Netflix has submitted two mostly cash bids.
That's obviously attractive. They're looking to spin off the cable networks.

The stock, again, fell 5% yesterday. By the way, folks, the reason stocks fall when they get into the M ⁇ A race as the on-top on-top acquirer is that two-thirds of acquisitions do not pay off.

Comcast has also submitted two bids, which are a mixture of cash and stock, like Netflix. They would also spin off the cable networks, and their stock was up about 1%.

Or put another way, Paramount has submitted the best and most aggressive bid on the table, which doesn't mean it won't be bested, but so far they look like they're in the lead.

Now, let's talk briefly about what each company would get from Warner Brothers, why they're attractive. Paramount's looking to absorb Warner's streaming subscribers.

And combined, a Paramount Warner streaming service would have about 200 million subscribers, making it roughly even with Disney, but still behind Netflix at 300 million. Yeah, they got it.

They would also, the combined entity would be the most watched broadcast network and two of the five legacy film studios and eventually possibly even TikTok with the Ellisons.

Netflix wants Warner Brothers

content, studio and subscribers, by absorbing, by absorbing kind of the high-end content, you know, things like the Sopranos, Game of Thrones, The Wires, Harry Potter, DC Comics, Netflix could force some subscribers to switch over.

And Warner also holds rights in various markets for almost every sports league, which would bolster Netflix's entrance into live sports.

Netflix, though, looks at this and thinks, you know, we've done really well staying focused. You might be overpaying.
And as a result, Netflix shares fell 6%.

on Wednesday. And then Comcast wants Warner subscribers, but mostly it's IP.
One of Comcast's biggest long-term weaknesses is a lack of modern IP.

They've got lots of legacy hits, films like E.T., King Kong Jaws, but nothing on the scale of Disney, like a Marvel of Star Wars or Pixar or Warner. Also for its parks.

Yeah, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones. And theme parks are also one of Comcast's most profitable businesses.
This acquisition would give them a lot of IP for, you know, Game of Thrones ride, right?

So this is, I find this fascinating. I got this wrong.
I thought the Ellisons were going to walk away. It appears that everyone wants to take Lynn Sugamora to the junior prom.

Okay. We'll end on that.
Let me just say, if I was compact, bring it on to Trump. That's what I would say.
Go ahead. And by the way, let me make a little point here.

And it's someone I happen to like, but the person who, the lawyer, the general counsel for Paramount here is Macon Delrahim, who was the person who lost the case for the Trump.

And he was at the Justice Department. And he was, so he's the one doing this.

So it's a really interesting situation. Sorry, Macon, but but

return my call. Anyway, he won't because he's probably scared of Nalison's being mad at him, but he's a very smart guy, but he didn't win that case.
So push back on this guy.

Don't like put, just push back.

You might be able to win by pushing back. It's enough.

It's enough saying daddy's friend, daddy's friend is going to help us.

Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We come back very quickly.
We're going to talk about Michael Dell's $6 billion donation for so-called Trump accounts.

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Scott, we're back. Tech Mogul Michael Dell and his wife Susan Dell have pledged $6.25 billion to fund 25 million Trump accounts for kids.

The donation will extend the reach of the new child investment accounts beyond the pool made eligible by the big beautiful bill.

Now, most children 10 and under who were born prior to the qualifying qualifying federal date will receive just $250.

I don't know what you think of this. I feel like, why don't we just text Mel Goodell properly as his fair share and then decide where to put the money, including towards kids? This is symbolic.

He did one of those White House things, calling it Trump accounts. The whole thing feels rather grotesque to me, but go for it.

Yeah, I think the Dells, look, I think if you give $6 billion to try and inspire saving and investing in the markets for kids, I think they deserve praise for this.

I realize I buy into the notion of what Anand Gerdada says: that if we're just reliant on the generosity of billionaires, they get to dictate social policy, not our elected leaders.

And you're right, we should have a progressive tax structure such that we could figure out a long-term solution.

But I really find the criticism of the Dells unfair and really unproductive because at some point, billionaires just say, okay, you win. I'm just not giving anymore.

I don't think it's i i i think they should be praised for this type of philanthropy

i feel like it's it's the company man giving out company the you know you know company towns they were run by one oligarch essentially in a lot of places i'm gonna let it i'm gonna let three people go to college and i'll decide meanwhile keeping everybody down like i just i'm sorry but do you think they're trying i think the system is up i agree that we need structural reform but i don't i i don't think the dells are trying to keep anybody down i don't think

it's just like, why don't you just get taxed normally and let our

structural issue? I get that, but this whole like performative, calling them Trump accounts, you didn't have to call it that. I agree.
It's just like gross. It's just gross.

