Trump’s Putin Call, Inflation Rises, and Sam Altman Strikes Back at Elon Musk

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Speaker 19 Turn off to electricity and let's dance. Let's dance.

Speaker 19 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher.

Speaker 20 And I'm Scott Galloway.

Speaker 19 How are you doing, Scott? What's going on?

Speaker 20 I'm doing okay. I just

Speaker 20 hauled up five flights of stairs, my 14-year-old's beverage refrigerator, because what is a 14-year-old without his own beverage refrigerator?

Speaker 19 I like a beverage. I just bought a beverage refrigerator.
Yeah, you and myself. Do you know that?

Speaker 20 Yeah, but you deserve one.

Speaker 19 We renovated our house. We're moving back in.
And I thought, I need a beverage refrigerator in my little pod room. I created a pod room.
You know that? I have my own home pod studio like you.

Speaker 19 I'm trying to keep up with you.

Speaker 20 It's very nice.

Speaker 19 Yeah, but I got one of those old old retro ones and it's blue. What do you got? Oh, really?

Speaker 20 I'm in favor of retro blue fruit. I'm just, I'm actually very much an evangelist for beverages, but also,

Speaker 20 also,

Speaker 20 yeah, is it one of those like cool, what do they call it? Smeg?

Speaker 19 It's not smeg, actually. Frigidaire.
Someone bought the frigidaire name and it has frigidaire across it in that script. Yeah.
I'm very pleased. I'm very pleased with my refrigerator.

Speaker 19 I love a refrigerator. I've always had beverage refrigerators and my kids have too.
I think it's important. I have one in San Francisco on my, I had a haul of mine upstairs too.

Speaker 19 Anyway, we have a lot to get to today. My God, the news is insane, Scott.
I have to tell you. It's nuts.

Speaker 19 Besides that weird Elon Oval office presser with the kid saying whatever he was saying,

Speaker 19 we have also how DeepSeek is threatening Tesla's dominance. We've got a million of things.
Of course, it's all about fucking Elon. I'm so tired of him, but he's right in the middle of everything.

Speaker 19 So what are we going to do?

Speaker 22 What are we going to do?

Speaker 19 What are we going to do? But first, President Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to start negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.

Speaker 19 Trump and Putin had what was described as a lengthy and highly productive phone call on Wednesday. Trump later spoke with Ukraine's President Zelensky.

Speaker 19 But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered some insights on what Ukraine can expect from a peace deal. Way to go, Pete, telling people what we're going to do before we negotiate.
But go ahead.

Speaker 23 We will only end this devastating war and establish a durable peace by coupling Allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield.

Speaker 20 We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine.

Speaker 23 But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.

Speaker 22 Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.

Speaker 19 So, Heggs has also noted that NATO membership for Ukraine is not on the table. I mean, they've just, they just, Russia sort of won at devastating cost to itself and to Ukraine.

Speaker 19 But they're essentially saying, well, they got the land they got, and this is what we do. And I get that on some level.
At the same time, it's kind of

Speaker 19 Putin's kind of won because he was willing to put up with all those losses on his side and the damage that they did to Ukraine on the other side.

Speaker 20 This could have been written by Sergei Labaroth, the equivalent of their Secretary of State or propaganda.

Speaker 20 What might be interesting or the wild card here is I'm not sure Europe is down with acquiescing to another murderous autocrat invading Europe and just saying, okay, it is what it is. I mean,

Speaker 20 what Secretary Hugs has said is probably pretty accurate. It's very unlikely we're going back to the traditional borders.

Speaker 19 That's correct.

Speaker 20 But at the same time, the time you negotiate, you want to negotiate from a place of strength. strength and what you've seen across Europe.
And you could argue that's one of the benefits of

Speaker 20 not only the invasion of Ukraine, but also, quite frankly, of Trump, who signaled, I'm sick of supporting or giving everyone this very expensive military umbrella. But you have seen.

Speaker 20 a dramatic increase in military spending across the EU.

Speaker 20 So I'm not sure the EU is going to say, you know, Ukraine, if you can't, if you don't want to, if you don't want to bend the knee at this moment, courtesy of whatever Trump and Hexet say, we've got your back.

Speaker 20 And what's just remarkable about Ukraine is in every conflict,

Speaker 20 there's a new weapon that kind of... rears up, whether World War I, it was tanks and biplanes, World War II, radar, and drones.
Yeah, this is all about drones.

Speaker 20 And it's just incredible what they have been able to do with substantially less resources. So I think you negotiate from a position of strength.

Speaker 20 And when you start off with this type of rhetoric, you're basically

Speaker 20 this. This could have been written by the Russians.

Speaker 19 Yeah, I agree. I think it's really, you know, this is what they said they were going to do.
So it's not a surprise. But Hegseth is just reading from a card, by the way.

Speaker 19 I don't think he has a fresh idea in his head ever. I think he's just handed things like the TV host that he was.

Speaker 20 I heard he consulted with Jack Daniels before he made his speech.

Speaker 19 Zelensky, who's basically been sidelined here, posted on X after the Trump call, writing, no one wants wants peace more than Ukraine. I would imagine so, given the devastation of his country.

Speaker 19 And it's just,

Speaker 19 the question is, can Europe have, does Europe have, this is a goal Trump had, which is Europe should pay more of its own freight, presumably,

Speaker 19 after we have been supportive of him for so, so long. And what he's doing is

Speaker 19 he's acting like this is a real estate deal, right?

Speaker 20 The other wild card people are talking about is, you know, who doesn't want peace?

Speaker 20 China.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 20 China was a real beneficiary of of the war because they get oil at dramatic, you know, on sale because Russia, because they've been essentially shunned by every other major oil consumer.

Speaker 19 And then another country just went off of your Russian oil the other day. They turned on the lights.
They had kind of a weird Eurovision event. One of them, they were like, fuck you, Russia.

Speaker 20 It's felt like a rave party. It's like,

Speaker 20 let's drop some Mali and turn off.

Speaker 19 Turn off electricity. And let's dance.
Let's dance. And now we dance.

Speaker 19 I loved it. I loved the whole thing.

Speaker 19 But,

Speaker 19 you know, it's this idea of giving into Russia. This is a real politique, right? All right, they're there.

Speaker 19 This NATO thing on top of it. It's like they should be in NATO.
They want to be a NATO. They're a European country.

