Trump's Rally, Bezos Backlash, and Guest Daniel Lubetzky

Speaker 1 Support for the show comes from Odo.

Speaker 4 Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other?

Speaker 1 Introducing Odo.

Speaker 3 It's the only business software you'll ever need.

Speaker 6 It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier.

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

Speaker 9 And the best part?

Speaker 10 Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

Speaker 13 That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.

Speaker 12 So why not you?

Speaker 15 Try Odo for free at odo.com. That's odoo.com.

Speaker 16 Support for this show comes from Upwork. If you're overextended and understaffed, Upwork Business Plus helps you bring in top quality freelancers fast.

Speaker 16 You can get instant access to the top 1% of talent on Upwork in marketing, design, AI, and more, ready to jump in and take work off your plate.

Speaker 16 Upwork Business Plus sources vets and shortlists proven experts so you can stop doing it all and delegate with confidence.

Speaker 16 Right now, when you spend $1,000 on Upwork Business Plus, you get $500 in credit. Go to upwork.com slash save now and claim the offer before December 31st, 2025.

Speaker 16 Again, that's upwork.com slash S-A-V-E, scale smarter with top talent and $500 in credit. Terms and conditions apply.

Speaker 16 Support for this show comes from Upwork. If you're overextended and understaffed, Upwork Business Plus helps you bring in top-quality freelancers fast.

Speaker 16 You can get instant access to the top 1% of talent on Upwork in marketing, design, AI, and more, ready to jump in and take work off your plate.

Speaker 16 Upwork Business Plus sources vets and shortlists proven experts so you can stop doing it all and delegate with confidence.

Speaker 16 Right now, when you spend $1,000 on Upwork Business Plus, you get $500 in credit. Go to upwork.com/slash save now and claim the offer before December 31st, 2025.

Speaker 16 Again, that's upwork.com slash S-A-V-E, scale smarter with top talent and $500 in credit. Terms and conditions apply.

Speaker 18 Scott, I'm moving to London with you.

Speaker 6 We got a spare room.

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 6 Bring your umbrella.

Speaker 18 All right. I've got a lot of kids.
I got four kids.

Speaker 6 You have to, if you move here, you got to support Arsenal and bring an umbrella. Other than that, you're all welcome.
All right.

Speaker 18 The wretched refugees of the Swishcots can.

Speaker 6 And plus, you have to leave Claire when you go back. I need a daughter to take care of me when I'm older.

Speaker 18 No, you're no way are you raising my daughter.

Speaker 18 Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway.
Scott, where are you? Eating an apple.

Speaker 6 I'm in the great state of Florida. I'm staying at

Speaker 6 my friends Bobby and Jojo, and they're Canadian, which says it all. They act like we own the home and they're guests.
They're like, oh, we hope you didn't bother you last night.

Speaker 6 I'm like, keep in mind, we're the guests here. It's okay.
You're allowed to get on with your lives.

Speaker 18 How are you liking Florida?

Speaker 6 I love Florida. I live in a, or we have a home in a wonderful little town called Gulfstream.
And we have great friends here. And

Speaker 6 yeah,

Speaker 6 I mean, it's easy to shitpost Florida. I think I feel like probably similar to Florida the way you feel like San Francisco.
And that is.

Speaker 6 It's a, I think it's a, I don't want to say it's underrated, but we have a really nice life down here. And it's less crazy than people think.
We actually live in kind of a purple district.

Speaker 6 Our representative, Louis Frankel, is a Democrat. I think it's good to be around

Speaker 6 some Republicans.

Speaker 6 And the quality of life here is fantastic. But bottom lines, I love it here.
I love Gulfstream, and I love our friends here.

Speaker 18 Just don't like their state laws. That's all.

Speaker 18 Not thrilled with their state laws,

Speaker 18 even if there's pockets of purple, whatever. I prefer pockets of purple, actually.
Washington. I know lots of Republicans in Washington.

Speaker 18 Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today with the election coming down the wire, a big weekend of political headlines. Sorry, kids, but it's politics this week.

Speaker 18 Plus, our friend of Pivot is Daniel Lubetsky, the founder of Kind Snacks and investor in Shark Tank.

Speaker 18 He has a new initiative that I've helped him with a little bit that's tackling toxic polarization head-on. I actually appeared and agreed with Carl Rove.
See what I'm talking about?

Speaker 18 Getting along with the Republicans? That's the last Republican I thought I'd get along with, but we'll talk about that.

Speaker 18 Speaking of which, toxic, former president and a Florida resident, Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday was full of racism, sexism, and profanity.

Speaker 18 It included speeches from Melania Trump, which was calm by comparison, Elon Musk, who was wearing a hat that used Nazi font. That was nice.

Speaker 18 And Trump's childhood friend, David Rem, who called Vice President Harris the Antichrist.

Speaker 18 Speakers at the rally also made insulting comments towards Puerto Ricans, Jews, and Hispanics, including calling Puerto Rico a pile of garbage, which was a comic, I get it, but it wasn't funny.

Speaker 18 And of course, everything was vetted. In his speech, Trump said the U.S.
is, quote, now an occupied country. And again, described Democrats as the enemy from within, which J.D.

Speaker 18 Metz spent a lot of time pretending he didn't say.

Speaker 18 What do you think about that rally? It was, I mean, I know why he did it because he loves attention and he wants to

Speaker 18 dunk on people, but that was felt like that 1939 Nazi rally that was at the Madison Square Garden. It was very strange.

Speaker 6 Well, I thought actually the energy,

Speaker 6 to the Republicans' credit, I thought them turning out that many people and sort of what is arguably the bluest of blue in Manhattan was a good move.

Speaker 6 I was shocked how much energy there was, how many Trump supporters there are in Manhattan. And I realized you can take a train.

Speaker 18 They're not from Manhattan. Come on.

Speaker 6 Well, they were in Manhattan.

Speaker 6 But look, I thought it was generally speaking, the turnout was positive. I think that, and I might be overestimating it, but I think we might have our October surprise that helps the Democrats.

Speaker 6 And that is,

Speaker 6 I think his name's Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian.

Speaker 18 Yeah. Yeah.
Well, that's a broad term. He's one of those people that moved to Austin to be around Joe Rogan, one of those hanger-honers.
But go ahead.

Speaker 6 I generally believe that comedians deserve a really wide berth. And art is, what was it, Andy Warhol said, art is getting away with it.

Speaker 6 I like it when comedians are irreverent, even inappropriate, in the context of trying to soften the beach and get us to think. And I cut them a really wide berth.

Speaker 6 I think Dave Chappelle has said some offensive things, but Bill Burr, when he talks about

Speaker 6 he's a pro-life guy, but when he talks about he makes, you know, if just because a pie is half-baked doesn't make it a pie. I think these are, I think comedians actually play a really important role.

Speaker 6 Michelle Wolf, who offended a lot of people.

Speaker 6 Can I finish?

Speaker 17 Yeah. Thank you.

Speaker 6 Well, Michelle Wolf makes what a lot of people think is offensive comments. I think we cut her a wide berth.

Speaker 6 This guy,

Speaker 6 his joke about Puerto Rico being a big pile of trash in the ocean, it not only didn't land, it was just so incredibly tactically stupid at this point in time because in Pennsylvania, there are 400,000 Puerto Ricans.

Speaker 6 And if just 5 or 10,000 of them get motivated, not even to switch their vote, but to vote for Harris and actually kind of soles to the poll's feet to the street, that could swing the entire election.

Speaker 6 And I thought what he said was so,

Speaker 6 it just landed so poorly, and it was so really offensive. There was nothing funny about it.

Speaker 6 It was just sort of feeding into this zeitgeist that Trump is just deep down, his DNA is a racist, and he's not your guy unless you're, you know, from Northern Europe.

Speaker 6 It is exactly, and I don't know if you saw this, but immediately post the rally, every Republican Republican who's running for something distanced themselves from the comments.

Speaker 18 Well, you know, I'm agreeing with you.

Speaker 18 Look, it landed in the room of energetic people.

Speaker 6 It didn't even land in the room. The crowd didn't like it.

Speaker 18 In any case, it wasn't funny. I don't mind irreverent comics if they're funny.
This wasn't funny. And also, it was vetted by the Trump people.
Oh, it wasn't funny.

Speaker 18 Yes, it didn't just do it off the top. It was in a teleprompter.
They knew what was coming. So they knew what he was saying.

Speaker 18 They could have easily said, Look, Joe, or whatever his Tony, whatever his unfunny name is.

