Kara's Washington Post Bid, Trump's TikTok Plans, and Tesla's Sales Drop

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Speaker 15 It's sexism. When I'm late, it's a crime against humanity.
When you're late, it's because you're so important.

Speaker 16 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher. It's 2025.

Speaker 15 I'm Scott Galloway. How are you, Kara?

Speaker 17 Good.

Speaker 16 We're back. We're both in New York and we're not together.
You were with your other, your other side piece, Jess Karloff down at Vox, and I'm up at a hotel. Younger, more beautiful, more witty,

Speaker 16 and yet not. not me as usual, because I am the one you always come back to.

Speaker 16 And that is why, Scott, today I was searching and searching for a song that we could begin our 2025 year with, or yet another year for this.

Speaker 15 This is going to be so bad. You have the worst taste of music.

Speaker 15 I'm literally cringing before it.

Speaker 16 And I picked this just for you. Okay.

Speaker 15 Cue the tape.

Speaker 18 What is this feeling so sudden and new?

Speaker 18 I felt the moment I remember.

Speaker 15 No, no, really?

Speaker 15 My pulse is rushing.

Speaker 15 My head is reeling.

Speaker 18 Well, my face is flushing.

Speaker 15 What is this feeling deserving of?

Speaker 15 Does it have a name?

Speaker 15 Yes.

Speaker 15 Loathing

Speaker 15 an adulterous. Okay, okay, I get it.
I think it should be the intro music for that to Catch a Predator series.

Speaker 16 I love that song. That song has become a viral hit online, by the way.
Everybody's copying that dance with the book.

Speaker 15 It might be viral.

Speaker 15 Yeah, it's so good.

Speaker 16 It's such our song. I feel like first we start off in Emines.
We're Emines. And then we become like this.
And then we become a joint togetherness and we sing together. I just feel it's perfect.

Speaker 16 It's a perfect theme. It's loathing that becomes love.
That is what we are.

Speaker 15 That is what we are.

Speaker 15 I got to go see Wicked. Everyone says it's true.

Speaker 16 You want to go tonight? You and I can go.

Speaker 15 I'd say yes, but I don't want to.

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 15 I tried to think of an excuse. We could go.

Speaker 16 Listen, here's what an idea is. Listen, we go to Bond Street.
We get really drunk we go see wicked what do you think you're halfway there i'll do half of that okay

Speaker 15 if you later by the way we should definitely bring the row we'll bring all our friends i'm doing

Speaker 15 i'm doing this rotopia dinners where i just invite a bunch of men to dinners yeah of course

Speaker 15 thank you so much for inviting me but go ahead uh well uh you might be an honorary guest sometime um i like you invite me to the the the women dinner that the the chicks so i can serve that's my favorite you like you think it's hilarious that men serve you yes I do.

Speaker 16 Anyways, it's appropriate.

Speaker 15 But

Speaker 15 where I'm going is, if we went down, we should try this test.

Speaker 15 If we just immediately, like 9 p.m., headed to Zero Bond or Casa Tripriano or one of my other douchebag members' clubs, and we just started texting people. I bet so many people would join us.

Speaker 15 My new theme is last-minute texting. Hey, do you want to grab a drink or do you want to go to dinner? And so many people are more available than you think.

Speaker 16 Well, you should do that. I'm going to be with Anderson Cooper tonight.
That's AC?

Speaker 15 What are you doing on the show? Yeah, I'm going on the show. Yeah, I'm going on the show.
Oh, AC360? Yeah.

Speaker 16 Yeah. Maybe I'll bring him.

Speaker 15 He's got the biggest show on CNN. He gets like 40, 45 viewers.
So that's a good deal for you.

Speaker 15 I love AC.

Speaker 16 Don't be. By the way, he was great on New Year's, wasn't he? With Andy Cohen.
That was pretty funny.

Speaker 15 I don't watch TV anymore. Do you actually watch TV? I watch.

Speaker 16 Well, yeah, I watched that.

Speaker 15 You got all angry. I thought that woman was hilarious.
What was her name? Who?

Speaker 15 The comedian who came on? I didn't get angry.

Speaker 15 You didn't like her?

Speaker 16 No, I still think she's funny. I don't think she's very funny.

Speaker 16 Whitney Cummings. I don't think she's.
I didn't get angry. I just don't think she's funny.
Whitney Cummings has become increasingly unfunny.

Speaker 16 I never thought she was particularly funny, but now she's deeply unfunny. I love that New Year's show.

Speaker 15 I love when people drink on TV.

Speaker 16 That was a good show, I have to say. The whole thing was great.
He kept every time Andy Cohen, when he kept going, Eric Adams is over there. By the way, he was indicted.

Speaker 15 He kept saying, that's so funny.

Speaker 16 We should do that. We should do a New Year's show.
We should.

Speaker 15 I like

Speaker 15 drink.

Speaker 15 I think we should do that. I'm going on a thing here.
I don't know if you've heard, but

Speaker 15 Surgeon General Vivek Murti wants to put a cancer warning on alcohol, which I get.

Speaker 15 But I'm on a pro. I think if you're under the age of 30 and your liberal can process it, I think you need to drink more.

Speaker 15 All those medical doctors, those famous doctors, Hugh Ruinatia,

Speaker 15 they see drunkenness. I see togetherness.

Speaker 16 I think that is an interesting statistic.

Speaker 16 The statistics are pretty scary. Around breast cancer.

Speaker 15 It is

Speaker 16 all kinds of stuff. Yeah.
That's why I'll live forever. You and Trump.
Anyway, we should go out drinking tonight and go see Wicked. I dare you.
We'll take you.

Speaker 16 We'll kidnap you you and make you go see Wicked.

Speaker 15 Yeah, no, I'm down for half of that.

Speaker 16 You know, on one half, look, we'll have like George Hahn and maybe Justin Throe sitting on one side singing. I'll be on the other side singing.
I'll get someone else who knows the words.

Speaker 16 It'll be really great.

Speaker 15 It'll be fun.

Speaker 15 Anyway, I'm doing a breath work lesson tonight. Can you believe that? I have fallen so far.
I have someone coming over to teach me how to breathe better. What?

Speaker 15 I'm literally getting anxious thinking about it.

Speaker 16 You hired someone to teach you to breathe?

Speaker 15 Yeah, I went to Summit and I met this dude who seemed very groovy and chi and chill.

Speaker 15 And he's like, he only grabbed my hands and looked into my eyes and he's like, I just really want to do breath work with you. And I'm like, all right, come over and we'll do breath work.

Speaker 16 I think it's just that, you know, it's going to be happening. I think you're going to be having, I think you're having an experience tonight.
That's what I think is going to happen.

Speaker 15 You think I'm getting oral sex? Is that what you're saying? Is that what you're trying to say on Tivot?

Speaker 16 Yeah, I think that's what's happening.

Speaker 15 But go ahead. You know what? Every summer solstice would happen for me.

Speaker 15 Every summer solstice. Breath work.
That's a good euphemism. Breath work.

Speaker 15 Yeah. No,

Speaker 15 my kind of objectives for New Year's are relax the throw to maintain icon.

Speaker 15 There you go.

Speaker 15 Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Anyways, let's get up.
What are we talking about?

Speaker 16 We're talking about, we're talking, we got a lot to catch up on today. We've been, you have missed me so much.
It's true. We've talked a lot over the holidays, actually.

Speaker 16 And there's a lot of news, including the end of net neutrality, not as interesting, Tesla's sales dropping, Meta's preparation for Trump, Europe attacking.

Speaker 16 Elon, of course, has made a spectacle of himself. He spent New New Year's with the president

Speaker 16 dancing to gay songs at Mar-a-Lago.

Speaker 16 That looked so sad. I was like, I didn't feel sorry for him because he's an asshole, but

Speaker 16 there's a lot going on. Let's start.

Speaker 16 Actually, there's been some major important stories happening. This is January 6th when we're taping this,

Speaker 16 which was not a day of love by any stretch

Speaker 16 when Trump lost.

Speaker 16 But he's back, and he's going to let off quite a few of those people, apparently. But first, this most important thing that's been out is this, for us, at least the TikTok ban.

Speaker 16 President-elect Donald Trump has urged the Supreme Court to pause the TikTok ban. In a legal finding, Trump said the delay would allow his administration to pursue a negotiated resolution.

Speaker 16 The Justice Department has responded by asking the court to reject the delay request. The Supreme Court has said to hear arguments on the case on Friday.

Speaker 16 And I have suggested that Elon Musk is going to try to buy it and merge it with X.

Speaker 16 And probably Larry Ellison will probably be in there.

Speaker 16 You know, a whole bevy of Trump supporters will get the inside track to that. Also,

Speaker 16 Kevin O'Leary, who I'm not a big fan of, has joined the People's Bid for TikTok. It's being led by Project Liberty founder, Frank McCourt, to purchase the assets.
I talked to one of the other

Speaker 16 people named as a bidder, and he said the whole thing is ridiculous. It's not going to get sold.

Speaker 16 There's just no way, and the Chinese aren't going to allow it, et cetera, et cetera. Any thoughts?

Speaker 15 I wonder if nothing happens in the sense that, so I met Frank McCourt's kid or son, and he was talking about how Frank wanted to, just a while ago, wanted to put together a consortium to bid on it.

Speaker 15 I don't see, I think this is a CCP influence company. I won't say controlled.

Speaker 15 I don't think the Chinese want to be forced into doing anything right now.

Speaker 15 And so, and the idea that you and the information have floated is that Musk and Ellison will partner with the blessing of the Trump administration and Trump will try and give the student like a gift and force the Chinese to divest it.