Speaker 19 They are so innovative.

Speaker 19 Speaking of drones, I mean, this was a technologic, this was, to me, in 10 years, there'll be tons of technology going on there when this is all settled, which is a good thing, right?

Speaker 19 They'll create a really innovative, interesting country. But if they want to be in NATO, let them be in NATO.

Speaker 19 And the fact that Hegset did this is, you know, we all want this war to end, obviously, especially for the people of Ukraine. Russia gets what it gets because it invaded.

Speaker 19 I'm sorry for people who died and the Russians, but I'm not because

Speaker 19 they did it, right? So they have to pay their price. But, you know, to be attacked like this and then have us throw them under the bus is just

Speaker 19 not a surprise.

Speaker 20 You brought a key point, and that is, while at the end of the day, we might might end up with some sort of commitment to not let Ukraine join NATO, because there is.

Speaker 20 If you talk to Professor Jeffrey Sachs at Columbia, who I disagree with on almost every foreign policy viewpoint, he would argue that we invited, that Russia was backed into the corner because of the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO.

Speaker 20 And maybe ultimately, you know that you're not going to let them join NATO. And America, for the most part, got to make that decision.
But you don't offer it up before the negotiations.

Speaker 20 You maybe even say, in one way, we'll guarantee their security moving forward is incorporating the new Ukraine into NATO.

Speaker 20 And then Russia freaks out and says, okay, if you take, you know, if you give back 60, 70, 80% of the territory, you don't, you don't show up and negotiate against yourself and offer that up before you need to.

Speaker 19 So that's why you do all the negotiating for us because I'm always saying what I think on the top of my head. That's why I like working with you.
You're always like, and then we do this.

Speaker 19 I'm like, what? Oh, all right. Okay, fine.
Like, I don't know. Anyway, it's a shame.
And I have to say, I have a lot of regard for Vladimir Zelensky.

Speaker 20 He's the most Churchillian character of this millennium so far.

Speaker 19 They're going to jam him out. That's the next thing.
They're going to find a way to get rid of him and put a pro-Russian government in there. No question.

Speaker 20 I would say I have more confidence, actually, in the EU. I don't think...
Okay. Keep in mind, the EU is a large economy.
They have dramatically increased the military budget.

Speaker 20 And quite frankly, they still remember what happens when an autocrat is let, when you give him, when you say, okay,

Speaker 20 here, you can have Poland or you can have this segment of France.

Speaker 19 Yeah, it feels very Chamberlain, doesn't it? It feels very Anthony Chamberlain to me. Anyway, well, we'll see where it goes.

Speaker 19 But Pete Hegset just reads things on a card, just so everybody knows. Anthony Chamberlain?

Speaker 21 Wasn't it Neville or was it Will Chamberlain?

Speaker 19 Neville Chamberlain.

Speaker 19 I'm sorry, not Anthony. Neville Chamberlain.
Thank you for checking my historical references.

Speaker 20 It's so rare. It's usually that you're usually the one telling me I got it.

Speaker 19 I was thinking of a different Anthony because there's so many Anthony people in the world.

Speaker 20 Richard Chamberlain from the Thornbirds.

Speaker 20 With one of the hottest women ever, Rachel Ward.

Speaker 21 We need to redo.

Speaker 19 Oh my God, I just talked about the Thornbirds with someone. I was being interviewed this week from Australia because I'm going to Australia in a week.

Speaker 20 A love affair. His commitment to God.
I'm like, dude, just tell God to put

Speaker 19 it.

Speaker 20 Oh, my God. Take that shit down and let us watch.

Speaker 19 I know.

Speaker 20 Put it on cable and let them go at it.

Speaker 19 You're not going to believe this. I mentioned it to one of the interviewers from Australia.
I'm like, I love Australia, Thornbirds. And literally, this person was maybe 12 years old.

Speaker 19 They're like, what's that? An Australian. I was like, I need to go now.
You don't know Thornbirds? I need to leave now. Anyway, we'll move on from that.

Speaker 19 I don't know how we got to Thornbirds from Ukraine, but there we are. Okay, the latest inflation numbers are out and they're higher than expected.

Speaker 19 Inflation rose 3% in January, the fastest monthly increase since August of 2023. The surging price of eggs was a big factor in the increase, up 53% from last year, which is fine with Kara, as I noted.

Speaker 19 I'm not an egg fan. President Trump was quick to point a finger at these numbers, calling them Biden inflation up.
Sorry, dude,

Speaker 19 you own the car right now. And for those expecting lowered interest rates, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says inflation numbers show there's more work to be done.

Speaker 19 So Jerome was right, and Trump was wrong. And now he said he didn't fix the price of eggs on day one, which he promised several times, and now says it's Biden's and it'll take longer.

Speaker 19 What do you think about inflation right now? Obviously, we talked about it a lot in the Biden administration. It was a big factor in his loss.

Speaker 20 Well, I mean, first off, to be fair, you can't pin egg prices going up 53%. It's the avian flu or whatever it is.

Speaker 20 But if you look at, if you dig in, inflation is sort of a crude number because there's core inflation.

Speaker 20 And if you if you really get to the nut of it, the thing that drove a lot of this kind of uncomfortable number, and it's probably the reason why the Fed is now pulling back on what they thought were going to be rate or the market thought or anticipated were going to be rate cuts, is shelter.

Speaker 20 Housing costs, including hotel and motel rooms, rose 0.4% last month. And I've always thought that

Speaker 20 and the Democrats need to get off their heels in whining and bitching and being outraged and get onto their toes and start proposing some really dramatic, forward-looking solutions. Because

Speaker 20 I think one of the reasons we lost Kara was that we were seen as a party of the past and everything's fine and let's hold on to our traditional. And the Republicans.
I sent you that essay.

Speaker 19 Did you get that essay I don't read anything you sent me.

Speaker 20 It takes too much time, and it's usually exceptionally, it's like 140.

Speaker 19 Well, you're articulating exactly what that piece said, but go ahead.

Speaker 20 140 paste smeared over very woke toast.

Speaker 20 Okay. 140 IQ.

Speaker 19 It's very smart.

Speaker 19 It was like an economics. Anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 20 Anyways, so I do want to listen to that podcast you had with the three economists. But anyways,

Speaker 20 the really exciting thing would be, all right, how do we implement a chips-like act for housing?