Speaker 18 They could have said, you know what, dial it back on the radio. It just was, he totally wanted to do it so he could get liberals going, oh my God, do you believe that?

Speaker 18 That's their favorite juvenile tactic in order to get people mad. But it was just pathetic.
And especially since that was the, and it didn't just end with that.

Speaker 18 It was like a range of things about Jews, about

Speaker 18 none of which were funny. Like, I get it.
I get the idea that comics should be funny and they should be able to say things.

Speaker 18 Even David Chappelle, and I think he goes on and on about trans people in a way that's not funny, but ultimately, initially it's funny and then it's not

Speaker 18 because he overdoes it by an hour at least. But that's his business.
He wants to do that. In this case, it's time and place, right?

Speaker 18 They did not have to have this guy there and he wasn't funny and he's

Speaker 18 and sure he's a comic, but that's a broad term for this fellow. But it wasn't just him.
It was his friend. It was calling Hillary Clinton a bitch or something like that.
It just went on.

Speaker 18 And Chucker Carlson is so strange. I don't even know what to say.
Elon wearing, you know, Nazi font on his hat.

Speaker 18 Like, they were just all trying to like get the libs going, which is their favorite thing. And they're tasteless and horrible people.
I don't know. I'm sorry.

Speaker 18 I just, you could attract all kinds of people.

Speaker 18 I've been in Madison Square Garden with conservative groups when there's sports events, where there's wrestling. It's like

Speaker 18 that whole area attracts lots of different people. So I'm not surprised you got people there.
It's only 19,000 people, by the way, that fit in.

Speaker 18 Anyway, I think it does turn off undecided voters, and it's just typical of what we're going to get if he wins. This is going to be a non-stop hate fest.

Speaker 18 And let's tell stupid jokes about women's boobs for four years and black people and black people and watermelons. Are we back to that? That joke, black people and watermelons? Ha ha ha.
So funny.

Speaker 6 Just tactically speaking, as we go into the last eight days, I'm focused on how she, you know, what happens here, like who actually wins.

Speaker 6 And the, the racist, the, the dog whistles, the weirdness, the awkwardness, the inappropriate, I feel like the market has already absorbed that. I'm speaking very tactically.

Speaker 6 There are 400,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania. If 5,000 of them decide to get off the couch who are going to support Harris, but maybe might not have made it to the polls, see that.

Speaker 6 And everyone seeing that clip get motivated to turn out, it could literally decide who's president.

Speaker 18 Yeah, I agree on a bad joke.

Speaker 6 I think it's our, Kara, I think it's our October surprise. I think that, I think you're going to hear that guy, Tony Hinchcliffe's name a lot more.

Speaker 6 I think that was the October surprise because there's 400,000 Puerto Ricans in Pennsylvania.

Speaker 18 Also, Bad Bunny, 45 million followers, J-Lo. Like, yeah,

Speaker 6 and they're all going to,

Speaker 6 you're going to see so much shit on TikTok.

Speaker 18 Yeah, they, it was interesting. Mike Madrid, who writes about Latin, he wrote a great book on Latin, Latina voters, said that it's just going crazy.

Speaker 18 It's sort of suddenly has been like, I don't know why people don't get this. This guy is a full-on racist.
Donald Trump is. Anyway, I'm sure he thought it was funny.

Speaker 18 I talked to Reid Hoffman on On with Karis Fisher about what Trump supporters think. This was before the rally.
Let's hear what he had to say.

Speaker 20 One of the things I've heard from some of the people who are supporting Trump is like, oh, yeah, he's talking about tariffs, but he won't do that. He's just talking about that as part of doing it.

Speaker 21 And that's the classic, like what Hindenburg said about Hitler.

Speaker 17 That's correct. Which is like, oh, no,

Speaker 20 this is just the populace. He's not going to do anything.
It's like, no, no, generally speaking, you should take someone seriously.

Speaker 6 So that's the good side.

Speaker 17 The bad side is,

Speaker 20 you know, grifter crony capitalism.

Speaker 22 It's, I'm buying something for myself. Right.

Speaker 18 And he is the greatest coin-op president in history. Anyway, it was an interesting interview with him.

Speaker 18 You know, one thing that struck me at that interview, he's a little scared if Trump wins because he's been so, he's backed Eugene Carroll. He's done all kinds of things.

Speaker 18 He actually said, I'm a little nervous for myself in the case of Trump win.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I had an interesting conversation with a fairly well-known news anchor, like one of the most iconic news anchors. And

Speaker 6 he was asking me about living in London. And I said, oh, that's great for quality life.
He's like, we're actually, we're. We're a bit worried if Trump wins.
And I thought, you're really worried?

Speaker 6 Do you really think that he would come after you? And he's like, I don't know, but we'd rather just not have that risk.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 17 So

Speaker 6 it's not, whereas it's not Alec Baldwin or whoever threatening to leave. It's people saying, I'm actually worried.

Speaker 6 I think that

Speaker 6 me and my family could be on the wrong end of a Justice Department or an FBI weaponized by someone who's vindictive.

Speaker 6 I hope that's not.

Speaker 6 Shit, I don't know. Every time I think, every time I say don't be worried, I end up being wrong.

Speaker 18 well, speaking of acquiescence, the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times are facing a backlash for deciding not to endorse a presidential candidate. Let me just say, you don't have to do that.

Speaker 18 But they were, it was week, 10 days before the election when they made this decision.

Speaker 18 The Post publisher, William Lewis, who I think is one of the most unctuous toadies around, announced the decision, saying it was, quote, consistent with the values the Post has always stood for, which is not true.

Speaker 18 Well, you just got here, you fucker. Anyway, but the editorial board reportedly argued.

Speaker 6 You're salty this morning. You're taking no prisoners.

Speaker 18 I'm sick of this.

Speaker 6 Zero fucks given on a Monday morning with Tara Swisher.

Speaker 18 I'm taking no prisoners because this guy is bullshit. This guy is such a toady from Rupert Murdoch to Jeff Bezos.

Speaker 18 But the editorial board reportedly already had a Harris endorsement drafted and approved, which the Post owner, Jeff Bezos, reportedly decided not to post.

Speaker 18 Multiple columnists have resigned from the Post in response to the decision.

Speaker 18 The Los Angeles Times also had a Harris endorsement piece from its editorial board ready to go. It was blocked by the paper's publisher at the last minute, Patrick Asun Xiong.

Speaker 18 Several members of the editorial board resigned after the decision. There's also a problem between him and his daughter.
His daughter says it's over Gaza. He's like, my daughter seems crazy.

Speaker 18 It's not that reason. I've interviewed Patrick.
I find him to be very intelligent about medical things. Otherwise, he's somewhat of a

Speaker 18 bonehead. So what do you think about these decisions?

Speaker 18 Will Lewis keeps lying over and over again, saying he didn't read the endorsement. It doesn't matter if he read it, Will.
You think we're stupid? Tell me what you think of these.

Speaker 18 And again, I don't think you should necessarily endorse a presidential candidate. I just don't think you should change your mind 10 days before

Speaker 18 an election when your own editorial board, which is supposed to be independent, which obviously isn't,

Speaker 18 has already drafted something.

Speaker 6 Yeah, but if you look at the fact pattern of the post, they've had an endorsement. The last time they did endorse someone, I think, was Bush versus Dukakis.

Speaker 6 So for the last, whatever it is, 40 or 50 years, they've endorsed somebody.

Speaker 6 People inside the paper said the endorsement was lined up.

Speaker 6 And the frightening part of this is that supposedly someone at Amazon or a division of Amazon met with someone from the Trump campaign to talk about government contracts and that there was pressure applied not to do an endorsement.

Speaker 6 And when you don't do an endorsement, the Washington Post, let's be honest, doesn't do an endorsement. It's an implicit endorsement for Trump.

Speaker 6 And what Sam Harris said that sort of, I wouldn't say it changed my life, but informed it.

Speaker 6 He said, if you have economic security and people who love you unconditionally, you have an obligation to speak your mind because we live in a society where everyone starts buying into a narrative and feels pressured to bark up the same tree, if you will.

Speaker 6 And this is the problem and the benefit of a society and autocracy, respectively. And that is, if you're an autocrat, look at the incentives in the math.

Speaker 6 If I were to vigorously endorse Trump, I don't believe that Harris would come after me or my business because she adheres to the Constitution and doesn't believe in persecuting her political enemies or weaponizing the government to go after her political enemies.