Speaker 15 I don't think Xi scares that easily. I thought that if he was able to dictate the terms of the sale and maintain some economic interests, that it might, you know, I predicted it would be divested.

Speaker 15 I think now it likely won't because I think what might happen is that the Supreme Court can rule that the banning is legitimate and uphold it because defense issues typically trump First Amendment issues.

Speaker 16 Yeah, they do. That's what's been, for people who don't know, that's what the courts have been saying.
The appeals courts said that people suggest the Supreme Court will do the same thing.

Speaker 15 But my understanding is Trump, in a kind of sleight of hand, could direct the DOJ and law enforcement to not punish Apple or Alphabet, who would be responsible for enforcing its removal from the app stores and basically say, we will not prosecute you or enforce this legislation or law if you violate it and leave TikTok on these platforms.

Speaker 15 So a possibility here that's less dramatic, but increasingly likely is, you know what happens? Nothing.

Speaker 15 Interesting. Anyway, your thoughts, Kara?

Speaker 16 I don't know if corporations will do that.

Speaker 16 You know, interestingly, oddly enough, I think it was Andrew Jackson who didn't follow, I think it was Jackson, who didn't follow a rule by the Supreme Court set for Indian tribes, and he just didn't enforce it.

Speaker 16 Like there is precedent for not enforcing what the Supreme Court says, which is really, it's not unprecedented, but it's very, it's not very common.

Speaker 16 I don't know if Apple and Google will go along with that because eventually there won't be Trump, right? And there will be lawsuits and things like that.

Speaker 16 So I'm not quite sure they will, you know, do a heha, great. We don't have to do anything.

Speaker 16 You know, in the fifth, I would suspect maybe he'll try to get Congress to pass another law that isn't a ban, right? Like he'll just get it. It's got to go through Congress, I think, this thing.

Speaker 16 And since he has control of it, he could possibly get a new law that supersedes this law. That would be what I would imagine happening.
But the fact of the matter is, I think

Speaker 16 by not enforcing it, it doesn't mean the companies won't enforce it themselves.

Speaker 16 That's a big decision on Tim Cook's to have a wink and a nod with Trump on

Speaker 16 not being prosecuted. I don't know.
I think they would listen to the Supreme Court over Donald Trump in that regard.

Speaker 15 That's a fair point. But here are some numbers.
So 15%, 100 million, and 15 million. So 15%

Speaker 15 is the percentage of TikTok that Jeffrey Yass owns. In the private market, TikTok is trading at $300 billion.

Speaker 16 And that's low, I would imagine.

Speaker 15 Actually, what's interesting is it hasn't gone down, despite the fact that it might have been sort of suppressed, but the last private round valuation was around $250, and it's actually ticked up to $300.

Speaker 15 And this guy, Yass, owns 15%. So he has about a $45 $45 billion stake in this company.
And here's the fun part.

Speaker 15 He donated, him and his wife donated $100 million to Republicans this past election cycle. And then the final number, Trump has 15 million followers on TikTok.
He loves it.

Speaker 15 So he's talked about it publicly.

Speaker 16 Yeah.

Speaker 15 So people talk about the 250 million and counting that Musk gave to

Speaker 15 Trump. Well, okay.

Speaker 15 Probably a close second here in terms of individuals is the guy who has a 15% stake and a lot of economic interest in maintaining TikTok's momentum.

Speaker 15 He's in for $100 million. And personally, I would imagine that Trump loves

Speaker 15 having 15 million people to communicate directly with. He's not dumb.
He understands. No, he says it.

Speaker 16 He said it

Speaker 16 explicitly he loves TikTok now. They love me on there.
I'm huge.

Speaker 16 He attributed his winning to his popularity on TikTok, not to Musk's TikTok, which was interesting.

Speaker 15 Just to remind, I prefaced with Jonathan Haidt this morning, and I said, of all the platforms, what do you think is kind of the Sith Lord? What is the most dangerous?

Speaker 15 And he said, in his view, TikTok's the most addictive. And my experience with my 14-year-old is that everything else is kind of,

Speaker 15 you know, meth or opiate. And TikTok is,

Speaker 15 you know, heroin. Like it is just,

Speaker 15 I find it too. I find I can just go down a rabbit hole potato.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I don't go on it because I watch it too much.

Speaker 16 I watch it i the others are already you know i already instagram is already really interesting and i do it rather than watch television or whatever because i like weird videos but yeah tick tock i don't i don't i don't fire it up i just don't i just can't because i know it's really uh addictive and i don't have an addictive personality and it works really well on me too and it responds to everyone in the way they like right that's the thing that's what's so powerful about it and i don't know i just feel like there's i don't actually know what's going to happen here like what at what everybody because there's so many different things.

Speaker 16 I would imagine

Speaker 16 if I had a guess, I think the Supreme Court will stick with national security. I think they will do that.
They've done it all the time. Like, this one seems very obvious.

Speaker 16 At the same time, there are some free speechers over there. Like, why are we doing this?

Speaker 16 But I don't think they want to be, you know, tarred with the idea that they're against national security and for China.

Speaker 16 And somehow, somehow I feel like there's some weird roll up with Musk and Twitter and this and maybe true social. And Ellison's got to be around the basket, right? Hovering around the basket.

Speaker 16 He was in the last round, if you recall.

Speaker 15 Around the hoop. Is that your attempt at it?

Speaker 16 Whatever. Yes, I know.

Speaker 16 Okay. And I spent all Christmas with Mike Pitt, my son, Alex.

Speaker 16 So I don't know. We don't know what's going to happen.
That's what, that's our answer to this question. We're not sure.

Speaker 16 Very briefly, a federal appeals court has struck down the FCC's restoration of net. Everything is tech and politics this year, just so you know.
We should do a podcast on this. Yeah, I know that.

Speaker 16 Of net neutrality rules, the decision was made by an all-Republican panel.

Speaker 16 The judges ruled that the FCC does not have the authority to prohibit telecom companies from blocking internet content or creating fast lanes accessible with fees.

Speaker 16 I mean, this goes back and forth and back and forth on every administration. I just, I've lost sight of this.

Speaker 16 What do you think the biggest consequences are here?

Speaker 15 Well, to be fair, a lot of our progressive brothers and sisters hair was on fire when net neutrality was, wasn't this, didn't this kind of happen a couple of years ago when we thought it was a big deal?

Speaker 15 I feel like like you're recovering it since the beginning of time.

Speaker 15 Because the fear is the wonderful thing about the internet was it essentially cut out, the way I see it is the greatest, one of the greatest tax cuts for consumers was to say, all right, for the people who weaponize government and figure out a way to have regulated monopolies, i.e.

Speaker 15 monopoly, and say, we're the only cable company that can offer you cable in Manhattan, which makes no fucking sense because it costs so much money.

Speaker 15 You know, they make all these arguments and they get basically a mandate to have a monopoly similar to the nfl or whoever you want to pick your favorite monopoly that's kind of quote unquote a regulated monopoly and net neutrality basically says i know you don't need comcast or you don't need um

Speaker 15 you know, an editor from the New York Times or from Fox. With net neutrality, you're Netflix, and you don't even need Blockbuster or,

Speaker 15 you know, with YouTube, you can become your own creator.

Speaker 15 With Substack, you can write your own views on net neutrality and whatever voices bubble up using this amazing means of production that's just infinitely less expensive called the internet, and everyone has equal access to it.

Speaker 15 And the fear has always been that large corporations who weaponize government or have more capital are just going to get preferential access or speeds, or they might throttle the bandwidth for

Speaker 15 certain organizations over the other. To be fair, those fears have not, as far as I can tell, been realized.
Aaron Powell,

Speaker 16 I do think it was in good faith that they tried to do this, right?

Speaker 16 Tried to have this done and that these companies could have really charged way too much for some people and not enough for others and others don't get access to it. But I think you're right.
I think

Speaker 16 it's a very, very difficult thing. But the question is whether the FCC has authority.

Speaker 16 And I think that's the issue is who has authority over, that is to me a really interesting question for 2025 and beyond.

Speaker 16 There aren't really, it's not very clear which of these agencies, the FDC, the FCC, have authority over the Internet, right? Of what, who should, who should have it.

Speaker 16 And it's not, it's never been made clear.

Speaker 15 But is that a bug or a feature?

Speaker 16 I don't know. Right, exactly.
But the issue is everyone else has, it's very clear where planes go. It's very clear where pharmaceuticals go.

Speaker 16 And the tech industry has no, and it has to do with the First Amendment. It has to do with a lot of things because it's so, it's not just a pill.
It's not just a plane, right?

Speaker 16 It has First Amendment issues. It has political implications.
It has all kinds of things attached to it.

Speaker 16 But it's

Speaker 16 look, this is what's going to be for the next four years. They're not going to, net neutrality is dead for now, right?

Speaker 16 And I think when the Democrats get back in power, if they do, and they will eventually, or someone, the facsimile of that will,

Speaker 16 they will... they will try to protect consumers more.
That's their inclination more than this. And these guys are like,

Speaker 16 let's let the markets figure this out in the way the markets should. And if one of the big companies gets screwed by any of these telco companies,

Speaker 16 there'll be other ways.

Speaker 16 But now people are getting their internet through Starlink or they're getting it through the telcos or they're getting it through all kinds of satellite companies, not just Starlink, but others.

Speaker 16 So I do think you're right. There's been sort of a, there has been a lot of options for people.