If you want to give money, give money the way Mackenzie Scott does it. I'm sorry.
By the way, Mackenzie Scott gave $40 million to a teen

suicide prevention charity I'm involved with. Oh, good.
She's probably paying attention to you. She is because of Oprah.

She is extraordinary. No, no, I can't take credit for it.
I'm just one of their donors or smaller donors.

She, and I, I don't know her, so in no way do I want to in any, in any way, say that I was in any way, had anything to do with this. She might be listening to you.

But she is, well, three years ago, who was my person of the year? Mackenzie Scott. I got to say, that's who I want billionaires to be.
There's just no denying that when

the female side of the partnership gets divorced from these

100 billionaires, they immediately start giving money away. I mean,

there does appear to be a difference in the way men and women approach their wealth. And I would argue one is much healthier.
Anyways,

I love the idea in theory, and that is, I think one of the advantages that China has over the U.S. is they think in 50-year increments.
And I believe Social Security is totally unsustainable.

And because it's so popular, because of the age of Congress and old people keep voting, that I think we need to do similar to what Australia did and other places do.

I would give $7,000 to every baby born. That's $40 billion.
And then

basically not let them touch it until they were 65 and it's a million bucks.

And then within 30 years, when you saw the end of Social Security, because we no longer need it, interest rates would come down and pay for the program. So I would want something on a bigger scale.

Australia has something super return, I forget what it's called, but this stuff, I like it.

I think we need something bigger and bolder that has a structural shift to get rid of Social Security in the long term such that interest rates start coming down in the medium term.

Those all sound great, but honestly, this is just for sucking up. Another suck up to Trump.
That's what I feel like. Anyway, I don't think it's the best way to do it.
That's all.

And again, it's not capitalism as I see it. But let's go on to crypto.
Bitcoin remains turbulent despite the crypto president being in office down 30% from its peak at one point this week.

Bitcoin and other crypto assets have endured bigger drops, losing as much as 80% of value and then turning around, as we know. But the market appears spooked and worried about a crypto winter.

Billionaire Michael Saylor's firm Strategy, which pioneered selling corporate debt to buy Bitcoin, announced it raised $1.4 billion to ensure it could meet future payments.

And Harvard, who had gotten at the wrong time, the school increased its Bitcoin investments to $500 million last quarter, potentially leading to a 14% loss.

Very briefly, let's do this real quick. What do you think about this? This is an ongoing story we really need to be paying attention to.

So

I'm... I like to call balls and strikes, and I talk a lot about my personal finances to hopefully educate people.
And I like to call out my losses as my fails.

I have not had any Bitcoin exposure. And then a few months ago, I said, fuck, I need some exposure.
I bought one of these Bitcoin Treasury stocks at $14 a share. It think it closed today or at $5.50.

So I've had my stock. I got in at exactly, me and Harvard got in exactly the wrong time.

Yeah.

But having said that, I'm actually thinking about adding to the position because essentially a Bitcoin is an incredibly volatile asset. Yeah,

and that's what young people like about it, or young people think this system's rigged, so they've invented their own asset classes. But it's off roughly 25% from its peak in October.

It's down 12% in the last month, but it's essentially flat from where it started at the beginning of the year.

And it's the result of kind of a de-risking trade that has been ripping through the markets. And Bitcoin is an especially risky asset.
It's a bit of a canary in the coal mine regarding how

risk sentiment. Risk on, Bitcoin goes off.
off. Up, risk off, Bitcoin goes down.
Very good point. It's three times more volatile than the SP 500.

Retail participation in crypto is roughly two times that of U.S. stocks.
And the top 100 Bitcoin holders control about 15% of total supply. That's incredible.

Did you see the military is getting like privates are getting into Bitcoin? That made me like, okay, this reminds me. Oh, young man.
Risk aggressive, the risk-aggressive brain of the world.

Never be trade and all that stuff. Day traders, I felt like, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Yeah, actually, I think the next big one, I think Bitcoin's going to have oxygen taken out of it because I think the next Bitcoin, the next crypto is going to be prediction markets. But anyways,

this also, people use, so here's a stat. 18 to 34 year olds make up 51% of all crypto holders.
Adults 45 and older make up just 22%. So it's the opposite of stocks.

And male users are about two-thirds of all crypto owners. And 73% of male holders report active trading versus just 48% of women.

Folks, at some point we have to acknowledge, generally speaking, women are different than men. Yes.
The way they approach philanthropy, investing, or whatever.

I got to say, you know, when you talked about that a couple of months ago, you were investing, I thought, I should maybe. And then I didn't.
I said,

too volatile for Kara Swisher. I'm going to keep my, I'm going to sit on my pile of money.
And I didn't. So a friend of mine named Eric Jackson, who's sort of this, he's this really interesting

investor, nice guy.

He and I became friendly back when I started L2.