Speaker 6 That's not true with Donald Trump. He has said that I'm going to pursue Google or that this individual should be locked up.
So the algebra is the following.

Speaker 6 The incentive is for all of these people who can't stand Trump to occasionally throw him a bone and seem less against him.

Speaker 6 There is very little downside to supporting Trump publicly as a business person.

Speaker 6 And there's more downside to supporting Harris because if you don't support Harris, she's not going to come after you. If you don't support Trump, he might come after you.

Speaker 6 And this is an example of that.

Speaker 6 And that is, you have, and this is what's so upsetting about it, is you have a guy who should be less afraid than anyone in a capitalist society that affords a lot of power to people.

Speaker 6 And the fact that he appears to be bowing to pressure from an individual who exerts autocratic tendencies is just incredibly disappointing.

Speaker 6 I think arguably this is the worst hit to Bezos' brand in a long, long time.

Speaker 17 He looks terrible here.

Speaker 18 You know, I think the problem is it's also the people at the post at the top didn't push back the editorial board or Will Lewis. And one of his quotes just drove me.

Speaker 18 I'm sorry I'm mad at this guy, but he's such a toady.

Speaker 18 The decision to end presidential endorsements was made entirely internally, and neither campaign nor candidate was given a heads up or consulted in any way at any level.

Speaker 18 Any reporting to the contrary is simply incorrect. incorrect.
Will,

Speaker 18 you are unctuously disingenuous. You don't have to give them a heads up or coordinate.
It's a mendacious distraction. And it's just, what does that have to do? You don't have to talk to the campaign.

Speaker 18 He knew he's in trouble with space stuff. Trump met with the Blue Origin people that day.
What a bad look. You know, is all this a coincidence? Maybe, but it certainly looks bad.

Speaker 18 And so that Bezos has said nothing. I mean, I'll tell you why I'm so spicy.
I worked for Ben Bradley and Catherine Graham and Don Graham, and they were had integrity. They had guts.
They had balls.

Speaker 18 You tweeted that balls picture, who has balls and no balls.

Speaker 18 They had the integrity that, you know,

Speaker 18 she especially was really under pressure from lots of broadcast licenses and everything else from the Nixon administration. And what did she do?

Speaker 18 She gave them the double finger and said, do what you will. Go ahead.
Go ahead.

Speaker 18 And she actually, when they were serving subpoenas, she left the washington post newsroom and went to her house so only she would be jailed can i just say that like what a set this lady had and i loved her i loved dealing with her she was and to have these clowns running the post is so i want to buy the newspaper scott we're going to you and i'm going to talk so funny you said that i had the same thought i thought let's get together some people with much deeper pockets than us and offer to buy it from him but don't be performative about it because my guess is he's at it with this shit

Speaker 18 all of these billionaires that buy this stuff regret it they all regret it yeah they're all like oh well these tech billionaires they don't know how to you know there's rich people running things they don't have they all have tiny little balls teeny little balls jeff bezos that's what you have it's all those hormones

Speaker 18 little detox a little hormone replacement therapy whatever you're doing um it's time they get smaller right is that right oh i'm sorry did i say that out loud i don't know i can't find mine so i can't i don't know if they're small allegedly

Speaker 18 you have enormous balls compared to jeff Bezos. But again, it's a low bar.

Speaker 6 By the way, who publicly released their endorsement this week?

Speaker 17 That's right.

Speaker 18 I thought you were going to say who publicly took pictures of her balls this week, but go ahead. You did.
Go ahead. Say your endorsement.
Who did you endorse, let me guess, Trump?

Speaker 6 I put out on my numerous no malice an endorsement of Harris. And to be honest,

Speaker 6 other than trying to be a good American and speaking your mind, there's no upside. Because the people who listen to you know you endorse Harris and the people, you know,

Speaker 6 basically every comment was I agree or stay in your lane, I'm unsubscribing. And this is the problem again.

Speaker 20 Look, I believe free speech.

Speaker 6 Yeah, no one's denying your right to do it. And I also think most CEOs of most companies should probably stay out of this.
I don't think that's why, I think they're there to create shareholder value.

Speaker 6 When you are the owner of a paper that is the paper in Washington and probably the premier brand in U.S.

Speaker 18 politics, of course you should have an endorsement.

Speaker 18 I mean, of course you should.

Speaker 6 And then when they have one lined up and the owner weighs in, the kind of hands off or mostly hands-off owner at the last minute,

Speaker 6 that is bowing to.

Speaker 6 And if this guy is bowing to pressure, then who won't?

Speaker 18 It's like, boss,

Speaker 6 you have to be.

Speaker 6 You have to be our hero here. You have to be the last person to bow to pressure here.
And so this is,

Speaker 6 I don't think it's too late. I think he could have fixed this.
I think he could have said, look, it got very noisy in my brain and I thought it would be easier just not to.

Speaker 6 This was a mistake. I have listened.
I've asked the editorial review to reconvene, be thoughtful, and issue an endorsement. He could fix this.
It's not too late.

Speaker 18 He wants them space contracts if Trump wins. And Harris won't do anything bad to him if she wins.

Speaker 18 Interestingly, the person who might have some trouble is Elon Musk, reportedly been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin Putin since 2022.

Speaker 18 As a reminder, SpaceX played a significant role in the Russia-Ukraine war, with Starlink providing internet access to Ukraine and thwarting the Ukrainian drone attack on Russia in 2022.

Speaker 18 At one point, Putin reportedly asked Musk to avoid activating Starlink over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. Musk is one of the former president's biggest donors, as you noted.

Speaker 18 He may be up for some sort of weird cabinet position, something of efficiency.

Speaker 18 Repercussions. What do you think? This thing is nuts.
And he apparently didn't talk to the White House when he was doing this.

Speaker 6 I think it's a failure on behalf of our government and a lack of trust in our institutions.

Speaker 6 When you have individuals who are this powerful and technology is beginning in kind of these supranational individuals,

Speaker 6 there is absolutely no reason that a world leader should feel impetus to call a business leader because they have that much power. This needs to be run through the Defense Department.

Speaker 6 And in no uncertain terms, our Department of Defense, our Secretary of State, our Joint Chiefs need to to crisply move against anybody who decides to insert themselves or puts them in a position.

Speaker 18 The head of NASA did. I think he's going to, Lelon's going to try to roll over him.
He did. He said, this is a problem.
This is national statement.

Speaker 6 This is an enormous problem. And

Speaker 6 it all stems back from, and I'm going to sound like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.

Speaker 18 Can you do it in his voice?

Speaker 6 When people, well, I'd probably have an easier time doing it in her voice.

Speaker 6 When people amass this kind of wealth in a capitalist society and this kind of power and technology has the ability to be kind of spun up or spun down this quickly and technology kind of is borderless as it is with satellite technology,

Speaker 6 you have business people who might be addicted to a disassociative drug cosplaying world leaders.

Speaker 6 And they're not elected. That's just not a good idea.

Speaker 18 Who knows what he's saying to them? I hope they spied on him, I guess. Don't they spy on people when they talk to Putin?

Speaker 6 Supposedly Putin and she, but Putin more aggressively begins building a file of embarrassing facts about anyone who's rising in power.

Speaker 6 And then they remind them of that when they're talking to them, including Trump, right? So anyways, but this is, I think, crisply, American institutions that we

Speaker 6 elect and we fund massively and we trust, even if you should post them, you trust the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and NATO to make these kinds of decisions.

Speaker 6 I don't want Elon Musk negotiating battlefield communications technology directly with Putin.

Speaker 18 CEOs talk to world leaders, but our government is dialed into it. This is ridiculous.
This is friggin'. This is nuts, and he's going to continue in a Trump administration.

Speaker 18 By the way, President Biden called Musk out for his hypocrisy on immigration after the Washington Post. It was a great story.

Speaker 18 The reporters of the Washington Post, can I say you are doing a wonderful job? Fuck your owner, but you're doing a wonderful job. Reported that he worked illegally in the country on a student visa.

Speaker 18 Let's listen.

Speaker 17 Well, that wealthiest man in the world turned out to be a legal worker here when he was here.

Speaker 17 Oh, I'm serious. He was supposed to be in school when he came on a student visa.
He went to school. He was violating the law.
He's talking about all these illegals coming our way.

Speaker 18 Yes, the irony. He was an illegal.
He has talked about it. I've heard him talk about it.

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 6 it's a bit of a sideshow, but it goes back to, I think, the primary reason we haven't been serious about immigration reform. And to be clear, we need borders.