Speaker 16 To me, I think internet access should be like utilities. I just feel like it's utility.
It should be regulated like a utility.

Speaker 16 Everyone should have it like they have lights or they have water or they have tele POTUS. Remember, POTS, plain old telephone service.

Speaker 16 That is not happening. But to me, that's how it should have been done from the start.
This is a utility. Everybody gets it.
The government pays for it.

Speaker 15 In an effort to sex up this story, which should be pretty easy, I remember when the South Korean government...

Speaker 15 When Squid Games came out, they said, basically, the internet is being stressed so much here. We need to charge Netflix some sort of carriage fee because

Speaker 15 we're literally running out of bandwidth because of download of squid games. And by the way, I watched, if you have you, I watched season two of Squid Games.

Speaker 16 Not watching it.

Speaker 15 I can't watch it.

Speaker 15 It's really like violent and upsetting. And it's a different thing.
That guy is brilliant.

Speaker 16 That guy is. I've read all about it.
I haven't watched it, but go ahead.

Speaker 15 No, I just, this notion that a media property can still basically, I mean, it's broadband. Broadband and processing power and fossil fuels, no matter how much we find, produce, or what kind of

Speaker 15 innovation there is, we always find ways to utilize all of that additional energy. Always.
There's always more. There's more ways to arbitrage petroleum, bandwidth, processing power.

Speaker 16 And now AI, of course, which is raising rates all over the country, of course.

Speaker 15 Yeah, well,

Speaker 15 that's another talk show. And going back to, that's why I think nuclear is making a comeback because everyone's like, oh, gosh, we're going to need a lot more energy.

Speaker 15 We need a bigger vote.

Speaker 15 The only bigger arbitrage in history other than petroleum is finding really talented young people and paying them 20% of what you pay a less talented 45-year-old.

Speaker 15 That's been the biggest arbitrage in economic history. Seriously, think about it.

Speaker 15 I've had some time. I had a lot of free time and a lot of edibles over the holidays.
And one of my big themes for 2025 is I used to think we were in a tension economy.

Speaker 15 Now I'm totally sold on the fact that we don't. We live in an addiction economy.

Speaker 15 If you look at the 10 companies that have had the greatest stock returns over the last 10 or 20 years, they're all in the business of addiction, whether it's Met or Alphabet.

Speaker 15 And then if you look at the companies over the last 50 years that have had the greatest returns, they're really salty, sugary food companies and or tobacco companies, or they're pharmaceutical companies.

Speaker 15 So basically, our entire economy runs on addicting people to content, sugary, shitty food, and then treating them with GLP1 drugs or hospital systems.

Speaker 15 Our entire every company, if you look at all the stocks that have outperformed the S ⁇ P for the last 50 years, they all have, and I think AI is the fentanyl that speedballs addiction, makes Facebook ads much better, makes TikTok much more addictive.

Speaker 15 But I had this recognition that essentially our entire economy is run on addiction.

Speaker 16 But attention is addiction, right? Isn't it? Detention economy is a version, is a subset of it.

Speaker 15 But attention is a measurement for addiction.

Speaker 15 The reason why TikTok garners so much attention and YouTube does is because they have figured out a way to zero in on what hits your dopa and gets you addicted and you'd end up spending way more time on these things than you should and then they'll hand you over to glp1 drugs or hospitals or high blood pressure medication or whatever it might be to try and get you off of social media off of sugary fatty foods but anyways my other big realization was that the most valuable companies in the world culturally have one thing in common and that is they're able to attract the ultimate arbitrage and that is a a really smart educated 24 24-year-old who for 80, 100, 150,000, 200,000 will work their ass off, won't complain about not getting to see their dogs, their spouses, or their kids, and do 80% of what a really talented 45-year-old will do for 30% of the pay.

Speaker 15 That if you look at the most valuable companies in the world, they have a disproportionate amount of incredibly talented young people who are being arbed against 40 and 50-year-olds.

Speaker 16 Although they're getting old, the founders are now getting old.

Speaker 15 Yeah, but the top people always do fine, right?

Speaker 15 They can get old. But if you look at sort of

Speaker 15 kind of upper senior management to all the way down to the workers, the arbitrage, unless you make the jump to light speed by the time you're 45, is to say, and I've done it, quite frankly, at companies, I'm like, I'm consistently impressed and find, oh, this person who's 35 or 40, who's making really good money, wants to leave.

Speaker 15 And then we find some 25-year-old graduate of Syracuse or Cornell. And we're like, wow, their 80% is good for 40% of the price.
And

Speaker 15 you don't like to say that out loud, but the most valuable companies in the world,

Speaker 15 whether it's Goldman or McKinsey or Alphabet, they all have one thing in common. They're able to attract more of those people and engage in that arbitrage.

Speaker 15 Anyways, that's what I did this holiday season. What did you do?

Speaker 16 I had all the kids in San Francisco. We did a lot of stuff.

Speaker 16 You were in Africa, correct? South Africa. South Africa, yes.

Speaker 15 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 16 I was in San Francisco. We had a great time.

Speaker 16 I win.

Speaker 15 I win.

Speaker 15 No, I had a ball. Yeah, no, no, I win.
My boys. South Africa, San Francisco.

Speaker 15 Lovely wife.

Speaker 16 My ex-wife was there.

Speaker 15 My mother. Total modern family.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I literally was. I was like, I should be a reality show.

Speaker 15 Megan is not married again. She doesn't have a

Speaker 15 really

Speaker 16 lady. She's single and rich.

Speaker 15 So anyway. Hello.
Hello.

Speaker 16 Jeff was there.

Speaker 15 Oh, yeah. I love Jeffrey Swisher.
How is Dr. Swisher doing? Great.
We had a great, we were, we had a great time. We had a great time, I have to say.
Yeah, you seem very happy when I talked to you.

Speaker 16 I really enjoy my family quite a bit. They make me laugh.
And we had a lot of like beefs. There was a lot of beefs happening, which was good.
We like a beef. We like a beef.
Let beef beef.

Speaker 16 A lot of beefs, but little beefs, but nothing drastic.

Speaker 16 So anyway, let's move on to something else. I like this idea.
I like this.

Speaker 16 We're going to spin narratives all through the year, I think. I think there's a lot of narratives we're going to spin and bring new insights to our listeners.

Speaker 16 By the way, in San Francisco, it's approached by so many people, again, who love our show. Here we go.

Speaker 15 I was wondering how long we started patting ourselves on the back.

Speaker 16 Here's why, because I feel like it invigorates me to go into the new year. People really like what we do, and they feel good.

Speaker 15 You like me. You really like me.
You're like Sally Field on repeat.

Speaker 16 No, no, it makes them, it makes them feel good. And I like that.
I like the idea that we're delivering products that people like. And I like doing that.

Speaker 15 I'm doing breath work.

Speaker 15 I can't believe it.

Speaker 16 You literally make fun of liberals.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 16 you're like a San Francisco lady person who with yoga pants.

Speaker 16 Why don't you wear your juicy couture while you're doing it?

Speaker 15 I'm fighting the erectile dysfunction and the arthritis as long as I can.

Speaker 15 I need to learn how to breathe better.

Speaker 16 Like an ad for a Palo Alto mother.

Speaker 15 Like, it's like just a Palo Alto mother.

Speaker 16 Okay. Anyway, you're just, you're a type and that you make fun of, which is my favorite part.

Speaker 16 You go on about me being like the liberal crazy. I'm like, uh-uh.
I would never do breath work. I think it's ridiculous, but go ahead.
Go for it.

Speaker 15 You're a liberal. I'm crazy.

Speaker 16 Let me show you how to breathe.

Speaker 16 I do it without even thinking about it. It's incredible.
Here, give me $25 for that.

Speaker 15 Oh, no, it's much more expensive than that. I got to pay this guy like $500.

Speaker 15 I am certain it is.

Speaker 16 That's why I'm going to come over.

Speaker 15 Maybe I am getting oral sex. $500.

Speaker 15 I hope so. Something to look forward to.
All right, let's get that ads. I got to go.

Speaker 16 No, no, no.

Speaker 16 So another thing: a cartoonist at the Washington Post has quit after a cartoon depicting billionaires, including Jeff Bezos, kneeling before President-elect Donald Trump was blocked from publication.

Speaker 16 And Telnaeus, I think that's how you pronounce it, published a sketch of the cartoon on

Speaker 16 Substack, saying it was the first time a work had been rejected because of who it depicted.

Speaker 16 She's a Pulister Prize winner, by the way, amazing cartoonist.

Speaker 16 The Washington Post editorial page editor David Shipley said the cartoon was rejected because of its similarity to columns of the paper rather than his subject, although he managed to publish many similar columns over and over again.

Speaker 16 This is it's nonsense what David Shipley said. And now I can say it very explicitly because Amanda quit the Washington Post.

Speaker 16 He is really

Speaker 16 this was nonsense, nonsense, what he was, his excuse.

Speaker 16 In other related news, Amazon has announced that it will release a behind-the-scenes documentary on Melania Trump by Brett Ratner, who was sucked up into the Me Too stuff rather egregiously.

Speaker 16 He seems to be a really problematic person.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 16 the New York Times did some really astonishing coverage on his behavior.

Speaker 16 So that was nice.

Speaker 16 What do you think, Scott? You want to buy the Washington Post with me?

Speaker 15 This is such peacock.

Speaker 15 First off, if I'm going to spend a lot of money to be put in pain, he or she better be wearing leather and be hot. I just,

Speaker 15 what are you doing? Anyways, no, I'm not crazy.