Speaker 20 Because if you unleash the real economy, there's a lot of great housing builders out there, Pulte, you know, there's a ton of,

Speaker 20 and say to them, all right, I don't know if it's 3%, 5%, 10% tax subsidy, and also make it more difficult

Speaker 20 for residents to sequester new housing permits.

Speaker 20 One of the biggest tragedies in American history, I believe, was we took housing permits out of the hands of actually the bureaucrats were trying to fire, and we put it into the hands of housing owners who all of a sudden decided, if I own a house, I don't want any more new houses built.

Speaker 19 NIMBY, NIMBY.

Speaker 20 But a dramatic, I would love the Democrats to propose a dramatic increase of tax subsidy, whatever it might be, that increases housing supply well beyond its current demand and says within the next 10 years, we're going to bring housing prices down dramatically.

Speaker 19 Trump would do this, Mr. Real Estate, right? Instead of playing games in Ukraine.

Speaker 20 It has such a huge psychological impact on our youth because, and only that housing formation, I i don't know about you when i when i was younger and trying to figure out a way like not to get married i said okay let's get a dog and then it was like okay let's get a house and when you get a house it's really a commitment to each other and you you start saving it's a great means of of creating more cementing of a bond with somebody should you and i get a house together Let me think.

Speaker 20 No. Okay.
My housing strategy is very straightforward. It's a 0.1% strategy.
Wealthy people are the most homogenous, boring people in the world.

Speaker 20 And that is, I'm convinced, essentially, income inequality is only going to get worse. And the 0.1% are incredibly boring.
They all wear Hermes ties. They party in St.
Barts. They drive Range Rovers.

Speaker 20 And they want to live in one of six or seven places.

Speaker 19 Sounds like you, but go ahead.

Speaker 20 Invest what you know.

Speaker 20 And, you know, boner pills. And two-headed glass dildos.
I'm still looking for an investment there. Anyways, but back to real estate.

Speaker 20 The 0.1% all want to live in Dubai, London, New York, Palm Beach, Aspen,

Speaker 20 certain parts of LA. And then there's maybe two or three close seconds, and they're all crowding into a small number of homes.
And in addition, any of those places.

Speaker 20 The secondary benefit is I want to make it such that my boys can't avoid me. It's like, well, we can go to Tijuana and eat cheap lobster, or we could go hang out at my dad's place.

Speaker 20 We have to have lunch with him.

Speaker 19 Anyways, I don't know how we got here.

Speaker 20 But Trump, the Democrats need a housing act.

Speaker 19 All right. But here's the thing.

Speaker 19 Will this inflation stuff going to stick to? There's the tariffs, everything else, although they're kind of a paper tiger in that regard, for now at least.

Speaker 19 Is it going to stick to him?

Speaker 19 Because he made so many problems about fucking eggs. He went on and on about eggs.
Is that going to stick on him?

Speaker 20 Well, my heart says yes, but my brain says based on all previous track records.

Speaker 19 Yeah, nothing ever sticks this guy.

Speaker 20 If he can be found liable by a jury of his peers, selected by both his defense and the prosecution and

Speaker 20 be found liable of sexual abuse. I'm not sure inflation's going to stick to him.
So I would think, but what I probably know or what I feel is yes. What I know based on fact patterns is no.

Speaker 19 Yeah, so we have to offer positive things going forward. I agree with you.
All right, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, President Musk takes center stage in the Oval Office.

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Speaker 19 Scott, we're back. Elon Musk joined President Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday to discuss his work on Doge.
I'm going to call it Doggy from now on. I'm not calling it Doge.
Doggy.

Speaker 19 He gave a very casual explanation of what he's been up to. Let's listen.

Speaker 24 I mean, these things, like it's just common sense. It's not

Speaker 35 it's it's not draconian or radical, I think.

Speaker 24 It's really just saying, let's look at each of these expenditures and say, is this actually in the best interest of the people? And if it is, it's approved.

Speaker 35 If it's not, we should think about it.

Speaker 19 Actually, in the best interest of Elon Musk, according to a lot of reporting, by the way, a lot of these cuts have to do with his businesses and a lot of these attacks are mostly around things that affect him.

Speaker 19 He said he speaks to Trump almost daily and checks with him before making decisions. Meanwhile, Trump signed an executive order giving Doggy even more power.

Speaker 19 The order requires the Doggy team, I like saying it like that, to be stationed at every government agency to oversee hiring decisions now and will only allow agencies to hire one employee for every four that depart.

Speaker 19 Aside from that, that was the weirdest. visual I've ever seen.
His four-year-old was there

Speaker 19 looking what Elon used to call this kid a cute prop, and that's what it was. And he kept talking to the president who seemed out of it.

Speaker 19 Elon was casually dressed, sort of pontificating, saying he made, so what if he made a mistake about the gods of condoms? Who cares? He makes mistakes.

Speaker 19 It was the strangest thing I've ever seen. And Trump looked like he was drugged or something.
But I don't know.

Speaker 19 How are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 20 I'm a big fan of bring your Elon to work days.

Speaker 19 I think it's,

Speaker 20 I was praying that the little kid would start goose stepping. I think that would have

Speaker 20 been fitting.

Speaker 20 Papa, tomorrow belongs to me.

Speaker 19 Oh, no, don't make kid jokes. Keep it out.
Keep it out. Even Grimes was like, that kid should not have been in public, you think?

Speaker 20 You mean the same? Hold on. I don't, I think it's the same kid he put on his shoulders as he walked through the gates that said, work will set you free at Auschwitz.

Speaker 19 Oh, my God. Okay.
All right. Okay.
All right.

Speaker 19 Talk to me about this. That's true.
Yes, he did. You're right.
He used his kid.

Speaker 20 He used his kid as a prop at Auschwitz. Anyways, I don't, I'm a big,

Speaker 20 I think it's great when people bring their kids to work, but when you use your kids as, it feels like the kid is a bit of a prop right now.

Speaker 19 He is. Well, he's called it that.

Speaker 20 And look, I don't,

Speaker 20 it all again is like the gulf of distraction. And that is

Speaker 20 the inspector general who was looking into Musk's.

Speaker 20 payments and business activities has been summarily fired. Right.
And I'm putting out a post tomorrow.