Speaker 6 Immigration has gotten especially bad, although illegal border crossings are actually down this year.

Speaker 6 But

Speaker 6 what people don't want to acknowledge is the reason we

Speaker 6 haven't fixed this is we haven't wanted to fix it until recently because the most profit immigration is the secret sauce of America.

Speaker 6 But what people don't talk about is the most profitable part of immigration is illegal immigration. And that is specifically illegals basically show up.
They don't get arrested.

Speaker 6 They commit crimes at a lower rate. They don't call services.
They don't tax our services. They don't even like like to go to the hospital.
They don't call the cops.

Speaker 6 They don't call the fire department because they're worried about being sent home. And they're this flexible, inexpensive workforce.
Oh, and by the way, they pay taxes.

Speaker 6 And then they tend to leave once the crops are picked or there's a lack of demand or a lack of supply of jobs. It's sort of the ultimate, flexible, highest ROI labor force in history.

Speaker 6 And this is, I don't want to excuse what he's doing, but we should have immigration laws that allow a guy like Elon Musk to stay more easily.

Speaker 6 I would like to see

Speaker 6 anyone who shows that kind of IQ, risk-taking,

Speaker 6 even back then he demonstrated this. We should accommodate.

Speaker 6 If you know anybody, when I first started L2, the most talented, and I talked a little bit about this, one of the most talented people I've ever run across, this woman named Claude DeJokis, took me into a conference room and said, I need to speak to you.

Speaker 6 She'd gone to Yale. She was a gymnast.
Canadian. She said, I have to leave.

Speaker 6 I couldn't get my visa in time and I have to leave and I have to go back to Canada. And I'm like, you're doing no such thing.
I have money.

Speaker 6 I'm going to hire lawyers and we're going to figure this out. And unfortunately, if you have money, you usually can figure this stuff out.

Speaker 6 But the fact that our INS or whoever it is is kicking the most talented people out of the country and at the same time turning a blind eye to the most profitable part, it's just all, it's all fucked up.

Speaker 6 But yeah, this is going back to the beginning, it is incredibly hypocritical. Although I don't think he's been that aggressive against illegal immigrants.
Has he been?

Speaker 18 or immigrants yes he said he's like half the negative stuff on twitter that's inaccurate is from his tweets about immigrants yes oh no he's like demented

Speaker 18 i don't see it oh he's just like he's just like dialing it up everywhere he goes on immigrants that's been his biggest focus lately he got off the trans for a minute and then now he's on immigrants and i don't know woke i don't know whatever he's a tiresome scold you said something earlier on the podcast i didn't realize i've just been blissfully ignorant over the past.

Speaker 6 You think that the font on his hat was purposefully reminiscent of Nazi propaganda?

Speaker 18 It's a font. It's a Nazi font.
How's that?

Speaker 18 Looked like it. Looked like the Nazi font to me.
Anyway, you know, I always think of...

Speaker 18 The thing that really got me, I'll tell you, was that they did this Madison Square Garden thing just miles from the Statue of Liberty, right?

Speaker 18 Where on the Statue of Liberty, there's a poem, which is called The New Colossus, right? It's a sonnet by Emma Lazarus, right? She wrote the poem in 1883 to raise money for construction of it.

Speaker 18 And the last part: keep your ancient lands, your storied pomp, cries she with silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Speaker 18 This is the part I think is important. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore send these the homeless tempest tossed to me.
I lift my lamp besides the golden door.

Speaker 18 I mean, honestly, what is my grandfather came in on that, on a ship? He was a wretched refuse. He was nobody.
And he made a company. He raised children.

Speaker 18 You know, it's just,

Speaker 18 it's so depressing. It's so depressing to watch these people.
Thank you. That's my poetry.
That's why I'm really bothered by this.

Speaker 18 It's just grotesque, I think. And they're so lucky, these people who are doing this.
They're so rich. They're so,

Speaker 18 they've got everything and they still can't be generous. It's astonishing and they're so hateful.
Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

Speaker 18 When we come back, we'll talk about Michelle Obama making her amazing case to male voters.

Speaker 18 And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Daniel Lubitsky, about his efforts to hold politicians accountable for their words and actions.

Speaker 1 Support for the show comes from Odo.

Speaker 4 Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other.

Speaker 23 One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

Speaker 21 Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business.

Speaker 25 This is where Odo comes in.

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

Speaker 6 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 22 No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier.

Speaker 29 And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

Speaker 19 It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up.

Speaker 28 Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process.

Speaker 30 It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business.

Speaker 13 Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you?

Speaker 15 Try Odu for free at odu.com. That's odoo.com.

Speaker 16 Support for this show comes from Upwork. So you started a business, but you didn't expect to become the head of everything.
Now you're doing marketing, customer service, and IT with no support staff.

Speaker 16 At some point, doing it all becomes the reason nothing gets done. Stop doing everything.

Speaker 16 Instead of spending weeks sorting through random resumes, Upwork Business Plus sends a curated shortlist of expert talent to your inbox in hours.

Speaker 16 These are trusted, top-rated freelancers vetted for skills and reliability.

Speaker 16 And with Upwork Business Plus, you can get instant access to the top 1% of talent on Upwork in marketing, design, AI, and more, All ready to jump in and take work off your plate.

Speaker 16 Upwork Business Plus can take the hassle out of hiring and the pressure off your team. That way you can stop doing everything and instead focus on scaling while the pros at Upwork can handle the rest.

Speaker 16 Right now, when you spend $1,000 on Upwork Business Plus, you get $500 in credit. Go to upwork.com slash save now and claim the offer before December 31st, 2025.

Speaker 16 Again, that's upwork.com/slash S-A-V-E.

Speaker 16 Scale smarter with top talent and $500 in credit. Terms and conditions apply.

Speaker 1 Support for the show comes from Odoo.

Speaker 4 Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other.

Speaker 23 One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

Speaker 22 Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business.

Speaker 25 This is where Odo comes in.

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

Speaker 3 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 22 No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier.

Speaker 29 And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

Speaker 19 It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up.

Speaker 28 Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process.

Speaker 30 It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business.

Speaker 13 Thousands of businesses have made the the switch, so why not you?

Speaker 15 Try Odu for free at odu.com. That's odoo.com.

Speaker 18 Scott, we're back with more political news. Michelle Obama made a powerful plea to voters over the weekend at a rally in Michigan, her first appearance on the trail this year.

Speaker 18 She's such a good speaker. Obama warned about the risk that Donald Trump poses to women's health and told women they should demand to be treated as more than baby-making vessels.

Speaker 18 She also took a page out of Scott Galloway playbook and directed her argument towards men. I think she must be listening to you, Scott.
Let's listen.

Speaker 18 But to anyone out there thinking about sitting out this election or voting for Donald Trump or a third-party candidate in protest because you're fed up,

Speaker 18 let me warn you, your rage does not exist in a vacuum. If we don't get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage.

Speaker 18 Scott, you could have written that. What do you think of the case?

Speaker 6 I thought it was arguably the most powerful speech given in 2020 for

Speaker 18 both of them.

Speaker 6 Because

Speaker 6 as someone who's thinking a lot about masculinity, and I'm writing a book on it, trying to figure out an aspirational modern form of it, given the world has just changed.

Speaker 6 You know, I come to these three legs of the stool, provider, protector, and procreator.

Speaker 6 And protector, she just called on.

Speaker 6 And another quote in the speech I thought was just outstanding: if your wife is shivering and bleeding on the operating room table during a routine delivery gone bad, her pressure dropping as she loses more and more blood, or some unforeseen infection spreads and her doctors aren't sure if they can act, you will be the one praying that it's not too late.

Speaker 6 You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody

Speaker 6 to do something. And then she goes on

Speaker 6 to say:

Speaker 6 if we don't get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage.

Speaker 6 This is really trying to call on what men should have as a default operating system as men, and that is to move to protection. And she called on that.
She said, Look, guys,

Speaker 6 it's time for you to step up and protect us. We are under threat.

Speaker 6 And going very base,

Speaker 6 the reason women choose mates in large part is based on who they believe, if they are vulnerable, especially during a time of

Speaker 6 pregnancy or when the kids are young, that you have the skills, the intellect, the kindness, the strength, the courage to protect them.

Speaker 6 That is primarily or the key reason why women find certain men more attractive than others.

Speaker 6 And men, if they want to express their masculinity, if they want to be true men, their default has to be to protection. And there is no one who is

Speaker 6 who we are set up to protect or have more of an obligation to protect than the mothers, the spouses, and the daughters in our life. And I thought she just tapped into that.
perfectly.