He's like pounding the table saying that this is an incredible buying opportunity. And

it's not a financial advice, but I am going to address it. By Scaramucci.
Look, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

So yeah, it's off 25% in 60 days, but that takes it back to where it was at the beginning of the year.

And I'm actually thinking about adding, I do think, I don't like these shitcoins, but I do think Bitcoin has become a legitimate asset class. They will consider it, Scott.
Probably not. You know what?

For me,

it's a diversification play, although it's not as diversified as people would like to believe. It's probably pretty correlated in the NASDAQ.

But it's been, this is a highly levered asset. So when things are good, everything's very good.

And when things get, the sentiment turns against it, it gets especially, it's kind of the tail of the whip of risk-aggressive investing.

I would argue, though, that the new crypto, and I've been thinking a lot about this, is going to be these prediction markets. Oh, that's a really smart.
We'll talk about that more.

That's an interesting time. I agree with you.
All right, Scott, let's go in a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about Costco coming after the Trump administration.

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Scott, we're back with more news. Costco has sued the U.S.
government for a full refund on tariffs it has paid if the Supreme Court rules them illegal.

The complaint argues that the Trump administration misused emergency powers to implement tariffs. Two lower courts have already ruled that Trump exceeded his authority.

I love Costco. I love every bit of Costco, and I love how they're just like, yeah, we're liberal and that's the way we're going to stay.

Same thing with there's several companies like that, like Patagonia and others, and they do rather well, both of them. What do you think of this? This is really interesting.

I feel like it's time to fight back. It's time to be like, that's enough, my friend.
That's enough of your antics, your ridiculous taco antics.

If Hobby Lobby wants to take a more conservative approach to their business, or if Target doesn't want to sell merchandise celebrating pride, consumers have the right to boycott them.

They have the right to do that. I think private enterprise, unless it's discriminating against

your customers or your employees, I think private enterprise gets to do what it wants.

And Chick-fil-A has always been known as being more conservative. You don't like Chick-fil-A? Don't eat a Chick-fil-A.
I got that from you.

So as long as you're not discriminating based on employees or customers, and I think companies should have companies now, unfortunately, for many of them, get positioned politically whether they want to or not.

The smart ones try to stay out of that mess. That's correct.
But you're going to have Trump, a guy who left a trail of unpaid subcontractors and bankrupt casinos, tell Costco how to run business.

I mean, Costco, Costco is one of the most impressive retail companies of the last hundred years.

They're suing him though. Like, you know what? And do you realize that only, I think it's only 2% of the revenues come from membership?

Basically, Costco is we sell you everything at our cost, and then you pay us whatever it is, our hundred, 180 bucks a year, and that's where we make all our money is membership.

It's only 2% of the revenues, but it's like half their operating profits. And the model is so genius.
It's so simple. It's fun to shop.
It's also a great, it's also a great product.

Like, I don't just think, like, if it was kind of a shitty product, you'd be, and then you have to drag your way through it. It's actually so much fun to go to a Costco and they have good hot dogs.

It's the only place where I go in for paper towels. And I leave with a kayak, a gallon of salsa, and a financial process.
900 croissants. No, I leave with a kayak.
I need peanut butter.

I got to buy this kayak.

Where's your kayak? I love kayaking. Yeah.
Do you have a kayak?

No, I've been kayaking.

That's the closest i think i've came to death my buddy doug telcher at berkeley yeah decided that we should go kayaking and i took one lesson in the pool at the flippy kind of kayak or the flat kayak oh no no no the hardcore like down a river kayak that is

that is and i went down the american river and it had rained and i flipped over immediately and started hitting my head almost unconscious no

and um and you're in one of those little skirts things like that Oh, you got to do a wet exit. And if you don't get out fast, you can drown.
No, it's true. Oh, my God.

Anyways, Doug Teltrom has killed me. No.
Got caught in an eddy, as they say. Yeah.

I like getting gas at Costco. I like to save 11 cents and wait half an hour.

I love Costco. Good for Costco.
There should be more of this. Get in there, Comcast and Netflix.

Call up your lawyers. You know what also they embraced? When I was joking about Margie Taylor Greene, she has the energy of a woman who returns a half-eaten rotisserie chicken to Costco.
Love that.

Okay, so just so you know, but Costco, like Nordstrom, has basically, no matter what people return or how stupid it is, take it back.

You could literally show up and hand them the ashes of your broken dreams and they'll still refund you. I mean, it's like,

by the way, I can't help this. One of my favorite retail stories is about Nordstrom.
And this guy,

every year they have an annual meeting and they bring all the managers and they're supposed to tell the most outrageous customer service story for a prize.

And one guy stood up and said, old man shows up,

brings tires you bought at the store, and they're bald and asked for a refund and we gave it to him. And someone stood up and said, we refund you shit all the time.
And he's like, we don't sell tires.