Speaker 20 Basically, what people don't realize is it's just so incredibly cynical because arguably one of the biggest welfare queens in history is Elon Musk.

Speaker 20 If you look at where a lot of these payments have gone, so a lot of this large ass.

Speaker 20 So I find, look, it's pretty obvious I have a bias against the guy, but I didn't, I thought it was smart for Trump visually to be sitting like I'm more important and to have him there standing.

Speaker 20 I thought Elon looked good. I'm trying to be, I thought, I thought he had, I thought that fashion was kind of cool, the black hat and like the,

Speaker 20 the the um you know the the the jacket but i thought and i actually thought he handled the questions relatively well so

Speaker 19 you know probably probably a win for them but i i have a difficult time just absorbing and processing any of this i see i did not i had an exact opposite i was like what is going on here this is so strange with the kids saying things to trump i mean a lot of people put words in the kids mouth one was you need to shush now but i wish that was real dude i don't know i don't I'm not even gonna go.

Speaker 19 He was talking to the president saying something. He was saying something and

Speaker 19 he shouldn't have, the kid shouldn't have been there. It's such a weird thing to do that.
And I don't care. You can attack me all you want.

Speaker 19 This is not an appropriate place for a kid, largely for the kids' sake, not for you shouldn't have kids at work or whatever. It's just, it's weird.
It's weird. And the kid is going to suffer for it.

Speaker 19 No, I don't, I'm going to make that parenting. declaration right now.
And his own mother said the same thing, by the way.

Speaker 19 But whatever. Musk wants to do it and he gets to do whatever he wants.

Speaker 19 It was disrespectful to the office of what they were doing. I still believe that.
I still believe in that. Even if you don't or necessarily or people don't, I do.

Speaker 19 Secondly, I thought Trump looked old next to Musk and it looked like Musk was running the government. I thought that's the visual I got out of it.
But maybe that was. See,

Speaker 20 I think actually Trump, given the fact that he is that old, I think Trump is remarkably robust and good looking for people. He sure is.

Speaker 19 So why was he sitting down down and just looking out at it and saying nothing?

Speaker 20 I think it was sort of a power move, but a couple of things come up. One,

Speaker 20 the kid was totally distracting from me. And he's doing, I do the same thing.
I put out pictures on social of my dogs. One, because I think they're great and they are beautiful dogs.

Speaker 20 And two, I think it makes me more likable. I do the same thing.
So I understand what he's trying to do. The thing that propped up in my mind is I have good friends who,

Speaker 20 and I got this practice from them. Every five years, they sit each other down and they say, logistics and money aside, which is a position of privilege,

Speaker 20 what could we do that would make you really happy? And my friend said, I think it was about five years ago, I'd like to sail around the world with the family.

Speaker 20 So they spent two years planning how to homeschool their kids on a boat, how to build a boat that could circumvent navigate the globe. And they did it.
They circumnavigated the globe.

Speaker 20 And there were some exceptionally scary moments

Speaker 20 involving pirates, rough seas, when you got like a seven-year-old on the boat. If the seven-year-old goes over, there's no getting him back.
And then,

Speaker 20 and what they said to me was, I said, would you do it again? I tried to talk them out of it. These are good friends.
I'm like, I just don't think this is a good idea. I wouldn't do it.

Speaker 20 And there's certain bodies of water. I would just take a plane.
You don't need bragging rights. You're both incredibly impressive people.
And I said, would you do it again?

Speaker 20 And they said, not until our kids could give consent.

Speaker 20 Because they said there were just some moments where that were very scary.

Speaker 20 And I feel the same way about this. If you're the president and you have children, it's one thing to have those moments.
But I don't know. Do you really take your kid to a concentration camp?

Speaker 19 I'm focused on the kids. I'm focusing on Elon.
I agree. This kid should not have been there.
I thought the whole thing was so fucking weird. It was weird.
It was just a weird thing.

Speaker 19 And I thought Trump did look agent. I don't think he looked powerful.
I thought he looked like the kid and he were just overplaying with blocks over here, and Elon was running the government.

Speaker 19 Anyway, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has some harsh thoughts about Elon Musk after his bid for the company. There's a lot of legal back and forth this week, by the way, about this.

Speaker 19 There's a lawsuit and then Musk made a bid, which seems like a fake bid. Either it's a fake lawsuit or a fake bid.
I can't tell. But let's listen to Sam Altman.

Speaker 24 Do you think Musk's approach then is from a position of insecurity about XAI?

Speaker 33 Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity, I feel for the guy.

Speaker 35 You feel for him? I do, actually.

Speaker 5 I don't think he's like a happy person. I do feel for him.

Speaker 19 The backhanded compliment. Well done, Sam.
In a court filing, OpenAI has said the bid contradicts legal claims. Musk made in a lawsuit against the company last year.
In fact, it does.

Speaker 19 Musk now says he's willing to drop the bid if OpenAI remains a nonprofit. By the way, there are emails where Musk indicates he wanted it to be a profit company.

Speaker 19 So he's just, whatever works for him, he says at the time. As of Tuesday, Altman told employees the board hadn't received an official offer from Musk, which is probably true.

Speaker 19 I'm going to believe Altman here over Musk.

Speaker 19 You know, he's just trying to slow him down. That's what it seems like.

Speaker 19 He'll say whatever he takes to slow OpenAI and drag it into controversy and take advantage of people either have left OpenAI or who have ill feelings towards Altman, et cetera, which there's going to be many.

Speaker 20 Yeah,

Speaker 20 I think Sam has shown a great deal of discipline around his comms and his brand.

Speaker 20 I think he screwed up here. I think that whether it's true or not, it might have felt good to say, I feel for the guy, and yes, he's insecure.

Speaker 20 I think he just sort of said,

Speaker 20 the offer isn't a serious offer. and I can't, I, you know, I have no idea what's going on with Elon Musk.
I don't, I don't want to, he

Speaker 20 Sam has taken so far the high road around this, and he should continue to take the high road.

Speaker 20 He shouldn't take the bait and say, because that's basically saying he's insecure, and it must have felt good. And I get why he would do it.
He's probably so sick of this guy

Speaker 20 that wants to deploy Lawfer instead of actually competing against him and is like this poltergeist who will not go away.

Speaker 19 For all of us.

Speaker 19 That's absolutely fair.