Speaker 6 I thought it was so powerful.

Speaker 18 Yeah, and it wasn't, it wasn't tisky. It's like, let me tell you, boys, it was really, she's such a gifted political speaker.

Speaker 18 Man, her Democratic, having been there when she did it and also then watching it later, what a political talent, honestly.

Speaker 18 I know she doesn't want to run, but I'm like, she articulates things. Just, you know, I know she's a lawyer.
She's going to be good at talking, but she's trained as a lawyer.

Speaker 18 But man, she's an astonishing person. Anyway, let's change the subjects.
Let's talk some entertainment news.

Speaker 18 California Governor Gavin Newsom wants to get Hollywood back on track with massive increase in the state's film tax incentives.

Speaker 18 We touched on this last week about the number of productions declining in the California area. Obviously,

Speaker 18 that's been happening for a while and it was always completely there and then they moved around to other countries, etc.

Speaker 18 But Newsom announced a proposal on Sunday to boost the state's tax credits from $330 million to $750 million, still not that much.

Speaker 18 Increase could take effect as early as July 2025 if approved by the state legislature. Overall production in the LA area was down 5% in Q3, the weakest quarter of the year, below 2023 strike levels.

Speaker 18 California has lost production dollars to other states that offer attractive incentives. Georgia is, as you know, is among them, but New York also, as well as countries including Canada and Croatia.

Speaker 18 Croatia apparently looks like a lot of places.

Speaker 18 You know, it's a lot cheaper to send people all over the place. And Georgia's made a really aggressive

Speaker 18 and has a lot of production happening there, which is a good thing for a state to do to bring things in and away from California. So what do you think about this?

Speaker 18 I think it's not very much money, but it's more money. What do you think?

Speaker 1 This is a good move.

Speaker 6 In general, I don't like subsidies because it ends up being a race to the bottom and corporations do this.

Speaker 6 And when everyone wants to be the Pepsi generation and keeps throwing shit at Amazon and they lie and say that Columbus, Ohio, or Phoenix actually have a shot when it ends up just being whoever's closest to his man caves, right?

Speaker 6 DC and New York.

Speaker 6 At some point, we do need actual tax revenue from corporations. And the biggest ones have been very good at playing states off against each other.
So as a whole,

Speaker 6 there's something about this subsidies that bothers me because eventually what you have is corporations who now have the lowest tax burden they've had since 1938. I don't know how to solve it.

Speaker 6 Competition interest rate is actually good on a lot of ways. In this specific instance, given the atmospherics, given what's happening to L.A., This is an easy one.
It's a great idea.

Speaker 18 Just explain what they are for people who don't understand what do.

Speaker 18 Because, you know, this race to the bottom idea is important because people want, like Texas wants to cut taxes to bring people there, et cetera. And it often can be a race to the bottom.

Speaker 18 Explain why they're good.

Speaker 6 Well, if you're producing a movie, if you produce it, what they're basically saying is if you, you know, Canada has a big tax subsidy.

Speaker 6 They say if you produce your film here because of the jobs, whether it's catering or makeup artists or editors or the people who rent the vans and the trucks and the cameras, it'll inspire enough economic activity that what we'll do is we'll give you a credit.

Speaker 6 If you spend $30 million on a film, we'll give you, when you qualify and the majority of the filming and post-production, whatever is done here, we'll give you a $3 million credit.

Speaker 6 And that may not sound like a lot, but if you can reduce your exposure by 10, 15, or 20%,

Speaker 6 it dictates where you're going to film. And Atlanta has been very aggressive about this.

Speaker 6 Vancouver. Vancouver, Canada has been very aggressive.
And the U.S. or California had a smallish kind of underfunded credit.
And basically, what he's done is he supersized it.

Speaker 6 And the analysis is really powerful

Speaker 6 that basically justifies why you would do this.

Speaker 6 For every tax credit dollar allocated, California benefited from at least $24 in economic output, $16 in gross domestic product, $860 in wages, and $1.07 in state and local tax revenues.

Speaker 6 So this is actually, from a tax standpoint, it's tax neutral while inspiring a lot of economic activity. And especially in L.A.,

Speaker 6 where they have the stuff. Yeah, where

Speaker 6 it's a really good idea to strategically because the quality of talent in LA is just superior to any region in the world around this stuff.

Speaker 6 People dream when really talented creatives or people want to be in the movie business, when they come out of, you know, they're the star of the drama club or they're good at building sets and they come out of high school or college.

Speaker 6 If this is their dream, they get on a bus or a plane for LA.

Speaker 6 So it's such a big part of LA's identity.

Speaker 6 And if you can offer, you don't even have to be less, just as long as you're competitive, a lot of people are going to choose to shoot in LA because the talent pool is so deep.

Speaker 6 So this is, given the reality that there are other states and countries offering tax credits and the fact that production, by some estimates, is down something like 30 or 40% in LA.

Speaker 6 This is absolutely the right move at the right time.

Speaker 18 Yeah, and they have all that studios. I did,

Speaker 18 you and I have both done productions there, and they're just so superb. The people that work there, whether you're on something like Bill Maher or I was recently on a TV show, it's just so good.

Speaker 18 They're so good. From even down to like the craft table.
100%.

Speaker 18 And I have done it in other places. It's not the same as Los Angeles.
It just is in our California. So they should.
They should own it. They should keep it.

Speaker 18 But although I have to say, you know, the L-word was done up in Vancouver, and I used to visit my friends up there who are doing the L-word. And it was, they also had a really tight,

Speaker 18 I think Jennifer Beals lived there, or maybe she still does.

Speaker 18 It was really a great place to film and a great place to live for a lot of those people. So there's tons of TV shows in Vancouver and Atlanta.
So anyway, good for Gravin Newsome.

Speaker 18 In any case, let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

Speaker 18 Daniel Lebeski is the founder of Kind Snacks and the newest permanent investor on Shark Tank.

Speaker 18 He's also the founder of the Builders Movement, a nonprofit initiative aiming at tackling polarization worldwide. Welcome, Daniel.

Speaker 17 Thank you, Kara. Thank you, Scott.
It's so nice to see you both.

Speaker 18 Good to see you. Right.

Speaker 18 So I just want to say, I just, for disclosure, I was on one of his first calls and me and Karl Rove, a person I never thought I wanted to talk to ever, let alone agree with, had a really interesting discussion, which was

Speaker 18 which was surprising for me.

Speaker 18 Anyway, we'll talk about it in a minute, but for people who might not who know you only from Kind Snacks and Shark Tank,

Speaker 18 explain what the Builders Movement is and what it actually does.

Speaker 17 The Builders Movement recognizes that 87% of Americans are fed up with all this hyper-partisan tribal division.

Speaker 17 And we want to transform this us versus them mentality with a problem-solving mindset and toolkit.

Speaker 17 And we have analyzed over the last 10 years the five or six forces that are contributing to toxic polarization and to try to counteract them in education, civics, and the media with our own mousetraps that are in the process of being built, including the Builders' Power Rankings that you just participated in.

Speaker 17 And we're grateful that you agreed to go on with Karl Roger and Andrew Young.

Speaker 18 So you've sort of gamified this recently by launching these power rankings, which I said I'd participate in. Talk about how the rankings work and hold politicians accountable.

Speaker 17 So, our insight is that all of us are really, really exhausted with just

Speaker 17 being used by scandal and politicians to raise money and to divide rather than solve problems. And so, instead of voting just purely based on whether somebody has a D or an R, or

Speaker 17 we are trying to get people to study, are there actually builders or dividers?

Speaker 17 Are they helping unite and bring light and solve problems together or they're dividing demolishing and destroying and we used uh we partnered with the polarization research lab to use ai to scour all resources on the internet and elsewhere every week to try to see whether people are actually introducing bipartisan legislation whether actually speaking on the issue substantively or whether they're just trying to set out fires to destroy one another and criticize one another.

Speaker 17 And to be transparent, it's not perfectly designed yet because sometimes people are appearing, at least from my perspective, a little bit poorer because they were tough, but maybe they were being tough responding to somebody that had attacked them.

Speaker 18 And because they're persistent and pernicious haters.

Speaker 17 But the goal, right now, we launched within three, four months a minimum viable product, lowercase MVP.

Speaker 17 We hope that over the coming years, it'll become the most viable player and it'll become the source source for people to go to Builders Power rankings for them to understand whether somebody is being a builder and they get a, from AI, they get a score, a blended score based on whether they're introducing bipartisan legislation, solving problems, being constructive, or whether dividing.