And it ends up, it's the most lovely story. It was an old man struggling with dementia.
And he showed up with tires and obviously didn't know where he was.

And the manager came down and gave him a $50 certificate and said, said, We're taking these backs. Here's the certificate.
Can we call your daughter?

Can you imagine how loyal you are to Nordstrom if you're that family? My heart.

I spent time, a lot of time with the Nordstroms back in the day, the original Nordstroms. Oh, they were loved.
Pico. I used to go to the one on Pico.

Nordstrom was where the rich people and it had a piano player. Yeah, it had a piano.
But you know what? The one in Seattle, one of the original Nordstroms. That's where it was founded.

Yeah, I spent a lot of time with the Nordstroms. I loved dealing with them, I have to say.
They were just lovely. I went up to visit Jeff Bezos and I was like, ugh.

And then I visited the Nordstroms like, yay that was my day um and then over to microsoft which was in a pleasant place and got yelled at by steve bomber see that was my life back then and uh anyway uh all right scott one more quick break we'll be back for predictions

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Okay, Scott, let's hear predictions. We've been saying predicting stuff.

But by the way, another lawsuit, I predict New York Times just sued the Pentagon for infringing on First Amendment rights of being able to cover stuff. There's going to be a lot more lawsuits

by companies now against Trump. That's my prediction.
Everyone's like, that's fucking enough, dude.

I call it the this fucking guy situation. This fucking guy, I'm going to sue him.
Anyway. When I was living at home with my mother and had no, nothing going on when I was like 24.

By the way, I was one of those men I talk about all the time. I used to go to Nordstrom and cosplay someone who had their shit together.

You just feel like when you're in there, you must have your act together.

Yeah, because you're buying like $90 sweaters and you're like, I must have my act together. I'm in Nordstrom.
Yeah.

And yeah, it was, or my favorite was I would go into the fragrance section and just take every fragrance and I would, it was like a chemical ambush.

I'd start seeing my ancestors and my credit score at the same time. Oh, fragrance masking.

All right. My prediction is the following: Heg Seth, Patel, and RFK are out within the next 30 days.
I think Trump has absolutely no loyalty. His administration is tanking.

He's going to have to face potential, you know, allegations of war crimes. The economy sucks.

Tariffs aren't working.

So Patel hexeth the non-I think he's going to do one fell swoop. I think he's going to, within like a week of each other, I think.
And a lot of presidents have done this.

Presidents usually kind of go a year, two years, and they say, okay, it's time to calibrate. And they let some people go.

I think Patel has got sort of an internal revolt on his hand.

Ton of former

FBI professionals are saying, this is dangerous. We are focusing on the wrong things.

And this organization, which is one of the most competent, professional, and effective organizations in history, has been essentially neutered.

And then I think he's, he's going to find, I think he's, why not do three at once? And Hegseth, Patel, RFK, I think are all out with RFK, not Gnome. Interesting.
I'm going to go with Gnome.

I think he likes, yeah, maybe.

I'll go three of the four. That's a good one.
Well, RFK would be great because he's paid no price. All these other people have paid a price, including Kara Swizzle Stick.
Well, okay.

And I mean, it's hard to pick which one is your favorite. How about the guy who took $50,000 in cash in a paper and a lunch bag? Go home and he'll probably make him the head of Homeland Security.

That's what I'll do. That's the Doritos bag or whatever the fuck you're going.
Anyway, okay, that's a great prediction. I like it.
I like it. Let's just stick with it.
I like it. I think you're right.

All right. We want to hear from you.
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Elsewhere in the Kara and Scott universe, this week on Prof G Conversation, Scott spoke with Ann Applebaum, one of my favorites, staff writer at The Atlantic, about the business interests driving U.S.-Russia negotiations, European power, and America's slide into kleptocracy.

Let's listen to a clip.

What's disturbing about this episode is that it shows something very ugly about this administration, namely,

and it raises a question,

in whose name are they conducting American foreign policy? Is this for

the security and prosperity of America and our allies? Or is this something that's happening on behalf of companies, maybe even some involving the family of Trump or of Witkoff,

who are hoping to make money out of this negotiation?

You think? Yeah.

Anyway, I like, I love Man. That was a great interview, by the way.

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.
By the way, happy birthday to Dr. Jeffrey Swisher.

He's 65, Scott. Jay Swish.
Jay Swish. D.
Swish. Medicare, Jeff.
Go for it. Scott, read us out.
Today's show is produced by Larry Amons, Dwayne Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Kate Gallagher.

Learning your Todd introduced you to this episode of Manola Moreno edited the video. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miss Severo, and Dan Shalan to Shot Cross, Vox Media's executive producer podcast.

Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.
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