Speaker 20 But Sam's brand is he's, Sam comes across as the adult in the room, and he's very restrained, and he errs on the side of taking blows. And

Speaker 20 I don't think you should go there and say, you know, I mean, that wasn't, that was, that was passive aggressive minus the passive part.

Speaker 19 Oh, no, that was like, what an asshole. Yeah.

Speaker 19 I watched how he did it. He's, I've seen him do it before.
Um, you know, these sideways.

Speaker 19 attacks and they're funny and he's very he's like oh i feel sorry for him he's such an asshole i feel sorry that he's an asshole yeah but i think i think the right answer would have been of course we had our lawyers look at it.

Speaker 20 We don't think there's any merit on it. We're focused on building great products.
So I'm not here to psychoanalyze that.

Speaker 19 So

Speaker 19 which one do you think? This is just about slowing down. Both of us think that, but it's just about slowing down open AI.

Speaker 19 Not a real lawsuit and not a real bid. Possibly it could be, though.

Speaker 20 Yeah, but the only thing is, if you're a public company and someone makes a bid for a certain class of shares is the way I would describe this, then you have a voice share obligation to put together a special committee and look at, and I don't know if they have debt, if that changes anything.

Speaker 19 It's not clear because it's a nonprofit if they have a special responsibility, but go ahead.

Speaker 20 But when you're basically a private company and everyone's making so much money, I just, unless there's someone on the board of the nonprofit that also hates Altman, which might be the case and wants to create trouble.

Speaker 19 I've never stacked it with friends with us.

Speaker 20 And they can pretty much do whatever they want. They don't, a public company has an obligation.
The board has an obligation to get the highest offer and look at everything.

Speaker 20 A private company is basically a private company and they can kind of do, you know, the shareholders, the shareholders as represented by the board can kind of do whatever the fuck they want.

Speaker 20 And I can't imagine any of them are going to go, yeah, let's bring Elon in.

Speaker 19 Well, in the case of Twitter, there was a really good,

Speaker 19 there's been very good reporting when the CEO at the time, Blog Grouwall, said, we have to look at this offer. It's an offer.
It's a huge offer.

Speaker 19 I'm sorry to say we don't have a choice, even if he's an asshole, essentially.

Speaker 19 And then they had to take it because it was so good and ridiculous and so above their thing. In this case, they can do whatever they want.
And it's not that far above it.

Speaker 19 And maybe the nonprofit gets more money or something like that. But they'll be lost.
He'll just keep throwing.

Speaker 19 Listen, Elon Musk has two moves. I'll buy it or I'll sue you.
These are his two like big moves. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Speaker 20 He doesn't have the money to buy. Because if he were to buy it, he would have to man.

Speaker 20 Look,

Speaker 20 actually, the more interesting kind of thing that no one watched, I actually read or looked at,

Speaker 20 which is Latin for had one of my analysts read,

Speaker 20 the earnings call from from SoftBank. And a bunch of people asked questions about this anticipated investment in OpenAI at a $340 or $300 billion pre-money valuation.

Speaker 20 And basically in so many words, they said, what the fuck are you thinking? Can you please explain this and what will be the structure of the investment?

Speaker 20 So I'm now beginning to think that that investment might be at risk because a lot of the analysts on the call were,

Speaker 20 what are you doing? This makes no sense. So for the first time, I'm now wondering if SoftBank actually reduces their commitment to that room.
Right.

Speaker 19 Right.

Speaker 19 That's exactly what Musk wants to happen, right? That's exactly what he wants to do. He wants to cut them off at the knees.
He's very clever that way. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

Speaker 19 How DeepSeek is threatening Tesla's next.

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Speaker 19 Scott, we're back. Chinese electric car company BYD is bringing deep-seek technology to its vehicles, of course.

Speaker 19 The EV maker has added advanced driver assistance systems in most of its vehicles, including a model that costs under $10,000. They also continue to be adorable.

Speaker 19 The cheapest Tesla model on the market is $30,000. Tesla stock is down 17% in the last month because people are actually doing math, but I'm not thinking that

Speaker 19 Musk's ascendants will benefit Tesla necessarily

Speaker 19 you know he's a CEO but he's focused on a lot of other things

Speaker 19 Scott this week you talked to Alice Han Chinese economist and director at Greenmantle about this very thing let's listen

Speaker 25 how is our player Tesla domestically who has its own manufacturing in China faring against BYD domestically in China not well at all I mean the fact that

Speaker 42 Tesla is still there surprises me somewhat given its price point and the fact that all these companies including Tesla have had to cut prices over the last few years because of the extremely competitive price war landscape.

Speaker 42 I think it's only a matter of time before that share starts to diminish even further.

Speaker 42 It's going to be an open-ended question and now this is going to be based on the politics of it all, whether or not Elon Musk gets these autonomous vehicle licenses.

Speaker 19 Explain what she was saying there. And by the way, her accent is fantastic.

Speaker 20 Oh, I cannot tell you how impressed I am with this, with Alice Hahn. She's my find.
Occasionally, you find somebody and you think, this person is a genius and I want to give them more sunlight.

Speaker 20 She's one of those people. Anyways,

Speaker 20 she's essentially said that, I mean, if you look at what's happened to Tesla in Europe, it's not much better in China. In January, retail sales of Tesla in China were 16% lower year on year.

Speaker 19 Why wouldn't you buy a BYD? They're great cars.

Speaker 20 And get this, 60% lower than in December.

Speaker 20 So, I mean, BYD, and BYD is now the number one EV car manufacturer in the world.

Speaker 20 Going to a much broader point here, I think that the most important relationship that could evolve, hopefully, in the next three years, let's assume that Musk or Trump, supposedly he desperately wants a Nobel Prize.

Speaker 20 And so let me go to advising the president in a hopeful way. The most obvious way would be to solve the civil war in Sudan, threaten both sides, work with both sides.

Speaker 20 The other way would be if China and the U.S.

Speaker 20 kissed and made up, the, I mean, have you seen these cars? These cars are $10,000 EVs and really good.

Speaker 19 They're adorable. As long as they're safe, they're going to raise questions.
I've had people write me about whether they're safe or not.

Speaker 19 Okay. If we're fighting for that.

Speaker 19 They have to be if they're here.

Speaker 20 For another $2,000 or $3,000, you can install a lot of airbags and a lot of safety features.