Speaker 17 And then,

Speaker 17 at least for this round, Every week we bring in panelists across the spectrum of politics to criticize the rankings and to have a non-conversation.

Speaker 17 And we've had over a quarter million people that in the last two three weeks have joined and learned a little bit more and we hope to do a better job of getting people to think through those issues okay scott yeah it's always good to see you daniel um

Speaker 6 so i'm wondering so similar to how there are rankings from democratic and republican institutions kind of giving them a score in different special interest groups whether it's the nra or

Speaker 6 Planned Parenthood, they put out ratings or rankings. This seems like it's another rating that's basically going to say how bipartisan or how moderate you are.
Is that accurate?

Speaker 17 That's literally the aspiration is for people to replace those hyper-partisan scoring things with an all-inclusive builders ranking.

Speaker 17 And Kara criticized appropriately when she was on the panel that we didn't have one for independents.

Speaker 17 Today, we rank Republicans and Democrats for both the five top builders and the five bottom dividers.

Speaker 17 And it's a very hyper-nonpartisan by structure. We cannot make it partisan because we're criticizing dividers and praising builders from both parties.

Speaker 17 As an aspiration, we hope to also do that for independence and to try to introduce more and more independence.

Speaker 17 One of the biggest problems with our system is that the systems arrayed against independence, against

Speaker 17 its foreign combinations. Like one of the problems we have is only 13% support Congress.

Speaker 17 There's 13% for Congress, but 90% of Congress members get re-elected.

Speaker 17 And it's because of gerrymandering and all these systems that both the Republicans and the Democrats create in the system to try to divide the spoils and stay in power.

Speaker 17 And this is why people are so dissatisfied because we keep seeing that

Speaker 17 the choices that we're being presented are really, really in fear as a result of the duopoly that creates so much stagnation.

Speaker 17 And we hope to introduce a system where we're going to hold accountable and not just say, oh, just because I'm a Republican or a Democrat I'm going to blindly vote for my no have they been builders have they been actually solving problems for my community are they actually addressing what we not need or they're just

Speaker 17 right now we have a big incentive for like Kara said for the Marjorie Taylor Green so IOCs of the world to

Speaker 18 oh I'm sorry Daniel you cannot put them in the same I'm sorry you can't you simply cannot how about how about Rashida Tlag and Marjorie Taylor Greene nobody is like Marjorie Taylor Green Daniel see this was my problem with this whole thing is there are certain people who are pernicious haters that are gaming everybody else.

Speaker 17 But go ahead. Sarah, what's interesting to me from the last 10 years of doing this work is that I have the identical conversations with both sides.

Speaker 17 And when I say this, they say, Daniel, come on, nobody's as bad as the squad. Like, you know what?

Speaker 17 What's interesting also is when you talk to the media and you say, guys, you're really only covering the dividers and you're not covering the builders.

Speaker 17 and they're like no we're doing our job we're doing our job that's not true they're not doing their job because guess who covers marjorie teller green the new york times guess who covers the squad wall street journal guess how much coverage does the wall street journal or fox news give to marjorie taylor green zero she is not in the media on the right wing the right wing the journal has the journal certainly barely barely if you look we did a study last year called change the coverage and it was fascinating the media that leans Democrat covers all the crazies from the right wing.

Speaker 17 The media that Lenny's right covers all the ones on the left.

Speaker 18 I utterly understand that. My mother didn't know about Arnold Palmer when I said about the Arnold Palmer comment about Trump because she watches Fox News.
She's like, what? What did he say?

Speaker 18 Oh, no. It was fascinating.
I'm like, apparently he has a big schlong, but let's go. But you've called yourself a moderate.

Speaker 18 Where do moderates fit into the initiative, especially in the current political moment?

Speaker 18 I think we can all agree last night was really a terrible situation.

Speaker 18 And for people who don't know, you're the son of Sonia and Roman Lubetsky, and they're a Holocaust survivor and a Lithuanian Ashkenazi Jew.

Speaker 18 You also grew up in Mexico City.

Speaker 18 Correct? Is that correct? And you moved as a teenager.

Speaker 17 My father

Speaker 17 was born in Griga, Latvia, and survived. The Holocaust was liberated by American soldiers.

Speaker 17 When he was, after being in a hospital and as a a refugee for a year, he then immigrated to Mexico where he met my mom. My mom was born in a small town in Mexico.

Speaker 17 Her parents had immigrated a generation before, also from Eastern Europe. And I immigrated to the United States when I was 16.

Speaker 18 I'm a teenager. So you're aware of all these, I mean, you lived all these issues and everything else.
So talk about you being a moderate right now and

Speaker 18 how you are trying to get to the center in some fashion makes it very difficult.

Speaker 17 I think a misunderstanding of people is that they think that moderates have to belong to, you can be a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent and be a moderate.

Speaker 17 For us, we stopped using the word moderate because it carries certain

Speaker 17 connotations that are not what we're doing. So we started to use the language of builders.

Speaker 17 But for us, a builder, a person that uses compassion, creativity, curiosity, and courage, they're the forces of a builder's mindset. And they apply not just in civil society.

Speaker 17 They apply when we're building kind, the company, or you're building any bridges, any jobs, any social enterprise. If you have curiosity, you don't assume that you have all the answers.

Speaker 17 You have a little bit of humility to listen to the other side. You have compassion to understand where the other side is coming from, or of a critical listener and a critical

Speaker 17 thinker. And then you have the courage to work across lines of difference and you have the creativity to think outside the box and come up with solutions.

Speaker 17 So those are the things we'll try to instill in society through education by replacing all these rigid ideologies that come from the extremes with actual tools for helping young students and all of us replace this increasing rigidity from social media and other things with a little bit of a better ability to think through these issues.

Speaker 6 So Daniel, in order to have a ranking that impacts people and says that assuming you're looking for kind of bridge builders or moderates, you have to have candidates that are at least somewhat viable as moderates.

Speaker 6 And I think it's a real challenge now because of gerrymandering. And essentially, there are no general elections anymore.

Speaker 6 It's all about the primary because of the way districts have been gerrymandered and because of the way the algorithms love polarized divisive rhetoric.

Speaker 6 Does any of this matter if we don't get to like final five or ranked choice voting?

Speaker 6 Because I'm worried that your rating will be just bad for everybody who we have ends up in the in the general, if you will.

Speaker 17 I think you're correct that the incentives matter and people, these politicians, they don't tend to be leaders, they tend to be followers and they respond to those incentives.

Speaker 17 And I do think you're right that we need to have structural changes to reduce gerrymandering and increase participation in primaries and all the things you mentioned. And there are a lot of builders.

Speaker 17 There really are. We just don't hear about them because the media doesn't do a good job portraying them.
And part of our job is to try to elevate them.

Speaker 17 So Senator John Ossoff from a Democrat from Georgia appeared twice as a builder. Representative Laurie Chavez de Ramer, a Republican from Oregon, appeared twice as a builder.

Speaker 17 And these are people that are in battleground districts or states that have the strength to be builders.

Speaker 17 And it tends to be, like you would assume, Scott, that the most divisive voices come from districts that have been so gerrymandered that the general election doesn't matter, that it just

Speaker 17 tried to throw red meat at their primary voters. So

Speaker 17 Representative Lance Gooden, a Republican of Texas, was a divider two or three rounds.

Speaker 17 Representative Eric Swalwell, a Democrat of California, Representative Mary Miller, a Republican of Illinois, they kept coming up as people that were just engaged in personal attacks rather than constructive solutions.

Speaker 18 I think Scott's kind of a moderate, thinks himself a moderate, right, Scott, don't you?

Speaker 17 Yeah, yeah, I do.

Speaker 18 Right, yeah, yeah. So there's a, you know, there's a famous poem of Yates, the center will not hold, right?

Speaker 18 And now we have the noisy, the noise, you know, the noisy among us are the ones that are getting the most attention.

Speaker 18 It's a famous poem, obviously.

Speaker 18 But are you concerned that polarization is going to get worse after the election? And which candidate would it be worse given their records?

Speaker 17 I am absolutely terrified about our direction of our country either way.

Speaker 17 I'm frankly

Speaker 17 nothing short of terrified. You know, Kara and Scott, I known you from the work I used to do in the Middle East for 25 years to build bridges between Israelis and Palestinians.

Speaker 17 And my assumption when I immigrated to the United States and I grew up and I went to law school and I did my work was that the way I was going to contribute was was by bringing American values abroad and by trying to have respect, rule of law, kindness, civility,

Speaker 17 democracy be the values that we bring to others.