Speaker 15 That is literally. Go ahead.

Speaker 15 I think I told you one. I've been waiting to hear your feedback, but go ahead.
Well, no, I have, I raised

Speaker 15 back in the heyday of hedge funds, I convinced a hedge fund manager to give me $600 million.

Speaker 15 to become the largest shareholder in the New York Times. And I learned a decent amount about newsrooms and the collision between shareholder governance and journalism and newsrooms.

Speaker 15 And I've quickly learned or I've got a very expensive lesson in the following. And that is these are important institutions.

Speaker 15 I even wonder at some point if they should have some sort of tax benefit because I think they do a really important, they do really important work.

Speaker 15 But at the end of the day, these are institutions that should be owned by trusts.

Speaker 15 And they should have a trust that basically hires the right guy or gal to run the thing and they just stay the fuck out of it.

Speaker 15 Well, maybe I have that idea.

Speaker 16 Maybe I'm not doing it your way.

Speaker 15 It's got gallows. Well, I know, but what I would argue.

Speaker 15 So just to bring in the viewers up, just to bring the listeners up, there's been a lot of rumors that you're assembling a group to make a bid for the Washington Post.

Speaker 15 And what I haven't heard is that Jeff Bezos is willing to sell it. Correct.
And so all of this, in my view, and I, you know, and is a,

Speaker 15 I don't know, sort of all chip no salsa. Yeah.
So we can, we, or when I say we, I mean you, complain about the post and the ownership.

Speaker 15 And, but if you, and I told you this on the phone the other night, if you were serious about doing this, you would have had offline conversations with Bezos and said, can I put together a group that includes you and gives you some shark repellent and inoculates you from this

Speaker 15 correct shit and grief, which you are probably not enjoying right now, and gives you plausible deniability where you can say, oh, it's up to the, it's kind of like what you, I think, if you were serious, get, you have to get Jeff on board.

Speaker 15 Yes, correct.

Speaker 16 This is what I'm attempting to do.

Speaker 15 Try and get.

Speaker 16 Because again, you're not asking if I'm attempting to do this.

Speaker 15 Well,

Speaker 15 right. But the way you would do this, Kara, is quietly.

Speaker 16 I think you're wrong.

Speaker 15 You're not going to shame this guy into someone. I'm not shaming him.

Speaker 16 I actually have praised his ownership until recently. I have been very much praising his ownership until recently.
I think it's much more complex. I don't think that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 16 I think there's ways to do things and calling attention to it and bringing it to the conversation. There's a lot more people than me looking at this, by the way, FYI.

Speaker 16 And I think the only, yes, and the only way, and I'm meeting with everybody. This is what I'm, this is how I'm approaching it.
I'm a reporter. I was an excellent reporter.

Speaker 16 I certainly was a much better.

Speaker 16 I am. Much more so than the guy who's the CEO of the company, by the way, by far.

Speaker 15 And I, you are not going to get this thing.

Speaker 16 Yes, I don't care about the CEO.

Speaker 16 I think he, fine, whatever. It doesn't matter.
It's not shit posting. I'm telling, I'm saying what I think.
That is not

Speaker 15 the definition

Speaker 15 posting.

Speaker 16 I am a better reporter. I'm sorry.
It's a factual thing.

Speaker 16 So

Speaker 16 I think the way to do it is start the conversation and get it going rather than these. I am so sick of these quiet little deals that largely white men make with each other.

Speaker 15 You mean deals that get done?

Speaker 16 They get done because it's so. I'm doing it a different way.
I'm doing it a different way.

Speaker 16 I don't think that you have to like, you know how you talk about try to do things differently, try to think of new ways to do things. That's what I'm doing.
I'm talking to everybody, like everybody.

Speaker 16 And you'd be surprised who I'm talking to. By the way, someone who was doubtful, I had a long, long conversation with a billionaire who was doubtful, had a long, long conversation last night.

Speaker 16 Suddenly, he's very engaged in the idea because he started to listen to the various ideas. I think it's okay.

Speaker 15 What else did Mark Cuban say?

Speaker 16 No, no, that's not what I'm talking about. So, but he would be, he would be great.
Someone like that, I welcome his input because I think he's really smart.

Speaker 16 I welcome the feedback of negativity that you are displaying. That's fine.
That's great.

Speaker 16 I think it's good to talk to everyone and understand what the various possibilities would be. And one of the things that I think doing this thing, and then we'll end this, is...

Speaker 16 Why not just talk about it explicitly? If I ran this thing, everything would be transparent.

Speaker 16 I would broadcast, you know, how you have all these media reporters, like feeders, talking about what happened at a meeting? I'd broadcast the fucking meeting.

Speaker 16 What's the secret here? It's losing money. Here's how much money we're losing.
Here's why. Here's what we invested in.

Speaker 16 I think one of the reasons Pivot's successful is because we're very transparent about what we're up to most of the time. We really are.
And we say when we make mistakes, I would make it public.

Speaker 16 I'd make it a narrative. I would come up with lots of ideas.
And I agree with you. It's not a money-making situation.

Speaker 15 You do an HBO series like Drive to Survive or Behind the Music or those things where they go, they depict the season as a team.

Speaker 16 Survivor. Yeah, you just make it.
It's a great story. And at the heart of it is something that I've seen.

Speaker 15 I think you think those people in that institution is more interesting than it is. I think you find it fascinating.
And a small group of Belway people in Calorama find it interesting. No.

Speaker 15 And most of them find that the reporters in the newsroom are amazing at reporting, and they brighten up a room by leaving it. I just don't think it's that dramatic a story.

Speaker 16 I think it's a great story. I think it's a good, it's got it.
It has its whole. The Washington Post has a particular hold on this country in a way that's really wonderful in many ways.

Speaker 16 By the way, you don't think Ben Bradley was interesting? That was so fantastic. He was such a fantastic.
Catherine Graham, I have all kinds of real ideas to make it interesting.

Speaker 16 And it is actually inherently interesting. And the idea that there's one newspaper, the New York Times, and also you could do all kinds of things with papers around the country.

Speaker 16 Just like, what's the fresh idea here? Is all I'm going for is let, I'm open to the fresh idea of how you could save this institution in a way that is really interesting.

Speaker 16 And it doesn't, you don't have to have a foregone conclusion of every single thing. I agree.
It's easier to start it from scratch. It's easier to do it by yourself.

Speaker 16 It's easier to do it very lightweight. You run all over the country without a lot of things.
But this is a particular and peculiar institution, I think, is important.

Speaker 16 And I obviously have an emotional connection to it because I started there in the newsroom. I have an emotion.
But there really is something about there cannot just be the New York Times.

Speaker 16 And by the way, something's going to happen with the Wall Street Journal when Rupert goes. Who knows what goes on with that institution, right?

Speaker 16 And then over in the West Coast, you got Looney Tunes, the guy who's running

Speaker 16 that guy, who seems to have, he started off a liberal, now he's a Trumper. It's like, and he's got, like, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Speaker 15 Yeah, but you're, you're defining media by the fact that it's printed on dead trees. I know.
You're defining media.

Speaker 15 There's a lot of competition. There's a lot of

Speaker 15 things.

Speaker 16 I told Don Graham when I left, why are you even printing it? This was back in the 90s. I was like, I don't even understand why you print it.
I don't, I don't, actually. I still don't.

Speaker 16 So I'm just saying, I think this is interesting. I find it to be like,

Speaker 16 it's an interesting puzzle to Kerr Swisher. And I and I have a million other things I'm doing that are much more lucrative, that are much more promising.

Speaker 15 Enjoy, just be,

Speaker 15 I love it. You're so good.
You're leaning. Just be a billionaire.
Just be a wealthy lesbian.

Speaker 15 Buy like a roller derby team or something.

Speaker 15 I don't want to do breath work.

Speaker 16 I want to do this is my breath work. This is my breath work.
Bezos gets it.

Speaker 15 You don't. He's on a fucking yacht with it with a woman in a G-string in St.
Bart's, and you're talking about all this pain, self-inflicted pain.

Speaker 15 You're about to go into a dentist's office and say, hold off on the Novocaine. Have you been? I mean, you've been in newsrooms.
I'll give you that. Hello.
I've been in all of them.

Speaker 15 I can't believe you would subject yourself to that breath.

Speaker 16 I think there's a new way.

Speaker 15 I think there's a new way.

Speaker 16 Let me just tell you, this is my breath work, and I'm going to fucking do it.

Speaker 16 You literally hired someone to teach you to breathe today, and you're giving me a hard time about something that is actually slightly noble, even. And that's not why I'm doing it.
I think it's fun.

Speaker 16 I actually, anyway, we'll see what happens. But I predict in 2025, I will meet with Jeff Bezos, or my name isn't Kara Swisher.
Okay.

Speaker 15 I wouldn't put it past you.

Speaker 15 I'm doing it.

Speaker 16 He's going to do it. And you know what? He's going to like it.
He and me and Lauren and we'll be laughing it up on his yacht. But let me just say, I think this is fun for me.

Speaker 16 I don't know why he owns it. And I want to give him, I know a Jeff Bezos that's different than this, let me say, that loves a challenge.
And this is the Jeff Bezos behaving here is not the Jeff Bezos.

Speaker 16 I liked.

Speaker 15 I'm sold, but I don't matter. And I,

Speaker 16 anyways, I'm going to give you a column, just like a video column.

Speaker 15 I'm in for a dollar, and I'll come to the party and these are the things.

Speaker 16 Okay, here's what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to strap a GoPro on your head.
Right.