Speaker 20 And in addition, I would even go further than that. I would create a bilateral AI commission where we,

Speaker 20 supposedly, 38% of AI engineers are Chinese in the U.S.

Speaker 20 And when we don't cooperate with them, they develop their own chips.

Speaker 20 They have incentive to do things kind of in and around us.

Speaker 20 I would have a bilateral AI similar to what Oppenheimer's vision was for nuclear, where we share everything with each other, but we also commit to ensuring that AI is not used to create bioweapons by third parties or bad actors, because all we're doing is motivating the other to figure out workarounds to attack the other.

Speaker 20 The most important relationship in terms of a thawing right now would be the first and second largest economy.

Speaker 19 Talk about these autonomous vehicle licenses. He needs them in China, right? If he can get these from the Chinese.

Speaker 20 Yeah, but here's the Chinese playbook, and it's happening to Tesla. The Chinese playbook is very simple.
Oh, Google, oh, Meta, come on in.

Speaker 20 And then they watch, listen, and learn, and then they steal their IP and prop up a local entrepreneur and capture the most of the value for the domestic market.

Speaker 20 And I think the same thing is happening to Tesla.

Speaker 20 I can't imagine a lot of that IP from Tesla didn't end up at BYD.

Speaker 19 I don't know about that. I do think that I am of the

Speaker 19 I agree with you about sort of the fast follower, right? The planes are covered with the bodies of pioneers, that kind of thing. That said, I do think there's a ton of innovation.
I think

Speaker 19 you can see it through TikTok. I think what Alibaba has done, there's a lot of innovation there too of their own, but they definitely wait, watch, and then innovate.
And battery, too.

Speaker 19 Yeah, I don't think they necessarily steal every minute of the day, but there is that. But it's, it's, these cars are very different than anything I've seen.
So it's not like they're copying.

Speaker 19 right they're sort of copying but there's also innovations around it that i i have never wanted to buy a car more than a b whyd car and i love my ford uh i love my my bolt as you know and i do i think it's adorable too byd sales plummet

Speaker 19 after podcast you have the worst taste in car i know but have you seen them i I like their innocence. They're beautiful.

Speaker 20 They're super cool.

Speaker 19 They're beautiful and they're cool. And if you're a young person, you'd want one.
100%.

Speaker 19 In a second, they look like, I don't mean they're, they're kind of like the V, it's like the new VW bug, but with technology. It's the Uniqlo of cars.

Speaker 19 You know, like whenever we're going to UniClaw, I buy 10 shirts. I like, they love them.
And I have to say, I love them. I don't think I'm using them as just throw them out.

Speaker 19 They're just inexpensive and adorable. I just, I mean, I look adorable, by the way.

Speaker 20 It's the car equivalent of fast fashion.

Speaker 20 We have figured out supply chain to just bring you something for dramatically less money. And

Speaker 19 as long as they figure out the safety, which they'd have to in this country, I agree. I think he's just, here's the deal.
Musk does not make cars that are interesting anymore. That's all.

Speaker 19 It's an interesting car. It was an innovation.
He hasn't, you have to update these things for consumers. And he does, I don't think he cares about the cars anymore.
That's my feeling.

Speaker 19 Some better news for Tesla and Marco Rubio in a totally normal deal that had no strings attached. The State Department procurement forecast for 2025 includes $400 million in armored Tesla vehicles.

Speaker 19 At least someone is buying them besides Douche Nozzle men. They tried to hide it.
They had Tesla on there. They changed it to armored vehicles and their cyber trucks.
Nobody else wants to buy them.

Speaker 19 Consumers don't seem, a small group of consumers do, of course, as there would be, but it seems like it's

Speaker 19 one of those things people buy because it's weird and interesting.

Speaker 19 But nobody is buying them and there are very few people are buying them and now the government is buying them. Another gimme for Elon Musk.
The grift keeps grifting, I feel. Yeah,

Speaker 20 that's exactly right.

Speaker 20 The only thing propping up Tesla's stock right now is

Speaker 20 and his wealth is this basic, the market has said this is now a kleptocracy and your proximity to power is more important than your innovation.

Speaker 19 Right. So they're buying them from him.

Speaker 20 Yeah. And also firing people who are investigating the company and getting rid of them.
And

Speaker 19 yes, that's a plus.

Speaker 20 Yeah, it's even, unfortunately, it's even,

Speaker 20 and this is in the script, but I'm just curious to get your quick reaction. Have you been following what's going on with Mayor Adams?

Speaker 19 Yes. Yes.
Jesus.

Speaker 19 I mean, just pay-per-filet. He's not going to be mayor soon.
That's the thing. He's out.
Don't you think? I feel like he's not going to be.

Speaker 20 God, I hope so.

Speaker 19 No, come on.

Speaker 22 Nobody in New York likes. I agree.

Speaker 20 No,

Speaker 20 I said I hope so. Yeah.
I mean, essentially, what's effectively happened is he's instructed the DOJ

Speaker 20 to drop all prosecution efforts against Mayor Adams. And in exchange, Mayor Adams has agreed to comply with all efforts by ICE to capture or retain or detain and deport.
So what you have is

Speaker 20 I'll make sure that you are not subject to the same laws that every other citizen is subject to if you agree to go against your constituents and let our ICE people into, who knows, churches or schools.

Speaker 20 I mean, this is really fucking ugly.

Speaker 19 Oh, no, it's utter pay. You know what, Eric Adams? You're a crook.
Like, you're a crook. You're a shitty crook, by the way.
You don't, you only want tickets to Istanbul. Like, what a loser.

Speaker 19 You know, I know you're backing a particular candidate in New York. I forget who it was.
Who was it? Whitney Tilson. Yes.

Speaker 19 But there's a bunch of people running.

Speaker 22 You know, there's a bunch of people.

Speaker 20 The guy who would probably win is when Andrew Cuomo actually announces that he's in the race.

Speaker 19 But there's a bunch. there's a bunch of very good candidates who are not going to be criminals.

Speaker 20 It's a bunch of out-of-control progressives, one pragmatist named Whitney Tilson. Whitney, who is a pragmatist, would be a great mayor, but probably doesn't have the name recognition.

Speaker 20 Governor Cuomo is going to come in and probably just lock it.

Speaker 20 But Kathy Hochul has, I believe, the power to remove Mayor Adams, and she should.