Speaker 17 And I worked for close to 30 years already, helping Israelis and Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians to trade with one another, build a movement to empower moderates.

Speaker 17 And if I have to score myself, obviously I would fail. It's been

Speaker 17 a disaster, not only in the Middle East, but now all of these tribalization and division and divisiveness is being exported across the world. And foreign adversaries that are authoritarian rulers,

Speaker 17 whether it's in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, are vanguard.

Speaker 17 But we really, really need to take this very seriously.

Speaker 17 And I think that the only way we're going to change this is going back to what Scott was saying about structural changes and about demanding from both, you know, this is a duopoly.

Speaker 17 The Democratic and Republican parties are both broken. Think about what we have today.

Speaker 17 You have a presidential candidate from the right where 40 out of 44 of his self-selected cabinet members said, do not vote for this guy. And he, you know,

Speaker 18 not just saying do not vote. They're saying he's a fascist.

Speaker 17 And they saw, and he sought to prevent the orderly transition of power and leading up to January 6th. Like, I cannot support him.
But in spite of that, it's like he should be easily defeated.

Speaker 17 You have an election that's going to be so, so tight.

Speaker 17 So you have to question and understand that there's problems on the left, too, because if the Democrats are not able to feel the candidate that can easily defeat the person with a track record, the system is completely broken.

Speaker 17 And I can walk through.

Speaker 18 Or people like Autocrats. Daniel, I just like them.

Speaker 17 I don't think so. I think that's too simplistic.

Speaker 18 I don't agree with you. I think they love them in certain places.
They seem to like a big daddy, I guess.

Speaker 18 Before you go, let me ask you quickly about Shark Tank. The New York Times recently had a story that looked about how the show evolved over the years and proclaimed, want to understand the U.S.

Speaker 18 economy. Watch Shark Tank.
Tell me why you're doing this. What does it reveal about the economy and entrepreneurship? And I like some of the panelists.
Others I think are as dumb as a box of hammers.

Speaker 18 But I think you're smart. So tell me why you're on it.

Speaker 17 First of all, every one of the Kevin O'Leary.

Speaker 18 But go ahead.

Speaker 17 Kevin O'Leary is ridiculously smart. Like they process, they're witty and they process really fast.
And they all keep me on my toes.

Speaker 17 Part of the reason I'm on it.

Speaker 18 Daniel, Daniel, you're a much better entrepreneur than Kevin O'Leary, but go ahead. Go ahead.

Speaker 17 You're very part of the reason I'm there is because it's really intellectually stimulating and challenging. Like Mark Cuban notices things two or three rounds before I do.

Speaker 17 Like he asks a question, I'm like, where is he going? Oh my God, he was right.

Speaker 17 I learned so much from them. But the most important thing is the entrepreneurs that they come in.
And by the way, it takes a lot of guts to show up

Speaker 17 on that carpet. And then they tell you these incredible stories and provide incredible stories.
And

Speaker 17 honestly, entrepreneurship is one of the last hopes for our nation and for the world. It's where you're building bridges, where you're thinking like a builder, when you're...

Speaker 17 taking the risk to actually do something constructive and to build something good for society. And it's probably our biggest secret weapon as a country.

Speaker 17 And we need to support it and elevate elevate it. And that's why we do that.

Speaker 6 Give us some behind the music here. What is the most surprising thing you found out about Shark Tank? And don't have it be

Speaker 6 how smart they are, your other sharks. Give us some gossip.

Speaker 17 It's for me, Scott, when I first did the first season,

Speaker 17 Mark told me, get over it because everything resets. And I didn't quite understand it.
But what happens is,

Speaker 17 you

Speaker 17 really, this is your money and this is, and you don't know enough.

Speaker 17 So you have to to develop very quick pattern recognition and then you decide that you want to go for a deal and then somebody throws you under the bus and you are authentically pissed off and you're like

Speaker 17 really upset and then there's a break and by the next round with the next because we film in two pods so you film eight or ten episodes in one day and after a 15 20 minute break you reset and these guys are like They really, you really do get into it.

Speaker 17 And then you need to reset and you form new alliances.

Speaker 18 And Daniel's still back in number one. Like, what did you do?

Speaker 17 Well, that was my first season. I was like upset for a few seconds.
And then you have to just reset, reset, reset.

Speaker 6 And what's the most recent company you've invested in, Daniel, on Shark Tech?

Speaker 17 Well, we cannot share till they air.

Speaker 6 Most recent public one? Public one that people know about?

Speaker 17 There's a woman, there's two women that

Speaker 17 launched a company called Toasted.

Speaker 17 They're immigrants also from Venezuela, and they make frozen, refrigerated, uh hispanic food that's delicious like arepas cachapas like foods that for hispanics we love them but even you know americans like them it's kind of like a sandwich bread made of corn that tastes really really good

Speaker 17 um and what's cool about them is they were she had a baby the same day that her episode aired and she was carrying the baby in and and watching the episode yeah that was a great one.

Speaker 18 I love that one. I love a repos too.
I just want to tell a very brief story about Daniel of how I met him is he owned code.com, and I wanted to get it from him because we ended up with code.net.

Speaker 17 I own the code.com.

Speaker 18 The code.com. And I wanted it for our new site.
And he called me back and he said, if you could change your conference to a conference about peace,

Speaker 18 I will give it to you. And I was like, no fucking way, Daniel.

Speaker 18 And I never forget that. And and he's like cara we need peace i'm like we don't need peace daniel i mean give me the thing i'll give you a million dollars no he wanted a conference i know

Speaker 17 and even today daniel i'm not going to do a conference about peace but i appreciate i did show up at your thing and carl rove and i did give you a hard time which was fun to do together but your challenge is the challenge for society it really is the question are we gonna are we going to allow the center to not hold and and if we don't every one of your listeners do something to become a builder and to try to solve their communities.

Speaker 17 It is going to catch up with us. It's going to get worse if we don't all take it upon ourselves to do something.

Speaker 18 Although that Carl Rove and I are at the center now is really something frightening. Anyway, thank you so much, Daniel.
And I really thought it was really enjoyable what you're doing.

Speaker 18 And I hope you really get them

Speaker 18 any more help you want about it. And Scott would be a really good advisor to that.
Anyway, thank you so much, Daniel Lebetsky.

Speaker 17 Thank you, Scott and Kara. It's nice to see you both.

Speaker 18 All right, Scott, isn't he? He's a lovely guy. I like to give him a hard time.

Speaker 6 So I met Daniel in 1999. We were in the same global leaders of tomorrow, Davos, and he was the peace guy.
He was just running around.

Speaker 6 He had all these weird little businesses bringing Palestinians and Israelis together. And he was starting all these ridiculous businesses that made no sense.

Speaker 6 And we're always like, but he was so likable and he had such a big, good heart.

Speaker 6 And, but I don't want to say it wasn't taken seriously, but he's always the guy like, peace is the answer. Peace.
And we're like, oh, Jesus Christ, Christ, it's the peace guy.

Speaker 18 When he wanted

Speaker 18 the website.

Speaker 6 And then he starts this company called Kind. He's like, showed up in my office.
He said, can you help me start this business? And I'm like, well, not really.

Speaker 6 I don't know much about the confection market. Anyways, fast forward, like seven years later, he sold it for a billion dollars.

Speaker 18 The peace guy.

Speaker 17 Oh, God.

Speaker 6 And it literally, there are few people.

Speaker 6 You would be more happy if they make a billion dollars than Daniel LeBette.

Speaker 18 Let's get him to help us buy the Washington Post.

Speaker 9 He's a really, he's like a big-hearted, lovely guy.

Speaker 18 And the candy bars are delicious, and that's what they are. I'm sorry to tell you, but that's candy bar.

Speaker 18 Anyway, they're fantastic. I eat one a week around, something like that.
Anyway, Scott, let's go on a quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

Speaker 31 In business, they say you can have better, cheaper, or faster, but you only get to pick two. What if you could have all three at the same time?

Speaker 31 That's exactly what Cohere, Thompson Reuters, and Specialized Bikes have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Speaker 31 OCI is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs, where you can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high-performance environment, and spend less than you would with other clouds.

Speaker 31 How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second.

Speaker 17 Cheaper?

Speaker 31 OCI costs up to 50% less for compute, 70% less for storage, and 80% less for networking.

Speaker 17 Better?

Speaker 31 In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and higher bandwidth versus other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads.