Speaker 16 Broadcast. Oh, I'm sorry.
I've got a part of you. I'm going to strap on you.
And I'm going to just have Scott Galloway every day. And that's just it.
That's all I'm going to do.

Speaker 15 That's right. That's one of the content.
You had me at strap on. Go by the Washington Post.

Speaker 16 I shall. I'm not.

Speaker 16 You'll see.

Speaker 16 You're going to help me. You are going to help me.
It doesn't matter if you're going to help me because I know you can't.

Speaker 15 Save you from yourself. That's what I'm going to do.

Speaker 16 I'm doing just fine in all my other endeavors.

Speaker 15 Oh, you're doing ridiculously fine. Don't fuck it up.

Speaker 16 I'm not going to fuck it up. I have plenty of energy.
I have plenty of energy. Anyway,

Speaker 16 it's invigorating me, Scott. It's invigorating.
Poor kids. Again, you're doing breath work.
This is my breath work. Let me do my fucking breath work.
And

Speaker 16 all right. Let's go on a quick break.
When we come back, Tesla sales slip and meta plays nice with Trump.

Speaker 15 What a shock.

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Speaker 6 One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

Speaker 4 Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business.

Speaker 20 This is where Odo comes in.

Speaker 2 It's the only business software you'll ever need.

Speaker 9 Odo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything.

Speaker 7 That means CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more.

Speaker 6 No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier.

Speaker 22 And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

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Speaker 16 Scott, we're back. Some troubles for Tesla.
Tesla sales fell in 2024, the first year-over-year global sales decline since 2011, but it seems inevitable.

Speaker 16 The drop was not used, about 1%, but signals increasing competition from Tesla's rivals like China's BYD, which has never newer models, lower prices, and finally better cars.

Speaker 16 Tesla's shares dropped 6% following the news of declining sales, but the company did end up 68% on zero economics thanks to the post-election surge and the idea that Elon Musk owns the world, which he kind of does.

Speaker 16 His value has gone up double from a couple hundred billion to 400 billion right now. You know, I'd love two things.
What do you see happening with EB sales in 2025, just beyond Tesla?

Speaker 16 By the way, Rivian shares had their best day ever after the E.B. company reported slightly better fourth-quarter car delivery data than Wall Street Section.
That's a beautiful car, that Rivian.

Speaker 16 I got to tell you, really, every time I see it, I'm like, that is one hell of a looking car.

Speaker 16 Obviously, the cyber truck got sucked up into that guy who killed himself, the troubled man.

Speaker 16 And that photo, you posted of a photo of the cyber truck in flames in front of the Trump hotel with the Trump brand right there.

Speaker 16 Give me your bigger thoughts on EVs and what's going on here with Tesla shares. Obviously, it's a meme stock at this point.

Speaker 15 Yeah, but I've just been famously wrong about Tesla stocks, so I'm loath to say anything, but it's difficult to understand how a company is trading on

Speaker 15 every metric at a greater multiple than any other automobile automobile or even manufacturing company, maybe the exception of NVIDIA, which arguably is an IP company, not a manufacturing company, when its sales were down year on year.

Speaker 15 I just name a tech company.

Speaker 16 I, I,

Speaker 16 it's all on his friendship with Trump, right?

Speaker 16 This guy jumps from lily pad to lily pad. I've never seen someone so adept at jumping, like finding some other hand-waving bullshit.

Speaker 16 And he actually has actual power. It's not like he doesn't.
He has actual money.

Speaker 15 And you got to give it to the guy. A lot of people have said, Scott, you're just not privy to his genius.
He's playing chess. You're playing checkers.

Speaker 15 And I've got, well, but so far they're right and I'm wrong because he gives a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump and his net worth after his election, 12 weeks post his election, or excuse me, eight weeks post his election is up $150 billion.

Speaker 15 So the best trade of 2024 was at $250 million.

Speaker 15 And the value, his net worth has largely been driven by the expectation and the acknowledgement that we are now in a full kleptocracy and that he will be on the right side of that because he gave a quarter of a billion dollars.

Speaker 15 And it's impacting everything else, including this notion that TikTok will probably figure out a way to get around this because $100 million

Speaker 15 will buy that.

Speaker 15 The EV market itself was up 24%

Speaker 15 in comparison to 2023. And yet this company was down.
BYD is probably the most important manufacturing company in the world that you haven't heard of. It's now besting Tesla in terms of global sales.

Speaker 16 Explain what BYD is, just for people who don't know.

Speaker 15 Well, it's essentially the Tesla of China, and they have figured out a way to punch out into the marketplace, you know, sans tariffs, a $12,000 or $14,000 fairly competent EV.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I'd want to buy one. I see them.

Speaker 15 I think they're adorable.

Speaker 16 They look great. They look fun.

Speaker 15 They look, you know. Rivian was up 24% on Friday because it beat expectations.
But even Rivian is probably not, is probably sub-scale and can't survive on its own.

Speaker 15 When you buy a Rivian, you're basically getting $30,000 or $40,000 from Jeff Bezos and the shareholders of Rivian because I think they cost about $110,000 or $120,000 to produce and they sell them for $80,000 or $90,000.

Speaker 15 Rivian's production was down 13% from 2023, but still above revised production forecasts. So it's struggling.

Speaker 15 I would argue that the thing that is overperformed in the automobile market is hybrids, specifically, and Toyota took advantage of that. And there's still a

Speaker 15 stubborn group of people, despite everyone saying Electric is the future, that really like a internal combustion engine. And so

Speaker 15 look, I don't, the company also announced it was free from the power shortages that plagued Q3 and forced the company to shut down assembly lines and revise down production guidance.

Speaker 15 That was Rivian again. But I don't, I've never understood the valuation on Tesla and used the word meme stock.

Speaker 16 Elon, it's the valuation on Elon is what it is. That's all it is, where he is in any moment in time.
It has nothing to do with the, with the system.

Speaker 16 And by the way, the cars just aren't interesting anymore. They're not, they were absolutely innovative at the time.

Speaker 16 But so many complaints, it's so clear that they haven't done anything innovative in the car space. I don't think he cares anymore.
He's bored with it, right? This is not his interest.

Speaker 16 He has other interests now, like plaguing Britain or Canada or Europe, stuff like that. He has other interests that take his time now or hanging out at Mar-a-Lago in the cottage.

Speaker 16 I don't get it.

Speaker 16 Neither of us get it, and nor will we comment. But as long as he's on the upswing with Trump, it will stay that way, correct?

Speaker 15 Aaron Powell, there are two stocks where I think if they went down 50 or 60 percent, we would say, well, of course they did, or actually three. I think Palantir

Speaker 15 is basically an analytics company that has this incredible storytelling CEO in this veneer of spy versus spy.

Speaker 15 And I think he's redefined investor relations

Speaker 15 as it relates to storytelling, going on Bill Maher,

Speaker 15 being very kind of pro-America, creating this veneer. We work with the CIA and what we do is so sophisticated.
I can't talk about it. I think the guy is just a masterful.

Speaker 16 I think he's fascinating, Alex Karp.

Speaker 15 He really is. But it's basically Gartner with cooler branding and a cooler CEO.

Speaker 15 And it trades. I'm not going to like that.

Speaker 15 Well, by the way, Gene Hall, the CEO of Gartner, has been fantastic for shareholders. I agree.
I agree. And

Speaker 15 a very competent CEO.

Speaker 16 You amuse me, Scott Galloway, but go ahead.

Speaker 15 But the other two, I would argue would be NVIDIA. I think so many big players are coming for NVIDIA.

Speaker 15 So many well, the deepest pocketed firms in the world are looking at this giant carcass of the GPUs, the power, AI, and saying, I want in. I need to take a bite of that.

Speaker 15 The biggest sharks in the world are circling this carcass. And every major company from Meta to Apple has decided we need to be in the business of making these chips.
And so,

Speaker 16 you know, the first time there's we said that last year, commodity eventually.

Speaker 15 Or a slowdown, or a slowdown in AI, reduction spending, whatever it is. It does feel like it's not going to be Cisco where it goes down 90% from 99 to 2001.

Speaker 15 But if that thing got cut in half in 16 weeks, we'd all say, well, of course it did.

Speaker 16 You know what you're going to see? Let me just point out with Cisco. Remember when they started to do all kinds of wacky stuff like presents, like videos and stuff like that?

Speaker 16 That's when that was the sign for me when they came off their main business, which was making them money and they they started investing in all kinds of nonsense.

Speaker 16 And if you see that in NVIDIA, it's a signal. Anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 15 I was living in San Francisco. I bought the house that's next to where Mark Zuckerberg moved in.
This was 99.

Speaker 15 I

Speaker 15 decided I had an existential crisis. I'm glad we can bring this back to me.
And I thought, I don't like San Francisco. I don't like technology.
I don't like startups. I don't like VCs.

Speaker 15 I don't like being married. And I stopped all of those things and moved to New York and joined the faculty of NYU.

Speaker 15 I literally, when I think of Cisco and what happened in 99, I think of that's when I started. I literally pressed the restart button in my entire life.

Speaker 15 Anyways, interesting. I don't know what we're talking about.

Speaker 16 Story I've never heard, but I like it. Go ahead, finish your, wait, NVIDIA?

Speaker 15 NVIDIA, like some of these coming to the NVIDIA, Palantir, and then my favorite short where I have been wrong consistently for five years.

Speaker 15 is Tesla. I just don't get it.
They have some interesting products. They've say, no, it's an energy company.
They wrap steel around a motor, and it's great steel and a great motor, but

Speaker 15 it trades at 40 times revenues versus five. So

Speaker 15 at some point, you know, I'm Nouriel Rubini, who has been, who has been predicting economic crises since he got his PhD.