Speaker 20 This is corruption at the highest level.

Speaker 19 That's a good example of him.

Speaker 20 This is really. And by the way, I was a supporter of Mayor Adams.

Speaker 20 I thought the case against him was, quite frankly, overdone.

Speaker 20 I did not think what he did

Speaker 20 rose to the level of.

Speaker 20 I don't know how the media was portraying it.

Speaker 19 I know. I think he's grifty Mick Grift from the start from the go.
He wasn't living there. Everything came out of his mouth was a lie, this guy.

Speaker 19 And he's such a ridiculous peacock and surrounded himself with such growth. I get New York mayor has to be like a little bit grifty, but this guy was like

Speaker 19 grifty is, you know, they all are. I mean, come on.
I mean, but you know, like he's just, he's an embarrassment for a great city. You want a little greatness out of a mayor of,

Speaker 19 you know, even back in the day, Rudy was not actually, you know what, I didn't support Rudy. He was the thug to a lot of people.

Speaker 20 This is, but this is, it's so damaging to the Democratic brand because the Democratic brand, unfortunately, has been tarred with a broad but fairly fair brush of every democratically run city on the West Coast is a fucking shit show.

Speaker 20 They ignored drugs, they ignored crime, and the quality of life is awful. I said two years ago, if Fox, if I were Fox, I would just broadcast live from downtown San Francisco every day.

Speaker 20 And so the center of democratic branding for politics moved to New York, which is actually performing quite well and still offers, is still the best place in the world to go in terms of a crush of opportunity, culture, nightlife.

Speaker 20 New York really still is the best city in the world and represents the best of America and thereby the best of the Democratic Party. And now we have this bullshit.

Speaker 20 So it's really damaging on a lot of levels. I think Governor Hochul should move in and say, do a press release and say, I'm removing him as mayor.

Speaker 19 Who would you put in, boys?

Speaker 20 No, you know who I would ask? That's a good question. I just thought of it.
I would ask Mayor Bloomberg to step back in.

Speaker 22 Oh, good idea.

Speaker 19 I love it.

Speaker 20 Six to 18 months until there's a special election.

Speaker 19 Great idea. Love it.
All right. Kathy, get on it.
All All right. Last thing.
The Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America, at least on Google and Apple Maps in the U.S.

Speaker 19 Apparently, there are consequences for not using the new name.

Speaker 19 Associated Press reporters have now been barred from multiple White House events after AP continues to use Gulf of Mexico in its reporting.

Speaker 19 The AP is calling this a violation of the First Amendment, but press secretary Carolyn Levitt, also known as Tracy Flick, says we reserve the right to decide who gets to go into the Oval Office.

Speaker 19 Oh my God, it's so stupid. Distraction, distraction, distraction.
I'm going to call it the Gulf of Scott. I don't give a fuck what people do to me if I do that.

Speaker 20 You saw my thread or whatever it is. I can't keep track.
I just put out Gulf of Distraction.

Speaker 19 That's all this is.

Speaker 20 I don't, you know, but what, who cares? I don't fine call it that. I just don't.

Speaker 19 It's so stupid. It's so stupid.
It's so manifestly stupid. And I'm sure, I don't even think like, oh, yay, we're calling it the Gulf of America.
Whatever.

Speaker 20 Yeah, we'll show them.

Speaker 19 We'll show them.

Speaker 19 I got to tell you, I'm loving the new president of Mexico so much. She's such a badass.
I'm I'm going to try to interview her.

Speaker 20 Yeah. Shine bomb.
Shine Bon Cloud.

Speaker 19 She's like, oh, fuck you.

Speaker 19 But at the same time, she deals. She's a dealer, too.
Anyway, it's a distraction. Google, you look like wimps, but whatever.

Speaker 19 Nobody looks good. I'm going to call it the Gulf of Scott.
That's the end of it. All right.
Everybody? I appreciate that. Gulf of Dogs.
Gulf of Dog. Dog.

Speaker 19 Dogie. No, dog.
Gulf of Dog. No, I like Gulf of Scott.
No, Gulf of Galloway sounds good. Right.
Gulf of Galloway. It feels like.

Speaker 20 Make America Scottish, again.

Speaker 19 It feels like Ponce de Leon would have named it that. Gulf of Galloway.
Anyway. All right.
It's time for this week's threads poll. This one's open-ended.

Speaker 19 What do you wish Democrats to do in response to the Trump administration's actions? What do you wish? We've had our opinions on that.

Speaker 19 Something besides standing in front of a building and yelling, that's for sure. Visit us on threads at PivotPodcast Official to answer.

Speaker 19 By the way, have you noticed AOC is not outside of the buildings? She's not. Have you noticed that?

Speaker 20 She's very calculating.

Speaker 19 She does great online stuff. I'll tell you that.
She heard and Pete are killing them.

Speaker 20 She's not going to be on the go-to-the alumni cheerleading day where they have all these very cute 95-year-olds dressed up in pom-poms. She's an actual cheerleader.
She's a gangster.

Speaker 19 She and Pete Buttigieg, I have to say, are very appealing.

Speaker 20 They're in the background managing their brand really strongly with an eye on 28.

Speaker 20 And they're not going to go down in some sort of like

Speaker 20 angry near-zombie apocalypse movie.

Speaker 20 Yeah,

Speaker 20 they're too smart.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 19 We would love our listeners to write in what do you think they should do. And no violence, please, if you don't mind.
All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

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Speaker 19 Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction.

Speaker 20 So, you know, a broken clock can be right.

Speaker 20 I had, I, I was a prediction machine last night and I wrote a much down. You did?

Speaker 22 What happened?

Speaker 19 What were you taking?

Speaker 20 No, I was actually, I was actually sober, which is kind of frightening.

Speaker 20 When I was talking about, when you said that, that fuck Mary Kill thing, and I was talking about making sweet, sweet love to Mark Zuckerberg.

Speaker 20 And I thought I'd be like, you're still thinking about it, aren't you? Oh my God, I can't get off of it. Grabbing that chain, riding him like a dog and singing, who's self-harming now, you want

Speaker 19 bitch.

Speaker 20 Oh, my God, my nipples are getting hard. And at that moment, at that moment, I thought, maybe I don't need drugs.

Speaker 19 Maybe I don't need drugs.