Speaker 31 Right now, with zero commitment, try OCI for free. Head to oracle.com slash Vox.
That's oracle.com slash Vox.

Speaker 1 Support for the show comes from Odo.

Speaker 4 Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other.

Speaker 23 One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting.

Speaker 21 Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business.

Speaker 25 This is where Odo comes in.

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

Speaker 3 ODU is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything.

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

Speaker 22 No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier.

Speaker 29 And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

Speaker 19 It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up.

Speaker 28 Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process.

Speaker 30 It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters: running your business.

Speaker 13 Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you?

Speaker 15 Try Odo for free at odo.com. That's odoo.com.

Speaker 32 Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to.

Speaker 32 Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one.

Speaker 32 You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today.

Speaker 18 Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails.

Speaker 6 I've sort of already mentioned mine.

Speaker 6 I'll start with my fail. My fail is the comedian mocking the Puerto Rican people in eight days out.

Speaker 6 Distinct of the racist undertones of it, it's just tactically, really, really stupid to insult a community that comprises 400,000 voters in the ultimate swing state.

Speaker 6 It's just distinct of the underlying troublesome comments. It was just, it was a self-inflicted injury that the Trump campaign did not need at this moment.
That's my fail.

Speaker 6 Just strategically, it just could not have been more stupid. And my win, I thought Michelle Obama's comments telling men that they're essentially they need to protect women.

Speaker 6 I just love the notion of associating manhood with a default setting around protection. I thought she was very powerful.

Speaker 6 And I hope that a lot of people, specifically men who are sort of on the couch and not thinking that some of of the issues facing women right now don't affect them. They absolutely do.

Speaker 6 So I thought she was really powerful. I think that's probably my favorite speech of 2024.

Speaker 6 So anyways, my fail, this is unforced error on the Republicans' part, insulting a community that could play a huge part in the...

Speaker 6 in the election. And my win is a very forceful former First Lady, Michelle Obama.

Speaker 18 She really is impressive. She really, truly is.
I would say my fail is the Washington Post editorial leaders. Let me just be full disclosure.
My wife works for the op-ed section.

Speaker 18 She's not involved in any of this

Speaker 18 and didn't have any idea about any of this. But there's two people who've just left the board.
Molly Roberts, a young woman, she's resigned. And editorial board member David Hoffman is also resigning.

Speaker 18 Just for people who didn't know, Hoffman, legendary reporter, accepted the Pulitzer last week for his series on new technology and the tactics authoritarian regimes use to repress dissent in the digital age and how they can be fought.

Speaker 18 That was what he wanted his PLASTR for, and he's just resigned from the board of the editorial board of the Washington Post. David, you're a hero.
I'm sorry. Those pieces were wonderful.

Speaker 18 Molly is a young woman.

Speaker 18 It's a very male, white male board. Others are going to leave.
They have,

Speaker 18 it's largely a white male board. I'm sorry.
That's what it is. And they pretend they have other people on it that aren't really serving.
And so

Speaker 18 just a real fail from them. I can't say a lot because my wife works there.
I wish she didn't. I'll be honest with you.
And so she has lots of other opportunities.

Speaker 18 And to have to work with these people is really something I'm not thrilled about, but it's her choice. In any case, my win is that there are, again,

Speaker 18 when I hear some voters speaking, not these terrible people at this Trump Bradley. I'm sorry.
And I'll use the Hillary Clinton film. Some of these people are deplorable.
They absolutely are.

Speaker 18 I've been listening to a lot of interviews with independent voters, and they're so smart. They really are.

Speaker 18 I know we make jump fun of people who haven't decided, et cetera, et cetera, but they are considering really important things for their families and their lives.

Speaker 18 And I get that the choice seems very stark here. And, you know,

Speaker 18 I think that they I'm very heartened by listening to them, at least, because they're being considerate of things.

Speaker 18 And the second win is the New York Times editorial leader, Katie Kingsbury, who I haven't always gotten along with, I have to say.

Speaker 18 I think she's a tough tough nut, but she is posting their Kamala Harris endorsement and

Speaker 18 the video they made, which was really good. And actually,

Speaker 18 the editorial was quite good and well-argued and stuff like that. And she's dunking on them.

Speaker 18 And I just got to say, Katie, new respect, new respect for your, and it was a very well-written endorsement.

Speaker 18 And I would like to put an offer out to anyone at the LA Times or the Washington Post who has that endorsement of Kamala Harris. Please, please leak them to anybody, any reporter.
And

Speaker 18 my lines are open if you have it. Please, I'd be happy to publish it.
We'll be happy to read it here on Pivot. Anyway, we want to hear from you.

Speaker 18 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 85551PIT.

Speaker 18 I know there's a lot of politics, but it's almost over.

Speaker 18 Well, not really. It'll probably keep going.

Speaker 18 And while we're at it, the results from last week's threads poll are in in response to the question, who would make a better Halloween costume, Kara or Scott?

Speaker 18 I won by a landslide, winning with a whopping two, 72% of the vote.

Speaker 6 And actually, is that really a win? It is.

Speaker 18 Actually, Kristen Soltis Anderson

Speaker 18 and Lulu Garcia Navarro on Chris Wallace's show dressed up as me. They put on glasses, they had leather, they had my hair and everything else.
So they also dressed up me as I agree.

Speaker 18 I'm the great winner.

Speaker 18 Does this convince you to change your costume to Kara Swisher?

Speaker 6 You're so much more accustomed to. I look like a fish that swam too close to a reactor.
You have big hair and sunglasses. You're a much better Halloween costume, but I need your help.

Speaker 6 What are you doing? It's kind of down to two costumes. One of them is not you.
I'm either going to go as Richard Simmons.

Speaker 18 I thought that was the choice. Okay.

Speaker 6 But the problem is I'm going to a party in

Speaker 6 London, which sucks because it's cold and the women don't dress as slutty, so it's not nearly as good. It's like a giant tease.
I'm in Miami, but I can't be here for Halloween. Anyways.

Speaker 18 That would be perfect for Miami, but go ahead.

Speaker 6 Either Richard Simmons, but less powerful in London, or the breakdancer from the Australian breakdancing team. That's sort of common.

Speaker 18 Let's think a little harder.

Speaker 17 We got to do better. Yeah.

Speaker 18 I got to do it.

Speaker 6 I can't beat Deadpool. I was a huge.

Speaker 18 You could go with Arnold Palmer's penis.

Speaker 17 Hmm.

Speaker 17 Hmm.

Speaker 6 I have no response for this. Golf club.

Speaker 18 That's interesting.

Speaker 18 Shave your beard.

Speaker 18 Get real slick.

Speaker 6 Just say. You're not good at this.

Speaker 18 You're not good at this.

Speaker 6 I think you should go with this. If anyone has any ideas,

Speaker 6 what I should go is Halloween. Okay.
Please, please send them into Kara at Voxmedia.com.

Speaker 18 No,

Speaker 18 I was at a Halloween store with the kids this weekend because I have to go every weekend right now.

Speaker 18 And I found one costume I almost bought,

Speaker 18 which was a payphone costume. I almost bought it and then I just didn't.

Speaker 17 You were going to go as a payphone?

Speaker 18 I was going to go as a payphone. I am a payphone.
Get it? No one would recognize me. See? I'd blend in.

Speaker 17 They're like, what is that?

Speaker 18 Well, I'll think about it, but I think you should go as Arnold Palmer's penis. That's my choice.
Okay.

Speaker 6 That's interesting.

Speaker 18 Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday with more.
Why don't you read us out?

Speaker 6 Today's show is produced by Larry Naman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin.

Speaker 33 Ernie Nertod engineered this episode.

Speaker 6 Thanks also to Drew Burris, Miss Severo, and Dan Shulan. Yeshua Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio.

Speaker 22 Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 6 Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

Speaker 22 You can subscribe to the magazine at n1mag.com/slash pod.

Speaker 33 We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care.

Speaker 6 Have a great rest of the week

Speaker 23 support for the show comes from odoo running a business is hard enough and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other one for sales another for inventory a separate one for accounting before you know it you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters growing your business This is where Odo comes in.

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

Speaker 3 Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform platform that handles everything.

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

Speaker 22 No more app overload, no more juggling logins, just one seamless system that makes work easier.

Speaker 29 And the best part is that Odo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

Speaker 19 It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up.

Speaker 28 Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process.

Speaker 30 It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business.

Speaker 13 Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you?

Speaker 15 Try Odo for free at odo.com. That's odoo.com.