Speaker 16 He has. He's done.

Speaker 15 Every seven or 15 years, he's right. He's right.
Yeah. Yeah.
You are.

Speaker 16 You are Dr. Doom.

Speaker 16 Interestingly,

Speaker 16 it depends on, to me, it's all the stock market of Elon Musk and Donald Trump. That's really what it is.

Speaker 16 And so in the latest episode of On With Kara Swisher, I was talking to New York Times senior political correspondent Maggie Haberman today.

Speaker 16 She's been covering Donald Trump for years, and now she's also covering Trump's BFF, Elon Musk. Our lives have intersected.

Speaker 16 She talked what happens to that relationship when Trump takes office, which could be not good news for Donald Trump. Let's listen.

Speaker 23 Musk comes with something that, you know, quote unquote, President Bannon did not, which is a lot of money. And

Speaker 23 I think that buys him a fair amount of time.

Speaker 23 But I just think that when Trump goes to Washington and he's not sitting on the patio, you know, when Musk can walk over from Banion Cottage, you know, where he's been staying, I think it's going to be tougher.

Speaker 16 Tougher for Musk.

Speaker 23 Tougher for Musk. Yeah.
I mean, again, I don't think it's going to completely change.

Speaker 16 These things are like, it's like.

Speaker 23 It's like watching shifting sands around Trump. Do you know what I mean? It's like, this one's up, this one's down.
And I don't, but nobody's ever totally out.

Speaker 15 More like quicksand.

Speaker 16 Yeah, I think you're right, Scott. Quicksand.
I think one of the things, no one's ever out.

Speaker 16 And obviously, their interests are aligned at this point, but there is a moment that Trump will, you know, once he gets into the Oval Office, it's a very different thing than being at Mar-a-Lago, right?

Speaker 16 Doing this weird Mar-a-Lago thing.

Speaker 16 And the question is what Maggie was saying, which is interesting.

Speaker 16 There's this, there's a card is either a blue or green card that gets you instant access into the White House, whether he gets one, whether he gets an office in the executive office building, whether he gets a West Wing office, that'll be a lot of things.

Speaker 16 And if he gets a West Wing office, the Tesla shares will go up. That's how I look at it.

Speaker 15 I don't know. We'll see.
By the way, I don't know about you, but absolutely the most terrifying thing that I could conceive of when I was 11 was not Darth Vader. It was not Jason.

Speaker 15 It was not illness. It was Quicksand.
Quicksand. Remember all the shows?

Speaker 15 Yes, they always do. Chilligan's Island.
Chilligan's Island. Oh, my God.
They'd be running after something or running from something.

Speaker 15 And then all of a sudden they'd look and they were sinking and it was like, no,

Speaker 15 don't move.

Speaker 16 Don't move. Don't make any quicksand.

Speaker 15 If you struggle,

Speaker 15 you'll go down faster. And I remember even in class, our teacher talking to us about how to survive quicksand.
You swim. You don't struggle.
You swim.

Speaker 15 Like, okay, next time I'm in quicksand, I'll remember that.

Speaker 16 Oh, my God. Quicksand.
I have the same memories as you. We are so united.

Speaker 16 We have so much in common. It's true.
I watched the Gilligan's Island. When you said it, I had like Gilligan and Skipper in the quicksand.

Speaker 15 And where things converged in a much deeper level is you like me like Barbara Eden and I Dream a Genie. We did.
You were feeling the same thing I was.

Speaker 16 I was. I was.
I love that, Barbara Eden. Anyway, so let's go on to the next thing.

Speaker 16 Meta is also making some big staffing changes, replacing president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, the handsome British man with Clegg's deputy and the company's most prominent Republican, Joel Kaplan, best friend to Brett Kavanaugh.

Speaker 16 Kaplan, a former advisor to George W. Bush, sparked drama at Facebook in 2018.
I remember getting frantic calls from Sheryl Sandberg when he attended his friend Brett Kavanaugh's Senate hearing.

Speaker 16 Interestingly, Nick Clay in his statement said something that I thought, I need to find him and ask him because several people who are close to him said, look at that sentence, Kara.

Speaker 16 He said, clearly Kaplan is the right person for the right job at the right time.

Speaker 16 He kept saying the word right, which Everyone thinks it was because Nick is too liberal and Kaplan is one of the people who presided over removing content moderation stuff, being much more

Speaker 16 very friendly to conservatives in a way that was disturbing to people internally, all kinds of manner of nonsense that a lot of people had been pushing, that people like Clegg had, in fact, been pushing against internally.

Speaker 16 So what do you think has happened here? They just are picking the guy who Trump likes better. It seems like that's it.

Speaker 16 That's the game.

Speaker 15 When did Nick, do you know when Nick joined Facebook or when he joined Meta?

Speaker 16 A while ago, and then Cheryl left and he kind of got Cheryl's job, I guess, in a weird way.

Speaker 16 I forget. But, you know, he was sort of this like gallant British, well-spoken guy.
He had a mixed bag of a reputation in Britain, to be honest.

Speaker 16 But yeah, he's been the one who's been sort of the forward

Speaker 16 leaning person.

Speaker 15 I want to preface my comment with the following. And that is, Nick Clegg is the new, or was the new Cheryl Samberg, and that is, he was the heat shield.

Speaker 15 He was the airbrush over a company that has done more damage and hurt more of our young people while making more money than probably any company in history.

Speaker 15 He has not served the Commonwealth well as he has done an outstanding job of delay and obfuscation and grabbed the baton from Cheryl Sandberg and figured out a way to stave off much-needed regulation and pretend that they're concerned and call for regulation and manage to ensure that Facebook continues to create rage and make our discourse more coarse and make 14 and 15 year old girls much more likely to engage in self-harm.

Speaker 15 So he has not done the United States or the world any favors. Having said that, what's really dangerous about Nick Clegg and Facebook in general or Meta is that he is really fucking smart.

Speaker 15 And that is, and I think about the five or six years where he got this big job, Facebook's stock is up tripled. I bet he's made somewhere between $100 and $300 million.

Speaker 15 And this is exactly the right time for him to leave. He's made a shit ton of money.
It's a new administration.

Speaker 16 He doesn't want to do this work.

Speaker 15 He doesn't want to hang out and be nice to Republicans. They're bringing in someone who is the Republican version of him.
He's got his money.

Speaker 15 He's probably going to hold on to the stock.

Speaker 15 And probably, I wouldn't be surprised if he announces that he's moving to Malta or the Isle of Sky or to Florida or Texas to recognize the capital gain and the options he sits on.

Speaker 15 He's a very bright guy. He did.

Speaker 15 A great job in the eyes of meta shareholders, and he's smart to leave now. The stock has run up enormously.
He's made a ton of money. The environment has shifted to the right.
So peace be with you.

Speaker 15 And, you know, pray there is no heaven or hell, boss.

Speaker 16 Well, you know, this guy, Kaplan, has been sort of the,

Speaker 16 you know, he's the one most linked to misinformation, you know, discouraging

Speaker 16 to shield right-wingers from content moderation efforts around misinformation and hate speech. He really.
is the guy who's done this. If there's one person.

Speaker 15 I think of him as the guy sitting behind Kevin.

Speaker 16 Yes, he did. And that was, oh my God, when that happened, I remember they were like, what in the, what in the actual fuck? Because I think his wife was very good friends with his wife.

Speaker 16 That's what I recall at the time. But he was a very good friend.
And a lot of people,

Speaker 16 one of the top Facebook people was like, why couldn't he just be, he was there to be supportive at his friend, I think. And

Speaker 16 of course, he can't do that as the main lobbyist of Facebook in Washington. And so they were like, why can't he just go in a quiet room and

Speaker 16 pat him on the back and say, you get out there, Brat, and start yelling about whatever you want to yell about. But he didn't.
He was physically behind him. And it was a crisis at Facebook.

Speaker 16 Now, as usual, the Overton window has shifted rather drastically.

Speaker 16 And this guy's in charge. And this guy has a very MAGA-friendly approach, let's just say.
And I'm saying that in a polite way. Smart thing is a smart thing to do.

Speaker 16 And so this is what he'll do. And he's had an increasing influence on Zuckerberg.
Very smart guy. I would say of all the people that when I hear about, hear about him, is

Speaker 16 not positive internally, somewhat of a, he runs over things.

Speaker 16 He's not McClella in that regard. And he's very, um, he's very Trump friendly in a way and has moved further to the right, that's for sure.
And so that's just what it is.

Speaker 16 Mark Zuckerberg is always, you know, he's always looking for his own hide, always. There's never a moment where Mark Zuckerberg is not concerned with his own well-being.
And this is what he's done.

Speaker 16 And, you know, I think he was tired of getting pilloried by Congress. He doesn't want to go to one of those meetings again.

Speaker 16 So, you know, and of course, they walk right into it this week with they're deleting a number of its AI-generated Facebook and Instagram accounts

Speaker 16 after a backlash. And one exchange of meta-bots said that it perpetuates harm.
Another acknowledged the use of cult leaders' tactics.

Speaker 16 Instagram users also reported they were not able to block, restricted, or report the AI characters. floating this media with these bots is dangerous.
Of course, they don't give a fuck.

Speaker 16 They don't give a flying fuck.

Speaker 16 But they were trying to drive engagement doing it. And that's what they're going to do.

Speaker 16 Let me just say with this appointment, nothing's changed with Mark Zuckerberg. He's the same, same person.