Speaker 19 Anyways,

Speaker 20 this is all going to come crashing down, Kiera. Anyways, last time.

Speaker 19 I'm getting notes from Lara saying no, no, no, but I say yes, yes, yes. And therefore,

Speaker 20 if that's wrong, we don't want to be right.

Speaker 21 Oh, you don't.

Speaker 19 All right, go ahead. Prediction.

Speaker 20 I think Tesla is about to experience its real first major existential crisis.

Speaker 19 Sales off.

Speaker 20 Oh, gosh. They're off.

Speaker 19 Here you go again.

Speaker 20 They're off. Here I go again.
I can't help it.

Speaker 20 I'm an addict.

Speaker 20 They're off 20 to 60% across European countries. They're off 50% in China.

Speaker 20 EV demand appears to be plateauing. They are getting the shit kicked out of them by BYD.
They haven't really released a new mass adoption product in about seven years.

Speaker 19 Have I been saying that? I have been saying that.

Speaker 20 And they have what is right now the worst brand ambassador in the world.

Speaker 19 Or the people that want to buy those cars. Yeah.

Speaker 20 And then my more boring one is I really think Google is going to, you're about to hear a lot of stories about Google search share falling below 90% at the hands hands of Perplexity, ChatGPT, and also

Speaker 20 Reddit. And I was even thinking, just as YouTube has become the ultimate distribution platform in 2025, I think in 26 is going to be Reddit.

Speaker 20 There's just a bunch of, like, there's so many moons lining up right now. I'm really,

Speaker 20 anyways, I think that Tesla is about to have.

Speaker 20 I can't help it. I'm just going to say it now.
Tesla's stock is going to be below 200 in the next six months.

Speaker 19 Going there. You're fine.
You're going there again. I love you.
Once more into the breach, Scott Galloway.

Speaker 20 At some point, I'll be right.

Speaker 19 Well, the numbers are the, the math is math, right? Look, they're doing, before they were on the upswing in terms of like the quality of cars, what they were releasing.

Speaker 19 Instead, they're forced to sell things to Marco Rubio, who has to do whatever everybody says because he's

Speaker 19 such a beta. Just so you know, on that thing about search, Atlantic Politico Vox, Jim Bankoff sent me this.

Speaker 19 Another major publishers are suing AI startup Cohere for copyright and trademark infringement, escalating the news battles, legal battle over the technology. That's from the Wall Street Journal.

Speaker 19 It's a Canadian company. It's valued at $5 billion, and they're using thousands of copyrighted works to train its large language model.

Speaker 17 Anyway, they're suing.

Speaker 19 Jim Bankoff on the attack. Atlantic Politico.
They must have coordinated it all together. All right.
So those are your two that searches. Those are good.
Those are big ones. Those are big ideas.

Speaker 19 We'll see, right? Yeah.

Speaker 19 We'll see. Someday you're going to be right.
Anyway, you are right. You were right before in terms of the numbers.
It just didn't matter. In this case, we'll see.
We'll see what happens.

Speaker 20 Do you have any thoughts? Any predictions?

Speaker 19 Predictions?

Speaker 19 I predict I will buy yet another EV this year.

Speaker 22 I will.

Speaker 19 The key is getting a little long in the tooth. And I'm trying to debate whether to get the hybrid, which I think is really, hybrids are growing like crazy.

Speaker 20 Oh, you know what we should do?

Speaker 19 What? What?

Speaker 20 And I'm serious about this. Alice, who I really respect, I would even call her a friend, China analyst, Al San.
She said, Scott, you should really, I haven't been to China since 2019.

Speaker 20 And I was saying, I was so excited about China. And I went there probably two, three times a year, and I haven't been back since 2019.

Speaker 20 And she said, I'll take it. It'll be a ton of fun.
And you'll meet with some interesting people. You and I should go to China and you should pick up your BYD and see if you can get it back to the U.S.

Speaker 19 Oh, interesting.

Speaker 20 And pay the import, pay the tariff and bring it back.

Speaker 19 Let's go to China. I bet we're popular in Hong Kong.
You know, we did, we did one of my conferences here. I had a stroke there, as you know.
Last time I was there, I had a stroke.

Speaker 20 Yeah, the International Tourism Board is that's not going to be on any billboards. Want a stroke? Come to Shenzhen.

Speaker 19 No, let's go to China. Let's do it.
That would be really interesting.

Speaker 22 We should do it. China?

Speaker 19 We want to come visit you. And we're going to bring, but we're going to drive the BYD.
We're going to drive it across the ocean. Reach out to us.
Reach out to us. We're coming to China.

Speaker 19 We'll do an event. Whatever you want.

Speaker 20 And I've heard that the CCP is actually a good organization because I can't find anyone who would say anything else.

Speaker 19 Bring us to China. Bring us to China.
They're so good. All right.
Let's do it. Let's do it in 2020.
After we see Wicked. After we see, we're going to see Wicked, my friend.

Speaker 20 We could see Wicked in Beijing. That'd be interesting.

Speaker 19 Are they going to let people? It's all about a surveillance economy. I wonder how big it is.
I have no idea. Do you know what? What are you doing this weekend? Anything interesting?

Speaker 20 Oh, yeah. I'm going to.

Speaker 20 It's funny. I paused there because I feel like I rub my wealth in people's face.

Speaker 22 I'm going to Zermatt.

Speaker 20 I'm going to Zermatt on Saturday.

Speaker 19 All right. That's interesting.
And I'm really excited.

Speaker 20 Supposedly, we have this ridiculously hot ski instructor. So

Speaker 19 you know where I'm going? I'm going to SNL's 50th concert.

Speaker 19 Really? Is it a concert or a showing?

Speaker 19 No, there's going to be a show on Saturday. I'm just going to the concert the night before.
It's at Radio City Musical. That sounds really cool.
Anyway, we want to hear from you.

Speaker 19 Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.
Okay, Scott, that's the show.

Speaker 19 We'll be back next week with more Pivot. Please read us out.

Speaker 20 Today's show is produced by Larry Amon, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Speaker 31 Ernie Nurtod engineered this episode.

Speaker 20 Thanks also to Drew Brose, Ms. Severo, and Dan Shulan.
And Shak Kuroz, is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 20 Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod.

Speaker 20 We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care.

Speaker 4 Have a great weekend.

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