Speaker 15 He's a brilliant, he's a brilliant, arguably the most brilliant businessman of the last 20 years, totally shareholder driven.

Speaker 15 And it's taken a huge toll on society, whether it's incumbent political parties being consistently booted out. which you could argue some of that is good, but I would argue some of it,

Speaker 15 the coarsening of our discourse globally, the thing that scares me the most about AI in addition to loneliness and convincing young men they can have a reasonable facsimile of life on a screen with an algorithm is that you have an economy or you have a society now where the primary arbiters of expertise and knowledge are LLMs that are crawling the online world, which is increasingly coarse, ugly, and prone to misinformation because it drives shareholder value.

Speaker 15 And all you need to do, and one of the reasons I decided to come down and do this podcast in person

Speaker 15 is, and it's sort of sad.

Speaker 15 I find people in general are just lovely. Whenever I go out into the wild of the world,

Speaker 15 people are just so nice, so thoughtful. I mean, occasionally someone cuts you off in traffic or whatever, or, or, you know, whatever it might be.

Speaker 15 But in general, I'm looking at this handsome kid with a beard in the control room and I think he just looks like a nice man. And he's nice.
And it's nice to see him.

Speaker 15 And if I had him on Zoom, or I, it just wouldn't, I don't feel the same level level of connection with people. And unfortunately, LLMs aren't crawling that.

Speaker 15 They're crawling a world of coarseness, misinformation, and rage as brought to you by the algorithms at Alphabet and Meta.

Speaker 15 And it is, it has done tremendous damage to our society.

Speaker 16 And they don't want to take responsibility for it. He's the most dangerous person in the world who doesn't even know it, who doesn't think he is.
And he feels mad when you question him.

Speaker 16 And so he's, this is a big fuck you to everybody, this move. It just is.
That's what it is. And he doesn't care anymore.
And now he wants to wear his chains and his hairstyle.

Speaker 16 And he wants to upload, you know, fun bags video he puts up there, whatever.

Speaker 15 I just, he's whatever.

Speaker 16 Good luck, Mark. Du Jiu-Jitsu.

Speaker 15 But I mean, going back to the inauguration, if you don't believe we've gone full kleptocracy, Bezos,

Speaker 15 Bezos,

Speaker 15 Satya Nadella,

Speaker 15 Cook, all these people, all of them are donating a million dollars plus to Trump's inauguration. You don't think this is a fucking kleptocracy?

Speaker 16 Oh, no. It's like, it's literally like, have you ever been to an Italian wedding where people walk up to the mobster's daughter and put money in this little sack she has on her arm?

Speaker 16 That's what I'm like, this is like the wedding I went to.

Speaker 15 And what I don't get is, I, and again, I have a bias here, but I think one of them would garner so much affection if they just said, I'm not going to be a part of this. Fuck you.
I don't.

Speaker 15 I'm sorry, folks. I'm not going to be a part of this pay-to-play.

Speaker 15 And instead, they've all done the math and they're smarter than me. And they've said, no, just hold your nose, give a million bucks and say that he's matured or he seems calmer now.

Speaker 15 It just, it's so.

Speaker 16 It's grotesque. They really are.
Like, that's when I saw the picture of Musk at the New Year's. I was like, you're the richest man in the world.

Speaker 16 And this is what you're wearing like an ill-fitting tuxedo and you're doing YMCA with Trump at a tacky, tacky. Like, I'm sorry to be an elite, but that is a fucking tacky place.

Speaker 15 I'm going to start offering classes on how to have a midlife crisis.

Speaker 16 Can I just ask you, if you were the richest fan of the world, what would your New Year's be? I literally hired Beyond.

Speaker 15 What would my New Year's be?

Speaker 15 It'd be what it is. It'd be what it is.

Speaker 15 I'm either in South Africa about to go on a safari with my kids and my nephews and nieces

Speaker 15 or in Cape Town, or I'm in Sane Barts with ridiculously hot people who, you know, want to

Speaker 15 want to give me breath lessons for life.

Speaker 15 That's that's how you write.

Speaker 16 That's the craziest thing you'd buy at New Year's. I would buy Beyoncé, like, or whatever, and Taylor Swift together.
I'd give them an untold amount of money. This is what you do

Speaker 15 for fun.

Speaker 16 Like, are you kidding me?

Speaker 15 Are you singing YMCA next to Steve Bannon?

Speaker 16 Yes, exactly. And one of the things, I don't think he was invited, but one of the, which I'd rather be with Steve Bannon, honestly.
I hate to say that, but

Speaker 16 you could also do what, guess who, Mackenzie Bezos is doing, which is give away billions and billions and billions to people to help them.

Speaker 15 Oh, but

Speaker 15 her gifts are concerning.

Speaker 16 Concerning.

Speaker 15 Fuck you. Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 15 Oh, God.

Speaker 16 I would, I'd totally hire Beyoncé. That's what I would do.
I think I would.

Speaker 15 I would.

Speaker 16 I swear, I don't know what else I'd do.

Speaker 15 I'd hire Emily Radikowski from Bradworth.

Speaker 15 No, that's wrong. No, that's right.
That's wrong. You take that back.
That's wrong.

Speaker 16 Anyway, Mark, you really ceased to not surprise us. All right, one more quick break.
We'll be back for wins and fails.

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Speaker 16 Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. There's so many.
Would you like to go first or I can?

Speaker 15 You go first, Cara.

Speaker 16 All right, I'm going to do a couple different things because, first of all, TV show, No Good Deed, Lisa Kudreau and Ray Romano and this amazing cast. I can't name them all.

Speaker 16 It is so. I watch a lot of these things on Netflix.

Speaker 15 Ray Rano or Ray Romano?

Speaker 16 Ray Romano. Oh, and he's amazing.
He's great. Oh, my God.
This was the most delightful series. Often I watch stuff on Netflix and it doesn't, it kind of falls apart in a way.
This does not.

Speaker 16 This delivers, it's so. incredibly funny and incredibly dark.
And Lisa Kudreau is a national friggin treasure, like Gene Smart, same thing, national treasure.

Speaker 16 But everybody in this is a great, there's a guy who, I don't even know who he is. He plays the real estate agent who's delightful.

Speaker 16 It's about a couple selling their house in La Sand, a very lovely house that everybody wants, and all the various people that are trying to buy it. And it is such a pleasure to watch.

Speaker 16 We binge-watched it so, so,

Speaker 16 so good, like really good.

Speaker 16 And the second one was Demi Moore's speech. I think you noted it, Scott, at the Golden Globes.
What a great speech.

Speaker 16 I thought that was really, she could have gone off in lots of directions. She's won her first award ever.
And she was, she talked about the judgmentalness of Hollywood, which isn't new to anybody.

Speaker 16 But I thought she did it in a way that didn't seem scolding or tisking or high-handed or self-righteous.

Speaker 16 I thought she did a very honest speech about calling her the popcorn actress and had never, I thought it was a very genuine speech from her, and I really appreciate it.

Speaker 16 And I thought Nikki Glazier did a great job, by the way, in that. And then

Speaker 16 my wins, Mackenzie, it's all women, Mackenzie bezos once again she shows them how it's fucking done along with the last person which is i think it's kier starmer who's head of britain musk is is putting out all kinds of information across europe really dangerous stuff including about these weird grooming teams or whatever.

Speaker 16 It's all nonsense. And Kier Starmer did a speech that you should listen.
I put it up several different places that was so good and so smart.

Speaker 16 I'm not sure it'll work because I think Musk's toxic nonsense works really well, unfortunately. But boy, did he,

Speaker 16 if you're talking about all these people giving a million dollars to people, I would, I would say this, this speech was exactly right. He handled it really well.

Speaker 16 And putting yourself in the crosshairs of Bela Musk is not a great place to be these days.

Speaker 16 So that is, again, my win. And my fail is the opposite side of this.
All these people who continue to be as

Speaker 16 craven. and grasping and desperate when they own the world.
And it's really a disappointment to see them doing it. I know why they're doing it.

Speaker 16 I get their ridiculous, I've heard their explanations because I've talked to a number of them. But honestly, you're really just terrible people.

Speaker 16 You're just, you have no, you have no backbone whatsoever. And I get why you're doing it, but I don't really care.
I don't really care. I really, I have no time for you.
Anyway, your turn, Scott.

Speaker 15 So my fail is

Speaker 15 I don't know him well, but I've had, I think I had drinks for dinner with him a guy in London named Sriram Krishnan from Andreessen Horror.

Speaker 15 Do you?

Speaker 16 Yes, I do.

Speaker 15 And I've

Speaker 15 worried about this. I found him to be thoughtful and insightful and understood technology.
And he's 39 and he was appointed to this AI committee and immediately

Speaker 15 some of the MAGA folks came out with I thought was just some pretty vile shit about

Speaker 15 that, oh, they're indentured servants taking U.S. jobs and just a little bit of.

Speaker 16 He's an immigrant, just for people who don't know.

Speaker 16 He's a longtime technology person around Silicon Valley. I'm not as enamored with his skills, but he's a lovely guy.

Speaker 15 I was very impressed with him.

Speaker 15 And I immediately thought, okay, this guy's totally out of place in this administration because he's credentialed and smart and qualified, which makes him an anomaly here.

Speaker 15 However, what was kind of on point for this administration was the immediate, ridiculous, racist, xenophobic

Speaker 15 bullshit that came out.

Speaker 15 And just a quick primer on Indian Americans and Indian immigrants.

Speaker 15 It would be hard to think of a substance that has created more economic value and ultimately more American jobs and more prosperity for Americans than people from India who have immigrated to America.

Speaker 15 On average, they make twice. what Americans do, and they're half as likely to need government resources.
They're twice as likely to get bachelor's degrees. I see this firsthand firsthand at NYU.

Speaker 15 And I don't know how to do this without doing identity politics, but they're just so fucking impressive. We get the most impressive

Speaker 15 people from India or many of them decide to come be academics. 100%.

Speaker 15 If America were a sports team and we had access to the best farm team in the world, and for some reason

Speaker 15 they kept wanting to come play for us, and then we are so fucking stupid, we decide to disparage them.

Speaker 15 This is arguably, if immigration is the secret sauce of America, the secret of our secret sauce is Indian Americans. And this is just, I understand people's concerns about immigration policy.

Speaker 15 It has not been handled well. There are real concerns, valid concerns about a nation without borders.
I get it.

Speaker 15 India and immigrants from India have been a gift to America and Americans. And this administration shows its

Speaker 15 worst side and

Speaker 15 arguably

Speaker 15 its best side. Kudos to the I people that said we should have this guy involved.

Speaker 15 And then immediately the MAGA crew goes and starts saying that they're indentured servants coming here against their will and taking American jobs. They're creating American jobs, folks.

Speaker 15 They're making you richer. They're taxing our social services less and paying more taxes on average in America.

Speaker 16 Well, Scott, they're racists. They're racist.
I don't know what to say. It was just racism.
Like the incredible. My issue with Sharam is he kisses up to people.

Speaker 16 I just like I was just saying with the previous piece, he's he does a lot of kissing up to people.

Speaker 15 Oh, he's 39 and he's trying to make a good living. I was kissing a lot of ass when I was 39, not doing as much breath work, but I was kissing a lot of ass.

Speaker 16 I understand.

Speaker 15 Anyways,

Speaker 15 I actually sent him a text. I don't know him well, and I'm saying, I am just so sorry on behalf of America that you would have to endure this bullshit.

Speaker 15 Anyway, my win, because I don't think we had a chance to talk about it, is the life of

Speaker 15 James Earl Carter.

Speaker 15 Oh, wow.

Speaker 16 Why didn't we say something? Yes, you're right.

Speaker 15 Well, we've been kind of out of

Speaker 15 commission for a couple of weeks while you hang out with ex-wives and I hang out with the big five in Cape Town or just outside of Cape Town. But

Speaker 15 I'm startling. I'm writing this book on masculinity and people constantly ask me, what are great role models for masculinity? And you first have to think about, well, what does masculinity mean?

Speaker 15 It's a social construct anyways. But I think James Earl Carter is a really nice role model for young men.
So, born to a very middle-class family,

Speaker 15 decided to join the Navy and serve his country where he went on to get a graduate.

Speaker 15 He was a submariner, then went on to do graduate work in nuclear physics, became an entrepreneur, took over a peanut farm that was sort of meddling, turned it into a robust economic enterprise, married for 77 years, 77

Speaker 15 years,

Speaker 15 and

Speaker 15 served his country in a variety of capacities, including running as kind of an outsider for governor of Georgia, successful presidential election on the heels of the impeachment of Nixon, and then and then kind of the overhang on Gerald Ford, kicked out of office for a variety of reasons, some his fault, some not his fault, and really went on to identify and

Speaker 15 give it really set an example for losing presidency after one term in many ways is kind of the ultimate flex fail.

Speaker 15 And that is, okay, you made it to presidency, but it's always stained by the fact that people decided to kick you out after one term.

Speaker 15 But what I think he taught, or the role model I take from him, is that after what must have been the most crushing disappointment for a career that had only been upward, he went on to redefine the post-presidency.

Speaker 15 And while I actually think George W.W. has done a nice job as a post-president, I think Clinton's been a little bit haunted and has been too focused on money, although I think the world of him.

Speaker 15 Carter was next seen building houses for poor people with his wife.

Speaker 16 That's the debt for humanity.

Speaker 15 That's what he decided to do. And also continued to teach, I believe, well into his 90s, Sunday school.

Speaker 16 Yep. And peace.
He did a lot of peace initiatives throughout.

Speaker 15 Real Nobel Prize winner.

Speaker 16 He's such a great guy.

Speaker 15 Such a great guy. And the speech, I went back and looked at some of his speeches.
He had this incredibly prescient speech that was somewhat chilling.

Speaker 15 And in it, he said, I liked him because he occasionally gave America a talking to, as opposed to saying, you know, American, a great American.

Speaker 15 He occasionally said, no, you got this wrong. And one of those talks, he said something really powerful and was so well ahead of his time.

Speaker 15 And that is, he said, that Americans are no longer evaluated based on what they do, but what they own.

Speaker 15 And that he saw the idolatry of money coming down the pike.

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 15 he was, because things were different then. It used to be if you were, you know, if you were a good athlete, a nice man, strong, kind,

Speaker 15 in the army, in the navy, you know, a cop, a fireman, interesting.

Speaker 15 kind,

Speaker 15 went to church,

Speaker 15 faithful. Those were, those were the the assets of character.
And now at the end of the day, you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want as long as you have money.

Speaker 15 And money has replaced character. And he saw that coming.
He was actually pretty well ahead of his time in terms of understanding

Speaker 15 human nature. Good guy.
Good man. And married for 77 years.
And the reason why I think his passing is getting so much

Speaker 15 attention is not only because of him, but specifically the contrast of one president leaving and one president re-entering the White House.

Speaker 16 Oh, that's a really interesting. See, that's what I think our country loves Jimmy Carter in a way they don't realize, deep in its heart.
You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of like he resonates.

Speaker 16 By the way, I would recommend, just for people who don't know, there's a really great CNN documentary called Jimmy Carter Rock and Roll President.

Speaker 16 And it's all about his music, how he used the Almond Brothers and Willie Nelson.

Speaker 16 And he affiliated with them, even though there was criticism around their weed smoking and things like that at the time, which was shocking at the time but it's a wonderful way to listen to music and learn about the heart of this man i just i think you would love it scott it's called rock and roll president and i like it i'll look for it yeah yeah after i see wicked

Speaker 16 with me

Speaker 15 you see it also i on my other one cara and i said this to you the other day on the phone i don't know what happened over the holidays you seem very happy and optimistic i think that's nice i'm happy for you i'm doing my breath work at the washington post

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 16 Fuck you, Jeff Ben.

Speaker 15 No.

Speaker 16 Let me help you. Anyway, I love that.
I love Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter is the best, truly the best.
Really the best of us, right?

Speaker 15 100%. Nice.

Speaker 16 100%.

Speaker 16 Great Love Affair.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 15 Rosalind.

Speaker 16 I love that Rosalind, too. I always like, I was just, I went to the White House at Christmas.

Speaker 16 I went to see, because I'm not getting in there for a couple more years, although I have been in the Trump White House.

Speaker 16 I saw the Rosalind Carter portrait. All the portraits of the First Ladies are lovely, actually.
But I remember staring at hers for a while.

Speaker 16 I just think she was so quiet and so

Speaker 16 underappreciated as a First Lady. I think she had such dignity and honor and kindness that she exuded.
This portrait in the White House really exudes it.

Speaker 16 And everyone looks at the, you know, the

Speaker 16 Obama, Michelle Obama one, because it's such a beautiful portrait. But I just love that Rosalind Carter.
I did set, and I explained it to Clara who she was and stuff.

Speaker 16 All right, Scott, I mean, I don't want to keep you from your breath work and everything else you're doing. We want to hear from you.

Speaker 16 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 85551 pivot.
Okay, Scott, that's the show.

Speaker 16 Our first one for 2025. I think it was a very good one.
And I missed you. I missed you.
I missed you. I said that to you.

Speaker 15 I called him and told him that.

Speaker 16 We'll be back on Friday with more, with our special guest. We have a new way we're going to be doing some things around here, but we have a special guest, Bill Maher.

Speaker 16 We're going to do it in a special new way, and we're going to argue all over the place, which will be really fun.

Speaker 16 I'm excited for 2025. I'm excited to be back with Scott and I'm so excited for our listeners.
I hope you enjoyed this show and I hope you enjoy them all year. Scott, please read us out.

Speaker 25 Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertod engineered this episode.
Thanks also to Drew Burroughs, Mia Silverio, Dan Shulon, and Kate Gallagher.

Speaker 25 Nishak Kurua is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to this show wherever you listen to podcasts.
Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

Speaker 25 You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod.

Speaker 7 We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business, submariner, Sunday school teacher, married for 77 years.

Speaker 15 Rest in peace, James Earl LeCarter.

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Speaker 5 Odo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything.

Speaker 7 That means CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more.

Speaker 6 No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier.

Speaker 22 And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

Speaker 9 It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up.

Speaker 10 Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters: running your business.

Speaker 12 Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you?

Speaker 13 Try Odoo for free at odo.com. That's odoo.com.

Speaker 26 Oh, the car from Carvana's here.

Speaker 26 Well, will you look at that?

Speaker 24 It's exactly what I ordered. Like, precisely.

Speaker 26 It would be crazy if there were any catches, but there aren't, right?

Speaker 15 Right.

Speaker 26 Because that's how car buying should be. With Carvana, you get the car you want.
Choose delivery or pickup and a week to love it or return it.

Speaker 24 Buy your car today with Carvana.

Speaker 26 Delivery or pickup fees may apply. Limitations and exclusions may apply.
See our seven-day return policy at carvana.com.